;; Chapter 3
The very next day the captain introduced Yoshimo to the rest of the crew, and though he didn't understand what was being said, Yoshimo was able to discern the crew's fury. Their eyes, like a score of flinty chips set under thick brows, roiled with bone-chilling anger. They hated him. To a man, they hated him. The captain was apparently very aware of the crew's feelings, and he kept Yoshimo either close to him, or safely tucked away in his cabin with the door locked. The crew wasn't so furious that they dared to invade their captain's private rooms to enact their vengeance.
Aside from dealing with the crew's omnipresent hatred, Yoshimo had very little to do. He spent an hour or two each day with the captain learning how to speak the common tongue, and then another hour practicing saying the words out loud by himself until he felt confident that he had the right accent. He had learned a number of things while going around cleaning up after Hiruma's social gaffes, and one of them was that people felt more at ease if they thought they were speaking to an 'insider,' one of their own as opposed to someone from the outside. It helped ease tense situations if he adopted the other person's way of speaking, using their diction, accent and even their gestures to make him seem like one of them. A villager was more comfortable if they thought that he had been born a villager, and a samurai gave him more respect if he showed them that he was samurai too.
Now, though, he was traveling further than he had ever thought possible, and judging from the way the gaijin on the Merry Wench looked, he would stand out like a sore thumb. He had never had to deal with that before, but there would be no disguising his foreign origins once he was in Fay-roon. It would be necessary to minimize his differences and emphasize his similarities if he was going to be successful there, which meant it was important to mimic the accent of a native Fay-roonjin as best he could.
He was also learning how to mimic their boldness. Gaijin, he noticed, seemed to place a great deal of importance on looking a person in the eyes when they spoke, whereas in Wa, such a thing was considered the pinnacle of rudeness. The gaijin were loud when they spoke, and though Yoshimo couldn't understand what they were saying ninety-nine percent of the time, he could tell from the way they spoke and moved that they were very direct with what they said. There was no pussyfooting around a subject, no polite hedging, rather, they said what they had to say very straightforwardly. The gaijin were also very physical with one another, thinking nothing of throwing an arm over another's shoulders, and they wore their emotions openly, rather than keeping them private. It was very easy to tell when a gaijin was angry, and very easy to tell when he was pleased, afraid, sad, embarrassed and whatnot. In that way, they were very much like young children who hadn't learned how to behave properly in public yet.
The time Yoshimo didn't spend learning how to speak the gaijin language he spent following the captain around the ship, fetching things, carrying things, and taking care of other similar tasks. He learned a little about how to work the ship's riggings and sometimes helped when extra muscle was needed to take care of some task on board the ship. The crew at first didn't think much of his ability to do heavy work because he was so slender, but he proved them wrong by manhandling the ropes with the best of them.
When there was nothing to be done he spent most of his time in the captain's cabin, either staring longingly at the locked chest. Eventually, though, he grew bold enough to venture out on deck alone and enjoy the fresh air. He listened intently to the conversations the crew had -while trying to look like he wasn't listening, because he suspected they wouldn't like him eavesdropping- picking out words he knew and figuring out what they were saying, very generally, by putting words in context with the way the sentences were constructed. The last was somewhat difficult, because it seemed that the gaijin language didn't mark the subject of the sentence, as was done in Wa, but rather hoped it would be inferred from its relation to other words in the sentence.
He got to the point where he could, with relative ease, hold up his end of a conversation. Granted, he admitted to himself with some humor, it was the sort conversation that could only be held in the very worst parts of town, but it was progress. The time he spent with the captain filled in the rest rather nicely, at least he thought so, and by the end of the time it took to get sight the Faerunian continent, Yoshimo had a working vocabulary and enough knowledge of the language in general to be able to communicate clearly enough what he wanted to say.
From the moment land came into sight again the whole ship hummed with barely restrained excitement. At first a gray-brown blur on the horizon, barely visible and liable to vanish behind a wave, the coastline of Calimshan eventually materialized into a golden-brown expanse of rolling, windblown sand dunes, set strikingly against the brilliant blue, cloudless sky.
"That," said the captain, "is the Calim desert, one of the largest in all of Faerun, and certainly the largest in all of Calimshan."
Yoshimo wiped sweat off of his forehead, and looked at the parched coastline, broiling in the oppressive heat and half-blinded by the glaring sun. Now, closer to the land, the dunes were distorted by the warm air that rippled off of them. "How big is it?" he asked, carefully choosing his words.
The captain considered for a moment. He produced a piece of chalk from his pouch of spell components and knelt down in the deck, where he drew a crude map of the region. "This," he said, pointing to a large peninsula, "Is Chult, and this," he moved his finger to indicate the sea that the land nearly enclosed, "is the Shining Sea. Over here," he moved his finger again to the land on the other side of the sea from the place called Chult, "is Calimshan." He took the chalk again and marked off the country's borders, and then inscribed within that area a region that stretched from the western coastline almost a third of the way inland from the northern border to the sea to the south. "And that is the Calim desert."
