Ad Hoc Tactical Approach
The sombre group ate their breakfast, no-one really hungry. Ali, too, ate like a bird. His posture was submissive and fearful, and watching it made Jelena's heart ache. The boy seemed to seek safety from Sarevok, sitting tightly by his side and talking to the others only through the large warrior.
- "So. The Vagabond is the name of the ship, and they are leaving this evening from the southern docks. I guess we follow that Arny person invisible, and once we are at the sea, we hijack the boat," Peri said.
- "Is there any chance at all that the fight would cause any trouble?" Winski asked.
- "Not as such," Sarevok said. "One of the reasons the Masks are so keen on this operation is that the children are so easy to control. So they won't have any demigods or even too powerful mages or warriors on board. But then, the children are there and they certainly will try to use them to fight us. If they have the chance."
Ali was shivering.
- "I don't want to go back there..." he whispered.
- "I know," Sarevok said. "But we have no choice. We will have to protect the other children, and we can't leave you to anyone here. I will protect you. Imoen will put you into a magical sphere where no harm can come to you."
- "We can't make a detailed plan because we don't know the exact plan of the ship," Winski sighed.
- "So we just go there and figure it out once the time comes," Peri said.
- "I find you ad hoc tactical approach unnerving at times," Winski said, displeased.
- "Ah, don't be anal, Winski. No use to worry about what you can't control," Peri said,offering the frowning wizard her widest reassuring smile.
Winski rolled his eyes at Imoen, who smiled at him.
The day was one of grim apprehension and pacing about, no-one speaking much. Sarevok kept hugging Ali, wishing he could amuse the child somehow, but he couldn't think of anything. Poor, poor boy - robbed of your personal limits and a sense of being a person. The same thing happened to me when I had to take Reiltar's beatings, but I kept thinking how my divine sire would one day help me pay back thousandfold... that's why I wasn't like you, cowering and fearful. I wish I could offer you something less destructive to hang on. The price I paid, and made the innocent pay, is too high for anyone. I had my mother's love... and she nurtured the tiny flame of good deep in my soul. Yours I will not allow to be distinguished. By glancing at Peri Sarevok could tell she could pretty much read his musings.
- "Compassion is a two-edged sword, Sarevok," Jelena said quietly. "To be capable of it is wonderful, giving meaning to being alive. Anyone capable of compassion is not beyond redemption. Yours was gone for a long time but now it has returned with all the ferocity of all your emotions. But it also hurts, doesn't it? It would be easier just not to care."
- "Yes, it hurts, mother," Sarevok answered. "But I would not give any of the hurt away. What is life without passion burning in my veins, what is life if a soul can't feel the deepest depth of the Abyss and the euphoria of the highest top of Celestia?"
- "To put it prosaically, son: boring," Winski said, smirking at Sarevok's mildly displeased frown. "And I think you would rather have anything than that."
- "Too right," Peri grinned. "But fat chance - he can be melodramatic about a sandwich if he is forced to."
As the night drew close, the quiet group made their way to the southern docks. The smell of salt, tar and rotting fish guts, the creaking of the ropes in the moderate wind. So many ships, a few sailors still working on the decks, others already on their way to the sweet intoxication and a brief, but heated, encounter with warm flesh on stale sweaty mattresses. The Vagabond was a ship just like any other. Yet, when they approached it, a quiet moan escaped Ali's lips and the child pressed his face on Sarevok's chest, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and shivering. The adults shared a look full of pity and despair. Jelena quietly cast Silence on the boy.
- "Now they can't hear him... it feels awful to silence one who has not been listened to in such a long while, but we really can't fail now," she said.
- "He told me that the trip from Calimport was horrible. The children were sick in the heat, some died and were cast aside like garbage, and the smell... took a while to make them... 'presentable' to the clients and new masters," Sarevok said. His tone was strangely unemotional and even. But his eyes burned with almost Bhaalish murder.
A while of waiting, and a man named Arny, very pleased with himself, approached the deck of the Vagabond. Winski triggered a veil of invisibility on them, and they followed, like wraiths.
