Swimmer didn’t see the fight start, but he saw the end of it. A tough-looking local guy was going at it with a tall black man from down south, not too serious a fight, just shoving and words. Then the local guy said something Swimmer couldn’t hear, and the black guy threw a punch that came in like a bolt of lightning and laid the other guy out on his back faster than you could say “hit me.” From the way people were milling and muttering it looked like something more might happen, like maybe the local guy’s friends were gonna take up his side of it. Swimmer started walking over to get a better look. But before any more punches flew one of the galley captains came walking up the dock with a couple of guards in armor, and everybody turned away and looked busy. Except the local guy, who was still lying on the dock, and the black man, who was still standing over him, yelling in his own language, not caring that nobody could understand him.

  Swimmer figured he felt like he was winning the argument, since the guy lying down wasn’t arguing back. That made him laugh, and that made the black man turn his angry face Swimmer’s way. Swimmer tried him in Siriae, which he knew a little of. “Good punch,” he said.

  The black man answered in Siriae that was better than Swimmer’s, although far from perfect. “Good punch for bad word,” he said.

  “What he call you?” Swimmer asked.

  “Koogang.”

  Uh-oh, Swimmer, thought, because Koogang was about the most common sailor’s term for a black man from down south, and if this guy flew off the handle every time he heard it he was going to get into a lot of fights. “Sailors say that here,” he said. “Not too bad word.”

  “No,” said the black man. “It is a very bad word. A fighting word.”

  “You lucky,” Swimmer said. “Captain not come, you maybe fight three men, four, five. He from Calyxia, many friends.”

  “Then I fight three, four, or five. Or six, or seven. Any number you like.”

  “Maybe you die.”

  “Kill, die, what’s the difference?”

  The scary thing was, he looked perfectly serious about it.

  “I must get back to ship,” said the black man. “We sail soon.”

  Swimmer shook his head. “No sail. Nobody leave. War on. All sailors have to fight.”

  “War? With Red Admiral?”

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  Now what, Swimmer wondered, did this man from the desert know about the Red Admiral? “No,” he said, “With crazy priests.”

  “Too bad. I need to fight Red Admiral.”

  “Why?”

  “He killed all my people.”

  Well, maybe that explained the “kill, die, what’s the difference” business.

  “Sorry,” Swimmer said, “this war with crazy priests. Malovana. Maybe Red Admiral next year.”

  “Red Admiral next year. Drink to that?”

  “Why not?” said Swimmer. “What you called?”

  “Iskander. You?”

  “Swimmer.”

  “We drink together, Shimmeh.”

  Swimmer thought for a few seconds, then led the stranger toward an inn called the Mermaid where most of the drinkers would be from out of town.

  Swimmer bought the first round. Iskdandr said, “Shimmeh, is this town friendly to Red Admiral?”

  Swimmer shook his head. “Enemy. We fight war, eight years ago. Big sea battle.”

  “Who won?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Maybe I will like this place, if we are not friends to Red Admiral.”

  Swimmer nodded. Searching through his Siriae vocabulary he said, “How you come to this town?”

  Iskander said, “I sell all the goats. Get on ship. Ship sinks in storm. I hold onto mast, somehow not drown. Next day a fishing boat picks me up, takes me to Osas. I say I have words from my people to Red Admiral, they say I must speak to the Count here. They give me clothes and put me on a ship. I help out sailors, learn how to sail ship. I sailed boats on the river before, it was not so different.”

  The people in Osas must have thought he was an ambassador, Swimmer thought. Or maybe a prophet. Or maybe they just wanted him out of town. But now he was here, just in time for a war. Well, he was a big guy, he should be useful in a fight.

  Iskander went on. It seemed like he was answering a question, but Swimmer hadn’t asked it. He said, “Started with the thing Samasa found. We should have left it. We should have buried it. I could see it did not belong in this world. It might have fallen from the sky, or risen from the underworld. Wrong, wrong. But we kept it, Okango built a shrine for it, a stone shrine. Fool, fool, fool. People saw it. Tales spread. They came and killed all but me. They took it and sailed away.”

  “What was it?” asked Swimmer.

  “Wrong,” said Iskander.

  “Maybe it will bring them wrong, too.”

  “It will. It will bring me. I will show them wrong. They have never known so much wrong.”

  Two men came through the room. One wore a vest in the Viscount’s colors. The other was a big man Swimmer recognized: the merchant they called the Crab. After scanning the crowd they walked straight toward Swimmer and Iskander. Well, Swimmer thought, we are the two biggest guys here.

  The merchant said. “You’re all going to the war. Your only choice is which ship. If you sail with me, you’ll be in the front, fight the hardest, take the biggest risk, and get the best chance for booty. What do you say?”

  Swimmer turned to Iskander and started to translate, but the big man cut him off, speaking in good Siriae. “You want to fight, or row in some galley full of pussies that hangs in the back and hopes the war is over before they find the harbor?”

  “Fight,” said Iskander. “Fight,” said Swimmer.

  “Good,” said the Crab. “The Dolphin is near the eastern end of the harbor. If you want to come down ahead of time and pick your oar, that’s fine. We should have weapons for you by the end of the week, so you can come down and try them out. Otherwise I’ll see you the night before departure. We’ll sleep on board so we’re the first out with the morning tide. If anybody else tries to press you for his own ship, give him my name.”