ã€ŠFlint Pyrate Academy: The Ghosts of Naarfynderã€‹


 Chapter 1: The First Mistake

    Amelia Roberts was in her usual place that first night. Her own private little headspace island called Neverland. Or Wonderland depending on her mood and what stories she had been reading recently.

    Her mother had once called it her ¡°island sanctuary¡±.

    Her father had said it was her ¡°mind palace¡±.

    Her primary school teachers had frequently maligned it as her ¡°panic room¡±.

    Her elder sister half-jokingly called it her ¡°little hidey hole¡± and her younger sibling said it was her ¡°happy place¡±.

    The common denominator in all these descriptions was that they all originally sprouted from a place of mild irritation or exasperation. But the fact was they were all, in some way or another, true.

    She now dug into that plane of whimsy as firmly as she could and held fast as she had been doing for the past several days.

    Reason being the real space her body occupied in said period was about as far from her comfort zone as one could be in somewhat sane reality. A fact made all the crazier by that it was entirely her own decision. One she had been fretting over and doubting even since before she¡¯d first set her tender foot on the deck boards.

    But there was no retreat now. Her passport didn¡¯t cover round trips. Unless she found a bottle of pixie dust secreted under a rock somewhere she was going to have to keep to this path she¡¯d started herself on for the foreseeable future.

    Hence her keeping her gaze so vehemently fixed figuratively inward.

    She sat in her mute fantastical sanctity inside the belly of a rocking, rolling passenger barge on its way to a school. An Academy, so her father¡¯s old mate Billy Bones had told her on not infrequent occasion, for those select beasts with an unmitigable inability to abide authority.

    He hadn¡¯t phrased it nearly so concisely, but it had stayed with Amelia all the same.

    Outside, thunder rolled like grim drums, searing bolts of lightning painted the dark quarters of the cargo hold in harsh pale shades. Each time offering her a brief but intense view of her surroundings.

    She had made the mistake of poking a periscope out of her daydream utopia exactly five times during the entire voyage and had recoiled instantly on each occasion.

    Isolated was as good a word as any she knew to describe her state. But despite her feelings or what she may have dearly wished was the case, in actual fact she was in the furthest fathomable thing from solitude.

    Pressing in on her unrepentantly from all sides were beasts of every possible shape, size, color and pattern from each of the farthest corners of every land mass from the frigid Mentatan tundra to the swampy Amurzan badlands.

    They sat packed together like a herd of livestock on stiff wooden benches as they had done more-or-less constantly for the last two days. The benches were arranged fourteen rows deep and two across, with a narrow aisle splitting them evenly along the ship¡¯s boney keel.

    Amelia herself was wedged in between two particularly surly Pantherine females. She knew she wasn¡¯t the only one who no longer had any sensation below the knees mainly because every other beast within earshot seemed physically incapable of keeping it to themselves.

    Among their diversity of ranks were a sizable majority mammals including Canines, Uruses, several distinct Felines both large and small, and Marsupials, just to name a few.

    They also ferried Avians from all but seven of the one hundred fifty-one Tail Islands. Amphibians held some scattered presence as well, though for various reasons mostly related to biology considerably less than even the other ectothermic taxonomic groups.

    All in all they ranged from the sleek and fast to the thick and brutish. There were those who wore slippery or armored scales instead of the more appealing fur, feathers or skin. Some walked on hooves and others on clawed paws or talons. Most had posable forelimbs, most of which sported at least one set of opposable digits.

    That and a general preference for upright postures constituted the lion¡¯s share of their commonalities.

    One more was a peculiar habit they all, for some odd reason, shared. One for which an origin had yet to be ascertained by historians or divined by mystics of any stripe. That was to cover themselves, if nothing more than the regions involved in reproduction, with innumerable styles, types and patterns of materials. Fabrics, mostly.

    Some were festooned with ribbons, others patterned with creative combinations of silken threads. A few even wore armored mesh woven into the lining of their garments.

    On a normal boat ride this might have raised some suspicion, both from the passengers and the crew. But considering where this particular vessel was bound for, it made almost too much sense.

    One other shared feature from Amelia¡¯s viewpoint was that the bulk of the crowd outweighed her by at least one whole order of magnitude.

    Amelia herself was known in academic circles as an Anuran of the Sapient variety from the Amurzan mainland. To the laybeasts of Aevon, she was known as a poison dart frog, but more commonly was just simply called an Anuran, simply because the word more easily rolled off the tongue and stuck more easily in the brain.

    She had been born into skin which seemed to have been knitted together using scraps of summer sky and fresh orange peels. Her hues were considered exceptionally vibrant even by the fiercely competitive standards of her home Region, Ophidna. A portion of the broader Amurzan Continent frequently ¡°traded¡± in for its immense variety of rich floral and faunal pigment permutations.

    Amelia¡¯s dissimilarity didn¡¯t end there. Even for an Anuran she was small, slender and abnormally bookish. Unusually large violet eyes were set into her otherwise ordinarily constructed reuleaux head.

    Like most Anuran females of her age, where other beasts¡¯ ears would visibly protrude she wore decorated floral arrangements whose prominent leafy fans were meant to symbolize youth and vitality while the gemstone beads that dangled and danced about her neck and shoulders idolized purity and all that entailed.

    She had grown to suspect both attributes were about to be as unrecognizably tattered as the planet¡¯s eruptively reconstituted Crust by the time this crucible forge was through with her.

    An Anuran¡¯s most famous and feared trait by far was the ability to secrete a powerful alkaloid neurotoxin ... a lethal chemical cocktail which prevented its victim¡¯s nerves from transmitting, leaving their muscles in a permanent state of forced contraction.

    It was said that a teacup full of the stuff was capable of killing nearly every living being on this ship three times over.

    Of course the beasts who pushed such research were well known, and deeply despised, among the actually enlightened for their, to put it nicely, lavish exaggerations. But even with this misleading light casting its proverbial inflated shadow the point still held strong.

    The undeniable truth was that this secretion was as virulent and dangerous a natural asset as any fang, claw or horn. The only catch it came with was that to produce it Amelia had to imbibe a special Amurzan herbal formula known colloquially in the worldwide primary language of Adamic as ¡°Pink Berry¡±.

    It¡¯s worth noting that, contrary to popular opinion, the only time this formula had any sort of magickal effects was when the fruit was allowed to sit in its own fermented solution for about ten years.

    Otherwise, to any beast lacking the inbuilt facilities needed to manufacture poison, it was effectively nothing more or less than a garden variety fruit juice. Albeit one with a reportedly rather spicy aftertaste.

    Lucky thing for all in her vicinity that Amelia wasn¡¯t presently carrying any because the stresses of this voyage were putting her natural pacifistic tendencies under near unbearable strain.

    This being the case, she had reverted to the time-tested school survival strategy of squeezing herself into the furthest, darkest corner she could and trying not to make so much as eye contact with any other beast for the majority of their thousand-parayard journey.

    One thing Amelia had in common with her fellow passengers was her reason for being in this miserable position in the first place. They were on their way to enroll in the legendary Flint Pyrate Academy, or FPA.

    It was a boarding school, of sorts, founded over three generations previously to train aspiring Prospects like herself to become hardened Abyss-faring Pyrates like the Academy¡¯s now legendary founder, Captain Nathaniel Flint.

    Amelia had initially been a bit uncertain about this when her father had first brought up the prospect of her and her sisters one day enrolling when they were still little more than tadpoles.

    But when two of them had been lost to the Abyss and the third disappeared into the Void shortly thereafter, Amelia had made her mind up she would become the greatest, most fearsome, Pyrate to ever sail the Nine Depths. Even if that meant she had to imbibe phoenix essence and burn and die in fire a thousand times.

    The problem was that she was neither fearsome nor great. Alone and afraid on a ship bound for destiny¡¯s shore, she chastised herself post hoc for acting so irrationally.

    It was going to take a lot of work to turn her into a powerful Abyss-rover, or a powerful anything for that matter.

    ¡°Ow,¡± she whimpered again as she was tossed again by the ship¡¯s insane jostling. Her thirteen-year-old bones were not yet used to taking this sort of abuse, and they protested mightily as she grunted and whimpered, as the ship tossed her tiny frame about like a hat caught in a raging typhoon.

    Even though it did not sail on water as legends say the ancient ships of the Before Times had done, it was no less subject to the whims of nature. As they drew nearer their destination, the torrential wind and water battered her with the fury of a wild wyntyrdyr desperate to shake an obnoxious hitchhiker.

    All of the passengers jolted and flailed about beneath its effects, irrespective of mass or leverage. Which was bad news for those on the lower end of that scale.

    Ever since the First Divide first fractured the world some twenty million years ago, flying ships like this one had been the only effective means of long travel for most species.

    Like all other free-faring vessels Post Divide, it rode on a cushion of hemispherically condensed Orons, particles which alchemists hailed as the building block of the Magisphere. Otherwise known as ¡°God Particles¡± or ¡°Magick Glue¡±. These repulson fields were held in check by two massive Magnolsis reactors located just aft of the main hold in an uninsulated cabin.

    This was why bulky stock freighters like this weren¡¯t normally used to transport living cargo.

    The reasons for this one being an exception were threefold:

    #1, they, that is the smuggling group the FPA contracted to ferry prospective students, were running several days behind due to rampant logistical and mechanical failures and this was the only floating thing they had available that was both large enough to fill their entire quota on time without drastically exceeding its cargo capacity and on which all essential components met minimum safety standards. Not that they cared about those anyhow. But having an entire ship and load fall into the Abyss was typically bad for business, so the better all around.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    #2, this ship had recently undergone certain ¡°refits¡± that made their current arrangement legal. Albeit by the skin of the captain¡¯s last remaining organic tooth.

    And #3, it was a whole five times cheaper than the next available private or commercial transport. As Amelia¡¯s father had liked to say, ¡°if you want to die rich you have to be willing to live like a beggar.¡±

    Frankly Amelia could not and never had given a damn about wealth. Although a therapist might have posited that her coming from the bosom of one of the wealthiest illegitimate moguls this side of the century might have skewed her mind some. But right now all she really cared about was not dying in a place that looked and smelled like the inside of an unwashed sock.

    Now, finally, after days of being crammed inside this miserable flying packing crate, they finally heard the call from overhead that they had been longing for. From his lookout post on high atop the main mast, the words of the spotter filtered down below through the narrow hatchway vent slits. ¡°On deck! Land Ho!¡±

    The palpable unrest that had settled over the stuffy cabin evaporated in an instant. Understandably excited and eager for any excuse to get off the hard-wood benches, all the Prospects clambered over and under one another to steal a glimpse out of the line of tiny, hastily installed and thus inoperable portholes.

    That is, all except for little Amelia, who stayed firmly plastered in her seat. Although this meant being repeatedly buffeted by the anxious throng.

    After a moment of intensive chatter the bulk of them returned bitterly to their seats, having been unable to see anything through the dense veil of Abyssal clouds looming beneath the ship¡¯s ungainly tub.

    Another long chunk of time later, the skipper''s unmistakable bellicose bellow came leaking down through the creaky deck boards.

    ¡°Bring us in nice and steady!¡± he was yelling to the anchor house. Then came his more general refrain. This time aimed at the rest of his crew.

    ¡°Bleed those sails and make ready!¡±

    Amelia felt a rush of relief flow over her like a river of molten sunlight as she anticipated eagerly her imminent extrication from this miserable flying casket.

    She''d never been fond of Abyssal travel even when she was on deck and not sequestered away below like as many stowed portions of salted meat.

    Her father had used to take her and her sisters out for a quiet day adrift whenever the weather and his work permitted it. But each time, she had always had this uneasy feeling like some unsavory thing was watching her and just waiting to seize and gobble her up.

    She knew this was just her childish imagination playing games on her at the time. But something about hanging suspended many parayards above the planet¡¯s immeasurably torrid core by an intangible thread held less than no appeal for her.

    This, she knew, had less to do with her own imagination and far more with her species hyperactive survival instincts. An unfortunate, though undeniably advantageous, attribute for a beast self-set on such a notably dangerous career path.

    Soon she felt the ship start decelerating and as if to prove this the captain yelled to the fo¡¯c¡¯sle mates, ¡°lay anchor!¡±

    And to the midshipbeasts on the main deck, ¡°Stow sails and pull in the yards!¡±

    They heard the captain''s final order, ¡°dry out the engines! Let ''er ride!¡± as the hatch above them swung open and one of the burly fo¡¯c¡¯sle mates came stomping down to take stock. Bringing with him a deluge of rain and saarding cold wind.

    For the first time in days, Amelia could finally let herself breathe normally. Now came the difficult part: trying to get off this ship without being left behind or getting pulverized.

    As soon as the land-side hatch opened and the gangplank was slid firmly into place, she leapt out of her seat as quickly as she could and bolted toward the narrow opening.

    But she wasn¡¯t fast enough. As is typical when a system reaches critical pressure and a floodgate appears to provide insufficient release, the crowd surged towards the tiny portal with irresistible ferocity and vigor.

    Amelia had made the costly mistake of trying to squeeze through the jumble of meat and sinew, but the ferrous mob in front of her was simply too densely packed. The rest of the passengers gathered in behind her, and she was quickly swallowed up by the lumbering mass of flesh and bones.

    Once it gained momentum, the unyielding horde started dragging her along its way like a racing current as merciless and perilous as the last Divide. So she fell back on her favorite tactic, duck and pray.

    She let the current of the crowd take her. Not that she had much of a choice in the matter.

    She was just about to reach the gangplank when she was violently knocked off her feet by a spiral-horned beast.

    ¡°Watch where you¡¯re going whelp!¡± the beast sneered. To add injury to insult, he purposefully ground the clove of his hoof into her fingers as he shoved past her.

    She screamed and cried out at his cruelty but it all fell on deaf ears. Every other beast was too preoccupied with getting out the door and into shelter away from the driving rain, which by this time was peppering the ground like a hail of Nexi, showing no sign of letting up.

    She climbed painfully to her knees but couldn¡¯t find it within herself to climb all the way to her feet. So, she just stayed there, sniffling, wallowing in her pain and self-pity. She cradled her one injured hand in the other and valiantly fought against the urge to cry, but a hollow void had taken root inside of her. Lacking any better alternative, she attempted to fill it by dredging up her deepest reservoirs of anger and despair. What could have possibly possessed her to want to come to such a horrible place?

    The thought occurred to her to sneak back into the hold and steal a ride back home to Amurza just as a tall, shadowy, cowled figure came into view out of the gloom. His form only distinguished from the night by the flame of a small golden lantern.

    The only reason she noticed him at all were his eyes. Emerald dots that played with the lantern¡¯s fire glow from under his hood like pond waves tossing a lily pad back and forth between them.

    As the figure drew nearer, she heard him shout up at some beast on deck. ¡°Is that all of them?¡± To which she heard the skipper''s gruff drawl, ¡°Dunno! I thinks I counted ¡®em right!¡±

    The figure produced a wooden pallet from inside his cloak. After a moment¡¯s consideration, he shook his head and answered, ¡°By my count, we¡¯re still one short!¡±

    He cast his eyes into the open hatchway, and it was then that he noticed Amelia huddled in the darkness just behind the hull planks like a scared kitten wanting its mother.

    ¡°Hey, you!¡± the figure shouted at her from the ground. ¡°Hey Runt! Hey! Come on! Let¡¯s go! We¡¯re all waiting on you inside!¡±

    She didn¡¯t move. She couldn¡¯t. Not for fear that doing so would knock loose some of the comforting ice scabs that had formed around her mind.

    But notwithstanding her wretched state, she wasn¡¯t about to go anywhere with the likes of a forest wraith. Even if he did remind her of a character she''d encountered in one of her older sister¡¯s romantic pulp novellas.

    When she remained impudent to his second call he stepped up onto the gangplank and started to yell at her a third time, but he stopped short upon seeing and recognizing the extent of her injury. At which point his seemingly callous, cold demeanor dropped and was replaced by the closest thing the present atmosphere would let show through as naked warmth.

    He approached as though she were a wounded animal caught in a trap. When he reached the doorway, he crouched down so that his glistening emerald eyes were level with the top of her head. She looked up at him with wet eyes but could do no more than sniff faintly.

    He removed his hood to reveal a luscious coat of long, flowing black fur, topped by tall pointed ears and a long narrow muzzle. He was an elegant canine creature by every possible definition.

    She had never seen the likes of him before. At least not in person.

    She had, of course, read extensively detailed accounts of the inhabitants of the frozen Zenith continent of Menta. Many of which noting the stark contrast between the unconditionally warm and loyal Canids and the harsh, unforgiving landscape they called home.

    The particular breed in front of her were distinguished by greater than average grace, luscious black coats and their majestically flowing tails. They were also well known for their soft, ruminative manners. It was frequently remarked on by travel boards and travelers to Menta alike how the whole native Canid family conducted themselves with the utmost honor and humility.

    Up until this very moment, she¡¯d passed much of that off as merely poetic blabber. She never really believed that any creature could be so flawlessly breathtaking. That is until she met one.

    He held out a hand and she laid the affected one in it. At his touch a warmth that could not have been strictly physical leaked into her. He looked her abused limb over carefully. Then with a smile like the glow of a winter hearth he gave it back saying, ¡°looks like just a bit of light bruising. Nothing a shot of something strong can¡¯t fix.¡±

    His voice was deep and soothing. His every word was for her bruised psyche what a sip of Papa Manchineel Tea was for a churning stomach. His jewel-like eyes twinkled in the warm light of his lantern¡¯s fire. At that moment Amelia was extremely grateful that her metabolism was permanently set at a consistent state making her physically incapable of blushing.

    ¡°Name¡¯s Harold Drake by the way,¡± he said, taking and holding her gaze with his as though it were an antique tea set. ¡°But most just call me Drake.¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯re you?¡± he asked when she failed to reciprocate.

    It took her a moment to remember herself enough to figure an answer. Which, all told, was probably for the best. For she felt that if she had spoken any sooner she would have wound up wishing she hadn¡¯t.

    ¡°Am-Am-Amelia,¡± she stuttered. Unsatisfied with this meager performance, she swallowed once and tried again, this time without looking at him. Instead, she gave her full attention to the floor. ¡°Amelia Roberts.¡±

    ¡°Well, Amelia,¡± Drake said in a big-brotherly sort of tone, ¡°let¡¯s get you inside and warmed up.¡±

    He helped her get to her feet. When it was clear her brain hadn¡¯t yet remembered quite what those were for yet, he placed a strong hand on her shoulder and guided her over to the hatch where a board Rat was waiting expectantly.

