Red Wishes Black Ink

Bric de Orak, a man of no particular renown, the Flamingo Islands, a grandfather

Uicha de Orak, Wildcard of the 6th Renown, representing the Forgotten One, his grandson

13 Rainest, 61 AW

Sugarfoot, one of the Flamingo Islands

77 days until the next Granting

Years ago, Bric de Orak had stopped trying to fight becoming an old man. There were worse things to be, he figured. As a pirate, he'd refused plenty of opportunities to end up young and dead. He'd made it this far. No shame in raising the white flag now.

The seas were crueler in Bric's day. Back then, pirates of the islands were constantly at each other's throats. These were sailors who remembered the bloody life before the gods blanketed the world in their protection. For some of the first captains Bric worked under, piracy just didn't feel the same without killing and other islanders were the only people the gods would allow to be gutted. Bric came up in lawless and bloodthirsty times, before it all became one endless carnival out on the water. Now, the Admiralty kept most of the crews in line. Their magic ships hardly needed sailors to work them.

Bric couldn't deny that the Admiralty had made life better for the islands, even if the younger generations were softer as a result. He'd never reached a rank beyond harpooner, but he'd filled enough coffers to earn a decent pension. His wife had been the decadent sort and he'd let her coax him into retirement. She knew all the best places to eat, all the best spots to dance even if Bric didn't move so well anymore, and she always dragged him to the Museum of Liberated Bounty when they put up a new exhibit. When she died, Bric had bought the beachside bungalow on Sugarfoot. The noise and hustle of Flamboyance were insufferable without his wife, so he'd opted for a slower-paced island where the focus was agriculture. The irony of this decision wasn't lost on Bric. He'd given his only son endless grief when the boy decided to become a farmer and now here Bric was living down the road from the cane fields.

Well, he never picked up a gods damned machete, at least. Never cut a stalk or walked a row in his life, and wouldn't ever. His knees were shot, anyway. The puffed-up nesters who supervised the fields wouldn't have wanted him. Bric hobbled around with his knees always partly buckled and his toes pointed inward. His wife had forced him to use a cane but he hadn't touched it since she died.

Sometimes, if he played a few bad games of tiles and his monthly stipend ran low, the boys down at the press let him work the wheels for a few hours. His arms were still strong; he could turn a crank as well as any of these young bulls. Squeezing every bit of nectar from the cut stalks—Bric thought that was a fine metaphor for these last years of his life.

He'd stopped by the press that morning, but not because his money was running low. The workers got paid today and Bric knew there'd be action at the table they kept around back.

"Aces," Bric grunted, slapping down the tiles. The others groaned as he scooped up the pot of rounds, flicking one in Tully's direction as he'd been the one to set him up.

"Underhanded," sweaty old Mast complained. He wiped his forehead with a rag.

"You play too tight," Bric said.

"Never tell a man his weakness," Connie said sagely.

"That's why I never call you a fat-headed idiot," Bric replied.

The four old men set about the task of flipping all the tiles over and jumbling them up. Of the four, only Connie still worked a regular job—although in his younger days Bric wouldn't have considered peacekeeping to be real work. Mostly, the constable loafed around, supervised the occasional shipment, and made sure bar fights didn't get too bloody.

"You see the Noyegans came into town last night?" Tully said.

"Should've invited them to this game," Bric said. "Might have been some competition."

"I'd like to see them move that boat of theirs," Mast said. "It's a racer. Bet it'd never match the ones I worked on."

The Noyegans had been anchored off the coast for a few weeks now. Bric had gotten used to seeing their angular ship on the horizon from the porch of his bungalow. Sugarfoot was a small island, so the strange ship had quickly become a popular topic of conversation. The island had docks on the other side, but the Noyegans didn't seem interested in putting into port, even when the rains had lashed them. Everyone on the islands knew what it looked like when a ship was hiding out. No one would stick their nose in, even if it was foreigners. Besides, the Noyegans were usually good business or easy pickings.

"I met the captain and his mate," Connie said with a smug smile. "They aren't bad sorts. Just waiting for a delivery they can't get done up north."

"You get a taste?" Bric asked.

"Of course," Connie said. "All their papers in order."

"They sick or something?" Mast said. "Why don't they stay at the inn?"

"Would you stay in that shithole?" Bric asked.

"Letty was working at the grocer when they came through," Tully added. "She said they bought enough for four men. Same as the week before."

"Anyone hiding on that boat ain't our problem," Connie said.

Bric grunted agreement and flipped the first tile. Like most of the old sailors on Sugarfoot, as soon as the Noyegan clipper had shown up, he had racked his brain for any old grudges those people might hold against him. He couldn't come up with any. Whoever the Noyegans were waiting for, it wasn't him.

But, when he waddled home at sunset, that person would be sitting on his front porch.