Yoshimo boggled. "Much big," he murmured.
"'Very,'" the captain corrected. "It is 'very big.' Actually, it is the smallest of the great deserts, I think. The Anauroch is certainly at least ten times the size of the Calim. It's the second biggest sandy desert, though, second only to the Plains of Purple Dust on the eastern border of Mulhorand."
He didn't quite catch all of what the captain said, but Yoshimo understood enough to know that this vast expanse of sun-bleached sand was nothing compared to far larger stretches elsewhere in Faerun. Was all of Faerun a desert? Or were these lands far larger than he had first imagined?
They sailed along the coastline of Calimshan for a week, with very little sign of habitation along the way, until one morning a great brown city arose around a peninsula out of the sands. They began to see other ships, closing in on Calimport, the city, that according to the captain, was Calimshan's capital. The ship pulled into the harbor, and the city became clear for the first time; a seemingly endless wasteland of strange, earthen buildings, baked golden by the sun so that it was hard to tell the city from the desert that surrounded it. Gulls soared in the air, their cries fighting against the strident noises of the city.
The ship docked around noon nearly four months after they had gotten underway, sliding quietly and gracefully into its slip. The ship's crew scrambled about, a flurry of activity, securing lines to the great timbers that formed the docks' supports. When that was done the boarding ramp was lowered, and the captain directed Yoshimo to disembark.
After so long at sea even the creaking boards of the dock seemed oddly stable, not rocked by the ocean waves, and the hard-packed sand of the streets was like granite. The captain took Yoshimo with him into a small building at the end of their dock. Inside was a sparsely furnished room that looked very much like an office, with an open doorway covered over with hanging curtain of wooden beads in the far wall. While Yoshimo had a seat on a hard, uncomfortable chair, the captain called out into the doorway:
"Daellin! Daellin, you beggar, get out here!"
There was the sound of something being knocked over from the back room and a tall man with dark hair and gray eyes burst through the curtain, vaulted over the counter in front of it, and wrapped the captain in a fierce hug.
"Elliard!" he shouted. He continued in another tongue that Yoshimo did not recognize, and the captain responded in kind. The two of them spoke back and forth like that for quite a while, and then the captain turned to Yoshimo.
"Yoshimo, this is my younger brother, Daellin," he said, gesturing to the man. "Daellin, this is my friend Yoshimo."
"Pleased to meet you," said Daellin. He said something again to Elliard, and the both of them chuckled.
"Ah... pleased to meet you too," Yoshimo replied, feeling very awkward. He looked back and forth between the captain and Daellin, wondering just how the two of them could be brothers. Though Daellin shared the captain's dark hair and fair complexion, he did share the same angularity of features, though he did look a little like him around the eyes. Nor did he have the captain's unusual ears, though they were still not quite human. Perhaps he was a mix of elf and human, if such a thing was possible.
"Go on and have a seat," the captain directed, "Daellin and I have some business to take care of and then we shall go home for a week or two of rest and relaxation before we head out again by land."
"Yes captain," Yoshimo said.
"And no more of that 'captain' nonsense; we're off that blasted boat."
"Yes... er..."
"Just call me Elliard."
Yoshimo sat down and the two brothers retreated to the counter and started talking, again in the same language as before. Every once and while Daellin looked at him out of the corner of his eyes, seeming very amused by something, though what it was Yoshimo didn't know. Maybe it was his appearance or the way he had spoken, but he had no way to tell.
At last the two men finished their conversation, and Daellin called for a young man and directed him to go do something. Elliard sat down with Yoshimo, and the two of them waited until the young man returned, with a pair of horses.
"Do you know how to ride?" Elliard asked, climbing expertly into the saddle of his bay mare.
"Yes," Yoshimo answered. He got on his own mount, though somewhat more clumsily than the elf, since he was unfamiliar with Faerunian-style saddles. He did make it up though, and they were off.
"My home is outside of the city," Elliard explained as they rode through the streets. "I dislike the noise and the commotion here, so I bought a piece of property about a half-hour's ride to the west."
"I see," Yoshimo said, trying to keep up his end of the conversation, all the while looking around him. There weren't many people in the streets, the sun was too high and it was so hot that even the rats were probably sleeping in the shade somewhere.
"I think you will like it," Elliard went on. "I was extremely luck and found a fresh water spring on the land that had gone unnoticed before, so I have managed to put together something of a garden. It's not quite like Evermeet, and it never will be, but it's better than the city."
Yoshimo nodded, even though he hadn't understood half of what Elliard had said. It was the elf's policy to talk to him just as he would talk to anyone else, and if Yoshimo missed something it was up to him to ask about it. It certainly had helped him pick up the language faster, but it made it difficult to have a conversation.
The sun beat down, causing both horses and their riders to sweat profusely before they were even to the edge of the city. Two equally sweaty guards let them out and closed the city gate behind them. The half an hour Elliard had said it would take to get to his home seemed to drag on for days. They rode along a coastal road that ran along the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, and it was a remarkably beautiful view, but Yoshimo found it was impossible to pay attention to anything other than how hot and thirsty he was. Perhaps one day he could make the same trip again, but not during the middle of the day so that he could enjoy himself.