    Drake threw his hood back up and fetched something from a hidden pocket that clinked when it smacked into the Rat¡¯s clammy paw.

    The beast flicked a clawed finger in salute and scurried back topside. When he¡¯d gone Drake muttered as though reading off the back of a wrongly addressed post card, ¡°I swear these mongrels get stingier every year.¡±

    Not knowing if or how best to respond, well aware of the great mass of dislike the word ¡°mongrel¡± carried from a Canid¡¯s mouth, Amelia opted for the proven safety of still, obeisant silence.

    Drake paused one boot out into the Gaian bonanza. He then spun on said same heel, reached into his black pocket of a cloak again and extracted a neatly folded brown bundle. This he handed off to her, saying, ¡°you might want to put this on.¡±

    She unfolded the parcel, finding it to be a shepherd style poncho. Amelia smiled, putting on the cloak, deciding then that she liked this Drake fellow, even though he didn''t talk or act the least bit like a Pyrate ... or perhaps it was precisely because he didn¡¯t.

    Regardless she let him lead her down the stone tile pathway toward the Academy which, first impressions of its occupants notwithstanding, looked warm and welcoming in this dismal weather.

    Words had not been invented yet that encompassed the sheer scale of this place. Not just in the physical sense, which was undoubtably impressive, but also on the metaphorical scale.

    Truly a greater bastion of freedom and hope had never been erected anywhere. At least not within living memory.

    The main gatehouse easily dwarfed the main mast of the glorified barge she¡¯d come in on. And a skilled pilot could have driven a large Frigate through the actual gates at full sail with a few parfeet to spare.

    In front of this gigantic structure stood an equally imposing mossy bronze statue of a grizzly old Dog brandishing a tree-sized cutlass into the battering storm.

    ¡°Mister Drake?¡± Amelia not so much asked as croaked. ¡°Is that him?¡±

    Drake looked down on her without slowing his pace and quirked a smile.

    ¡°Yep,¡± he said, waving his hand with a dramatic flourish as they passed, ¡°that¡¯s the old Dog himself. Captain Nathaniel Flint. The greatest, or at least the richest, pirate who ever lived.¡±

    Amelia¡¯s thoughts raced many leagues ahead of her. She''d always been fascinated by old myths and legends. Namely the fantastical and historical heroes. One of her all-time favorite characters had been the legendary ¡°Black Prince¡±. Master of the equally famous ship, The Fallen Claw.

    She had seen several portraits of him in her books. But no plait or parchment sketch could possibly do justice to the awesome creature standing before her here in immortal metal.

    She forgot the torrential rain for a second. She stood, utterly possessed by a sense of reverent awe.

    As worn and weathered as the idol was, the indominable pride and strength it and its subject embodied were intoxicating and invigorating. She knew she would need both if she was ever to break through the swill of this mean world.

    They were about to enter the impressive gatehouse as Amelia turned to her self-appointed chaperon and started to ask, ¡°mister Drake ¡­¡± when Drake whisked her question away with a cutting wave. ¡°Just Drake. That ¡®mister¡¯ stuff makes me sound like a cardboard administrator or something.¡±

    Amelia put her hand over her mouth. She didn''t dare giggle for fear she might offend the closest thing to a friend, or at least ally, she had thus far managed to make.

    When she''d reassembled her composure she said, ¡°before ¡­ back on the ship I mean ¡­ when you said ¡®we¡¯re waiting for you.¡¯ Who exactly did you mean?¡±

    He stopped under the meager shelter of the gatehouse and gave her a confused look. ¡°The rest of your Prospect group, obviously.¡±

    Drake let a moment of mediating silence pass before he put a compassionate hand on her shoulder again.

    ¡°Ours isn¡¯t an easy road kid. There¡¯s a reason we have to outsource our ferry rides. In the words of Samuel Sparathia, ¡®freedom means setting your moral compass by the winding road, not by static stars. Those who can do this are few. Those with the guts to do so even less so. That is why the free are dreaded.¡¯¡±

    Amelia had her mouth open to speak when she realized she was shaking from head to toe. There was a reason Amphibians didn¡¯t venture out past Aevon¡¯s tropical zone if they could help it. Water was her home element. Water condensed by the freezing Zenith stratosphere was a death siren.

    Drake was quick on the uptake and like a clinical nursemaid he ushered her through the great armored doors and firmly shut the incompatible weather out behind them.

 Chapter 2: A Pyrates Life

    For a monument to individual sovereignty, Flint¡¯s Pyrate Academy was even grander inside than it was without. Depending on where they stood, some had called this ironic, others appropriate. A few had even called it a great artistic metaphor. Though they had clearly known its namesake as well as a tree knows the color of snow.

    Towering at least six stories at its highest point, the hexagonal walls were ribbed in gothic style flutes which culminated in a brass circlet crown cradling a translucent fractal crystal hemisphere.

    The walls were no less beautiful. Every inch was draped in lavish tapestries and paintings depicting scenes of mythic encounters and epic adventures.

    Brave sailors of notably all mammalian descent were shown battling ferocious, often slick and scaly, monsters atop the decks of their mighty galleons. In older tapestries legions of noble, majestic, in some cases angelic, warriors with presumably magick weapons were lashing back against the Mother Goddess¡¯s favorite flaying belt, the sky.

    Spread along the polished brown floor slabs were long, slightly faded ribbons of carpet that stretched across both the length and breadth of the chamber and continued down one of two adjoining hallways.

    On the wall adjacent from the towering doors, there hung a twenty-foot-high color portrait of the Academy¡¯s namesake. A slim yet sturdy Schnauzer robed in a flowing black coat with a fully bearded silver muzzle and a pelt of bristling salt-and pepper. His lone piercing eye held the kind of mesmerizing golden intensity as a candle burning in a dark room.

    He held a chesty pose as his outdoor counterpart, but his aura in here was one of proud guardianship rather than brackish attack. That could have been just the lighting.

    Amelia couldn¡¯t help but spare a morsel of respect for the artistry. The portrait of Flint¡¯s undecorated hangar was aimed squarely at the doors. But the scale and angle of the work gave it the impression of aiming just over the heads of any who entered. His teeth were thus given the inferred effect of being bared defiantly against any ill or parasitic winds that might try and follow them through.

    He looked just as Amelia had seen in like he could do anything and take on whatever the world threw at him.

    Though not nearly as colossal as the weathered bronze sentinel outside, the portrait¡¯s subject still held an invisible iron grip on her psyche. She watched as if from a sentry guard tower as nerve sensations retreated from her extremities in the shadow of its overwhelming splendor.

    Or it could have been Drake¡¯s presence. It was hard to tell.

    By the light of ¡­ whatever was keeping this space so immaculately lit, Amelia could see clearly the face of her rescuer.

    His long black muzzle was strong and sculpted, but it was perfectly offset by his soft ebony scruff and his kind eyes.

    When he again pulled off his sodden hood he revealed a pair of tall, pointed ears. They were almost lost in his long obsidian mane that seemed to swallow any light that was shone on it.

    Amelia¡¯s attention was torn away from Drake by a cacophony of voices coming from just beyond Flint¡¯s portrait. It was a semi-circular group of her ¡°fellow¡± Prospects.

    These were the same beasts who had, not ten minutes ago, unrepentantly used her body as a catwalk. Thankfully, and much to her relief, the ram who had ground her hand with his heel was not among the collected assemblage.

    At the head of the assembled crowd stood another Canid. A tall, slender female with silky golden locks and floppy ears, her bright, desert color pallet and sleek aura serendipitously struck Amelia as the perfect counterpoint to Drake¡¯s dark, mysterious persona.

    As the two soaked stragglers approached, Drake called over to the sunspot lass, ¡°I found our last Runt!¡±

    Amelia balked privately behind her forehead.

    ¡®Runt?¡¯

    Well, that sounded more like Pyrate talk if she¡¯d ever heard it. Granted, she hadn¡¯t. Her only basis for this assumption was the ¡°historically inspired¡± ¡®Tales From the Infinite Woods¡¯ book she''d read on the first ferry leg between Amurza and the Horntooth stopgap port of Dhablai.

    The tall lass turned around, and her genuine smile told Amelia that this was a warm and tender soul. Contrasting Drake, she had a gently rounded muzzle, soft floppy ears, and a coat of luscious honey-gold fur, all of which framed her dark chocolate-brown eyes.

    She wore a buff, maille-girded jerkin over a loose-fitting white linen shirt, with black trousers and high-top boots. But even her dense attire and thick fur did little to suppress the steely musculature beneath.

    She looked the pair over and asked with genuine relief, ¡°where was she?¡± To which Drake answered in a hushed breath so the delinquent throng couldn''t hear, ¡°sitting in a puddle of her own tears.¡±

    She took Drake¡¯s sympathetic tone and reflected its feeling back to Amelia through her eyes.

    ¡°Looks like some gutter fruit gave her a taste of their boot on the way off,¡± he said.

    Ellie touched a hand to her heart, but said nothing. She knew the unrelenting cruelty of insecure adolescents, and Pyrate youths were no exceptions. She dared not infantilize Amelia in front of her peers by coddling her, lest they use it as an excuse to make her life even more painful than it already had been.

    Drake fully removed his cloak. Revealing a black vest with a brown trousers and shirt combo. He took a second to shake himself free of any residual moisture. Amelia started to give her borrowed cloak back to him, but he side-stepped her attempt with the brusque but well-meant assurance of, ¡°keep it. There''s plenty more where that came from.¡±

    Amelia didn¡¯t object. It was a nice cloak. She nodded her appreciation and folded it dutifully into her own jacket pocket as Drake began addressing the Prospects.

    ¡°First things first, we¡¯ll get you all into your dorms.¡±

    He gestured like he was clearing a shelf of its contents. ¡°Lads, if you¡¯ll all kindly follow me. Ladies, you''ll go with Ellie.¡±

    When he then turned to Ellie and gave her a brisk, affectionate peck on the cheek, contradictory waves of admiration and jealousy washed over Amelia¡¯s heart. Per this and the ambient chatter she almost didn¡¯t hear Drake whisper, ¡°meet me under the bell tower later tonight. I¡¯ve got something I need to show you.¡±

    While Ellie¡¯s only conscious response was a short nod, she couldn¡¯t stop an impish grin from momentarily tweaking the corners of her mouth.

    Apparently oblivious to this dilemma, Drake turned and strode away, taking the male section of the new group with him like as many trailing anchor weights.

    He had a casual strength about him which, combined with his physique, flowing cloak and magnificent black tail, made him an intimidating specimen. He carried the aura of a beast who was willing and clearly able to take command.

    Ellie and the other females watched him go. Ellie most of all.

    When he was out of view the honey matron then proceeded to lead the remaining group down the opposite corridor through yet another magnificent set of wood and iron doors.

    This left Amelia with a veritable deluge of questions and no time to explore any of them. She and the gaggle of chattering females were quickly ushered through the gigantic doors before they shut tightly behind them.

    Amelia was starting to notice a troubling trend.

    ¡°One thing I need to make sure we¡¯re all clear on,¡± Ellie said, suddenly stopping and spinning around, as though only just realizing she was being followed. ¡°This is a Pyrate Academy. That¡¯s Pyrate with a ¡®Y¡¯ for those whose parents signed their enrollment papers for them.¡±

    She looked into the wide eyes like an exhausted parent. ¡°Contrary to what many will tell you, we¡¯re not criminals or barbarians. We¡¯re independent contractors. We do NOT steal from or harm the innocent. We do NOT take what we aren¡¯t contractually owed. And we do NOT kill unless our own lives depend on it.¡±

    She threw a final critical scan over the group before asking ¡°any questions?¡± in a tone that clearly suggested it was very much rhetorical.

    When nobody proved stupid enough to take the bait, Ellie nodded approvingly and continued on the tour as though nothing had happened.

    They walked down hallway after endless hallway. All the while Ellie recited, as if from an actual encyclopedia, trivial facts about the Academy. Side facts about a variety of subjects ranging from its founding, its history, and the significance behind every portrait, tapestry and decoration.

    Most of the other girls had stopped listening before they¡¯d gone fifty paces. The last one lasted only two more minutes before finally dropping her ears.

    Even Amelia kept up a charade of interest solely out of what she idealistically refrained from calling pity. It didn¡¯t help that Ellie¡¯s own enthusiasm for the subject seemed somewhat hollow.

    ¡°A dozen baths an hour will deplete the well in a day.¡± ¨C Jackson Sanders

    At last, after what had felt like hours, but had actually been only twenty minutes, they stopped in front of a narrow stone spiral staircase. Ellie took a moment to inform them that its counterclockwise rotation was a deliberate design decision.

    In the event of an invasion, it would allow the defenders coming down from above to use their swords, while denying this advantage to their attackers coming up the stairs.

    By this point even Ellie¡¯s docent mask was looking a bit threadbare. It took only a few moments of uncomfortable silence for her to finally come to the ultimate point of their tour.

    ¡°This is the Zen dorm tower. Here¡¯s where we ladies put up our racks during semesters when we¡¯re not out on jobs.¡±

    She kept talking despite the sniggers as she lead them up the spiraling stone stairs.

    ¡°There¡¯s no official curfew. However, no student under fifteen is allowed outside the walls after first sundown. Officially. And it¡¯s on your own head if your roommate doesn¡¯t ditch the lamps until four hours into the morning. So keep your nightsticks handy.¡±

    Locked into a single file formation, as that was the most the shoulder-width staircase would accommodate, adolescent murmurs passed up and down like rapids down a babbling brook.

    According to their guide, the reason for the tight fit was the same as why they were ascending counterclockwise. The same as why the Academy itself was built on an island isolated by a thousand parayard barrier of sharp rocks and craggy islands.

    Like any successful champion, piratical or otherwise, Flint had not been without powerful adversaries. He knew any legacy of his would be a prime target for assault. He also knew that his successors could prove to be a major thorn to whatever powers ruled the lands abroad.

    So he¡¯d designed the Academy as a fortress thorn bush for fledgling spirits to nest under. Unmolested by the troublesome irons of society, government and their sanctioned dogmas until they were ready to spread their wings, take off into the sunset and fight those battles themselves.

    At the third landing, past a steel-braced door with an armored slot serving as a window, they recongregated in a hexagonal chamber roughly five paces to a side with an identical door on each of the five walls. All the doors, including the one to the stairway, were miniature versions of the main doors.

    Made from thick, dark oak approximately two fingers wide, they were reinforced on the outside with steel slats and on the inside with gun-barrel-thick iron bolts.

    Ellie turned squarely to the group and said, ¡°alright ladies, choose your space. It¡¯s three to a room.¡±

    No sooner had the last word finished corrugating the air, an intangible wind blew out her pilot light of control and the girls scattered like Bees after flower nectar at the end of a long winter.

    Ellie shouted the last of her practiced spiel after them. ¡°Remember, choose wisely! Whatever bunk you pick will be yours for the next eighteen months!¡±

    Amelia stayed plastered to the spot. Her parents hadn¡¯t raised a fool. Jumping in with the herd had already nearly cost her a finger. Rather than making the same mistake a second time, she instead called on another piece of tried and true childhood wisdom. ¡®Stick to the adult.¡¯ Or in this case, nearest to.

    She waited until the throng had fully dissipated before timidly wandering over to Ellie.

    In a voice that sounded as tiny as she felt she tried to ask, ¡°miss, is it all right if I room with you?¡± Though what actually came out was more like, ¡°mrrsisst lrifI rmwyou?¡±

    Ellie gave her a tired but wholly sincere and understanding smile. ¡°Sure,¡± she said. Whether she¡¯d guessed Amelia¡¯s meaning correctly or was acting on experienced intuition Amelia knew not at all and cared even less.

    There followed a constricting pause in which Ellie¡¯s honeyed demeanor took on a tinge of vinegar. ¡°If Bon Bon ever decides to show up she¡¯ll be staying with us too.¡±

    Amelia cocked her head. A tick she¡¯d picked up from a Mentan missionary friend of her father¡¯s.

    Ellie didn¡¯t appear to notice. Some hyperscopic incursion on reality in or on the far wall had drawn her into its proverbial net and was holding her fast. It took Amelia only a few moments to concoct a theory on what that something might be.

    The simple but shrewd observation of Ellie¡¯s nose and eyes twitch like she¡¯d inhaled pepper was all it took to get the intellectual ball rolling.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    It was a look Amelia had seen often enough to know that her elder was trying to come up with a response that didn¡¯t involve a generous helping of profanity. She didn¡¯t seem to be having very much success.

    After a lengthy pause Ellie gave up her attempts at professional euphemisticsm. In acknowledging her defeat she shrugged and said, ¡°she¡¯s the younger sister you wish had been given up for adoption.¡±

    Amelia bit her lip. She¡¯d known Ellie a little over fifteen minutes, but she recognized a restrained insult when she heard one. If Amelia was to trust her judgement, and she saw no reason to stop now, this Bon Bon character was one it was in her best interest to keep at arm¡¯s distance.

    She and Ellie took a right angle left and were greeted by the sight of her dunnage piled into a neat stack in the middle of the floor. She pounced on it like a mother Bear after a lost cub, then in like manner examined her surroundings for anything that might try to jump out and bite her.

    Nothing did. Which was an improvement.

    She relaxed enough to take in the room itself.

    If this were an apartment, the landlord might have picked a word like ¡°humble¡± for their selling base. If that were inadequate, they¡¯d probably drop a few dollops of ¡°canvas¡±, and maybe a pinch of ¡°renovation¡± and ¡°makeover¡± into the pot for a bit of added sweet and spice.

    Amelia wouldn¡¯t have thought to argue.

    It was a cozy little space as far as Spartan barracks went. A rounded hexagon rocket of a room, with a plain linen rug, a wooden table large enough for four on which sat a crude oil lamp, three functional wooden chairs, three nightstands, which were each just baby versions of the main communal slab, and a pair of iron-crossed windows about as tall and broad as Amelia.

    The one oddity she noted was that where experience and conventional wisdom told her should be a bed actually stood what looked to be a reinforced hat rack. A closer inspection brought to light a canvas roll, a pair of blankets and a towel.

    ¡®Hammocks.¡¯

    ¡°Hammocks.¡±

    A year ago this time Amelia might have thought Ellie had telepathic powers. Luckily for her the first step on the ladder towards age and wisdom, signified by her honorific dangling beads, had polished out that particular dent of childhood foolishness.

    It might have even been called homy were it not for the inclement weather and it being an early autumn evening near the very top of the map.

