Gavin didn’t know how long it had been since he’d been taken. He didn’t know where they were. They’d seized five ships, and doubled back, hunting or letting Mongalt Shales catch up, any number of times. They could be off the coast of Paria or Ilyta or Atash for all Gavin knew. His beard had grown out. His hair, like all the other slaves’, had been shaved short with a razor so it wouldn’t catch on things. A pirate haircut was no thing of beauty, but these Angari were at least miraculously free of lice. Clean people. Considered themselves advanced.
One night, after a particularly good week when they’d seized two rich galleys, Gunner was rewarding the slaves. Double measures of strongwine and letting slaves come up on deck at night, albeit chained, and in small groups.
Gavin was chained to Orholam. They sat on deck, the strongwine keeping them warm. They had it so rarely that on an empty stomach, it had quite a kick.
Idly, Gavin stared at the stars, trying to figure where they were from the constellations. Off the Ruthgari coast, perhaps?
“Do you know why they call me Orholam?” the old man asked.
“Because you’re kind and kind of useless,” Gavin said, grinning.
But Orholam wasn’t grinning.
“Please, no blasphemy, young Guile. Not with me. Not tonight.” He paused. “I was a prophet of Elelyōn in a little village on the Parian coast between the Everdark Gates. We were isolated there, of course. No ships in or out, all our trade having to wend through the mountain passes, even our names for Orholam odd to other Parians’ ears.
“In my youth, my village was raided by an Angari ship that had somehow made it through the east Gate. The village was burned, my mother killed in front of my eyes, my father killed in disgrace that doesn’t bear repeating, my young brothers and sisters either taken for slaves or killed, I knew not which. I escaped. I lived through the winter night inside the corpse of one of our oxen they had slaughtered for fun. They didn’t even carry the meat back with them. Young men, laughing. I had been serving as a prophet under Demistocles. You’re not familiar? Then I will be brief. Orholam began to speak to me even as a child. Under Demistocles’s tutelage, I learned to discern when it was the Most High’s voice, and when it was my own desires. I grew arrogant. I called down miracles, and they happened. You think your chromaturgy is a wonder? It is mere science. Men moving bricks. But my power? Orholam’s power, unleashed from the heavens themselves? Like lightning compared to candle. But—and this I will grant you—the latitude you drafters are given is much wider. You do so much yourselves. But to us all, drafter and prophet alike, Orholam giveth and Orholam taketh away. We call him the Lord of Light, but we forget that he is lord.”
A sermon. From a man they called Orholam. Just what Gavin needed. At least it was different, and a good wine kick in the head can make even religion bearable.
“One day, a year to the day after I’d lost all those I loved, the Most High told me to heal an Angari widow. Leprous. In the hardness of my heart and the stiffness of my neck, I turned away instead.
“The next morning, Elelyōn told me to go prophesy to the Angari. I fled instead. Not because I was afraid I would die shooting the Everdark Gates, but because I knew I wouldn’t. I knew he is merciful. I was afraid that if I told them to repent, they would, and I wanted nothing of mercy for them. I wanted them to burn. Men, women, children, eunuchs and servants and slaves, foreigners visiting their shores, rabble and king, soldier and merchant. I wished fire for them all.” His aspect took on a fierceness Gavin had seen before, though not on this man’s kind face. It was a visage etched by the acid thirst for vengeance.
Then it was followed by sorrow deeper than words. “I wished the very name of the Angari to burn and be known no more. I ran as far as I could get the other way, and ended up seized by river pirates at the head of the Great River. I was sold and sold again until I was marched overland and eventually sold to the Angari. As if it could be anyone else. I have served for fifteen years, and for ten of it, I lived in hatred. I have been ever a slow learner, but Orholam is patient.
“Elelyōn hasn’t spoken to me in many years, but the day we fished you out of the waters, he did. And again last night telling me that now you are ready. Not to hear. Not yet. But to speak.”
“To speak?” Gavin asked. “What an odd prophet you are, to go around listening.” He looked at the canopy of stars overhead. Beauty in black and white.
They had to be somewhere outside Melos, if Gavin remembered the star charts correctly, and of course, he did. To remember was his curse.