[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

The thralls who had been onboard long enough, understood to take advantage of The Fame and Fortune laying anchored, and many of the slaves in the rowing pit dozed leaning to each other and to the walls of their floating prizon. A few talked to one another in whispers- it hadn't been so quiet for a long time. Footsteps crossed a room somewhere above and climbed stairs every now and then, waves swashed licking the sides of the ship and seagulls wailed dejectedly. Or maybe they were happy. "Why shouldn't they be?" Jagar snorted, "flying around oblivious to what it is like not to be able to follow fresh sea winds wherever your sould would yearn." Shouts and distant clattering from shore were carried with a gentle breeze to the slave deck while the Númenórean Lords and their troops rampaged through some seashore town, probably killing and plundering everything that passed on their way. "Funny how much you can hear when it is silent enough."

Other slaves who weren't sleeping squirmed restlessly on their seats not knowing what would happen next, how soon and how it would affect their miserable lives. Jagar leaned on his right and reached to stick his head out of an oar hole. He saw black smoke drifting over the city and thought of Ferethor's plan. “The strength of this vessel is that it’s isolated, so that there’s nowhere to run, but that can be also its weakness. It’s made out of wood, darn it. It’s not fireproof.” That's what Ferethor had said to him, “I know it’s soaked with brine, but if we could steal strong liquor from the captain’s own cabin to fuel the fire…" It was an intriquing thought, "and now would be a perfect opportunity to start following the scheme", Jagar muttered.

Jagar glanced at Chakka who was asleep and drooped against an oar. Jagar hadn't kept him very good company; he hadn't been able to tell much about the life of a galley slave and most of the time they had sat quiet staring forward and concentrated on rowing. When Chakka had tried to lift their spirits with a song, a few hard blows on the back had restored the silence. Jagar felt slightly bad about this although he wasn't quite sure, why. "Left foot, peg foot, traveling on, follow the Drinking Gourd", Jagar hummed half whispering and eyed Chakka, but the man didn't show any signs of hearing his hoarse singing.

On the spur of the moment, Jagar shook off his shackles that Ferethor had conjured open and stood up. No one seemed to notice when he stepped over his bench and turned to leave towards a door at the front.

"And where exactly do you think you're going?" a voice demanded behind Jagar. He turned around and saw Chakka staring at him wide awake and vigilant, and a few other slaves had now raised their heads, too, to observe these two men. "I've said this before and I'll say it again: it's folly to even think of setting this ship on fire. We'll all die", Chakka said firmly. "Do you want to die?" he added as Jagar did not answer. "I don't know yet. I let the fortune decide and I'll just play along", Jagar grinned and walked to the door accompanied by bewildered shouts and whispers.

Jagar had barely walked out of the slave deck when he heard steps on a staircase. At once, he crouched into shadows behind a barrel in a corner before a young boy came down carrying water and a dipper. The boy stopped for a moment to take a better grip of the heavy water bucket. He gazed around narrowing his eyes and paused to look at the barrel behind which was Jagar's hide-out. Jagar felt his heart pounding faster; he had been seen and the youngster would hurry away to sound the alarm. But insted, the boy picked the bucket up again and wended his way to the rowing pit. As Jagar slowly emerged behind the barrel, he heard the boy waking up the slaves and calling them to take water.

Jagar wandered along corridors and climbed up stairs. He didn't know, where the quarters of any of the men of high rank would be, but he assumed that they had to be somewhere a good measure above the slavedeck - "and somewhere where it's cleaner", Jagar noted as a skinny rat darted past him.

The fortune seemed to have decided to be favorable to Jagar, for shortly after he had climbed up yet one stairs, he halted in front of a door that was more decorative than the ones he had seen thus far and it had a keyhole of different colour and shape than in other doors. There was no one in sight- after all, it was a serene day and the few guards who had been left to the ship were probably loafing on deck. It was until then Jagar realised that he had nothing for a picklock with him. There was a knife, no, two knives hidden under his bench down in the rowing pit and he had forgot them completely, but he wouldn't go down to fetch the knives anymore. Jagar sweared silently through his teeth and grimaced at the pompous door.