    The white plaster walls made up for some of the room¡¯s photonic deficiency. But Ellie still had to hold the table lamp out into the common room just to find the ignition switch.

    The light of the flame revealed that each night table was home to a miniature cousin of the same source. One of which Amelia instinctually went for and ignited.

    She then tossed her bags down on the spot and went through them to make sure everything was present and accounted for.

    Not that she had anything particularly worth taking. She had deliberately only packed a few sets of old clothes, some pocket reference books and a few personal trinkets for that very reason.

    But now, here, these things were her last frugal vestiges of home. She wasn¡¯t about to let them out of her sight. Not without a strong lock and tempered steel box between them and any potential thieves that is.

    As if by some miracle of quantum sorcery, the gods or the universe or whatever powers pulled the strings of existence, had seen fit to provide her that very thing.

    A flanged rectangle of riveted iron, two feet by one foot by one foot on a side, sat nestled underneath the smaller table like a hibernating Fox.

    Amelia fought the mass of vault metal out into the open, placed her precious belongings in it with reverent care, then bolted it shut with the hefty brick of a padlock that came ready supplied at the bottom.

    The key made a satisfying CLICK signifying its good work. She slung the brass herald by its cord around her neck and tucked it snuggly under her coat collar. Tapping it three times against her breast for added warding against thieving imps.

    ¡°Hang onto that,¡± Ellie said while doing similar. ¡°There¡¯s no extras. Lose it and, take it from me, you¡¯ll need ten crowbars to get dressed tomorrow.¡±

    ¡°Or a couple of hook pins,¡± a voice like a sheet of ice from the doorway offered.

    Both girls spun around. One surprised, the other less so, to see a tall, lanky Doe leant cross-armed against the door frame. Half silhouetted, half shadowed by the contrarian light sources.

    ¡°Amelia,¡± said Ellie, trying her best to sound casual after that little rush of adrenaline, ¡°meet Henrietta Morgan. Daughter of the much acclaimed Henry Morgan. Yes, that one,¡± she finished, catching Amelia¡¯s formulating question on her raised brow.

    ¡°Hemlock,¡± the Doe said with a trace of a smirk. Or maybe it was a sneer. It was hard to tell as her face seemed to be made out of the same material as the sword and gun she had dangling respectively from her hip and thigh.

    Amelia looked at Ellie and asked, ¡°does every Pyrate get a nickname?¡±

    Ellie just snorted out a laugh. Hemlock actually answered. ¡°Just the ones who earn them.¡±

    Ellie turned to Hemlock and asked in an unconvincingly light tone, ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you have any idea where Bon Bon got off to?¡±

    This time Hemlock snorted her answer. ¡°At the bottom of the Abyss if the Gods have any sense.¡±

    She and Ellie exchanged gestures of agreement. Then Hemlock departed.

    After they had finished settling in, Ellie took out a shiny brass pocket watch and flatly stated, ¡°I¡¯m going to go find Bon Bon. No telling what trouble that beast is getting her fuzzy hide into.¡±

    She turned to Amelia and with her words suggested but with her eyes pleaded, ¡°want to tag along? It¡¯ll help you get your bearings and maybe meet some of the Troves and Apprentices you¡¯ll be training with.¡±

    Amelia weighed this offer delicately, as though some portion might turn out to be counterfeit. It made more sense than sitting here alone with nothing but her anxious thoughts for company.

    Of course there was the risk they might actually run into Bon Bon. But that was bound to happen eventually, she reasoned. Better to get it off her plate now while she had expert backup.

    In the end she ruled that the pros marginally outweighed the cons. So, with her acceptant nod and to Ellie¡¯s clear thankful relief they set off.

    Not long into their ¡°search¡± they bumped into the remains of their male-counterpart tour group. But by now, it appeared that only half their roster was present. Drake and only three or four skittish young boys remained. The rest were likely either lounging back in their own dorm, or they had elected to explore the Academy on their own.

    As Amelia would imminently come to learn, young boys operated on a hybrid system of faith and reckless hubris whose order of operations had been summarily codified by the eighth century physician and pioneering psychologist, Truk Pietzza, with the acrostic term LARP.

    In literal speak: Leap, Assess, Regret, Process.

    Drake caught sight of Ellie and was only too happy to dismiss his remaining bundle of charges. Who were likewise only too happy to evacuate the mandated drudgery session before the last of the setting suns swallowed up their freedom.

    He strode over and asked where they were going.

    Amelia tried to speak but found her tongue had been mysteriously glued to the back of her teeth.

    Luckily, Ellie didn''t seem to have that problem and so told him, ¡°we¡¯re on a holy quest. We seek to return a wayward soul from the Abyss.¡±

    Drake smiled and theatrically rolled his eyes. ¡°And who might this damned person be oh saintly one?¡±

    ¡°Only the muskiest of Muskrats my dear,¡± she said, sidling up to where she could have slipped inside his cloak. She pushed the heavy green canvas back, laced her arms around his neck and kissed him.

    A corps of Ants raced through Amelia¡¯s belly as she pretended to be enraptured by something in the floor grout.

    Drake smiled, too and, to himself said, ¡°I think I might join your heroic errand.¡± He took Ellie by the arm and whispered softly into her ear, ¡°and maybe later we can go enjoy the view.¡±

    He then saw Amelia and, trading the knowledge of her presence for the fact scratched nervously at some imaginary fleas.

    ¡°That is ¡­ we, um ¡­¡± he started. But when every subsequent line of thought either sputtered out or reached a dead end, he fell back on the one safe conversational hill. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±

    Amelia nodded. She knew something was going on and was resolved to get to the bottom of it. But for now, she decided it was best to just watch and listen.

    Her godfather had once told her, ¡°your eyes, ears and mind are the greatest weapons ever devised. In the right hands they have the power to make the mightiest warships obsolete.¡±

    ¡°I honestly don¡¯t know how you do that every semester,¡± Drake remarked as their purposeful stride pulled them well ahead of Amelia. ¡°I was ready to shoot half of them within ten minutes.¡±

    Ellie shrugged. Then, sticking her nose in the air with sarcastic pomp, she offered, ¡°I guess it¡¯s just my superior wit and charm.¡±

    Drake bit his lip teasingly and chuckled. ¡°Maybe next time you should take the boys¡¯ group. I''ll handle the ladies instead.¡±

    Ellie flashed him a suggestive look. ¡°And how exactly would you ¡®handle¡¯ them? Hmm?¡±

    This time Drake was ready and smiled. Meeting her challenge with a nipping riposte. ¡°I can show you later.¡±

    Their conversation quickly dissolved, as such juvenile dialogues are wont to, into taunting jousts regaled in playful banter with spasms of intimate tousling.

    Most any other beast would have felt an awkward mix of dejection and envy tagging along behind, but Amelia knew only the height of transcendent wonder.

    Not so vicarious as to be clinical, but not so personal as to be disarming. A floating, casual peace. She was a shadow on the bed of a clear river following a carefree raft.

    They carried on in this way for a good half an hour. Amelia thought she might be better off taking a cue from the boys and exploring a bit on her own.

    She briefly considered seeking out the Academy¡¯s library when, from around the corner, a beast emerged, someone she hadn''t expected to see again in a million years.

    Without a moment¡¯s hesitation, she demonstrated her species¡¯ other, slightly less well known, biological boon. Speed. Faster than either Drake or Ellie could see, she shot forward and threw her arms around the tall robed creature. He, in turn, reciprocated.

    Avlon was about Drake¡¯s height and was outstandingly fit for a canine of his advanced years, as was evident beneath his billowing Headmaster¡¯s robe, whose deep cherry velvet and golden embroidery almost completely concealed his traditional Abyss-faring pirate garb.

    This utilitarian, though slightly anachronistic getup included a loose, open-collared beige shirt, black belt, brown trousers and tall black boots.

    ¡°Just a costume,¡± he tended to claim. ¡°Relic props. The funeral raiment of a much greater beast. More nostalgic than practical nowadays.¡±

    Like Drake he had a long, full coat and mane. But unlike his understudy his soft ears were folded over. His fur was the color pallet of a collie¡ªbrown-on-black, with a magnificent white fur collar ruff. But he had a beard that was entirely too long.

    In abbreviated terms, he was Drake¡¯s older, wiser, thinner, more cunning and heterochromatic twin. Had he not been an entirely disparate breed he might have been Drake¡¯s grandfather. But he was, so that was ruled out.

    Avlon¡¯s gunmetal eyes played with a sophisticated utensil set of emotions, delight, pride and regret mainly in this case, as they took in his young goddaughter.

    Finally, he exhaled the pressure of decades¡¯ duty and said with an accent like the wingbeats of a circling Hawk, ¡°you¡¯ve grown.¡±

    This was a lie. The last time he¡¯d seen her had been less than a year ago. Normally, female dart frogs reached their mature stature around their ninth year, if not before. And Amelia had been no exception.

    She appreciated his compliment nonetheless and squeezed him even tighter.

    The Headmaster acknowledged Drake and Ellie with a nod and a benevolent smile. Drake took this as an invitation to speak.

    ¡°Headmaster,¡± he started, looking from Dog to Frog and back again. ¡°This is the ru ¡­ ehm, the Prospect we were missing. I found her huddled on the ferry.¡±

    He stopped.

    The Headmaster had fixed the older students with an unreadable countenance. When he spoke there was a subtle but discernable edge in his voice.

    ¡°Did you now?¡±

    The inexplicable change in tone sent an avoidant chill wandering through Amelia¡¯s nervous system which manifested as a systemic flinch.

    Avlon didn¡¯t appear to notice.

    He looked past her to address Ellie with a smile that couldn¡¯t quite budge his eyes. ¡°I believe Bonnet¡¯s young one was looking for you perhaps twenty minutes ago. She said you should find her in the Zenith dorm tower at your earliest convenience.¡±

    Had he said this to anyone else he may as well have handed them a map from another century leading to a treasure buried in another Era. Far from having just a simple language barrier, they would have been standing in totally different worlds.

    Amelia, for example, knew Avlon well enough to know that he, and only he, could refer to the scandalous Anne Bonney as ¡°Bonnet¡± with a straight face. Due in no small part to their alleged fling having been the initial catalyst for the events that would start her down the old piratical path.

    Likewise, Drake and Ellie both had enough experience with Bon Bon to know that she would have as soon stopped to shoot the breeze with the Headmaster as she would have gotten in a bath with a bull wyntyrdyr. Which would be on the exact same day some mad alchemist actually produced gold out of a potion mixed of sulfur, cinnabar and quicksilver.

    And just to put an extra fine point on it, to Ellie¡¯s personal understanding of her cinnamon-tinted junior the idea of her actively seeking out anyone who wasn¡¯t either another gossip freak or a potential romance partner, or sparing an iota of thought for their convenience, was so absurd it could have inspired its own comedic subgenre.

    Between that and Avlon¡¯s unbending countenance the Pyrate pair took the hint. They bowed their heads respectfully to Avlon and Ellie left Amelia with a wave before doubling back towards the girls¡¯ dorm tower, leaving the distended family unit behind to their private affairs.

    Once they were alone the Headmaster shook his head as though trying to recall the sensation of a breeze.

    Amelia waited for him to say something. When he didn¡¯t, she plucked her dusty courage jar off the shelf and asked, ¡°why are beasts so strange?¡±

    Where this had come from she couldn¡¯t say. But regardless, it brought her godfather back to his usual puppyish humor, so she didn¡¯t think too hard about it.

    He laughed. She had always loved the way he laughed. It was a pure and sweetening sound. Almost balletic in its simple yet hypnotic rhythmancy.

    ¡°My dear,¡± he said, putting his arm lightly around her shoulder, ¡°most beasts are like this planet. They have their good and bad spots. Their good and their bad days. The main trick in life is learning to spot the difference.¡±

    He quirked an eyebrow. An involuntary expression which Amelia alone knew meant that he¡¯d had an unexpectedly edgy thought.

    Sure enough, he bent down close to her ear and whispered, ¡°I¡¯ll leave it to you to decide where weapons come into play.¡±

    She smiled. There it was, she knew. The reason that her father, revered pirate captain Bartholomew Roberts, had asked Avlon to be her godfather.

    Here was the only beast in the whole world to whom she could pose such an open, inarticulate question and receive a clear, yet thoroughly thought provoking answer. The one beast who would never dream of treating her like a helpless orphan, simply because that mode didn¡¯t exist in his operational directory.

    ¡°You¡¯d best be getting back now I think,¡± he said. ¡°Got places to go. People to see. Things to do. Pyracy, remember, is nine tenths organization, ten percent frantic effort.¡±

    She gave him another long, tight squeeze. Then she took off. Literally.

    Evolution had made her parent species extraordinary bounders. A very handy trait when growing up in a part of the world where straight lines are a thing one only tends to hear about in stories.

    But out in the wider world that edge mostly only counted in the vertical plane. On a level field Amelia had only her developed power and stamina to rely on.

    These were clearly going to be big target areas for improvement in her Pyratical quest.

    She was so hard winded by the time she¡¯d reached the spot she nearly careened straight into the door. Though she did not, she did lean panting against it for at least half a minute afterward.

    During which time Drake pecked Ellie on the cheek one last time and whispered, ¡°remember our date¡± directly in her ear before turning to go.

    He likely hadn¡¯t expected Amelia to hear. Fortunately for her, while she had attained sufficient levels of normal comfort to form coherent thoughts, her diaphragm was far too backlogged on its oxygen quotas to even put thought into voicing them.

    Which was for the better. When Drake passed her, for some unfathomable reason she had a mind to say something along the lines of ¡°aren¡¯t you coming?¡± A potential blunder for which she nonetheless scolded herself all the way up to the common room.

    She may have been young, but she wasn''t that young.

    For a second, Amelia worried that somehow through her dead silence she had caused offense when Ellie blocked her path with a hand.

    Then she looked and saw her elder¡¯s gaze went not to her, but forward. Following it she herself noticed that the door to their room was slightly ajar. More, the sound of metal banging on metal was spilling out through the crack.

    Ellie¡¯s other hand automatically took up her weapon. A split second later conscious thought took over and she released her trained guard. Dropping into what Amelia had learned to call the ¡°ranger slouch¡±.

    Named for a wandering gunslinger turned sheriff known as Will Tanburn to the residents of Amelia¡¯s home town and ¡°Big Iron¡± to the rest of Amurza. Most famous for his somewhat gray stance on the law and truant form of justice, he was made an icon by his look and arsenal. His signature white hat, black cape, sword trap bracers, phallically oversized pistol and eternally stumped cigar were known and feared in every squalid underbelly joint from Sawbone to Draconia.

    Amelia, lacking her companion¡¯s superior insight, impatiently flung the door wide open. Revealing a scene that was equal parts appalling and vexing.

    Sitting cross-legged on Amelia¡¯s bunk spot, a violet-maned, rusty-flame-coated Vixen perhaps a year or less Ellie¡¯s junior was deep in the process of tormenting Amelia¡¯s lock box padlock with the consequently disfigured butt of a candlestick.

    She was, by all conventional and unconventional metrics, beautiful. Nay, gorgeous. In much the same way as a land-tapping tornado. A hypnotic maelstrom of elements that somehow coherently blended into a single, solid vision of chaos.

    Even by the miserly light of the thumbprint candle fires, her sleek, gymnastic figure and lively features stood out like needles through a feather pillow. The former aided by its barely modest covering. Tight thigh boots, a burnished kilt and vest, bandolier and leather chest wrap were all that separated the petite burglar from the elements.

    The sudden appearance of the portable stronghold¡¯s owner only abated the newcomer¡¯s efforts as long as it took her to look up at them and wink.

    Ellie met the scene with contemptuous blankness.

    Amelia, meanwhile, stood agape. Her reason converging with her senses like a champagne bottle meeting a brick wall.

    Ellie took two long steps inside and swung her arm wide in a dramatic sweep. With sarcasm layered so thick she could have frosted a cake with it she then loosely rendered the final lines of a tragic Mentan ballad, ¡°lo there do I see woe and spoil bared before me. Forsooth methinks I¡¯d best take my leave. O¡¯er to my bed let me bid all haste. For there o¡¯ shall I hope to find respite. If not there, then by the tip of mine own sword.¡±

 Chapter 3: Night and Day

    ¡°My lock box!¡± Amelia cried before her brain had fully reconciled itself.

    It is well known that the majority of experiences in a day aren¡¯t worth the time or energy to acknowledge and that only a tiny sliver of a percentile of those justify a response.

    Bon Bon and Ellie registered nothing.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± Ellie said dismissively. ¡°Like I said, those things are indestructible. Even if she had a cannon for an arm she couldn¡¯t break it.¡±

    Her eyes narrowed for an instant. She raised her voice and pitched her next words at the insolent Vulpes. ¡°Cleverer and stronger beasts than her have tried.¡±

    Bon Bon glanced up at her with a mixture of indignation and challenge. ¡°I bet you¡¯re wrong,¡± she snorted. Then she continued pounding on the padlock as hard as she could with the already abused implement.

    Ellie strode over and handily relieved her of the battered object before she could render it completely unusable. Apparently undaunted, Bon Bon proceeded to viciously claw at the lock with her pointed nails. The only success she achieved was in breaking them.

    ¡°Ahh!¡± She wailed, ¡°my lovelies!¡±

    She glared with pitiful bale at Ellie. ¡°Now what am I supposed to do with all my nail polish?¡±

    Amelia was buffaloed. She thought she had been braced for the worst, but this beast sitting before her gave pure delirium something to aspire to.

    It was then that, for the first time, Bon Bon fully recognized Amelia''s presence.

    ¡°Who¡¯s the short-stalk?¡± she asked, flicking the candlestick at Amelia like a warding talisman.

    Ellie answered as though teaching a brain-damaged pet the difference between its water and toilet bowls. ¡°Her name¡¯s Amelia. She¡¯s our new roommate.¡±

    Some inarticulable note about Ellie¡¯s tone prompted Amelia to think, and then to ask of nobody in particular, ¡°new?¡±

    Without breaking stride, and never so much as loosening her eye contact with Bon Bon, Ellie said, ¡°you don¡¯t want to know what happened to the last one.¡±

    Witches, warlocks and medicinal ¡°wise¡± shamans and hermits of all races and cultures have known throughout the Eras that the simplest and most fertile font of magickal energy is mystery.

    The edges of those dark woods, the precipice of the infinite abyss, the paradoxical allure and revulsion felt around intractable swathes of ignorance, prompts investigation, urges exploration, fuels conquests and inspires imagination like wind washing over a brush fire.

