The captain favoured me with a squint, faint amusement in his eyes. “Finding my people worthy of study now, scribbler?”
“It might help, with my mission.”
He shrugged, nodding at the figurehead. “Not a he, a she. Levansis, sister to the great serpent god Moesis. Though she despised her brother for his vicious ways, she wept when Margentis destroyed his body and her tears calmed the sea for ten full years. When the storms rise, she’s the one we pray to.”
My knowledge of Meldenean history was scant but I knew their pantheon dated back to their colonisation of the Isles some six hundred years ago, and from my survey of the ruins found there, they had clearly been occupied long before that. “A new god then,” I said. “What can you tell me of the old ones?”
He looked away and I noted how his crossed arms tightened further. “Them we do not pray to.”
“But what are they?”
The captain cast a wary eye at the nearest of his crew, two sailors, young but both bearing scars from the Battle of the Teeth, and glaring at me in naked outrage. “Ill luck to talk of the old gods on a ship’s deck,” the captain said, moving to the gangplank. “Come, I’ll let you buy me a drink, scribbler. Besides I have news to impart.”
• • •
He led me to a quiet tavern near the warehouse district, the patrons mostly stevedores indulging in a cup or two of wine at the end of the day’s labour. Even in light of the fatigue evident in the other customers, the mood was sombre to the point of oppression, most sitting in silent contemplation of their wine. We sat beside a window, the captain lighting his pipe, the bowl filled with the sweet-smelling five-leafed weed popular in the northern empire but frowned upon elsewhere for its soporific effect.
“Ah, that’s the stuff,” the captain said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Once took some seeds home for the wife to grow. Never did, soil’s not right. Pity, could’ve made a fortune.”
“The old gods,” I said, pen poised above my scroll. “What do you know of them?”
“Well, they’re old for a start.” He gave an uncharacteristic laugh, something I attributed to the contents of his pipe. The merriment also raised some heads at the surrounding tables, a few scowling in disapproval, making me wonder what grim tidings had heralded such a mood.
“They were there when we landed on the Isles,” the captain went on, recapturing my attention. “The old gods, standing in stone, so lifelike it seems as if they’ll stir if you touch them at all.”
“You’ve seen them?”
