Even Ends Bring About Beginnings

[Khariss Sevrath]

[Closed to Jack Stone]

All men make mistakes. Smart men turn mistakes into opportunities.

Khariss liked to think of himself as a smart man.

Take the infamous business venture, for example: the Illicit Entrepreneurs. It had massive potential. He had planned to take over the Bazaar and impose his own tax on all of the goods sold there, and that was just the beginning. He hadn’t anticipated his men ditching the scheme, however. In the end, the Bazaar remained untouched, Khariss was run out of Radasanth and the Illicit Entrepreneurs diverted all of its attention from salvaging the situation, choosing instead to wage war against Rajani Aishwara’s Peregrine Group. That little vendetta ceased when Rajani seemingly disappeared. Khariss Sevrath gained two things from the entire ordeal. The first was a “Wanted” sign, complete with his name and description, posted to every available wall and tree in Radasanth.

The second was a half-dozen sizable barrels of gunpowder, pilfered unnoticed from a mine in the mountains of Alerar.

Any amount of gunpowder was rare outside of Alerar. But six barrels?

It was this that made Khariss a smart man. The Illicit Entrepreneurs was a mistake, an undeniable failure. But from it, he seized an opportunity: he had a valuable commodity that, if sold in the right situation, would net him unfathomable profit. It was with this plan in mind that the quick-thinking merchant found himself bound for Raiaera and the port city of Anebrilith.

The conditions were unexpected, although not altogether undesirable. Instead of sitting on the brink of war with Alerar as was the norm, they found themselves under siege by a new enemy: Xem'zûnd. Copies of the latest Radasanthian Reader were scattered all over the ship. From what Khariss could gather, Carnelost had already fallen and Anebrilith was likely to be the next target. In order to buy time, some “Bladesinger’s Guild” was attempting to destroy the bridges on the Elleduin River.

Now, Khariss didn’t know what a Bladesinger was. He also wasn’t particularly remorseful of the loss of the outpost of Carnelost. He saw it as the loss of a market, and nothing more. Such knowledge and compassion was trivial. Here was an extremely great opportunity to have an entire country indebted to him. That was what mattered most to the man. They wanted to destroy bridges. There were few things in the world more capable of destroying things than explosives.

An exultant smile split the man’s grizzled face. Perhaps this was the break he was waiting for. It was considerably more legal than he would have ever expected, but that was by no means a bad thing.

Still grinning, Khariss gazed from the bow of the ship. The gray sea rose and fell all around him, and Anebrilith’s waterfront grew ever larger ahead. It was a matter of minutes now. He could feel the butterflies begin to flutter in his stomach. That was a feeling that he relished.

It signified the beginning of something great.

[Jack Stone]

Upon arrival at Anebrilith, Jack Stone had been horribly overwhelmed. The docks were just as busy as they had been in Corone; no, more so. People were everywhere, as one could expect on a sunny afternoon, but something was amiss. The boy had been comforted at first by the matching confusion of the people from his ship, but those people had somewhere to be, and Jack soon found himself all alone with his horse in a strange land where the general atmosphere was grim.

The boy cautiously walked his horse away from the ship that had carried him away from everything he had ever known, and he tried to stay out of the way, but the docks were far too busy for anyone with a horse to accomplish that. Jack figured, though, that were it not for his horse Lily, he may have gone unnoticed, but it seemed to him that to go unnoticed would be to get trampled. At least with the horse people gave them a second of their all too obviously precious time, and he managed to enjoy thinner crowds in a matter of minutes.

The volume of people diminished, but that dread atmosphere went unchanged. Jack almost attempted to inquire as to what the problem was, but he decided everyone was moving too fast (and he was too nervous.)

He really had no idea where to go, or what the city held, but had been in cities before, and so he understood the general workings. He walked Lily out of the docks and into the city proper, and began to navigate the cobbled streets. He mostly avoided eye contact and strode with a purpose as though he had one. He did not, however, and so he soon found himself hopelessly lost among large, gray, stone buildings.

He stopped near a particularly large one and sat down upon a bench out front. He beckoned/pulled Lily over, and extracted some bread and an apple from her saddle bags. He helped Lily eat the apple, then helped himself to the bread. He munched it thoughtfully. His confusion was overturned by a sudden swell of pride as he sat on the bench and watched people walk by. Here he was. In a faraway land, alone with his horse. He had made it, and for the time being he forgot about his sister and his family and just enjoyed his new freedom. It was sometime in the afternoon, so he still had some time to find something to do, maybe a place to sleep, and perhaps find out what everyone was so glum about. Or he wouldn't. He was on his own, now, and he could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

He was chewing and smiling when the paper notice by somebody named P.J. Pullhearst was blown into his face by the wind.