    Whether Ellie knew any of this or not, she had just stoked a fanciful furnace of such precipitous nature that it would make the industrial Viverrian blast forges look like medieval alembics.

    Amelia was about to ask if her predecessor¡¯s fate had been Bon Bon¡¯s doing, but then she noticed the other in question looking her over as though through a store window.

    ¡°You sure she¡¯s up for it?¡± the Vixen asked. ¡°She seems a bit slow to me.¡±

    This drew from Amelia a kind of blistering fury she didn¡¯t know she¡¯d had access to. As if Bon Bon had just pissed down her back and insisted it was rain.

    What Amelia could not have imagined was that this was all entirely according to design.

    Ellie, by contrast, maintained almost unreasonably neutrality. ¡°No,¡± she said in a voice as still and even as a tripwire. ¡°In fact she¡¯s the one who found you tonight.¡±

    Amelia¡¯s mind folded back over itself. Ellie¡¯s astounding mental agility had left her turning yarn off an empty spindle. If she¡¯d been a psychic she would have foreseen an epistemological course on the Pyratical Way in her future.

    Even if it was true, Ellie was gambling heavily that Bon Bon was too dense to realize that they would have returned to the dorm eventually, and so would have run into each other regardless. Thankfully, her calculations seemed on point.

    ¡°HA!¡± was the Fox¡¯s coy answer. She then resumed her attempt to open the lock, this time with her teeth. ¡°Well I¡¯ll have you know that I¡¯m not that hard to find when I want to be.¡±

    She aimed a decapitated nail at herself and flashed a calculated grin. ¡°See?¡±

    Ellie¡¯s eyes narrowed involuntarily and Amelia knowingly scowled. One of them knew the game but neither could help playing along. Such was their adversary¡¯s elite level of skill and preponderance of experience.

    This lass was about as dense as a common brick. Amelia dearly hoped she wouldn''t get stuck on a ship with this lanker.

    ¡°In any case,¡± Ellie said with enough force of civility to crush a string of diamonds, ¡°since she¡¯s going to be staying with us, I suggest we all try to get to know one another.¡±

    The threatening sheen on her words was hardly invisible to the sly Fox. Nor was the hard, precipitable punctuation at the end.

    The towheaded Vulpes glared menacingly at her superior. Then she shrugged and said to the room at large, ¡°if that¡¯s what floats your bucket.¡±

    She set herself back to work on the lock, seeming to have forgotten that its owner was still standing a few paces away.

    Amelia went to take a step but Ellie barred her advance with an arm.

    ¡°Charlotte,¡± she said, her voice strained to keep at a level temper, ¡°your locker is that one there.¡± She stabbed a thumb at the opposite bunk spot.

    Bon Bon didn¡¯t look. ¡°I know,¡± she grunted, ¡°I want to see what¡¯s in this one.¡±

    ¡°MY stuff!¡± Amelia snapped.

    The Vixen¡¯s head snapped and stared at Amelia in genuine bewilderment.

    ¡°Your duffle?¡± she asked, as though the notion completely evaded her. This wasn''t really all that too far-fetched, in retrospect.

    ¡°My ¡­ what?¡± Amelia asked, stumbling over her failure to familiarize herself with basic Pyrate slang.

    ¡°Your stuff,¡± Ellie translated.

    ¡°Ah ... yes,¡± Amelia said. She realized pulling out her key.

    Bon Bon made a dive for it, but Ellie caught her by the scruff and physically hauled her back onto Amelia''s bunk, which gave a loud squeak in protest.

    Wrenching the strong box from the scrawny girl¡¯s clutches, Ellie set it by the foot of the bunk, then began a long, obviously well-worn speech about the sanctity of another beast''s property.

    All the while, Bon Bon bemoaned , ¡°but I want to know what¡¯s inside!¡± To which Ellie repeatedly countered, ¡°it¡¯s not yours to know.¡±

    Her demeanor was one of increasingly inflexible calm. Her cadence and inflexion turned unnaturally still and crisp like the reportedly translucent apex on a Masamune bevel.

    Even the best actors can¡¯t upstage rudimentary biology for long. Through her aloof veneer Bon Bon was starting to betray like signs of a caged animal expecting to feel the bite of its master¡¯s whip.

    Her pretty face pulled into an unissued expression of muted concern. Her auburn fur rustled along the pattern of her light but sturdy muscles as they systemically tensed and released like a legion of camouflaged soldiers preparing for an attack.

    Flint had once referred to nihilists as ¡°the terminally sane¡±.

    ¡°Sometimes fate is a fertile river plane. Other times it¡¯s a desert island whose sands produce only hordes of miserable dregs with charred husks for souls,¡± wrote one Savionian by the name of Antvon Solgtovoy.

    However, a less philosophical take, and thus a more popular one, held nihilism as the only logical output of a hopelessly tragic equation.

    As airy as her head was, neither hopelessness nor sanity appeared on, or in any sustainable orbit of, Bon Bon¡¯s list of vices. But like any semi-rational beast she knew a hopeless path when she saw one.

    Openly challenging the strongest female fighter in every sense of the word at the Academy could only end one way. A conclusion only further compounded by their environment. Tight, restrictive quarters being Ellie¡¯s battlefield of choice.

    Bon Bon knew all of this better than all save for Drake. And with her head not being entirely made of sawdust rightly concluded that her last and only sensible recourse was a petulant sneer. Which she took as vigorously as a besieged city guard to his antiquated deputy spadroon and aptly named Casket rifle.

    Ellie returned the candlestick she freshly realized she was holding to its proper place before proceeding to assume the role of mediator. A role at which, she had become supremely adept through years of educational experience. Throughout most of the following makeshift session, she had only one willing participant.

    But she wasn''t about to let that stymie her efforts to induce reconciliation. As Drake could well attest, she was nothing if not relentless. She set the two girls down on opposite sides of the small round table and insisted that they come up with a topic to begin their conciliatory dialogue.

    It went about as well as she expected. Both girls sat silently cross-armed and stared blankly at one another across the table. After a protracted period of dead air, it became abundantly clear that neither one could think of anything to say to the other from which to tease a productive conversation.

    So Ellie took the reins. Or at least snapped them.

    She patiently suggested that they find some common interests and start to build their conversation from there. This too would prove to be easier said than done. For never in the thirty eight year history of the Academy had there been such a drastic disparity of minds and spirits than those who faced each other that night across the table in the Penirn Academy dorm tower.

    Every time one of them uttered a sound, she was immediately discouraged by a scorching look from the opposite party.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Nevertheless, over the course of the next quarter hour, each learned as much as was needed about her new roommate.

    Bon Bon, for instance, learned that Amelia was shy, liked being out in the rain, and was deathly afraid of heights. Not exactly a desirable quality, considering they literally lived above the clouds.

    Amelia, on the other hand, had discovered that her roommate was smug, arrogant, vain and had absolutely zero care for and only the barest minimal comprehension of the world that lay beyond the tip of her own nose.

    In other words, almost exactly the caricature she¡¯d imagined.

    Ellie, meanwhile, was quite pleased with how things were going all things considered. Now that they had finally settled down and were talking like civilized beasts she was free to ¡­

    A stroke of memory tolled in her brain. A glance at her watch sent her spinning silently on a heel and ducking off into the night to meet her date. Leaving her catalytic bunkmates to develop their dubious chemistry.

    Which, at first, seemed to be holding steady. When Amelia noted Ellie¡¯s absence the two looked at each other, shrugged and continued about their tightrope conversation.

    It didn¡¯t take long for their combustive elements to run their course however. Without Ellie¡¯s constant prodding and kindling the novelty of this friendship exercise quickly wore bear down to its bones.

    She couldn¡¯t care less about boys or clothes or gossip, or anything else that was in any way of interest to the common teenage girl. And thus she saw no clearing on which to plan her and Bon Bon¡¯s common flag.

    What did interest her intensely though was Ellie and Drake¡¯s secret meeting, which could be the only logical reason for Ellie¡¯s disappearance.

    The fact that it was a secret alone booted Amelia¡¯s na?ve imagination into a wild tailspin down a carnival-ride of a rabbit hole. Thoughts of classified documents, ancient maps and buried treasures flew through her mind like unfastened debris caught up in a tornado¡¯s vortex.

    The anticipation of imminent adventure gnawed feverishly at her mind until finally, she could stand it no longer. She had to know what was going on. She glanced cautiously over the table.

    Bon Bon for some time had been on a rant about how her last three boyfriend had all left her over some stupid comment or other she''d made regarding her ¡°first and truest lover¡±.

    Aside from that Amelia could only recall his name on account of it being metaphysically burned into her brain.

    But Such was Bon Bon¡¯s affection, bounding closely on obsession, for the beast that she remained oblivious as a sleeping faun when Amelia stood up as swiftly and silently as a leaf on a breeze and stealthily made her way to the stairs, being careful not to alert any of the other girls in the dorm who were all amazingly bad at pretending to be asleep.

    She crept down the winding stairway and through the long, vacant hallways. This place felt even more colossal when empty of chattering, hormonal throngs. Moving along the desolate causeway in the sole company of her own shadow Amelia knew a strange sort of sympathy for fiction¡¯s great heroes.

    Had the young orphan Zephyr felt this infringing frost when infiltrating the Nightmare King¡¯s castle spire alone to steal his scepter?

    Had Prince Ivan¡¯s heart felt the sting of doubt when he¡¯d entered the Black Forest to slay the undead wizard Koschei and reclaim his love?

    The only light came from Aevon¡¯s two moons. One waxing, the other full. Their pale blue and somber violet blush streamed in through the large apex windows lining the courtside wall. Coating the place in an eerie paint, reminiscent of the last winter ice before the thaw.

    Under other circumstances Amelia¡¯s chief worry would have been a disastrous loss of direction. But once again the Flint Pyrate Academy proffered a simple, elegant solution.

    Richard Vandomir, the Academy¡¯s Master Mason, had once described his creation as ¡°the cross section of an onion baked into a bagel, impregnated with grape vines for body and with a bit of dark wizardry thrown in for seasoning¡±.

    Concentric rings of bulwarks, firebreaks, corridors and rooms concealed and housed within a dense fortress wall which encircled a ten acre courtyard and bastioned by a quartet of towers at the cardinal compass points.

    There was the pair of dorm towers on the Zen and Nadir sides. The front gatehouse and watch tower that led out to the main harbor on the Zen side, and a central clock tower that stood to the Apheler looking Penirward which housed the Headmaster¡¯s office and personal quarters.

    Rumors had circulated for decades that Flint, after constructing the Academy with his own resources, converted his remaining wealth into raw minerals, including silver, quicksilver, gemstones, gold and Sundust as well as an army¡¯s worth of other basic supplies and raw materials.

    It was said he¡¯d used part of this stockpile to commission the monolithic time watcher and the rest to physically construct it. But any records pertaining to this, if any such formal documentation existed at all, would be securely kept, or in better likelihood hidden, by the Headmaster. And Avlon did not give up such secrets lightly.

    Whatever the real facts of the matter were, like the rest of its home base the chrono pillar was truly a marvel of innovative craft and precision engineering. Half again as tall as the already impressive gatehouse. The clock¡¯s hour hand was the length of a mid-range schooner.

    Another rumor one that few beasts believed said that the heart of the clock held one of the seven Solomandian Wishing Wells. Vessels of magickal energy so concentrated they were said to house the power to warp reality by sheer proximity.

    This was the most frequently cited reason for why the Academy¡¯s peerless crown never needed maintenance and always kept perfect time down to the microsecond.

    Just like those harbor and pub storytellers, Amelia knew better than most. If she had been content with fantasy she would have stayed in Amurza. She could have found a mate, settled down, lived a typical, boring life, sustained by her own elbow grease and a steady supplemental regimen of shamanic ¡°love potions¡± like her mother.

    But she was her father¡¯s daughter, as she was here to prove. And thus she wouldn¡¯t be backing down because of a little ghostly ambiance.

    She sought out the densest spot of brush she could find and took shelter within. It was half past midnight, and the stars were out in full force. But there was still no sign of Drake or Ellie. This was the only place she could think of that coincided with Drake¡¯s cryptic wording of ¡°enjoy the view¡±.

    She settled back into a more comfortable position. ¡®Nothing to do now but wait and watch¡¯ she supposed.

    Luckily she didn¡¯t have to wait long. Ten strokes of the minute hand later a pair of cowled figures appeared out of the darkness at either end of the common yard. One pulled behind them a curtain of deep summer green, the other trailed a sheet of stark, clashing jet.

    Like actors moving on a predetermined mark, they both stole towards the center at once. Keeping to just the inside edge of the far wall¡¯s shadow. When they met they stood beneath a striped Agape tree whose figure was both beautiful and disturbing in the onsetting nocturnal umber. Like a dancer captured in a glacial tomb its calcified sphere sprawled reaching for stars it could never touch and would never again see.

    Safely beneath the lightning tendrils, the occultic pair conversed.

    Amelia could hear nothing of what was said but what white, airy reverberations the common yard¡¯s peculiar turbulence carried her way. But she tried regardless and silently cursed herself all the while for not thinking to bring a spyglass.

    Of one thing she was absolutely certain. That was that whatever topic had conjured this gathering was the furthest thing in the world from romance.

    By what the moons¡¯ light revealed and what of their body language was not obscured by dense weatherproof fabric, shocks of rallying tension and potent urgency warped their aura. The inarticulable scent of an imminent fight met Amelia¡¯s keen epistolic nerves.

    She could make out the contours of Drake¡¯s outstretched arm and hand as he passed Ellie what basic deduction informed her was a rolled-up piece of parchment and a brass tube that sparkled like a jewel-laden broach.

    The nature of these objects beyond this aeronautical view eluded her, due to her being too far away to discern any further details.

    No matter. For the time being Amelia could not have cared less.

    Her heart was throttled. Her mind raced.

    Maybe it was a treasure map.

    Maybe it was some secret code written by an evil secret order of dark wizards.

    Maybe it was the key to a forgotten crypt or perhaps a gate that had been made to seal away an ancient eldritch abomination.

    Or maybe it was some supernatural riddle that, once solved, would reveal some great and terrible cosmic secret that the very universe itself designed to keep out of mortal minds whatever the cost.

    Or maybe she had just been reading way too many story books.

    So enthralled was she with all these competing imaginations that Amelia failed to heed the first rule of Pyrate safety.

    ¡®Know your target and what¡¯s behind you.¡¯

    ¡°Whatya doing?¡± Asked an entirely too familiar voice.

    Amelia did not need to turn around to know who it was, but biological impulses she wasn¡¯t quick enough to step in front of insisted she do so anyway.

    She whipped around, nearly twisting her one foot off at the ankle, to see that Bon Bon had concluded her psychotic dialogue and decided to hoist her unique brand of lunacy back upon the world whether it was willing or not.

    ¡°Don''t you know it''s rude to sneak up on a beast?¡± Amelia hissed through clenched teeth.

    Bon Bon snorted indignantly and crouched down beside her in the bushes. ¡°Don''t you know that Prospects aren''t supposed to be outside after dark?¡±

    Amelia had predicted this response but had no ready answer. She chose to let the Damoclean silence do the talking for her. But it fell on deaf ears.

    ¡°Also,¡± Bon Bon continued unfettered, ¡°don¡¯t you know it¡¯s rude to just walk out on someone when they¡¯re ¡­¡±

    Amelia¡¯s hands had clasped the Fox¡¯s troublesome mouth before her brain had fully arrived at the problem¡¯s doorstep.

    What Bon Bon lacked in social grace she complemented with a complete and utter lack of subtly. She had raised her voice slightly to mock Amelia¡¯s startled remark. In doing so, she had more than likely alerted the two hooded canines to their presence.

    Amelia glanced back furtively over her shoulder. Her hopes that the two had not heard were dashed when she saw their ears twitch and their heads swivel beneath their hoods.

    Drake and Ellie kissed hastily goodbye and darted back into the opposite shadows from which they¡¯d come.

    ¡°Damn it!¡± Amelia cried after she was sure they were out of earshot. Giving Bon Bon back her voice she shot to her feet and faced the Vixen. This time being at no loss for words.

    ¡°Now look what you did!¡±

    Bon Bon stared back, genuinely speechless. Her eyes were wide and shimmering like miniature moon crystals. In their bipolar orbits Amelia could see wheeling her broad range of emotions.

    Amelia stared back at the spot where Drake and Ellie had just been standing. After a long moment of furious hesitation, in which she seriously considered slugging Bon Bon, she decided there was no point in hanging around here any longer.

    Discouraged, Amelia stood slowly, and with Bon Bon nipping at her heels, she retreated back to their dorm room. Ideally, she wanted to get there before Ellie did. Ellie may have been young, at least for a Pyrate, but a simpleton she was not. With both of her juniors absent from their bunks, she was bound to put the pieces together.

    Sure enough, when they got back to the room, there Ellie was, sitting quietly cross-legged on her bunk spot with a dark blue leather-bound book in her hands. Her dark green cloak had been folded and was lying neatly on top of her strong box. Ellie raised her eyes from her book when they entered and smiled at them warmly as though nothing had happened.

    ¡°Ah, there you are,¡± Ellie said with a vagrant smile that might have appeared totally guileless to someone less informed than Amelia.

    Deciding it best to let sleeping wyntyrdyrs lie, Amelia chose to project her own innocence with an inverse psychological gambit learned from watching her godfather. ¡°Where¡¯d you go?¡±

    The auric glass filaments gluing Ellie¡¯s composure to her narrative melted. She had taken Amelia¡¯s baited hook and swallowed it.

    ¡°I had a quick errand to run. Nothing really worth talking about,¡± she said with plastic evenness.

    Amelia swallowed a bout of telling anamorphisms. Ellie¡¯s honeyed maternal aura was starting to show a sordid tint of pale green.

    If Bon Bon knew or cared that anything at all was amiss she was a much greater actress than Amelia gave her credit for.

    With perhaps a bit more forceful eagerness than she¡¯d intended, Ellie said, ¡°I see you two have made some progress,¡± passing her eyes from one silent figure to the other,

    The two other girls stared at each other blankly for a long moment. Nothing between them had really changed. Bon Bon¡¯s unexpected appearance in the courtyard notwithstanding, Amelia¡¯s opinion of her new bunkmate remained stubbornly as it had been before.

    Nevertheless, to maintain their charade of innocence, Amelia replied cleverly, ¡°I think we¡¯ve learned a lot about each other.¡±

    She readied her boot for a swift indictment of Bon Bon¡¯s shin but the Vixen was already smiling and nodding like a grifter in an art gallery so she stayed the blow. For now.