Uicha didn't expect the old man to cry so much.

Bric de Orak didn't look like the emotional type. He resembled Uicha's father—short-legged and barrel-chested, with a patchy gray beard and close-cropped hair—but Bric had a hardness about him that Uicha never saw in his dad. Bric's face, arms, and hands all told a story in scars and deep lines. Uicha could not imagine Bric ever walking the land barefoot or cracking jokes. If he'd ever been called whimsical like his son, Bric probably would've thrown a punch. Still, there were tears of joy from Bric's sharp, red-rimmed eyes and he grabbed Uicha's face in rough hands, kissing him on each cheek. He hadn't even asked who Uicha was. The old man had seen him sitting on the steps and known.

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"You look like your mother," Bric said. "Lucky you."

When the initial shock had passed, Bric wiped his cheeks with the backs of his hands, then held Uicha at arm's length to appraise him. He took in the crimson whorls upon Uicha's chest, the empty box on his neck, and merely raised one eyebrow.

"It's a long story," Uicha said.

"Then you better come inside to tell it."

Uicha had decided to come as he was. There was no sense in starting a relationship with the old man that didn't begin with truth. He'd made sure to hide his markings when anyone passed by on the beach. However, if someone had peered at him through a spyglass from the deck of the Noyegan clipper Uicha had spotted off the coast—well, they would know he was here and they could come when they were ready.

Bric's small bungalow had the look of a place not often cleaned. There were bits of grime, dustings of sand, and clutter everywhere. It was the living space of an old man who had no one left to nag him. Though the windows were open to let in the sea breeze, the air was still vaguely musty with smoke, coffee grounds, and shirts left too long without laundering. A tangle of fishing wire took up most of the kitchen table, though it wasn't exactly clear what Bric had been doing with it. All the furniture looked to have been repaired multiple times.

"Do you drink, boy?" Bric asked. "You're seventeen. Of course you do."

"Sixteen," Uicha said. He sat down at the kitchen table in a chair that looked like it should've been thrown out years ago but didn't wobble in the slightest.

Bric paused. "Twenty-eight Meltzend, isn't it? Your birthday two weeks passed."

Uicha rubbed the back of his neck. "Gods, you're right. I didn't even think of it."

"Make an old man question the few things he still knows," Bric muttered.

His grandfather went into the kitchen and opened a cupboard sticky with grease. He found two glasses and cleaned the dust out of one on his shirt. Meanwhile, Uicha idly accessed his [Telekinesis], delicately loosening one of the knots in the fishing line. When Bric came to the table, he swept the whole bunch of line away onto the floor, then plunked down the glasses. He poured Uicha a finger of dark rum, then one for himself.

"I'm glad you're here," his grandfather said. "And heartbroken because I know what it means that you're alone."

After last night's bender with Akoni, the sight of the rum flooded Uicha's mouth with saliva. Swallowing, he clicked glasses with his grandfather at the old man's insistence, then slugged back what he'd been given. Uicha coughed into his armpit and Bric hobbled back into the kitchen. He found some leftover pork and rice, plopping this down in a bowl before Uicha.

"You're skinny," Bric said. "Get something in you."

Uicha did as he was told. He'd forgotten what it was like to be under the care of a brusque islander parent and half-expected Bric would assign him chores after dinner. The old man just sat back and watched him eat, shaking his head like he still couldn't believe his eyes. Uicha was hungrier than he thought, especially once he recognized the tamarind and chili spices on the food, flavors he hadn't tasted since the last time his mother cooked for him. He had to squeeze his own eyes shut.

"All right, now," Bric said gently. "How did it happen?"

Pushing aside his bowl, Uicha told Bric about the pink pox. A disease of the north continent that his parents didn't have the immunity for. Almost a year gone since then, Uicha realized. Another anniversary that he hadn't had time to think about.

"Your father would stop writing me for months at a time so I didn't think nothing of it." Bric pinched the space between his eyes. "If I'd known, I would've come for you."

Uicha realized that word of the annihilation hadn't reached his grandfather. Of course, it wouldn't have. What was some northern continent farm town to a quiet life on Sugarfoot?

"I told him that he didn't belong in that place," Bric continued. "Him and his fool notion of starting a farm. He was a good sailor, your father. Not the best pirate, not the handiest man in a fight, but a true operator. A slick one. I didn't realize that about him until too late. Every crew can use a man that talks them out of trouble."

Uicha bit the inside of his cheek. Staring at the space over his grandfather's shoulder, he could almost picture his dad haggling over wheat rates. "He could talk to anyone," Uicha said. "I never could."

Bric sighed. "He got that way because I was the opposite. My own son told me he didn't like the ocean. Can you believe that? We never fought so bad as when he told me that. He wanted to see dirt under his fingernails. Who the fuck wants a thing like that?"

