Chapter Fourteen, Fathers

They pulled ou of the port rather slowly. It wasn't promising. But after the third day at sea Alicea noticed that the fishing buoys were passing the ship faster than jetbikes.

"Captain, what's your secret?"
"Answer my question first miss."
"Fine."
"You wouldn't happen to know a shaman name of Aurou, would you?"
She stopped dumbfounded. The Howling Axe clan was secluded even towards other Ga-Vok, and she'd never met this man. How did he know him?"
"How would a traveller like me know a Ga-Vok shaman?"
"Well, I figure only two sorts of people carry that mark." He gestured at the axes at her sides. "And you don't smell like a perfume saleswoman. What's more, I just finished talking to Que'Laed. The whiskery ruddersnipe tells me, that Kelei says that the Shaman Aurou use to keep a little Nielda girl who called herself Alicea. It seemed unlikely that there'd be a second Alicea with howling axes and shamanistic powers."

She probed his mind cautiously. He was no mage, but sections of his mind seemed simply to not exsist. What did exsist told her enough to know he was trustworthy.
"He was my father."
"Certainly didn't sound like you were a prisoner."
"I was going to ask how you get the ship to go so fast without an engine."
"Que'Laed, he's the Nereid. I gave him somewhere to call home, he gives me the ability to get wherever I need to be. He also enjoys telling me where I need to be, so it's kind of like being the wait staff for his palace."
"How'd a simple sailor come to know about sprites, I thought the witches didn't take men?"
"My daughter, Light keep her soul, she taught me a lot in her letters. Before the war that is, she'd taken a post with the coven's research buerau on Mrococo."
"And yet you have no problem with my being raised by a Ga-Vok."
"Why should I? When the word came, I went to Mirkfallow on the western coast and asked them to make recompense."

Alicea knew the Ga-Vok system, a criminal or a drunk would have been picked from the clan and offered up as a sacrifice to prevent the wrath of another clan, or man in this case. It was cruel, but the Ga-Vok rarely demanded it of each other.

"They gave me a replacement. Hrau's below deck, fantastic chef; apparently he'd been in some trouble over killing the chief's daughter. He was fully justified, I proved that, but they insisted that he was a fitting trade; daughter's murderer to father of a murdered daughter. Nice lad, him and his wife stay below decks when we come to Landsen."
"He'll probably stay with you for life you know."
"I know, I've given him my leave to jump ship whenever he pleases. It is nice to know I'll always have at least two more hands on board though. He's like blood to me, his daughter even calls me Daimu."
"Shame we'll be enemies soon. The Ga-Vok attack on Landsen wasn't an isolated event. The Alpha sent Tasand himself to deliver an ultimatum."

The old captain looked out across the water. He was windbitten and his long braid was far greyer than most Nielda his age. She could see that the loss of his daughter had not been the first trial to befall him. She could see the worry etched deep into his weary skin, but the fire of life was till burning in him.
"Would you consider your father your enemy, even if he stood amongst the Alpha's men? Hrau is my son, even if he were the Alpha's executioner with a million Nieldic scalps hung from his walls and I were at his block he'd still be my son. I'd as soon fight him as I'd have fought Juline. I pray he feels as strongly for me."
"But I'm afraid most are not so willing to deal with each other. I love my father, but it's only a matter of time before one of our races must leave."
"A shame, Maybe one day someone will be able to show both our peoples that we can have peace."