The old man looked almost dead.
He had a wooden right leg and a patch over his left eye. His hair was all gone, either because it fell out or he shaved it, I couldn’t tell. Though the rough patches of white hair on his face made me think it was probably because it fell out. He looked like he was covered in leather instead of skin. His clothes had seen better days and were full of holes.
“Who are you?” I looked down at the five-foot-tall old man.
“Captain Jace Malvern Perrous.” He held his hand out as he gave a sweeping bow that was directed at Eveth. “At yer service.”
The blonde looked at me for direction.
“If you’re a captain, where’s your ship?” I moved to my left so I could position myself between the two. There was something creepy about the old man and not just because he had been able to sneak up on me.
“Retired.” Jace straightened, putting his right hand on his lower back as the bones cracked and popped. He pointed at the empty space at the end of the dock with his left. “The Ice Runner berthed there fer ferty years until this cursed back made me hand her over to the next gen.” He looked me over with his one good eye. “Why’s the Backer care about ships? They always say that’s a Human thing.”
“Because without ships, your city will have to go over land to get supplies, which will cause loss of life.” I shrugged, trying to seem indifferent. “We have a little extra time, so we thought we’d look around.”
“You won’t find anythin’ here.” The old man nodded at the water. “The cursed ghost ship steals the ships and takes them with her to the island.” He looked back at me, then over at Eveth. “Aren’t the two of you a little young to be Backers?”
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“The Master in charge is back at the house.” I needed to get him away from that train of thought. “We’re out here while she’s dealing with the mayor.”
“Mayor Brambly needs a lot of attention, doesn’t he?’ The former captain slapped his leg at his own joke. “That’s all there is, just the three of you?”
“And an apprentice.” I folded my arms in front of me. “Enough about us. What do you mean the cursed ship takes the other ships back to the island? What island?”
“It’s too hard to try to explain…” He turned around and motioned for us to follow him. “I’ve got some maps back at the shack that you can look at that explain it better than I can.”
I glanced at Eveth. There was something off about this old man, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. My blonde companion looked a little concerned, but also curious. For a moment, I thought about just ignoring him, but the other option was to continue to poke around on the dock until we found something interesting. We could alway come back and do that later if he was just spouting nonsense.
“I know I move fast fer an old man, but try to keep up!” The one-legged man cackled as he sped up.
“Should we tell Val?” Eveth tried to whisper as the two of us hurried after him.
“I think we see what he has to say. If he’s got good information, then we can take him to go talk to Val.”
“Okay.” Her voice sounded disappointed, with a hint of fear.
I tried to think of why she might be uneasy about following a mysterious stranger, then I remembered what had happened a few days ago. We’d followed a Touched who claimed to have answers, which had resulted in her being turned into the type of Touched she was now. While I didn’t think she was too upset about it, the experience had been jarring for me and I hadn’t been the one who had been changed. My own transformation had been less than two weeks ago, yet it seemed like I’d been this way for years. I’d gone straight from one crisis to another without much time to really process everything. Maybe I’d have that time after we talked with Master James in a month.
“It’s going to be fine.” I tapped the handle of the sword on my back. “We can always fight our way out if things go south.”
The look she gave me told me that she hadn’t been comforted by my logic.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”