The shantyman sat atop the mainmast, straddling it firmly with her knees. There was a crow's nest, of course, but Dania preferred to perch there, her legs wrapped around the solid trunk of pine, feeling the movement of the sea. The sailors assembled below her, scurrying to their assigned lines. When all were in place, she cleared her throat and sang out in a clear, loud, alto.

Whiskey is the life of man! Ever was since the world began!

As the last note died out, the men began to haul on the lines in rhythm, calling back with their verse.

Whiskey-o, Johnny-o, rise her up from down below!

She looked down and responded with her line

Whiskey whiskey whiskey-o

And they responded, and the main sail rose.

Up aloft this yard must go, rise her up from down below!

The next two lines gave them a rest.

I treat me crew in a decent way! Give 'em whiskey twice a day!

And again they hauled on the yardlines, three times with the rhythm of the song.

Whiskey-o, Johnny-o, rise her up from down below!

Whiskey whiskey whiskey-o,

Up aloft this yard must go, rise her up from down below!

The verses went on, one about how whiskey gave her a broken nose and whiskey made her pawn her clothes, how she heard Captain Cully say he treats his crew in a decent way. Finally, she sang her favorite verse.

A glass of whiskey all around, and a bottle full for the shantyman!

The crew responded lustily as they hauled the mainsail all the way to the top, where Adahni could grab it and tied it up so there it would stay through wind and stormy weather. Within the hour, all the sails were aloft and billowing out in the warm breeze. Dania reluctantly climbed down from the mast, done with it until they brought down the sails upon reaching harbor. She swung down the rigging, hand over hand, until she hit the deck, awkwardly, with a thump. Her left leg didn't bend the right way anymore – she'd broken it badly around two years back and despite the attention paid it, it had never healed correctly. With the sails aloft, the Dance of the Damned gathered speed and slid swiftly across the calm surface of the Sea of Fallen Stars.

"I don't understand why you don't just call the shanties from the bottom of the mast," Keowan, the navigator, said grumpily as she approached him where he was standing at the stern, his hand on the wooden wheel, "I don't like you climbing up and down the rigging six or seven times a day."

"I'm lame, not made of glass," Dania replied, "Anyway, you may outrank me, but you certainly don't get to give me orders."

He nodded, but he glanced at her bad leg warily, as though afraid it might just fall right off.

"Where in the hells are we headed for again?" she asked.

"Bezantur," he replied, "The port of Thay. Cully says that the gossip back in Escalant was that Calumshan silk's prices are high there. We can turn it into a pretty profit."

"Everything's a profit when you're stealing it."

"A valid point as always, Dani," he said, his eyes on the horizon, "Cully's got a crew to pay. That includes us, in case you'd forgotten." Cully – Captain Mackrem Cullygan – commanded the Dance of the Damned with a very small iron fist. He was a Halfling from Leeves, a Neverwinter village, but if anything, his small stature only made him more imposing.

"We've never been in Bezantur," she said, "I'm sure there's many pretty young ladies there."

He nodded. When they had joined the crew of the Dance of the Damned some two years before, they had already been lovers. Knowing how awkward – and in their case dangerous – it would be should their relationship splinter while trapped together on a ship, they had at first made sure not to hold each other to any promises. They were free, Keowan had said. They would spend the night together when they chose to, but she'd better not come nagging him if his eye fell on some pretty young maid. Dania agreed, not liking the idea of marriage or anything resembling it at all. What Keowan had not bargained for was her taking full advantage of her freedom. When he'd caught her in her bunk with her breast in the mouth of a large-eyed Rashemi lad they'd taken on in Neth, he'd sulked for weeks. It had hurt Dania to have hurt him, and so they amended the agreement – ashore they were free. On board they were each others.

"I know," he said, looking out at the water and not at her.

"Do you miss me when you're in the arms of a doe-eyed doxy?" she asked, giggling.

"Always," he replied, "That's what keeps me coming back aboard. Were it not for the doe-eyed doxies, I'd forget entirely why I loved you in the first place."

"And you're not afraid I'll run off with some dashing knight?"

"Every time," he replied, "But then I remember all of the very good reasons you've had to murder me, and the many opportunities I've given you. The fact that I'm still alive bodes well for your feeling the same way about me."

She chuckled and waved him off, "I've got work to do. I'll be belowdecks. Send Davy if you see him, the rat population's expanding. I know he's finicky, but we all have to do our parts." As though summoned by her very soft speaking of his name, the black dog barreled up the steps to the helm and play-bowed, "There you are, you little bastard," she said, stroking his head, "The skipper's been feeding you again, hasn't he? You know it's still your job to catch rats, what you do with them once you've killed them is entirely up to you."