    If Ellie had recognized this pars-specular veil she hid it well. She held onto her simulacra of warmth in a similar way to a compost heap and wordlessly went back about her reading.

    For want of something better to do, Bon Bon reclaimed her old seat at the table, while Amelia took to setting out her new stretch bed.

    After an hour of quietude, interrupted only once or twice by garbled curses from Amelia¡¯s quarter, the three girls independently, all at once, changed into their sleep garments, retired to their respective bunks, blew out their candles and retreated to the less passively aggressive peace of dreamland.

    For a long time, however, sleep eluded her. She lay there awake, staring up at the star cross-bars above. The events of the courtyard meeting kept replaying in an endless loop in her mind.

    What had Drake handed her?

    What was so important that it necessitated a dark-lit rendezvous?

    These were just the Consoles captaining the composite legions of questions that tore into her field like a dragon in a dry library.

    As the nocturnal chemicals wove their supple magicks, her eyelids became anchor weights and her body sank into the alyssum clouds. Her tempestuous maelstrom unspooled into a borealis grid of Apophis rapids.

    As the last vestiges of daytime thought got swept into the down current she vaguely assessed that if tonight¡¯s events were in any way predictive of things to come, maybe, just maybe, her impulsive leap into this anarchic Abyss might just have had an inkling of wisdom about it after all.

 Chapter 4: The Christening

    A commotion like which might be the start of a battle rocked Amelia out of a disturbingly vivid dream.

    She instinctively glanced at her heirloom ¡°tonal-sands¡± clock. A wholly unique timepiece gifted her father several decades ago by an old family friend whom he¡¯d always been reticent to directly name and which had recently come down to her after her family¡¯s sudden drastic dissolution courtesy of her mother¡¯s middle name being Pendulum according to her eldest daughter.

    At first glance it was just a standard hour-glass which contained what reasonably passed for ordinary volcanic dust. But that was as deep as its normal aspects went.

    The glass itself was fitted snuggly into a mirror-hinged oblong bronze plate, with a penta-point bronze star capping the valve control at its tapered crux.

    This was mounted over a tightly fitted bronze scale which itself lay on a rectangular base of ostensibly solid black marble. But like many things concerning the ¡°Black Beast¡± this was a meager sampling of the truth.

    Between the polished stone and the wooden box which housed the entire apparatus lived a complex order of wires and tubes to a unique piezoelectric nexel power cell, which, when activated, powered an electromagnetic coil to influence a set of unstable crystals.

    The end result of all this was a precisely calibrated bell which doled out frequencies out of range of any living beast¡¯s hearing known as infrasound.

    These waves triggered an electrochemical chain reaction in the brain of anyone sleeping within its effective radius. Stimulating the slow release of acetylcholine to wake the sleeper up in a manner far less jarring and more natural-feeling than a standard alarm bell.

    A series of pearly digits lined the base¡¯s side above a well-worn bronze gear.

    ¡°Time Stamps¡± these were called. Albeit solely by her and her parents. They allowed her to set the sand flow rate to anywhere from five minutes to twelve hours.

    She observed the sand level markers. About twenty minutes left on the eight hour run she¡¯d set.

    She glanced over to the window to see that the bright yellow cap of the second sun was just peeking out.

    She sank back onto the pillow and sighed.

    What unusual punishments did the world have lined up for her today?

    She raised her head just enough to see past the bottom clot of her hammock and blanket. Beyond she spied Ellie sat half-dressed on her bunk.

    Even with one foot still in wonderland Amelia caught the pungent whiff of professional agitation and exasperation about way the other yanked on her high boots.

    She caught mutterings of foul curses as the elder teen fastened her leather bracers. Amongst which she could have also sworn she heard something like the name ¡°Gerard¡± or ¡°Jerad¡± or ¡°Jerome¡± tickle the air as Ellie fastened the maille corset around her trim midriff.

    Down the length of her back hung her long golden braid, held at the end with an emerald clasp. The braid swung as though on guard from some invisible threat.

    A leather belt hung off her hips. On which was a pair of black holsters. One held her Clevette pistol. A reliable, if painfully conventional, sidearm whose pentagonal magazine block held six refined Bombash Inc. nexel pellets, or nexii as they were called conversationally.

    Formed by and harvested from the nexel mollusks that spawned in the vast Erandic ice caverns, these unusually energy-dense crystals had served as global standard for small arms ammunition since before the last Divide.

    No beast knew exactly how these creatures had come to be. Less still was known about how they produced these tiny amethyst wonders. And as many theories existed about their evolutionary purpose as there were minds who theorized them.

    Whatever was the case, it was all sophistic noise as far as the powers that be were concerned.

    To those ruthlessly industrious conglomerates whose coffers were lined yearly with money traded for barges of raw munitions or the suckling guilds who transmuted them into fuel for that most lucrative of sentient pastimes the ¡®where¡¯s, ¡®how¡¯s and ¡®why¡¯s were of no particular consequence.

    What was well worth knowing, so much so that it had almost single-handedly spawned the habitual reclusively and secrecy among occultists, was that through various chemical and alchemical rites their internal crystalline latticework could be restructured so as to incite explosive instability when struck with significant force. As in a gun¡¯s spring-loaded hammer or firing pin.

    Once unleashed, the pellets bled gouts of violet alchemical fire. This allowed them not only to penetrate in the traditional sense, but also saw them able to burn through most materials.

    As well, the distinctive ghostly trail had given rise to the popular expression amongst professional villains ¡°send em a king¡¯s star¡±.

    Ellie¡¯s other holster was more of a clasp, in which was held a steel bar mace with pyramid teeth studding the sides.

    From what little Amelia knew of weapons these were meant to concentrate the force of a blow and help the head better bite into plate armor.

    Amelia was suddenly very grateful for her blanket and end post cover. She understood completely now Bon Bon¡¯s combative reservations last night.

    Ellie in her full combat dress held a sobering flame up to her formerly imaginary notions of Pyracy. A feeling no sedentary portrait or written work could ever hope to convey, however exquisite or masterful.

    It was telling that Bon Bon¡¯s hammock stood empty. Though telling of what exactly Amelia had yet to even begin to postulate.

    In her conspicuous stead stood the deadpan Doe, Hemlock. She wore similar garments to Ellie¡¯s. The only notable difference being her short black vest buttoned to just below her far ampler bosom.

    Like the mineralized tree down in the courtyard, even in full daylight Hemlock was hauntingly beautiful.

    True to her nickname she carried about her a vexing contrast. One which simultaneously promised a verdant nectar but yet also threatened a short and painful.

    Like Ellie, the Doe also wore a pair of holsters at each hip. One of which held a standard Clevette pistol with a pouch of extra nexel cartridges. Instead of a mace, her other holster held a slender, needle-bladed spadroon.

    Unbeknownst to Amelia, at that moment Hemlock also had a six-inch punch dagger hidden in each boot, a silk garrote ribbon woven into a thin metal bracelet around her left wrist. She also carried a colorful assortment of clandestine weapons in various clever states of concealment about her person, including a pair of miniature stun and shrapnel grenades gifted her, incidentally, by the very hooligans who were at present cause for concern.

    Both Ellie and Hemlock looked like they could tear the limbs off a wild wyntyrdyr and would have no qualms about doing it.

    A second round of booms from outside brought Amelia screeching back to the present.

    She looked to Ellie, who, by then, was already halfway out the door.

    ¡°What¡¯s all the commotion?¡± Amelia asked.

    Ellie halted and turned back just long enough to say through a smile that wouldn¡¯t have fooled a braindead Kitten, ¡°nothing you need to worry about.¡±

    Her smooth motherly conviction had gone from sounding worn to fractured in several places, like a shattered vase some beast had desperately glued back together, praying that no beast would notice.

    ¡°Don¡¯t forget, orientation is in the gatehouse at nine!¡± Ellie called back.

    Amelia groaned. She had forgotten all about that.

    As if in answer to her unspoken comment, Ellie¡¯s disembodied voice yelled, ¡°you don¡¯t want to miss it!¡±

    Amelia rubbed her eyes and threw her legs over the side of the hammock.

    She knew it was a needful thing. This school gathering. It was where she and the other Prospects would be getting their herd assignments.

    Drawn from the Equestrian term for the ¡°civilized¡± practice of coercive slave driving, the Pyrate Academy slang for an unofficial, unlicensed Pyrate crew had not been chosen without due etymological and cultural consideration.

    Contrary to what traditional notions may suggest, a Pyrate Academy was not the sort of place one went to initiate in the philosophical and dry historical aspects of ¡°free trade¡±.

    Indeed, the place only had ¡°classrooms¡± in the sense that the suns were literally on fire. There were rooms in which groups of students assembled for lessons, yes. But the only books that were ever involved in that process were the head-count ledgers. And that was only on days when the particular Professor was in a sour mood.

    For their first semester alone Pyrate Prospects would be taught the basic ins and outs of their new profession.

    For those nine months they would be coached in all the necessary rudiments of Abyssal navigation, shipboard operations, terminology, weapons and basic combat drills.

    But not from the comfort of a desk. As Flint had personally carved into the stone lintels above each and every door, from the Zenith dormitory to the Nadir, ¡°all the facts in the world won¡¯t guard your skull from an axe.¡±

    No. A core principle of Pyracy being natural selection, and the core of that being rapid adaptation or death, Pyrate youths were shown the ropes in the most literal and daring sense.

    Their every waking hour would be spent on the Academy¡¯s gun range, in the sparring ring, or running ship drills through the rocky crevasses of the Great Border Wall.

    ¡°Death is life to a Pyrate,¡± Flint had once remarked to his foremost disciple, now the Headmaster. ¡°We die as we live. So live well or you¡¯ll die young and stupid.¡±

    From then until graduation, or until fate claimed her life in some untimely fashion, she and her herd would take on curated jobs for the Academy in order to gain no only live combat experience but also learn the basic essentials of contract negotiating, wage bargaining, and supply and budget management.

    Then that thought which was the stinging nettle bane of students and working beasts everywhere. What time was it?!

    This sent learned waves crashing through her body and mind hard enough to throw her fully up and into her clothes before remembering that it was only quarter to eight.

    Then she remembered Hemlock was still standing there like a glass idol. Watching her with eyes as sharp as flint.

    ¡°What time is it?¡± Amelia asked for lack of something better to say.

    ¡°Quarter to ten,¡± Hemlock answered in a smooth voice as hard as glass.

    Why hadn¡¯t her alarm gone off? Had she set it wrong? She looked at the dial again. No, the switch was at the eight-hour stamp. It must need a new power cell.

    Great! Just perfect! She would have to tend to that later, right after scrounging up some breakfast from she knew not where. But for right now she had to go see an old Dog about a list.

    Her Anuran legs carried her to the stairwell door in three large bounds. Dropping down eight or ten steps at a leg, a less learned beast would have been shocked having at one point turned to see Hemlock keeping easy pace with her. But Amelia¡¯s elementary Native Species course had told her that Cervids were to rough and rugged terrain what Avians were to open air.

    ¡°What was all that racket?¡± Amelia asked as they descended.

    Hemlock¡¯s lip curled in what might have resembled a smile if one squinted at it through an alcoholic lens.

    ¡°Probably the Blunder Twins blowing themselves up again,¡± she said. ¡°With any luck they''ll have shot themselves off to Bora this time. Spare me or Drake the trouble.¡±

    There was no aggression in her voice. In fact she delivered about as much emotion as a desert rock carried water. Like said rock that didn¡¯t care a wit whether the world was cold, hot, wet, dry or had suddenly stopped turning altogether.

    Although she didn¡¯t yet understand why, Amelia found this quality to be rather appealing and refreshing.

    ¡°You coming?¡± she offered hopefully when they reached the bottom.

    ¡°Can¡¯t,¡± Hemlock said flatly. ¡°Got other stuff to do.¡± Then she whirled and strode off down the way opposite the gatehouse, towards the clock tower.

    ¡°Oh. Okay,¡± Amelia said to her back. Unconsciously mimicking the Doe¡¯s emotionally bridled manner. A fact which loitered around and nipped at her mind¡¯s prehensile parapet as if probing for a loophole to squeeze through until she reached her destination. At which point all other exterior and interior concerns vanished in what could only be surmised as a puff of unspooling reason.

    She had arrived expecting the ceremony to be half over. She¡¯d spent most of the walk here steeling herself against the prospect of being lectured or reprimanded for her tardiness. Instead she found the whole of the freshly admitted Prospect block loosely gathered in front of the Headmaster, himself displayed for all in his autumnal robes on top of a long wooden dining table, with a few loose smatterings of older students, mostly female, hovering about the periphery.

    Amelia would come to learn that time was a Pyrate¡¯s default currency. And that this was because it was life¡¯s. Not a mere demarcation of value, but its very definition. Consequently guarded and cherished, and as often as not horded, just as jealously as any hard sociological contrivance stamped on metal or parchment. Only all the more by their ilk for they understood just how easily it could be stolen and that it could never be made back.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

    ¡°This is why we invented clocks and timers,¡± would say their Operative Technician Professor, one James T. Obsolong, at the merest shiver of provocation. ¡°We can time in sand and gears and hump it around in our pockets. It is as precious as air. More! You can always take another breath. That is, until you run out of time.¡±

    Thus, with seconds and minutes being the fundamental value quanta in life¡¯s grand equation, it only made sense that those most fundamentally acquainted with life, them being the free and the young, would all show up to an unpopular event as late as they could and that elders of the same proclivity would, understanding this but also having used theirs to purchase greater shares int the adult facilities of discipline, foresight and resource management, set said event¡¯s time budget accordingly.

    ¡°Unless he¡¯s getting paid or fed, or if he¡¯s just got somewhere he¡¯d rather be, when a Pyrate says nine ¡®o¡¯clock, best think crest noon.¡±

    For just now Amelia would have only the wisdom poured into her by most common experiences to go by. By which she would unknowingly put that first and dearest of the Pyrate axioms, ¡®adapt and live¡¯ into motion.

    Drake was at Avlon¡¯s right arm, naturally. It didn¡¯t escape Amelia¡¯s notice that a few of the elder girls had fixed him like Ferrets, one of whom actually was in point of fact, intent on plundering a ripe nest.

    The simple broach at the neck of his forest cloak had been commandeered on this occasion to display a rustic steel plate with his full name, his Academy rank of Chief Junior Secretary, and the unfamiliar bold suffixed letters CJS / AC.

    She made a mental note to ask about that at the next opportunity.

    Around and mostly behind him there stood a handful of other assorted personalities. Like Drake they wore their names and job titles displayed on similar slats of either steel, bronze or copper fastened at their collars or breasts.

    There was one in particular, a tall, lanky fellow with small rounded ears, tan fur and a long angular muzzle who caught Amelia¡¯s eye. He wore a knee-length leather apron and tool belt over a black highway coat which ran down halfway over his brown leather boots that looked like they¡¯d gone to and personally fought in several wars.

    His face, what small parts of it were visible beneath his mask and mossy-green blast goggles that is, was laced with the marks and scars of burns and blades. And every square inch of him was caked with mud, soot, ash, various mineral tints and a few daubs of what Amelia might have been persuaded to believe, but didn¡¯t quite get there on her own, was dried blood.

    His ID badge read in big bold text:

    Thomas MacCulligan

    Armorer / Demolitions Prof.

    There stood another behind and between Avlon and Drake Professor whose name badge Amelia could not read but whose entire wardrobe seemed to consist of pockets, belts, bags, pouches and bandoliers. Nearly every single crowded orifice in which bulged, and in more than one case literally overflowed, with pens, vials, instruments, tools, books, parchment rolls and all sorts of squiggly glassware that looked more like a clown¡¯s paraphernalia than a learned scholar.

    Still another had a helmet-mounted telescope. One even had on what only Drake and Avlon recognized as a Masonic Octoglove.

    A fascinating device she¡¯d been made to understand allowed the wearer to telepathically control any piece of mechanical equipment within a twenty-league radius.

    The nature of its workings were unknown to all but its original inventors, the last of whom had died centuries ago, save for that it utilized a ¡°complex, symmetric fusion of magick and science¡±. Something the Masons had called Diegesis, but which modern minds understood as alchemy.

    Behind this peculiar gathering, there stood one particularly sour-looking individual who did not share the stage. He wore the same style of ornate dress-robes as the Headmaster. What¡¯s more, he was also the same breed of canine as Avlon, but with dramatically darker fur and an even darker aura.

    While she waited for the ceremony to start, Amelia decided to walk around and mingle with the crowd. This was not something she did out of enjoyment, but rather because she thought it prudent to know whom could be trusted to not cause her any grief and whom she should avoid.

    Immediately her eyes caught on a familiar shape and color pallet. Another Anuran, slightly taller, roughly equivalent to her in size and build, but still very distinctly male.

    However, as she drifted nearer it became apparent that, their broadly shared ancestry notwithstanding, the two of them couldn¡¯t have been more dissimilar.

    First, and most obviously, he was the color of a mid-morning sun. Backing this was that he had barely any spots. With the exception of the one muddy patch over and around his left eye, those shrinking few droplets that leaked from this pool down over his lips onto his trachea were small, easily mistaken for flecks of dirt but for one of more primal familiarity with his breed.

    This, combined with the fact that he was a good head-and-a-half taller than she, meant that he was an even more deadly variant called a Phyllobates Terribillis. Known by both the common folk of Amurza and abroad as Golden Tree Frogs.

    What made Phyllobates especially dangerous was that, unlike their more ground-favoring counterparts, Tree Frogs didn¡¯t require any external additives to produce their dreaded toxins. Adding to this that their poisonous secretions were generally four to five times more potent than their cousins¡¯, albeit at the cost of much reduced load, even unarmed and among beasts who thrive on mortal combat this one would be deemed a mortal foe.

    Amelia peered at this gaudy specimen between a pair of raunchy Salamanders as though he were an upright body in an abandoned cemetery.

    Something about him held her mind in a vice grip. But for her own life¡¯s sake she couldn¡¯t have cited it. Nothing about him physically was of such grave or awesome import, and it wasn¡¯t like she¡¯d never encountered boys before.

    He wore a loose cotton shirt with no lace, brown trousers and black boots. Nothing abnormal there. Only his was adorned with fancy frills about the cuffs and was secured by a frilly ascot.

    Also the fabric was bleached. This implied a lack of hard labor, and therefore a certain acquaintance with wealth. Not unlike her.

