Feeling but half-alive, Gord traveled on with his new band of comrades. Soon they took ship and sailed into the southern seas of Oerik — the name of the great continent on which is found the City of Greyhawk. As traders in the wild jungles there, as island explorers, and as buccaneers too, the young thief and his friends went. They earned fabulous treasures and gained untold wealth, only to lose it just as readily in games of chance or mishaps in some exotic city of the many lands of the southwestern seas. Eventually the pain of Gord's loss became only a dull ache that upset his quiet moments and disturbed his sleep.

Gord had finally become a full-fledged man, and one with wisdom beyond his years. Still a daring thief and a willing roisterer, he was no longer altogether uncertain of himself or what he stood for. Despite that, he remained ignorant of his background. Who had his parents been? Why had he been abandoned in the slums? Those questions and others remained unanswered, and when he thought about them — which was often — they troubled him.

The saga now continues with Gord aboard a ship in the southern waters off Oerik. Much is in store, not only for Gord but for those who share this episode of his life with him….

Chapter 1

The leaden sky lowering above seemed to press flat the dull waters of the sea. The lean ship sat upon those waveless waters as does a little fowl in the center of a great pewter salver, alone, awaiting a certain fate. The air was as motionless as the water. Heat and oppressive silence were the vessel's only companions in the middle of that forsaken ocean desert. No creak of plank, no rattle of rigging, not a splash of wave or whisper of motion in canvas.