"I find it so amusing how you talk to that animal as though you think it can understand you," Keowan said.

"Please," Dania said, "He's your wolf's pup. If he's not smart enough to understand me, whose fault is that?"

"Lords above, you make no sense sometimes, woman," he chided, "If anything it's that black dog that knocked poor Karnwyr up that's responsible for the pup's incompetence. Now, belowdecks with you, before the captain sees us fraternizing while on duty."

She chuckled again, and went off down below decks, black pup at her heels.

They dropped anchor in the Port of Bezantur two days hence. Umberlee had graced them with favorable seas, and the voyage passed without incident. As well as singing the shanties, Dania was the designated businesswoman once they were ashore. She discarded her cotton sailing clothes for the light armor the "sailors" preferred when on shore. In a pirate's line of work, one never knew when the next fight was coming, or when one might really appreciate a couple of inches of leather between ones skin and the blade of a knife. She talked her way into the shops of several tailors, one of whom seemed to be employing a large number of orphans to sew his fine gowns, until she found a buyer who seemed unaware that the goods he would be buying were actually stolen, and quoted her a price she could take back to the captain without him boxing her ears for the suggestion. She brought the merchant to meet with her while Captain Cullygan sat in the corner. She haggled him up to a price that made boarding that Calumshan schooner entirely worth it, and Cullygan nodded his approval. He sent some of his sailors to do the unloading, and tossed her a couple of coins for drink – which would be on top of her share of this haul .

"Run along, Dania," he said, "Business is over for the day, for sure and certain. You'll be needed at the local watering hole."

She found the rest of the crew at an inn called the Randy Mermaid, which was exactly as skuzzy as its name suggested. She bought an ale and a bottle of whiskey, and went to sit at a table with Keowan. She lit a smoke and tipped her chair back, putting her boots on the rough-hewn table. They were muddy and salty from the filth down belowdecks. The bartender glared at her, and she smiled sweetly back, daring him to start something. She did what she would along coasts all across Faerun, and this rundown dump in Bezantur would be no different.

Keowan was deep in his cups beside her.

"You're thinking something," he said, "I know that look you get when you're scheming some outlandish scheme."

"I was thinking about home," she said, "And how long it has been since we left the Sword Coast. It seems a lifetime ago."

"What kind of a life did we have there?"

"A good mix, much like the one we have now," she said, "Don't get me wrong, love, I don't regret my decision. It's just that it's been such a long time. Don't you think they'll have stopped looking for us by now?" she asked, "I don't want to go back to live… just to, you know, check on the place. I've been having dreams lately…"

"While I'm sure they're convinced that you've died, do you think for a minute they've stopped looking for me?" Keowan said, "They'll hunt me to the ends of Faerun until they can put my headless corpse in a vault in the Tomb of the Betrayers."

She grunted her acknowledgement of his very valid point, and uncorked the whiskey. They had to sail far, very far, down the Sword Coast before they came to the first town where there were no wanted posters looking for the traitor Bishop. Though they had left the region years before, she doubted that the official line of Neverwinter was to stop looking for the man accused of betraying and killing the Captain of Crossroad Keep. She poured herself a glass and downed it, waiting for something to happen.

There was a house bard, a young man who looked as though he'd only ever studied music with the great classical musician and couldn't probably plunk out a lively reel if his life depended on it. He stood, clearing his throat, but he had no instrument. The Thayans did tend to favor their epics in recited, rather than sung, form.

"I come to tell you a tale!" the bard intoned. He had a lovely baritone, deep, and trained to boom out over crowds in a theater, not to assail the ears of drunken sailors at a dockside bar, "A tale of heroism. It's the tale of Adahni Farishta, the Knight Captain of Crossroad Keep, who defeated the King of Shadows and saved all of Faerun!"

"Did she have big tits?" called a young longshoreman, seated with his fellows at a table in the corner. He was the type of man who was devastatingly handsome, but devastatingly aware of it, and thus knew he could say exactly what he thought and suffer few consequences.

Keowan smirked, and took another drink, his eyes falling on Dania's chest.

"Yes," the bard said, sighing, knowing that his audience wanted to hear more about that than anything else, "Our story takes place far, far from here, along the Sword Coast far to the west! There in the Sword Coast is a large and dangerous swamp known as the Mere of Dead Men where the salt water of the sea marches inward to conquer the dry land year by year. Adahni was a simple girl from a village along the Mere, called West Harbor. Like here, they celebrate the changing of the seasons with great festivals with lights and music and more beer than a man could drink in a lifetime! One night, on the eve of the Harvest Fair, demons attacked her village, led by a Githyanki mage, slaughtering innocents, tearing babes from their mother's bosoms and dashing their brains out against the rocks!"