    What such a beast could possibly want from Pyracy was any beast¡¯s guess. Barring an existential vengeance quest or sheer restlessness. There were much easier and faster and less risky ways to earn coin than freelance grunt work. And he didn¡¯t exactly strike her as the type to weather years of reportedly grueling physical and mental training and perpetually thread the line of primo mortem all in the service of some higher goal or for the sake of some spiritual journey either.

    Maybe, she considered, she might simply go over there and ask him.

    Taking this as an order, her body moved them into hailing range and she heard her mouth ask him his name.

    ¡°Ogden,¡± he replied shortly, then went back to his brooding.

    Social ordinance may have been Amelia¡¯s weapon of last resort, but she was practiced enough to recognize that this was all she was likely to get out of him she resorted to that old favorite habit of hers. Don¡¯t bother, just retreat. She shoved her rampant curiosity back into the closet and instead diverted her attention to the rest of the crowd.

    After a few more minutes the Headmaster cleared his throat and began to speak.

    ¡°Welcome all!¡± he said, his voice deep and authoritative. Not at all a sound  one would expect to come from a beast his age. Even one who regularly engaged him in conversation.

    But then one didn¡¯t hold the unofficial position of Chief Pyrate for over a decade unless he had the power to command respect.

    ¡°It is my great honor and privilege to welcome you all to the Flint Pyrate Academy. My sincere hope is that you will find the road to great success within these walls, and even come to think of the Academy as your home.¡±

    For a time Amelia thought she was the only beast who recognized the mechanical rhythmancy in his tone. That it was only clear to her that not only had her godfather given this exact speech many times before but that it must have been written by some other beast. A beast with not a poetic or charismatic bone in their body by every measurable account. And she thought it was her alone who could hazard a right guess at that ghost writer¡¯s identity.

    She was wrong on all counts. A fact which slowly announced itself to her through the insomniac auric pulses which lapsed over the crowd in gentle waves.

    That said, she was one of the only two beasts present who could see the Headmaster¡¯s admirable, if fruitless, efforts to inject some of his endemic spirit into the anemic spiel.

    ¡°Now I¡¯m sure you¡¯re all anxious to get under way. But before we get there I have a few minor points I¡¯d like to address while I have your attention. Firstly, for those who don''t already know, I am Headmaster Avlon. You may choose to call me either or make up something. I have no real preference. Truth be told, anything you can come up with I¡¯ve most likely already been called, if not far worse.¡±

    Without pausing for breath he dove right on into his next point. ¡°Second, I¡¯d like to introduce to you my brother.¡± He motioned to the sour-faced beast standing behind him. ¡°You will know him as either Head Secretary or Prokvert if he likes you.¡±

    Prokvert scowled. Or more precisely the scowl he¡¯d already been wearing deepened to where it seemed his eyebrows and cheeks were about to go to war over use of his face.

    Avlon cast an exaggerated frown over them. His accustomed levity having returned like water to a primed well. ¡°Let me just warn you all straight off, NO BEAST messes with my baby brother but me.¡±

    His words tacked a plate of ice onto the air. One which his sly wink broke, letting out a light burble of chuckling.

    ¡°Next, some of you,¡± his eyes landed briefly on Amelia. ¡°may already be acquainted with my Chief Junior Secretary, Drake.¡±

    He caught a scatter-shot eyeful of Prokvert¡¯s contorting scowl. How he could read anything in that amorphous mess of an expression Amelia couldn¡¯t begin to fathom. She hoped it was an acquired skill like knowing what rocks in a quarry were actually fossils.

    However he did, Avlon rolled his eyes and said as if talking to someone with a severe head wound, ¡°unless your name is Prokvert. In which case you¡¯ll insist his name is Harold because that¡¯s what the holy ledger says.¡±

    Amelia didn¡¯t see Avlon wink as Drake stepped forward. Thus misreading the latter¡¯s covert smile and let out a decidedly ill-advised whoop. The silence which followed was as soft and as compacting as grave dirt.

    He gave her a sincere smile but everyone else either fell silent or turned to stare down at her like she''d just sprouted a second head.

    She contracted into herself. A tiny bug trying to blend into the proverbial reeds between her shoulders and fur collar.

    The Headmaster carried on with things as if nothing had happened.

    ¡°Now I would like to take a moment to ensure that you are all familiar with the basics of the Pyrate Code. Yes, I¡¯m sure it will surprise some of you to hear we actually have rules. We are Pyrates, not animals. Contrary to popular belief.¡±

    He motioned to the Head Secretary, who produced a rolled up piece of parchment and a pair of fine-chained brass spectacles from his robe pocket.

    Donning the latter, the black Collie loudly cleared his throat and began to read from the former as though it were a royal decree.

    ¡°Rule one: ANY form of armed combat between students or staff outside of the sparring arena will not be tolerated on Academy grounds under ANY circumstances, including legal duels. Failure to abide will be grounds for immediate expulsion.¡±

    Amelia glanced around to see if any beast else had heard what she had. Judging by everyone¡¯s expressions around her, she knew many had caught on to this loophole as well. She remembered the Ram again and shuddered at the thought of having to dual one even with a weapon.

    ¡°Rule two: Any theft of or attempt to tamper with any Academy property, pending an official investigation by the Headmaster and staff, is grounds for immediate expulsion.¡±

    ¡°This place is made out of stone blocks bigger than a fishing schooner.¡± Amelia mused absently. ¡°How can any beast tamper with that?

    ¡°And finally,¡± the Headmaster continued, ¡°Rule three: Any student found to be willingly involved in the death of either another student or a faculty member, will be executed via a Vendetta Duel, or, should no avenger be forthcoming, a firing squad.¡±

    ¡°And now that we¡¯ve gotten all those pleasantries out of the way,¡± continued Avlon, ¡°it is time for what you have all been waiting for.¡±

    A tremulous murmur flowed through the audience as Avlon once more yielded the stage to his brother.

    Amelia had once observed a puritanical missionary perform a routine ceremony on a village shaman. It had required several years of thought for her to unpack the reasoning behind her seemingly irrational revulsion and horror.

    There had been no actual physical pain imparted. Not that she could detect anyway. But she had sensed the tension. As though the dualistic spiritual figures were tugging at ends of an invisible wire so thin it might squeeze through the overture gaps in dimensional wave functions.

    Every mortal fiber in the foreigner¡¯s body had oozed with primordial pheromones. These had contrasted so sharply with his dogmatic, focal tenacity it had felt as though he were being sheared clean in two with a glass razor.

    That beast seemed like a circus fool compared to how Prokvert unrolled another, much longer scroll and began reciting names and herd assignments. His tone and aura indiscriminately fluctuating between brimstone exorcist and death-row chaplain.

    Amelia gulped like she had just throated a cannon shell. Her legs went soggy but didn''t dare sit down in the middle of this crowd.

    ¡°Herd Alpha One Gemini,¡± he bellowed. Then, ¡°Cornelius Hazelstein.¡±

    A long, green, scaly Prospect near the front straightened up as the nearest alternative to standing. Although Amelia could not see his face, she could read in his every muscle his petrifying fear as clearly as if he¡¯d said it to her face.

    ¡°Pazael Nawa!¡±

    Cornelius''s shoulders dropped in a release of held breath. She guessed he knew Percival, and the news that they were in a herd together relieved him. She hoped she would have similar luck.

    But that seemed unlikely.

    Besides Ellie and Drake, and possibly Hemlock, there was no beast at this school Amelia knew well enough to be comfortable with when crammed into the confines of a ship for possibly weeks on end.

    She knew she would need to swallow that fear if she wanted to graduate into fully-fledged Pyratehood.

    After all, the term ¡°spine-bearer¡±, as in reference to the beast paired with the one on night watch to keep them from dozing off, had grown into a quasi-term for a close friend or family member.

    And though Amelia had common sense enough to know the connotation was meant positively, a coin was nary minted with a head that lacked a tail.

    Like biological relatives you often couldn¡¯t chose whom you shared relative cabin proximity with, as Amelia had been forced to learn the hard way. And their personal affairs, both fair and ill, tended to become your problem whether you wanted them to or not.

    As Prokvert read on Amelia¡¯s thoughts started to drift. A dangerous habit she knew, especially under the circumstances, but she just couldn''t help herself.

    She thought of her home and of her desecrated family. Both in past now. She thought of the library and of her favorite spot sitting out among the kapok trees overlooking her house, while reading her favorite story book, as the sun set beyond the horizon.

    ¡°Amelia Roberts!¡±

    From her distant mental palace she was aware of her body snapping to rigid attention. On the far wall of her internal retreat was hung a tablet list of all the beasts she least wanted to get stuck on a boat with.

    This included, among several she¡¯d had cause to encounter on the ferry, Ogden, Bon Bon and that hulking Ram whose name she never wished to know but whose hoofprint was embedded in her flesh memory forever.

    Unfortunately for her, whatever cosmic jesters were her story hadn¡¯t gotten their punch lines out quite yet. True to her instincts, the very next words which came over the air were, ¡°Charlotte Bonny!¡±

    Amelia¡¯s stomach dropped and caught in her upper intestinal valve. Only stopping there due to it having swelled on raw emotion like a glutenous sponge.

    She bit her lip and ground her heel into the stone in frustration. So blinding was her irritation that she almost didn''t hear the next name that Prokvert announced as though expelling a particularly consternate daemon, ¡°Crow!¡±

    That brought Amelia slamming back to reality. What sort of hair-brained parent had named their child Crow?! Even actual Corvids had more tact than that.

    ¡°Timothy Read!¡±

    ¡®Ok, now there¡¯s a name I can get behind, Amelia thought. I wonder if he plays Gvenji.¡¯

    ¡°Harold Drake!¡± The sound of a defiant wind escaping through a slamming door.

    Not being in the habit of repeating her mistakes, Amelia constrained her joy to a smile so intense she might have baked all the melanin out of Drake¡¯s coat.

    When the Head Secretary bellowed as if uttering a profane curse, ¡°Elizabeth Thatch!¡± Amelia could have leaped into ternary orbit with the suns.

    Finally, a real stroke of luck! She didn''t normally lend much credence to the concept of divine intervention, but if the gods had decided to help her, then they couldn¡¯t have picked a better moment.

    ¡°Julien and Jerome L¡¯ Olonnais!¡±

    At this the entire assembly froze. If there had been an Arachnid present, or if the science Professor Moriarty had thought to check his barometer, he would have detected the percentage drop in temperature and pressure ergo their sudden collective gasp.

    However, only a sorcerer could have reconciled this with the laws of thermodynamics.

    Those who were close enough to see Amelia sent her looks that said variations on ¡°better you than me¡±. Not for the first time did Amelia get the sense that she had some major catching up to do.

    ¡°Adrian Kidd!¡±

    Buried up past her eyes in the initiate mass, Amelia heard wafting giggles and swoons from the perimeter gaggles. She checked another box on her rapidly expanding side-quest list.

    ¡°Henrietta Morgan!¡±

    She wasn¡¯t sure how to feel about that one. So long as she didn¡¯t wake up to a blade at her throat, or a hoof to her hand, she would count herself lucky. Such was how low her success bar had dropped.

    By this point the Prospect horde was growing restless. They were all eager to meet their new crewmates. Also, being the fine age of thirteen their average attention span was that of a drunk Mosquito.

    The allure of new world gates being thrust open before them had shorn off the vestigial haze of sleep and being forced to stand still and quietly listen to Prokvert''s awkward drawl was rapidly thinning their already strapped patience down to the marrow.

    Being wiser to such things, Avlon took back the lead and with the characteristic closer ¡°happy hunting¡± gave them all leave to go off and find their new Pyrate herds.

    Amelia closed her eyes in an instant. She knew a stampede when she felt one.

    The next instant she was ten feet off the ground. Sailing over startled heads to come to a crashing halt right in between Avlon, Prokvert and Drake. The latter of whom stared down at her with an expression of astounded wonder that slowly morphed into bemused comprehension.

    No beast said a word until the last of the confused crowd had disappeared. At which point, practically salivating the salty humor of premature age, Drake asked, ¡°ready to test the waters Runt?¡±

    Avlon smiled.

    Prokvert frowned.

    Amelia wriggled her nose.

    So she¡¯d already earned herself a moniker huh? Well, it wasn¡¯t the name she would have chosen, but she supposed it could have been a lot worse.

    She stood up, brushed herself down, and regarded the three with as much dignity as a radish could have had climbing into a market-bound crate.

    ¡®When you don¡¯t know the rules¡¯ she thought, possibly quoting some old, dead beast whose name escaped her. ¡®Follow the master.¡¯

    Instead of saying anything out loud that might give further impression she didn''t know port from starboard, she let a quirk of a smile press her lip.

    Drake took this as good. He removed his name badge, handed it to Avlon, tipped the Headmaster a salute and strode off.

    Amelia gave the old Collie a quick squeeze then leaped into vigorous step behind.

 Chapter 5: Comrades-In-Odds

    ¡°I don¡¯t know why Prokvert insists on doing that whole bloody deal every semester,¡± Drake mumbled as he led them out into the common yard.

    Their first stop on their ¡°family tour¡± would be Tim¡¯s lab, or so Amelia had been informed. Actually, technically Drake had used the word ¡°lair¡±. Nevertheless, it sounded interesting so Amelia hadn¡¯t pressed him for specifics.

    As they cut across the field her eyes were inextricably drawn towards the Aphelern edge.

    A knot of around twenty girls, several of whom Amelia recognized from the ceremony, were loitering around the far side under the clock tower¡¯s shade. At first glance they appeared to be subsumed in conversation, but closer inspection showed them to be clandestinely watching, nay stalking, something to the Zen like a pack of hunting Wolves.

    The cardinal rule of hunting is to never track a tracker. And nature very seldom grants leeway for ignorance. But if curiosity was a bridle Amelia would have been a tamed Mare.

    She followed their collective trail to see what something had them so enraptured.

    All she saw when she looked out there was a lanky yellow stripling running laps around the periphery. It was only when he came closer that it dawned on her what all the fuss was about.

    In a word, he was gorgeous. No other term did it justice. His long, corded muscles rippled like waves beneath his sleek golden, spotted fur. He was like a work of art. A finely-tuned machine, designed and built by nature¡¯s forge for a singular purpose. To watch him run was like seeing an accelerated sunrise.

    This was a particularly apt metaphor in this case given that he was an Acinonyx. Otherwise known as a Cheetah to the planet¡¯s less educated residents. This meant that his every cell, down to the core of his bones, was crafted solely for speed.

    And speed this one had.

    So able was his jaunt, that by the time her brain had completed this observation, he had reached them, smiled, waved at Drake who didn¡¯t have time to return the gesture and was a good thirty feet into his next lap.

    As he neared the Apheler side again, the other girls elapsed into what Amelia could only think to call subversive advertising. Laughing and fawning with their eyes all while hiding behind their hands and manes where applicable.

    He waved as he jaunted past them. Amelia was horrified to discover that she was shrinking into her own hand while the other one fondled her purity beads.

    ¡°Adrian Kidd,¡± Drake said, breaking her free of his hormonal spell. ¡°Your father probably told you about him. Around here they call him the Dream Kid. You can see why.¡±

    Amelia could. But she refused to let herself travel down that road and further than she¡¯d already stumbled.

    She realized as they went along their way that it had probably been Drake that Adrian had been waving to, not her. Even so, she couldn¡¯t resist stealing one last furtive glance back at him before he¡¯d vanished behind the clock tower.

    ¡®He¡¯s in your herd¡¯ her inner voice chided her. ¡®You¡¯ll have all the time in the world for sightseeing.¡¯

    She wasn¡¯t sure quite how to feel about this. She pondered it for about as long as it took them to reach the back of the Academy¡¯s ¡°keep side¡±. At which point the newness of the surroundings paired with the conspicuous lack of living activity brought Amelia to tentatively broach the question, ¡°where exactly are we going?¡±

    To which Drake gave a somewhat sideways answer. ¡°Tim¡¯s not exactly what you would call ¡®normal¡¯,¡± he said. ¡°As the beast himself puts it, ¡®he¡¯s a sitting brain born to a tribe of bouncing fists¡¯.¡±

    Amelia nodded like she understood.

    ¡°I admit, even around here he tends to skid the belt on both sides,¡± Drake continued. She nodded again.

    ¡°Apparently, they¡¯re also not altogether thrilled with his decision to run off and become a ¡­ How¡¯d he put it ¡­ ? A ¡®roving sky snatcher¡¯. Or something like that.¡±

    She nodded a third time. This time with genuine empathy.

    ¡°The Headmaster lets him board up and keep shop back here in exchange for his ¡­ well, let¡¯s just call it his ¡®unique expertise¡¯.¡±

    At Amelia¡¯s puzzled expression he smiled and said with a kind of honeyed sweetness he must have picked up from Ellie, ¡°you¡¯ll see in a minute.¡±

    He indicated a door in a half-moon bastion just ahead. As it summoned by the gesture, an unassuming Oreamnos emerged from it right at that same moment.

    Smiling pleasantly at Drake, he waved and said, ¡°ho there Captain,¡± before bearing off down the way they¡¯d just come.

    ¡°Who was that?¡± Amelia asked when he was gone.

    Drake answered only with a raised eyebrow and a shake of his head. Amelia shrugged it off, and they kept walking.

    Drake knocked on the door that the mountain goat had just come out of. A few seconds later a distant ¡°it¡¯s open,¡± came from the other side.

    When they entered, the sight which met Amelia was the cerebral equivalent of a Mole stumbling across a worm and dirt factory. She blinked twice and then again just to make sure she wasn¡¯t imagining this.

    Tim¡¯s was an Alchemy lab.

    She¡¯d heard as many tales as the average beast, probably more, being that her family¡¯s house had been the end stop of a major shore road, about the legendary research and discoveries of alchemists over the Eras. The subject had always fascinated her even when she was still in her tale. Though up until now significant barriers had hamstrung her education to hearsay and secondhand transcriptions of fragmented abstract manuscripts. Most namely of those being the rampant government corruption and general anti-intellectualist attitudes of Amurzan political and cultural authorities. Also the equally renowned secrecy of occultic organizations, due in large part to the much avowed ¡°terrifying power and danger their work presented to the world if left out unguarded¡± didn¡¯t help.

    From the base of the tower¡¯s ogive ceiling rafters down to the heavily pitted and scarred floor, nearly every square inch of surface stone was covered by utilitarian wooden bookshelves, tables, desks and chests. Every solitary unit of which was occupied by the paraphernalia of his craft.

