The lees of Laughter's End

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West of Theft, the tithe strait opens out into the Wastes. A vast stretch of ocean through which naught but the adventurous and the foolhardy dared brave the treacherous, dubious sea-lanes as far as the red road of Laughter’s End, and from there, onward to the islands of the Seguleh and the southern coast of Genabackis, where the lands of Lamatath offered sordid refuge for pirates, wastrels, the rare trader and the ubiquitous pilgrim ships of the Fallen God.

What launched the free-ship Suncurl out from the sheltered waters of Korel and Theft was a matter known only to Captain Sater and, might be, her first mate, Ably Druther. Such currents of curiosity, as might lead one to speculate on said matters, could reach out and grasp a soul fierce as a riptide, so Bena’s mother warned in her whispering, rattling way, and Bena was not one to clap ears in stubborn countenance to such stern advice.

Not while her mother remained with her, to be certain, never silent for long with that wave-rolling and wind-sighing voice, the ’waring whistles, wry hoots and mocking moans as true and as familiar as any music of the heart. Why, her hoary hair danced in the wind still, reaching out to brush Bena’s young, smooth and-it was said well below-tantalizing features as Bena crouched in her usual perch in the crow’s nest, her maiden’s eyes thinned as she studied the western Wastes with its white-furled waves and not another sail in sight, waiting as was her mordant responsibility to first spy the darkening of the waters, the grim blood-dark seas that marked Laughter’s End.

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