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Good Old Bill
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The next day the village was quieter again. Although, there were still plenty of people. Most of them had decided that they weren’t keen on being stuck in that traffic jam and had decided to stay an extra day.
That’s probably the reason why, that evening, I ran into the young man again. He came into the pub and saw me sitting at the bar. He went to sit next to me and, to my surprise, ordered a coffee.
“…You were right.” He finally said after his first sip. “He’s real, it’s all real…” I nodded and just said. “Yep.” I saw that he was still struggling to take in what happened yesterday.
“I met my grandmother yesterday, she died before I was born. I actually spoke to her... She’d been watching us all along. She told me she was proud of me, but that she still felt I drank too much…” He said and pointed to his coffee.
He went silent again. I didn’t say anything either. I could tell he was trying to figure something out. Eventually, he turned to me.
“Why does he do it? Why does Admiral Azarus take the ghosts away? They are here for a reason right? Unfinished business? And a lot of folk can use a family member looking out for them beyond the grave…”
I nodded “Aye, I understand how it seems like a raw deal. But Admiral Azarus has a good reason. If the stories are anything to go by.” I said.
The lad looked interested. “Really? What is it?” He asked. I was mildly surprised he didn’t know. In this town everyone knows the stories. Ah well, I don’t mind storytelling. In fact, I quite enjoy it.
“Do you want the long version or the short version?” I asked. The lad thought about it for a bit “I think I have time for the long version.” He said, I smiled and nodded. “We should move to a table then, for some reason there’s always more people who join when the tales start.” I said happily.
After we moved I saw that I wasn’t wrong, a few other unfamiliar faces asked to join us and even a few regulars came to hear the story again. One of the regulars even bought me a beer for it. There’s a reason I like this pub.
“Admiral Azarus’s story starts right here in this harbor if the legends are to be believed.” I started. “Though very little survived of his first story. The story of how ‘Alex Azarus’ became ‘Captain Azarus’ was never written down. It was only seen by a fisherman and the story barely survived through word-of-mouth.”
I paused a bit to take a drink from my beer and saw that people were impatient for me to continue. I smiled, looks like I had their attention.
“The story goes that a fisherman was repairing his nets on a particularly dreary, foggy day when he saw a local kid of about seventeen years old named Alex walk to the end of the docks. He didn’t pay much attention to it until Alex started speaking in his best carrying voice."
"I propose a deal!" he shouted into the wind. "I will help you fulfill your purpose! We will find the wonders of the world! We will sail to the edge of the world and beyond! No land will remain hidden, no sea left unexplored! In exchange you help me set things right! To restore the balance! To show the way to those who are lost and to herd the selfish!" After that Alex sat down and waited. The fisherman thought he was bonkers of course, and continued to fix his nets. Alex sat there for hours, barely moving, chilled to the bone. But just when the fisherman finished fixing his net and had decided that there was something seriously wrong with the kid, it appeared.
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A ship the fisherman knew well, all men of the sea knew and feared it. A large three-masted ship that burned and screamed in agony. It was ‘The Journeyman’. As it approached the dock it’s screams of agony stopped and when it arrived it lowered the gangplank. Alex stepped on board, the gangplank was raised, and the ship sailed off into the unknown. Not to be seen for another five years.
"And that, is how ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice Alex Azarus’ became ‘Captain Azarus’.” I finished the first story. I took a long drink of my beer and while I did so I saw that the crowd was burning with questions. I wasn’t disappointed.
“Sorcerer’s Apprentice Alex Azarus?” The young man asked me. I nodded. “Yes, back in his time there were sorcerers that specialized in dealing with souls. In fact, back then it was the only form of sorcery that had survived. Now it’s the other way around. Admiral Azarus is probably the only soul sorcerer left while the other branches of sorcery are being rediscovered.
Admiral Azarus came from a family of these sorcerers, but magic was dying out and only the most talented sorcerers could perform any magic at all. As you might guess, Alex was rather talented. It allowed him to summon and bargain with ‘The Journeyman’” I explained.
“Magic was dying out?” asked one of the unknown faces. “He summoned The Journeyman? He didn’t create it?” another asked. I smirked and blatantly ignored the first question, it would be answered in the course of the story. The second however was a story of its own. One I figured was short enough to tell in between.
“Yes, he summoned ‘The Journeyman’. Its story out-dates Admiral Azarus’s by quite a few years. As I said, it was a well-known ghost-ship during Alex’s childhood. If you met it at sea and came too close your ship would catch fire. All sailors dreaded ‘The Journeyman’ and all knew it’s story.
It was commissioned by Harrison Dolce, a very wealthy merchant who longed to explore the seas. A fool’s quest, for all know that there are horrors in the sea that no ship can stand against. Fishermen that stay close to the shore are already considered madmen. But Harrison pressed on and commissioned the best ship mankind was capable of making. The strongest hull known to the world, the latest of cannons to take the fight to the monsters of the deep should it prove necessary, and he signed up the craziest of fools to man it.
In possibly the greatest irony in human history he named it The Journeyman, because with the ship he would make great journeys. Journeys that he hoped, would simply be the first in a long tradition of exploration. Yet, it’s voyage was never to be.
A week before the ship was planned to sail, the harbor was raided by bandits who were after Harrison’s riches. The harbor guards were no match for their sheer numbers. Harrison, while obviously unwilling, gave up his gold immediately. But when the bandits demanded the stores of his ship he refused. He was so close to achieving his dream. Quite a few of the fools he had signed up stood with him and they defended the ship to the last man.
Eventually the bandits decided it just wasn’t worth the effort and, out of spite, set fire to the ship. Harrison and his fools went mad, if they weren’t already, trying to save the ship and burned along with it.
Their screams of agony could be heard all over the harbor. Not the agony of burning, but of shattered dreams.
Ever since that day The Journeyman, Harrison, and his fools haunted this very harbor. Stuck at their moment of death, burning and screaming, and worst of all for the ghosts who dreamed of the world, stuck near this harbour. Because of it, the harbour declined from a great trading city to a fishermen’s village.”
I finished the story and took a long drink of my beer. The young man made the obvious conclusion. “So that is what Admiral Azarus struck a deal with. He released them from the harbor with his sorcery? He’d sail with them to the edge of the world? Then what is the part with ‘setting things right’ and ‘restoring the balance’ about?” He asked.
I nodded. “Yes! He could fulfill the ghosts’ purpose and desire, free them to roam the world. The ghosts would take his deal no matter the cost. Luckily, what Azarus needed from them was exactly that. Exactly what you said! He needed to go to the edge of the world! ‘To set things right’ indeed…” I said with a dramatic pause. The young man and the others looked at me expectantly. “What he meant with that is answered in his first properly recorded story. I’m quite sure you can buy a copy of the book in most bookstores but I don’t mind telling you for free.” I said with a big grin.