At last they arrived. From a distance the house looked to be nothing more than a white smudge further along the cliff, but on closer inspection it was more like a squat, white stone box. with a dome facing the sea to the south. When they reached the front gate two men, their faces a swarthy brown and their hair and eyes as dark as jet, took the horses away to cool them off and water them, and Elliard led Yoshimo up a straight, red-brick path through a garden of colored stones and thick-leafed prickly plants to the front door, a massive, carved wooden thing with a heavy brass handle. Elliard opened he door and gesture for Yoshimo to go inside, which he did, grateful to get out of the sun.
The sounds of his footsteps on the smooth, tiled floor echoed throughout, startling him a little. The walls were incredibly thick, probably to keep the cool in, and keep the hot out, and painted white with cool-toned blue and gray abstract leaf and vine patterns. Here and there along the entry hall was a piece of artwork, a sculpture or a painting, and tall vases filled with lush, fresh cut flowers. It was a drastic change from the arid, empty desert, and one that Yoshimo welcomed.
The entry hall ended in a open archway that led into a spacious room with a sunken floor lined with cushions. Three women lounged there, dressed very sparely in a loose, sleeveless, low-cut tunic, and long skirts, slit up to the thigh in order to cool and show copious amounts of leg. They were the very first Faerunian women Yoshimo had gotten a good look at, and they were all remarkably and exotically beautiful.
The closest was a dark smudge against the blue and silver pillows. Her skin was as black as night, as was her close-shorn hair and her eyes, which were like two obsidian jewels gleaming wetly in the subdued light. Her body was a collection of pleasant curves, and her face was round, with full pink lips and a small nose. She held a book in one hand and a fan in the other to cool herself as she read, causing her to look like she was casually disinterested in everything but her reading.
The next woman was the first's polar opposite. Her hair was as white as snow, her skin colored like the petals of a magnolia tree, a pale peach leading into a faint rosy-pink blush at her cheeks. Her eyes were the color of ice, and while that might very well have made them seem cold, they were soft and liquid, as she looked up at the new arrivals. She too was softly made, though Yoshimo could tell that if she stood she would be quite a bit taller than her two companions.
The last of the women was the fire to the second's ice. Her skin was a golden-brown, as if she had spent many days out in the sun, and her hair was the color of flame. Her eyes were a light, almost reddish, brown, and when she spoke there was heat in her voice that made the desert seem like a frozen waste and caused Elliard to blush. Yoshimo suspected from the burning in his cheeks, that he was blushing too, and he hadn't even understood what she had said.
"Er..." Elliard said struggling to regain his composure. "Yes, well, ah... Yoshimo, these are the er... ladies, ladies, this is Yoshimo."
"Oh come now, Elli," said the pale woman, standing up and proving Yoshimo right by being very tall indeed. "That's no way to introduce us to your... friend." She smiled and walked, no, glided toward him. "I'm Ivory. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"I am Fira," said the redhead, her pleasant, low-pitched voice sending another rush of blood to his face.
The dark woman raised the hand she held her fan in and said, "Ebony. Pleasure." Even her voice had a sort of roundness to it.
"Oh come now, Ebony! Is that anyway to greet a guest!" Elliard scolded her. "You too Fira! Sometimes I swear that Ivory is the only one here with manners. And what about me? I'm gone for nearly a year and all you do is sit. Sometimes I think I'm no appreciated around here."
Ebony got up and set her book down. She climbed out of the sunken area, smiling. "I knew you would be annoyed if we paid no attention to you when you got home."
"You're such an attention slut," Fira agreed, joining them and completing the group. She gave Elliard a kiss on the cheek. "Welcome home, Elli. We missed you."
"Well... yes... I missed you three too," Elliard said, looking a bit out of sorts. "Listen, the two of us are quite hot and sweaty, so why don't we all go downstairs and enjoy a dip in the pool to cool off?"
"Oh, you two go ahead and we'll get caught up with you later, Elli," Ebony said.
"Yes, we were in earlier, and I just got my fingers to unprune," Ivory agreed, patting Yoshimo on the arm for no apparent reason. "You two go on down and we'll stop by in a bit and all five of us can have a nice little chat."
Fira ushered them to a door that led into a long, spiraling stone staircase, and all but pushed them down. Yoshimo suspected it was because they stank, both from having been on the ship for four months, and also from their long ride in the hot sun. Torches, set into niches in the wall, and lit with a cold, blue-gray flame, lit the stairway as they descended, giving an almost eerie look, though the color of the light, much like the colors used upstairs, served to make the air seem cooler than it was.
"Those women..." Yoshimo began.
"Quite something, aren't they?" Elliard agreed. "A terrible nuisance sometimes, but I don't think I could manage without them."
Yoshimo nodded. "Quite something," he repeated.