"Did the demons have big tits?" the same longshoreman called.

"Well I imagine there were succubi among them, so yes, I suppose some of them did," the bard said peevishly, "But getting on… the demons came in search of a shard – a shard from a Silver Sword that was broken years before, when our heroine was but a babe in arms! The King of Shadows, that dastardly vestige of the Illefarn Empire long dead, had come to fight there. The sword was shattered when the King of Shadows struck down her mother, which sent the dark lord back into the world from which he came!"

"Did her mom have big tits?"

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" the bard finally shouted, thoroughly exasperated.

"All right, all right, no need to get your skivvies in a twist," the handsome longshoreman said, "Tell me about this Adahni Farishta."

"She was the fairest maiden in the village," the bard continued, "With long, raven, hair, and skin smooth and brown like polished wood, and eyes like glittering topaz. She went forth to the city of Neverwinter, far to the north, to seek refuge with her uncle. On her way, she encountered a dwarf about to be beaten by a group of drunken humans. With her silver tongue, she convinced them to lay off, and the dwarf, Khelgar Ironfist, joined her in her journey. "

"I don't want to hear this," Dania sighed, and lit another smoke.

"And why not?" Keowan asked, "What do you have to do with Adahni Farishta? You're the dread pirate Dania D'Shadizar! Scourge of the Sea of Fallen Stars!"

"Scourge indeed," she sighed, "I see it's taken two years, but the tale's followed me here. I suppose we could go farther south…"

"Nobody's looking for us, Dania," he said, "To them, it's just a story. Nobody's interested in us here."

"I don't want to hear this," she said again. It stabs me in the gut every time someone says Khelgar's name. And eventually he's going to get into the parts about Casavir and I'm going to lose it. She dared not say that out loud. She rose, and pushed her bottle of whiskey towards him, "Share this with the rest of the crew, compliments of their favorite shantyman. I'm going to go look at the market before it closes." She swallowed the rest of her ale and put the empty tankard back down on the table, "They gave me a room far down the hall from yours. Neither of us has to hear anything."

He nodded, "Aye, I know. I'll see you tomorrow."

She went out into the hot, dusty streets of Bezantur. Fine brocade tapestries hung from every stall, and every merchant seemed to be selling the same gaudy earrings made of metal springs twisted in a circle with brightly colored thread woven into them. They hawked their wares, blacksmiths and silversmiths and tailors. It was surprising how similar port towns all over Faerun were. She wandered through the tents for an hour or two.

"Miss! Miss! You! With the limp!"

The voice was loud and heavily accented. She turned to see that it belonged to a young woman wearing a simple red dress, chasing after her down the dusty road. She had dark hair, which Adahni could see right away was a wig. Must have had the fever, she thought, pitying her, for otherwise she was quite a pretty girl.

"What can I do for you?" she asked.

"I don't mean to impose," she said, "I noticed the way you walk, and I wanted to know, is it from birth or injury? You aren't old enough to have the rheumatism."

"Injury," Dania replied, "Why?"

"I'm a healer," the girl said, "I've quite a talent with old wounds. Would you like me to see what I can do?"

"How much?" Dania asked.

"For you? Very cheap. I just need bragging rights. I'm only getting started out, you see, and if people see that I've healed you, they'll trust me."

"And why should I trust you?" Dania asked.

"I'm not going to cut you open or stick you with anything," the girl promised, "I'm just going to try some spells. I'm very good with permanent injuries. I promise!"

"And you can do it while I'm here?" she asked.

"Well I could," the healer replied, "But I wouldn't ask you to strip down in the middle of the street. I have a tent over there. It's just a normal tent. If I hurt you, everyone will hear you scream."

"That's not terribly comforting," Dania said. But, she had to admit, her knee did pain her something terrible every time a storm blew in. And while she was still of use in a fight, she could not run. She could climb up and down the rigging, but she couldn't dance. She missed dancing most of all, she thought ruefully. She'd asked healers from Luskan to Athkatla to take a look at it. Some had succeeded in relieving some of the stiffness, but none had been able to truly heal her, "All right. What's your name?"

"Tenisha," the healer replied.

"Are you a priest?" she asked, "I've had a lot of priests try to heal this leg, and spent a whole lot of gold for a whole lot of nothing."

"No," she replied, "I use arcane magic. I'm a mage."

"Huh!" Dania said, "Never heard of an arcane healer before."

"We do things different," Tenisha said, "We probe your body with our mind and the power of the Weave, and try to right whatever is wrong with it inside. A priest is only as strong as his connection to his god, but we arcane healers can do much more. It takes a special talent though, and only a few of us have it."

"Interesting," Dania said, "Never heard of it before."