    Scrolls, books, parts, tools, instruments, glassware of every shape and size describable by higher arithmetic.

    Numerous technical diagrams and charts, along with anatomical sketches and maps with red X¡¯s drawn on them were hung over the remainder of the mason work. Most prominently featured were a quintet of past Era maps. All but one either had whole sides missing, had chunks torn or holes seemingly torched through their centers.

    Amelia recognized the complete one right off. On one of her and her sisters¡¯ frequent market excursions they¡¯d met a shady collector who¡¯d claimed to possess the genuine article. However, he¡¯d said it was back on his ship, and he would happily let Amelia come have a look at it for a few coppers.

    She and the younger, Evie, had all but handed him their money when the eldest had intervened. Amelia vividly recalled the cutting edge in Talia¡¯s voice as she¡¯d herded them off.

    ¡°Any beast who sells you something you can¡¯t see is scum.¡±

    Many of the long tables were littered with similarly coated parchments and notebooks which undoubtedly contained more of the same. On others there were strange instruments and devices whose origins had come from the pages of either a very graphic horror novel or some archaic manual for torture.

    Her eyes were drawn along were long strings of glass retorts hooked up to glass vials strung together by glass tubing, through which colorful fluids oozed and gasses vapored in concert to the cyclic dances of Jabir candles.

    Some concoctions bubbled, others fizzed. Still more crackled and popped seemingly at random. They filled the entire space with the odorous rank of vinegar and dead fish. The latter was not an easy thing to come by on a planet whose surface area was less than ten percent liquid water.

    In the middle of all this mess stood a towering Macropodid. He wore a long-necked, loose-knit sweater and a pair of black thick-framed reading glasses.

    When he eventually looked away from his work which happened only when Drake cleared his throat so forcefully that one could be forgiven for thinking he was hacking a hairball he regarded Drake with a disconcerted reverence. The look only a beast who spends all his days squinting at bubbles can muster.

    He paused to dredge his mind up from whatever contemplative realm it had inhabited. ¡°Ah, Drake. Perfect timing. Look, have I got something to show you!¡±

    Without waiting for a response, and with surprising grace, he whirled and snatched a small circular item from one of the overcrowded tables behind him. He presented it to Drake with a blatant prideful smirk.

    ¡°Can you guess what it¡¯s for?¡± he asked in the manner of one who knew the answer but derived infinitely more satisfaction from hearing it said aloud.

    Drake took the strange device and looked it over with feigned interest. When he looked back at Tim his distant stare said as much as his absent tone. ¡°You¡¯ll have to enlighten me.¡±

    Before Tim could respond with what Amelia correctly intuited was a well-rehearsed monologue, Drake snipped it off with a raised hand. ¡°But later. Right now, I have a beast here to introduce to you.¡±

    He gestured for Amelia to come forward. When she did, he said as if speaking to a stubborn pet, ¡°Tim, meet Amelia. Our new Runt.¡±

    Amelia compressed a snort by crinkling her nose. She doubted she would ever get used to being called Runt. One would think that growing up around Anurans would foster some mental callouses, provided one didn¡¯t think too hard about it that is.

    The Kangaroo looked down on her from as near the ceiling were they in a normal house with the expression that suggested he expected her to jump up and bite him.

    When she made no moves of the kind, he fished about uncertainly for words. ¡°Uh, hi¡±, was what he finally landed on. He followed this up with a wave in case she didn¡¯t get the message.

    Amelia mirrored him and forced a cordial smile. ¡®And dad said I need to get out more.¡¯

    This evaporated when a gravelly voice behind her called out, ¡°hey! Why don¡¯t you say hi to me? I¡¯ve got feelings too!¡±

    Amelia whirled towards the voice, but when she saw no one she got that suspicion that tends to creep up on many artists and philosophers from time to time that her handle on reality might be a few nails short of load-bearing.

    When it spoke again after a question silence it sounded more impatient than angry. ¡°Helloooo! Hey! Tinker Bell! Up here!¡±

    One thing was certain, wherever this apparitional voice hailed from, it was not any part of her imagination.

    After another intense scry over the place revealed no hint of a possible source, the voice starting getting aggravated. Or was it amused? If she was already questioning one element of her facility to reason, why not two?

    ¡°No, no, no. Up here ya bloomin¡¯ water melon! Ugh! Will some beast get this Runt a chair or something?!¡±

    Amelia threw a look at the boys. Drake hoisted her up by the armpits onto a tall stool Tim dutifully provided.

    Once released, she retook to her search for her chastiser with all the petulant vengeance early pubescence could proffer.

    First, all she saw from her new vantage point was an obscene amount of dust. But then she spotted a pale white skull sat precariously on a pile of dusty books. The largest of which¡¯s spine was spelled out in large gold italics: On The Natural Origins of the Brain by: Ivan Feral.

    Amelia knew the skull to be that of an extinct Primate, but no more than that. That was until she read the flavorfully inscrolled brass on the dusty wooden display plate just to the right.

    <u>Mandrillus Sphinx</u>

    The skull¡¯s copper-rimmed eye sockets were inset with delicate circular matrices of copper wires and translucent gemstones of hues spiraling backwards down the rainbow list towards the pupils. Twin opals whose cores blazed with fractal lightning.

    The bone¡¯s pallid chalky finish pointed to it being a plaster or painted wood replica rather than a genuine fossil.

    She leaned in to examine its enlarged incisors when its jaw started moving, nearly causing her to fall back onto an array of technical apparati.

    ¡°There ya go,¡± the skull said. The glow in its eye bulbs faded and relit in freakish imitation of a blink. ¡°Hi ya Runt. And a fair mornin¡¯ too as long as we¡¯re on the subject.¡±

    After a moment of drinking in her bewilderment, the skull decided to help by offering her a hint. ¡°Aren¡¯t ya gonna introduce yerself?¡±

    She blinked, swallowed her initial thought and began again. ¡°I, uh, I-I¡¯m Amelia,¡± she sputtered, unaware that her mouth was hanging at an off angle. She blinked again.

    ¡°Who are you?¡±

    This was likely the most cohesive response he could expect. Something the skull appeared to comprehend.

    ¡°Name¡¯s Lor¨¢nce de Chamele¨®n,¡± he said, enunciating a facetious grin. ¡°But everybody just calls me Steve.¡±

    He bobbled about on his pointy jaw bone. If he¡¯d had regular eyeballs Amelia guessed they¡¯d be rolling like cast marbles.

    ¡°I can¡¯t imagine why,¡± Amelia answered before she could think not to.

    Steve snorted, a noise sounding like a fire log belching. ¡°Neither can I.¡±

    Tim then interrupted saying, ¡°She is part of our herd, apparently.¡± Steve shot back, ¡°hey bright eyes! Do I interrupt when you¡¯re giving one of your saarding lectures?¡±

    Before Tim could cobble together a reply, Steve kept rolling. ¡°Now, where was I? Oh yeah ¡­ So Runt, I hear you''re new around here.¡±

    To which Amelia replied, ¡°I just arrived on the ship yesterday.¡± She looked over at Drake, and he smiled back at her, knowingly. Amelia then asked, ¡°Steve, how long have you been here?¡±

    Steve responded with an implicit sneer. ¡°I¡¯ve been stuck on this shelf for five saarding years!¡±

    Tim tried to respond but Steve was too quick on the draw.

    ¡°Oh can it ya great blaggard! Ya know, if you¡¯d talk to me occasionally, I might be able to justify my meager existence.¡±

    Had it been possible for Amelia¡¯s interest in a magickally verbose skull to wane, this new insight would have charged it with such Herculean vitality, it could have taken a page from the Felinistic demigod¡¯s book and forged a new Abyssal trade route through a mountain with a single punch.

    She had always been a natural shut-away. Generally content to live inside her own head and books, preferring their cold comfort to the hot commotion of the outside.

    However, in more recent days she had come into more profoundly intimate terms with the counter-side of isolation. At least her solitude was mostly self-inflicted. The idea of having been called into existence only to be continuously neglected by your creator was something that struck at a particularly vital nerve.

    Feeling like her heart was freezing over, in a dry voice Amelia asked, ¡°how do you go on like that?¡±

    Steve rocked back and forth vigorously on his perch, causing a cloud of gray dust to rise around him. ¡°Habit, I think, in all honesty.¡±

    Then Steve started hacking and tried vainly to swat away the dust. But he quickly realized that was futile. ¡°You¡¯d think he¡¯d at least think to dust over here every once and a while but noooo.¡±

    He huffed and gave what must have been the cranial equivalent of the cold shoulder. ¡°It¡¯s no wonder he doesn¡¯t get many visitors. He just sits there and plays with his cockles all day and night. So I¡¯m left up here to keep the dust and wood shavings company.¡±

    Though logically he could not have been said to breathe as such, he emitted a sound that came to the ear as a truly pitiful sigh. ¡°It¡¯s just a good thing I learned to hibernate here like an inanimate trophy!¡± He practically spat the last word. ¡°Sometimes I wonder why he even made me in ¡­¡±

    Without thinking, Amelia hoisted the dejected anthro-abomination down by his temples and smothered his ranting lament in her breast.

    She was barely cognizant of the fact that her cheeks were wet, and was totally ignorant of how Drake and Tim were systematically checking every lid, top, valve and cork they could find in case any were permitting awkward fumes.

    They were not.

    Concluding as much first, Drake marveled at the surreal beauty of the sight. An adolescent poisonous Frog hugging a depressed, magickally-animated skull named Steve made by his herd¡¯s mad scientist Ensign.

    Steve himself marveled silently, too, for a moment. After that he began to purr. As he did, the whole of his being lit up as if some beast had just doused him in Magnolsis fuel and set an open flame to him. If Ursai came out of hibernation this way, no beast would ever consider stealing their porridge.

    Amelia, astounding even herself, didn¡¯t so much as flinch. She calmly set Steve back down on his rest, but not before wiping it clear of dust with her sleeve.

    She locked eyes with the skull. His inarticulate countenance made his thoughts unreadable. But Amelia intuited a burdening coalescence deep within.

    What exactly that meant she would have been at a loss to tell. Such labyrinthine emotional wells made her miss the nauseating rock and roll of the ferry. It coming from an animate macabre deco sculpture didn¡¯t assuage the unsettling tide at all.

    When the light of saliency again was kindled in his phosphorescent eyes, she perceived in them comprehension¡ªone that invisibly bridged her cerebral cognition with his. Steve then looked down at Tim and announced icily, ¡°you could learn a thing or two from this one.¡±

    Amelia¡¯s knees went to water in that moment. Sensing the danger, Drake caught Amelia down from her perch. At least she¡¯d have a shorter way to fall if worse came to worst.

    He opened his mouth to say, ¡°we need to go¡± but he stopped when he realized that Tim was far too absorbed in his own introspection to hear.

    They silently took their leave. After Drake shut the door as gingerly as if it were made of fine porcelain, he said, ¡°promise you''ll never tell Bon Bon about this place.¡±

    Amelia did not need to be told why. She could readily imagine the chaos that Bon Bon in a room packed full of potions, poisons, elixirs and every type of electrical and explosive device would have wrought. She nodded and Drake snorted in begrudging approval.

    Then a question came unbidden to the front of her mind. She opened her mouth to ask it, but Drake beat her to the punch. ¡°This lab is not exactly ¡®sanctioned¡¯, if you catch my meaning.¡± He gesticulated the quotes with his fingers. ¡°But like I said, the Headmaster overlooks it because Tim has nowhere else to go. And he is a right bloody mad genius.¡±

    He aimed a sidelong glance her way. Reading an upcoming question in her face, but falsely inferring its subject, he added in what he probably meant as an assuring tone that came out as rudely dismissive, ¡°and Prokvert ignores it because Avlon told him too.¡±

    She answered this with what must have seemed like a thought from a disparate strand of reality altogether. ¡°Why do there have to be so many secrets?¡±

    It may have just been her thinking aloud, but it wasn¡¯t long after the very first syllables had entered into the cosmic audio corpus that she wished for the power to retract them. But like the proverbial butterfly having flapped its wing, she fluttered haplessly in space and watched as the cyclone unfurled itself, then waited for the repercussion she knew was short in coming.

    Fortunately, if Drake noticed anything untoward about this comment he didn¡¯t seem overly concerned. Instead, he simply shrugged and stated bluntly, ¡°beasts don¡¯t call Pyrates radicals for nothing.¡±

    As they walked, they got to talking about other topics: The Academy, Captain Flint, their lessons, boys, and all manner of other things which somehow became infinitely more interesting now that they had become relevant.

    Suddenly, their parley was interrupted by a terrifically resounding BANG!!! Much like the one that had robbed her from sleep that morning. Only now, being much closer to its source, it was loud enough to humble the First Divide.

    Much the way Ellie had done, Drake peeled off towards the noise at a straight sprint. Leaving Amelia to make up the expounding gap in brief, albeit admirable, bounds.

    She trailed him like a meteorite fragment back towards the boys¡¯ dorm tower. Veering off down a long flight of smooth, stone steps that led to a small door out the Zen-Aphelern side.

    Not having yet learned the virtue of caution, Amelia forget her patience, practically fell out onto a cobblestone step path and flew down it like a fledgling bird through a free-standing stone archway to land at a precipitous halt above a wide court of sparkling white-gold sand.

    There, after pausing a breath to get reacclimatized to reason, she looked around. Finding herself surrounded by luscious greenery and bounded on three sides by a flat-topped berm of white-lime-coated cobblestone.

    The far end of the field precipitated a sheer cliff bounded by a low wall of pale stone just high enough to stop the sands spilling off into bottomless Abyss.

    Amelia stared at the thousands of empty leagues of gray between Flint¡¯s intrepid paradise and the frozen Erandic desert and shuddered against a rush of cold existential dread.

    Each of the flanking bulwark arms which grew out from the island¡¯s natural rocky incline culminated in a forty foot pillar of iron encased within a solid black pentagonal marble obelisk with lantern-cage crowns encasing a black steel ring large enough to be a walk-in portal.

    Threaded through each of these and down through a winch that would make a hydraulic mill¡¯s turbine feel inadequate and anchored at the inland end was one half of a pair of iron link chains some three hundred yards long.

    At the far end of each was leashed a miniature island of necrophagic rock whose sole inhabitant was an immense, roughly geometric, black slate tombstone about the size of an upturned Galleon.

    Amelia skidded to a halt beneath the archway. There she found Drake standing alongside Ellie. They stopped talking just long enough to acknowledge her presence, then quickly renewed their conversation.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

    ¡°Was that a fifty-pounder?¡± Ellie asked in a hissing growl.

    Amelia instinctively shrunk back from her tone. Ellie reminded her of her mother when she was mad. It didn¡¯t happen often, but when it did even Black Bart himself treaded on eggshells.

    Drake remained stone-faced. He didn¡¯t even bother trying to speak. He had jokingly called Ellie a ¡°hearth-throb¡± the first time they¡¯d been together. It didn¡¯t take most observers long to work out his reason or why he¡¯d only done it once.

    She was like a sentient fireplace. Warm and reassuring after a long day, but prone to maleficent spurts when excessively prodded.

    ¡°How many times do I need to tell those blockheads?!¡± she fumed. ¡°Nothing above twenty on the island! Save it for the damned course!¡±

    When he was sure she was good and vented, Drake took an opportunity to say, ¡°from the sound I¡¯d say it couldn¡¯t have been more than thirty¡± in an almost playful tone that would have earned near anyone else a swift clap across the muzzle.

    Although spared her physical wrath, at least for the moment, her edgy bristle made clear he was still treading dangerously close to the fire. A point he didn¡¯t fail to catch and almost didn¡¯t fail to recover from.

    ¡°I think it was one of those new Textar mortar bombs,¡± he said with not so much sobriety as flat levity. Which would have put him in the clear, except that he added with a smile which sprouted out of a weed-like fondness, ¡°they can¡¯t keep their paws off the bloody things.¡±

    Just then, a tiny striped head appeared over Drake¡¯s right shoulder, making Amelia and Ellie jump back in alarm and surprise. Then a near identical head popped up over Drake¡¯s left side, causing Amelia to do a double take. They were twins, as she would soon learn. The ¡°Blunder¡± variety. But for the life of her, Amelia couldn¡¯t pinpoint their actual species.

    They were feline, that much, at least, was beyond contest. But they weren¡¯t like any cats she¡¯d ever seen or read about. It didn¡¯t help that they were both unkempt and ragged. They looked as if they¡¯d lit themselves on fire on more than one occasion.

    Amelia winced internally as she recalled how the crowd that morning had reacted to the mere mention of these two. As if Bon Bon didn¡¯t already radically stretch her tolerances for crazy in every possible dimension, now she''d have two bomb-happy Cats prowling around onboard with her.

    All in all, she was starting to think she¡¯d stumbled onto the stage of a bad comedy play than into the Pyratical arena.

    ¡°The mind is its own place. And under the proper charms it can make a pleasant bath out of an infernal cauldron.¡±

    ¡®Milton Benjamin would have had an absolute field day with this place¡¯, Amelia thought.

    Ellie clenched her hands into fists. Placing them on her hips, she stood scowling at the Twins. Not that either of them took any notice. Instead, they turned their matted, disheveled faces to Drake and in one voice shouted, ¡°did someone say Textar?!¡±

    Drake shook them off with a shrug of his powerful shoulders. Rather than discouraging them, this lack of pleasantries simply sent them scurrying around in front of their Captain.

    They weren¡¯t much taller than Amelia and were just as plainly dressed. From this perspective, Amelia could see that they each had one emerald eye and one steely blue one, but on opposite sides. Also they carried enough weapons to arm an Imperial detachment.

    They wore Detachable Extended Basket Threaded, or DEBT, enabled blunderbuss carbines slung over their shoulders with at least three other handguns of ranging makes, models and calibers hooked at their thighs, hips and across their spindly chests.

    Their various belts and bandoliers sported encyclopedic varietals of explosive and what older Pyrate students learned to call ¡°reactive¡± devices. Spring triggers, spring razors, spring traps, spring launchers and other bold mechanical defiances of the Hypocritic and Geneva Statutes.

    Some of these Amelia could actually name, but most appeared as alien instruments of either torture or scandal or a combination.

    Each boy also carried a long, trapezoidal seax down an integral leather pocket on his boot and a stocky gunstock war club slung that same thigh.

    Amazingly, even in all this kit the pair were exact mirror images of one another. One had to be of a particularly detective persuasion to notice this, and even more so to spot the few odd little discrepancies, such as a tiny black patch in front of the one¡¯s left ear and an apple-shaded scar across the back of his left hand.