"I always wanted to see the ocean, but they never got the chance to bring me," Uicha said.

Bric's eyes lit up with hope. "You've seen it now, though. What did you think?"

"Good," Uicha ventured. "I liked it."

Bric slapped the table. "Salt in the blood!" He reached across the table and grabbed Uicha's wrist. "Listen, my boy. I didn't see eye-to-eye with your father, but I loved the stubborn fool. He was set in his ways and I was set in mine, but we only let it get between us for a short time. I wrote to him-"

"I know," Uicha said. "I read them. He saved all your letters."

Bric's eyes became watery again. "And I have all of his, if you want them. He planned to bring you here when your schooling finished. Did you know that? Said there were things keeping him in Ambergran but that he could get away if your mother stayed behind to tend the farm. He wanted you to know your roots. This would please him, my boy. I know it would."

"I think Dad really did love the farming," Uicha said. "But they had another job in Ambergran. A long hustle they were running that ended up trapping them there…"

Bric hissed. "The mages."

"You know about that?"

"Your mother…" Bric hesitated, pouring himself another drink as he gathered his thoughts. "Your mother was a lovely woman. Honestly, my idiot son was probably an anchor tied around her waist. She had something about her. She was fierce with that sword you're carrying. Always in demand with the crews, especially when she returned from the Magelab."

Uicha leaned forward. "Returned? What do you mean?"

"By the tides, your dad was inconsolable," Bric said with a laugh. "I thought it would be good for him. Give me a chance to harden him up some so he wasn't such a baby seal waiting for a club. Your mom left him, yeah? She tried to join the mages. Had a bit of talent with the arcane. She failed the entrance exam though." He tapped his throat. "Couldn't get her Ink to change to the tome, so they knew she wasn't committed. Loved your father too much, gods help them both."

Uicha leaned back. He'd heard that his mom had some talent for magic, but he'd never known that she'd gone so far as to try enrolling at the Magelab. It made sense. How else would her parents have first forged a connection with someone like Ahmed Roh?

He touched his throat. "You're probably wondering about all this…"

"Of course I wonder," his grandfather said with a snort. "But you'll get no questions from me that you don't want to answer. I'm only happy you're here, even if you've got trouble on your heels. Especially if you've got trouble on your heels. I still have my harpoons, boy. I'll stand in front of you, whatever's coming."

Uicha couldn't help but smile at that. He believed that his grandfather would do exactly as he said, although Uicha would never let him actually go through with that. Not when he had the Ink of a champion.

"Na flamanga 'e na emad," Uicha said, repeating the words in the islander language that had gotten him this far.

His grandfather clucked his tongue. "No, no," he said, and thumped his chest. "Es ocazi gerde ovee me!"

"What's that mean?" Uicha asked.

"It's what we'd yell in the good old days when some bastards would try raiding the islands and we needed to rally the captains," Bric said. "All sharks protect the eggs."

Uicha told his grandfather everything.

He explained the hustle that had led his parents to Ambergran, although some of the details of the arrangement were still fuzzy. They had secured and protected an Orvesian artifact. An artifact that had opened for Uicha and infected him with the spirit of the legendary mage Kayenna Vezz.

He told his grandfather about the annihilation, his loss of Ink, and how the archmage Ahmed Roh had come to collect. He recounted his flight from Ambergran, his kidnapping, and his escape. Even when Uicha explained what it meant to kill an archmage, Bric couldn't keep the prideful grin off his face at what his grandson had accomplished.

Uicha explained the Forgotten One as best he could. He was a champion for some foreign entity that wanted to insert itself into the Granting. He described his class and his abilities.

And, finally, he told Bric about his pursuers. The Orvesians, the archmages, the candle Samus Bind, and possibly others on the islands and in Merchant's Bay.

When Uicha was done, night had fallen and they'd nearly finished the bottle of rum.

"Wildcard," Bric said thoughtfully. Though Uicha had seen a gleam of awe in the old man's eyes, he largely put on an unruffled front. "Sounds right to me."

"How so?" Uicha asked.

"Well, I never fucked with gods and magic and all that Granting shit," Bric said. "But I played a lot of cards. All them chasing you, they need you to make their hand. They got you running but, fact is, you got all the power, eh? This witch in your head, the god in the dirt—they want you to do their bidding? You should be asking: what's in it for me?"

"They've kept me alive," Uicha said.

"They kept themselves in the game, you mean," Bric said. "Nah. You should be asking for their best offer. Me? I always liked money. Your father liked his land and your mother had a thing for secrets. But what do you want, boy? Cause all that power on your chest, it's gonna buy you something."

Uicha spent the night in a hammock in his grandfather's living room. He could hear the old man snoring through the thin walls. By morning, he would decide on the first thing he wanted.

He wanted an Orvesian dead.