"There are a few of us here in Thay," Tenisha said, "And some further north in Rasheman. Where are you from, Miss…"

"Dania," she said, "I'm from Kuldahar."

"You've come quite a long way, Dania!" Tenisha said, impressed, "You must be a sailor. That knee must pain you something terrible when the seas are rough. Let's just see what we can do with it."

Dania felt utterly ridiculous as Tenisha sat there, just starting at her in her small clothes. She was seated on a stool in a white tent in the back of the bazaar and felt quite self-conscious as the other woman looked over every imperfection on her body. "What's that scar?" she asked, pointing to the thorny white line between Dania's breasts where there once had resided a shard of the Silver Sword of Gith.

"That one healed just fine," she replied impatiently, "It was from when I was a child. So, how does this work?"

"You sit there, and I put my hands on your head, and try to right everything that's wrong with your body, so long as it's an injury and not something you were born with. I can't fix a cleft lip or fused toes. But I can put you right back where you were before you were hurt," Tenisha said.

"All right, go ahead," Dania said.

Tenisha put her hands on Dania's black hair, and closed her eyes. Dania felt a pulsing start and fill her body. She felt all of her familiar aches go away – the way her back cracked when she sat up too quickly, the pain in her right ankle from it bearing too much of her weight now that her left leg had gone all gimpy. And finally, the pain so subtle she had forgotten it that her left knee gave her. It was gone. She could feel the bones realigning, the tendons and ligaments righting themselves. Everything popped back into place just as it had been wrenched out of place so long before.

"How do you feel?" Tenisha asked, withdrawing her hands from Dania's head.

"Let me test it," Dania replied. She stood. She walked. She jumped. She danced a little jig. She turned a cartwheel. She began to laugh and hugged the healer tightly, inadvertently knocking her wig to the floor. Embarrassed, she looked away as the girl hurriedly scooped it up and righted it, though she saw a glimpse of a bald head and some strange tattoos on her scalp. Hm, that's odd. Usually if you lose your hair to the fever it grows in like duck down, it doesn't make you bald as an old man. But this fleeting concern was lost in the sea of ecstasy, feeling herself whole again. As an apology, she thrust a fistful of gold into the young woman's hands. "Good gods!" she exclaimed, "You are a wonder!"

"You're welcome, Adahni. It brings me great joy to relieve others of their pain," Tenisha said, evidently not sore about the wig incident, and "Tell others what I have done here."

"Of course," she said, "Of course I will!" She jumped and clicked her heels in the air, and ran off down the street back to the inn.

That night, she danced – danced! – with the handsome young longshoreman who had heckled the bard. After a few drinks, she took him to bed, pushing him down to have her way with him, her on top. After two years of her knee being unable to hold her weight, she was looking forward to this small pleasure.

Alas, before she had the opportunity, her door banged open, and in walked Keowan. She rolled off the dockworker hurriedly, wondering what the hells was going on. He'd never pulled this before.

"Get the hells out of here, boy," he growled, picking up the longshoreman's shirt from the floor and chucking it at him, "I want to talk to my wife."

"Wife?" the boy exclaimed, saw the murderous look on Keowan's face, and hightailed it out of there without bothering to grab his pants.

"Wife?" Dania repeated, incredulously, "Keowan, we had a deal."

"I don't care," he said. He stripped off his armor, tossed It in the corner, and crawled into bed with her. He was drunk as all the hells, his breath reeking of whiskey, and unsteady on his feet. He kissed her clumsily, and put his hand on her breast, "I'm fucking… I'm fucking sick of sharing you, Addie."

"Dani," she corrected, "Let's talk about this tomorrow. For right now, you've interrupted me while I was doing something I've been wanting to do for years, so you'll have to stand in for that poor boy. You probably took ten years off his life scaring him like that." She skillfully rolled him over, and straddled him.

"But your leg…" he protested.

"It's better. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow when you're sober."

"Good," he said, "I always liked it better this way…"

They hadn't made love in a bed for years, only in the narrow bunk they shared aboard the Dance of the Damned with only a thin curtain separating them from the rest of the crew. Here, on the straw mattress and woolen blankets, she appreciated his presence for the first time in a long time. Spent and sweaty, they fell down beside each other. Soon, Keowan was sleeping, and Adahni was close.

She knew your name, she thought suddenly, the thought shaking her awake. The scene when she had left the healer's stall played over in her head, and she distinctly remembered Tenisha addressing her as Adahni, not Dania. Oh gods, she knows who I am.

Calm down, you're probably just misremembering. Or perhaps you slipped up and told her your name was Adahni by mistake. It's not a big deal. You're so far away from Neverwinter. Nobody would think to look for you here. They think you two years dead.

But still the nagging voice dogged at her as she let sleep overtake her.

She knows who you are.