Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [141]
"I can't tell Sabyna."
"Even though you love her?"
Jherek shook his head. "You don't know that I love her. I don't know that I love her."
"You were willing to abandon your quest for the pearl disk because of her."
"It's foolish for her to die for my mistakes."
"She didn't let you walk away. She cares about you."
"I know," Jherek said thickly, "but I'm afraid to let that happen either. If I foolishly ever thought that it might. She deserves someone much better than me."
"Why haven't you told her about your past?"
"Because," Jherek said, "my father killed her brother, and I was on Bunyip, hanging in the rigging and watching when he did it."
Glawinn cleared his throat. "I see. That does present some difficulty."
"And there again," Jherek said, "is the ill luck that has been bequeathed to me in this life. I find a woman and feel something for her that I've never known, never allowed myself to feel except in the occasional fantasy of a story I was reading, and my father has murdered her brother. That's why I've made my decision."
He curled his fist around Ilmater's symbol, then threw it far out to sea. The white clay hands caught the light for a brief moment, then disappeared from sight. Jherek felt empty, but he filled it in with the newfound cold rage that had claimed him earlier that day. Live, that you may suffer. From here on, any suffering he experienced was going to be on his terms.
"Now what, young warrior? You have no hope and no god. What are you going to do with yourself?"
"Hope only got in my way," Jherek replied. "I'm going to be a realist. I have no god because I've never had one. I'm going to get that pearl disk from Vurgrom or die trying because I don't know what else to do."
"Is that it? Or is part of it because you still believe returning the disk to the temple of Lathander in Baldur's Gate is the right thing to do?"
"Azla pursues Vurgrom," Jherek said. "Ill ship with her and see that my part of it is done. When everything in my past life is dealt with, I can begin anew."
"Then where will you go?"
"I'm not even going to think about it," Jherek declared, trying to imagine such a time. "I'll eat when I'm hungry. Ill sleep when I'm tired. Ill work when I have to. Ill settle with that out of life until I'm dead."
"What a bleak, hard life you've set for yourself."
Jherek shook his head. "There'll be no false expectations."
"So you choose to believe in nothing?"
"Aye."
"We'll start with small beliefs, then," Glawinn said, drawing his sword. "Get your weapon out and I'll begin with trust with your eye and your sword arm, young warrior. Your eye and your sword arm-and well let your heart take care of itself." He waved his broadsword about in invitation.
"It's dark."
"Do you think every fight you're going to wage will be well lighted?"
"No." Jherek already knew that.
"Then draw your sword and show me your best. Or do you think you have anything better to do?"
Jherek stepped back and drew the cutlass from his sash. His left arm still hurt and was healing slowly. Dark shadows limned the paladin's face. In the next instant, the sound of steel ringing on steel filled the deck and echoed over the Alamber Sea.
Glawinn pressed him hard, driving him backward, coming closer than he ever had in practice to actually cutting him. "Come on, young warrior, show me what you have. Or has your disbelief exhausted your strength and skill as well?"
Growing angry but tempering it with the cold rage that filled him, Jherek beat back the attacks, stepping up his own retaliation.
"You'll believe in your eye and your arm," Glawinn promised again. "The heart will take care of itself. You'll see."
Jherek drove him back, circling closely to turn him to his weak side. He wished Glawinn would shut up.
They fought until Jherek's arm trembled and he was covered in sweat. The young sailor tried to beat back the paladin's offense, tried to chew through his defense, and tried to overpower him at every turn. Jherek fought until the rage filled him