    Realizing that her ¡°impatient teacher¡± stare wasn''t making any headway, Ellie reverted to her tried-and-true tactic of ¡°just what the saard do you two think you¡¯re doing?¡± To which they replied in disquietingly-perfect synch, ¡°practicing.¡±

    At that moment, the twin with the odd patch pulled out a fist-sized cast-iron ball. On top of it was attached a thumb-sized wooden box with a long pin jutting out of it.

    Before Drake or Ellie could so much as move or speak, the other twin yanked out the pin. The first one then shouted, ¡°hot poc!¡±, then through a tightly coordinated effort they hurled the now very armed and deadly device as high as they could into the air.

    In the hanging second which followed, Ellie was the first to react while Drake was the first to respond. ¡°Son of a ¡­ !¡± was as far as she got before he threw her and Amelia to the ground shouting ¡°down!¡± Then subsequently pinning and shielding them both from the impending blast with his own body.

    Amelia¡¯s chest felt hollow. Her heart was somehow beating both faster and slower at the same time. Images flashed through her mind too fast to contemplate, turning her reason rancid. She harkened back to her father¡¯s tutelage.

    Though she had never nurtured any particular interest in weapons or battle in general, Talia, had always insisted that knowledge of them would come in very handy.

    ¡°If Black Sky or Conshorta ever decide to show their ugly faces around here,¡± she, and eventually Evie, had enjoyed saying, ¡°we¡¯ll show ¡®em why father¡¯s called ¡®the Daemon of the Depths¡¯¡±.

    Amelia had sometimes wondered if Talia was actually a girl. Maybe she was like the character in the Tail Island story of Haramasutra, in which an arrogant prince was transformed by a slighted sorceress into a peasant girl in order to teach him some humility and restraint.

    It also hadn¡¯t flown past her that Talia¡¯s boast might not quite mean what she thought it meant. But even so, strange and unfortunate as it was to think now given all that had happened and was about to happen, Talia had been far wiser than either Amelia or her mother had given her credit for. Even if she herself would have denied it.

    ¡®Strange what goes through your mind when you¡¯re about to die.¡¯

    Also strange was that she wasn¡¯t afraid. Of course the reason for this was that the chemical correspondents of fear took longer to travel through the body than simple abstract impulses clustered in the mind. But merely eight solid years of learning hadn¡¯t quite brought her up to that level of speed yet.

    However, thanks to her piratical parentage, Amelia¡¯s familiarity with archetypical bomb construction was a solid mark ahead of most other civilized youths her age.

    She knew the integral three-second fuse would slowly burn down until it reached its nexel trigger. Once activated, nexel would deliver a high-intensity burst of radiant energy. It was less than what was used as ammunition, but still more than sufficient to set off the volatile Udor gel inside the grenade¡¯s chamber.

    The resulting blast would lacerate them with dozens of molten iron shrapnel bits before the shock wave turned their soft flesh into pulp. Then the heat wave would instantly boil their fluids and set anything remotely flammable on fire.

    The good news was that all this would happen in a fraction of a blink. They would be dead five separate ways before their nerves could transmit their agony signals.

    Four seconds gone.

    Amelia closed her eyes and waited for death¡¯s embrace.

    But it didn¡¯t come.

    Instead, much to the surprise of all, especially the Blunder Twins, from out of the air there came a loud POP!! It was followed almost instantly by the sound of the iron orb thumping harmlessly onto the sand.

    Still fully expectant of meeting the looming reaper¡¯s scythe the three beasts eased slowly to their feet as if scared to wake the slumbering bomb.

    When, upon reaching near full verticality they had failed to disintegrate, they crept on furtive toes over to inspect the conspicuously inert object, with Drake leading, still acting as their improvised shield.

    Hardship and life, as often as not working as a shield pair, had forged the utmost caution into the Canid pair and had further bred it into an ironclad instinct  tantamount to hunger or sexual arousal.

    They had survived enough of the Blunder Twins¡¯ antics in their years to know in not so many words that chance was a fool¡¯s friend and they¡¯d been Pyrates in general long enough to know that fools tended to exit their world in short order and in pieces.

    However, as they approached, it became clear that the danger had been summarily excised through a clean, straight hole of roughly matrimonial size through the grenade¡¯s detonator housing block.

    Drake, Ellie, Amelia and the Twins shared a lengthy confused silence. During this time, the Twins stared agape while Drake and Ellie silently conversed. Meanwhile, Amelia, having neither a lover nor a sibling present to stare at, instead stared intently at their would-be grave warden.

    A surreal blanket fell over Amelia¡¯s thoughts such that she didn¡¯t hear Drake say, ¡°you see where they got their nicknames.¡±

    Right on cue, as if posing for a portrait, the Twins pompously presented themselves. Each with theatrically puffed out chest and striking a dramatic pose. Both their faces slashed with grins widely displaying pseudometalic, needle-like teeth.

    But Amelia was far more interested in the nature and origins of their onomatopoeic messiah.

    Observing the hole, it took her less than a hummingbird¡¯s heartbeat to recognize it as the work of an incendiary nexii round.

    Looking about, accounting for the fact that the bomb was in the air when the shot had hit its target, she deduced the most likely location for the shooter and turned her eyes back towards the Academy building.

    Sure enough, blacked out against the silver clouds between the crenels of the dorm tower a tall, slim figure stood overlooking the range.

    She couldn¡¯t make out much more detail for lack of a spyglass or a raptor¡¯s optical birthright. But the figure¡¯s general posture suggested that what perspective had compressed to a long stick was more probably a rifle.

    No sooner had she decided to alert the others than she saw her hand point and heard her voice say ¡°look up there¡± to nobody. Drake and Ellie had already followed her same reasoned course and to a far more precise conclusion.

    With palpable relief and respect they said in perfect accord, ¡°Crow¡±.

    Upon hearing this, the Twins folded their arms and pouted. The one with the scarred hand mumbled something under his breath that strongly resembled, ¡°spoil sport¡±.

    Then Drake led the group, bothersome bandits and all, back into the school and round the bend towards the Zenith tower.

    On the way Amelia had devised little in the way of expectations. This entire expedition thus far had been nothing if not conventionally upturning. And she was, after all, nothing if not a quick study.

    But Drake patting a seemingly random section of brick near the door and showing it to be no more than an artfully made fa?ade of wood and plaster by pulling it open, revealing a drowsy little cabin of a corridor beyond forced her to tear up the conservative list she had composed.

    As would be explained to her on the ascent, this was one of many strategically located ¡°secret¡± entrances to the Academy¡¯s vascular tunnel system known to the student body as the ¡°Quick Walk¡±.

    ¡°I.E, ¡®I¡¯m gonna take a Quick Walk to class¡¯. Or up to the dorm as it were,¡± in Ellie¡¯s words.

    Originally designated the Servants¡¯ Pass in all official designs, of which there was exactly one copy in existence. Most of the faculty, with the sole exception of the Headmaster himself, believed it a perfect secret.

    ¡°Evidently,¡± Avlon had joked when he¡¯d caught a batch of Troves sneaking out of the kitchen entrance, ¡°not one of those beasts had a very regular childhood¡±.

    Flint had designed ¡°the Pass¡±, as the Professors called it, as a means for guards and menials to go about their work without interfering or being interfered with by daily school processes.

    But the world, and consequently the Academy, had been a far different place in those days. Like its host castle, the Quick Walk had changed with the times. Long overlooked and for all practical sakes abandoned when it was discovered that, from inside, one could easily overhear everything that went on in the rooms around and even clear across campus if one knew what pipes to press their ears to.

    It was just wide enough for a single beast to squeeze through and only just high enough for one as tall as Drake to stand up in, it snaked like wild vines throughout the entire Academy.

    It was a traditional rite of passage for male Prospects to be shown the Quick Walk on their first night by an older student and then be left there to his own devices. Though no specific objective would be given, the girls¡¯ dorm tower was the favorite destination for several key reasons.

    One being simple convenience, what with it being the opposite compass point.

    The second and more significant was that the boy was expected to return with proof of his Pyratical prowess, usually in the form of an ¡°acquired¡± item.

    Though, again, very rarely was he given a specific target, it had to be something he couldn¡¯t have picked up from just any old place. Such as an article of clothing or a small piece of jewelry. Thus the girls¡¯ dorm was the first logical choice for most. Although some daring few over the years had made missions out of the faculty quarters. One had even successfully made free with the aeronautics Professor Trestle¡¯s favorite bluebell handkerchief. The fact that she¡¯d never been the wiser further solidifying the feat in the Academy¡¯s lore.

    With the first leg of his rite done, the prospective Pyrate then had to feel his way back to the boys¡¯ dorm before the tower bell tolled a sixth and show the purloined treasure to his elders for inspection.

    All done the Prospect would be granted the honorary fraternity suffix Ra. The name of the First Sun, as taken from the Ptolemaic model of horoscopic causality. His light representing the totality of forward momentum in the cosmos. Be it physical, spiritual or metaphorical. Everything that in any way engendered positive change in the universe, from the spark of fertility to invention to artistic inspiration supposedly related back to the Divine Masculine.

    This whole clandestine ritual had once been referred to by older students as ¡°taking a Quick Walk¡±. Hence the broader saying¡¯s origin.

    Lest one be led to believe that delinquency was reserved for male Pyrates, whilst the sorority initiation was a touch less formal it was nonetheless as informative and invasive.

    Before a girl could attain the ritual suffix Dona, the feminine counter to the traditional Sekikaigatan honorific Dono, meaning ¡°honored one¡±, used by one Samurai to refer to a fellow brave, she would have to ¡°make a vital connection¡± in the Walk.

    What exactly this meant was generally left up to individual discretion. However, generally the more carnal and intimate the experience, the better.

    Amelia was being shown the way as a means of sidestepping explanation for why two girls were being allowed inside the boys¡¯ dormitory.

    They climbed a wavy set of wooden stairs which culminated in an iron-braced wooden door with a faded red sign on it that read ROOF: NO ADMITTENCE. Drake shouldered it open. Whereupon they emerged on the roof and found themselves with a magnificent specimen of Gray Wolf.

    If a poet had been on hand they might have likened this beast to an anchor chain. A tall, slender length of taught steel.

    An aura of cold, dispassionate menace hung about him like a drawn sword. He did not need to be holding a gun to make it clear that he was not one to be trifled with.

    His exposed fur flowed in the breeze like molten silver. The rest was concealed under a close-fitting black shirt and trousers. The extremity ends of which were further covered by blackened steel vambraces, black fingerless, hard-knuckle gloves and black thigh boots with black shin wraps. One of which held a sheathed tanto, the other a small holdout pistol of a nondescript model.

    Amelia¡¯s first impression of him was less an inflexible cable to more of a living shadow. This notion being only minorly offset by the dashes of crimson about the cummerbund at his waist and the blood-red headscarf which obscured his right eye. The other of which being a spot of liquid fire that burned with the sort of calm intellect that belied only the most dangerous sort of mind.

    ¡°The mark of a hunter,¡± Captain Roberts had taught his daughters, ¡°is a cunning eye and a silent tread.¡±

    His weapon, now confirmed for a gun, Amelia further recognized as an S&F Double-Odd Bombardier. Affectionately dubbed the ¡®Charger¡¯ by the big game hunters and wild militias who favored it for its unprecedented stopping power.

    Being made especially with those who tended to find themselves punching high above their weight class in mind, it held the unique distinction of being the only bolt-action side-by-side gun in existence. Although this came at the cost of worthwhile optical mounts of any sort, it did not seem to hamper this owner any.

    Leaning on the barrels like a crutch, in his other hand he held aloft a stout, half-filled drinking horn of what Amelia guessed to be a variety of spiced rum, judging by the faint odor wafting over the brim.

    The Wolf¡¯s lone candle eye held steady as he watched the group approach. It¡¯s golden candle-light color complimented his sash perfectly. Drake greeted him heartily with an outstretched hand, ¡°I don¡¯t know how you do that mate, but I¡¯m glad you can.¡±

    Crow set down his rifle and shook Drake¡¯s offered hand with a wordless nod.

    Amelia tapped Ellie on the side, and when the Canid leaned down she whispered, ¡°not very talkative is he?¡±

    Why exactly she¡¯d felt the need to whisper this was beyond her. But regardless, Ellie whispered back, ¡°far as I know, nobody¡¯s ever heard him speak.¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡± Amelia asked in barely more than breath.

    Apparently the aspects of her brain that controlled speech hadn¡¯t yet gotten the memo that their subject was a Lupus, and therefore could still hear her words as plainly as if she¡¯d said them right into his ear. And even notwithstanding that, his actions thus far suggested an acuity of sensory perception sufficiently above normal to be able to surgically dismantle a moving, child¡¯s-fist-sized target from a quarter parayard away without any technological assistance.

    Ellie answered through a painfully restrained grin. ¡°He doesn''t say.¡±

    Amelia had just taken it into her head that she ought to go over and introduce herself when the words, ¡°our new Runt¡± suddenly landed on her ears from somewhere like metal rain.

    She reflected on the seemingly random hodgepodge of personalities they were collecting and herself strangely at ease with the whole situation.

    They sat around and talked long into the afternoon hours. Or to be more precise, Drake, Ellie and Amelia talked while the Twins mostly glowered and made faces at Crow who stood by politely sipping his rum.

    As the daylight began to wane and the clock tower tolled the hour, Drake pulled a silver, dual-faced timepiece from under his cloak and said, ¡°We should probably make our way downstairs. Don''t want to keep the Headmaster waiting.¡±

    Amelia groaned right alongside the Twins. Another ceremony. And just when she was starting to get the feel for her new boots.

    ¡®Oh well¡¯ she thought as Drake herded them all back into the Walk, ¡®at least this one¡¯s an excuse to get drunk.¡¯

    In a single line, with Drake at his rightful place at their fore and with Ellie in hers as near to beside him as the confines would allow, the greater percentile of their herd they had thus far assembled filed down and out into the courtyard for the SSF.

    Flint had never cared for acronyms, or any other manners of formality for that matter. As any of his successors could and would readily attest. Like the bulk of the tedious bookisms which had cropped up since his mysterious passing, this one¡¯s birthplace was the Head Secretary¡¯s office.

    As a tradition the Second Sun Festival was almost as old as the non-trademarked concept of piracy. It was a banquet held at the second sunset of the new semester to welcome new arrivals.

    Stories recalling Flint¡¯s stunted stint as Headmaster, most raw recruits were lucky to survive their first day. Whether it was genuine praise or a passive-aggressive jab for those who¡¯d managed to weather an entire day in the Pyrate¡¯s world.

    It was for this that she, Amelia, and the rest of the motley band she was to consider family gathered to commemorate with a rare license to indulge.

    Tim met up with them on the way. Amelia was about to ask why Steve was not with him, but she quickly answered that herself. Adrian Kidd was right where they¡¯d left him. Literally running laps around the rest with his ravenous fan club still frothing in the wings.

    No more than an hour later the courtyard was alive with fervent activity. Volunteers put up benches and set out the tableware under the FPA''s distinctive black and gold banner.

    It was last light before Adrian broke his cyclical streak, jaunting merrily over to join their party.

    Right, Amelia thought, that completed their gang. But soon, another figure approached whom Amelia couldn¡¯t remember seeing before. Though his greeting smile denoted a past familiarity, even he appeared indecisive of just with whom.

    A moment came and then recoiled that heard Amelia wonder silently if that undefinable twinge she caught wandering about the corners of the stranger¡¯s eyes was melancholic or just her imagination running one of its crude simulacra.

    The next moment saw her choose the latter and dismiss the thought.

    He introduced himself as Jacob Rackham, the son of infamous Pirate Jack Rackham, or ¡°Calico Jack¡± to his few friends and even fewer surviving enemies.

    The gods only knew where that moniker had come from.

    Drake offered his hand in greeting, but Jacob only stared at it like it was a math problem.

    ¡®Do they not shake hands in Horntooth?¡¯ Amelia wondered earnestly.

    It made sense to her. Horntooth, lying to the northwest of Amurza, was widely believed to be one of the first continents if not the very first continent to take recognizable shape after the First Divide. Famous for its inhospitable terrain, the continent had birthed the entire world''s population of Oreamnos and Ovids.

    Both were species well accustomed to scaling rugged cliffs.

    This would have left their hands ill-adapted to dexterous work. But could they not grab another beast¡¯s hand and move their arm up and down?

    Amelia shook this idea away. She could see that Drake was wrestling with the same problem.

    Through his attempts to clue Jacob in to the intent of his gesture, the Oreamnos merely smiled bemusedly. Drake answered with a confused head tilt and a cocked eyebrow, as did the rest of the assembled group.

    Jacob¡¯s shoulders sagged as he rolled his eyes and then his whole head. Then he said wearily, ¡°Drake, it¡¯s me mate. Jacob. Your Sailing Master.¡±

    At that moment, a look came over Drake¡¯s face that neither Amelia nor Ellie had ever seen before. He looked as if he were about to punch the Goat and barf on him at the same time.

    His mouth opened and closed as if his jaw hinged on a faulty electric circuit. But the most intelligible noise that came out was a broken series of guttural ¡°oh¡¯s¡± and ¡°um¡¯s¡±.

    Normally one might have expected an exclamation of shock to come from Jacob at having his existence being forgotten by his closest friends. But nothing about this situation was normal, even by Pyratical standards. And thus the role of stupefied munchkin fell to the pack¡¯s metaphorically green Runt.

    As she would come to learn and then instantly forget, however, this was far from the first time Jacob had been subjected to such a soul-withering offence.

    With a mournful smile he turned and walked away, leaving Drake et all standing there stupid. Looking and feeling as though they had just been slapped.

    Then the moment passed. And with it went away all knowledge of the farse like a wet plug from a drain.

    Ellie looked at Drake. Each of their faces as blank as a freshly wiped chalkboard. Then she asked of the whole group as though merely trying to fill an awkward pause, ¡°who wants some real food?¡±

    Like as many compass needles dialing in on a magnetic dipole, blank minds swiveled on basic impulses and moved hungry bodies in the direction of the banquet venue.

    Tim and Adrian followed Drake and Ellie with Crow and Hemlock close behind flanked by Bon Bon and the Blunder Twins with Amelia bringing up the very tail. All of them utterly oblivious to their herd being one member short.

    Any beast with a mind to investigate the deep financial and bureaucratic root canals of the FPA would learn that it functioned on a ¡°decimal reserve¡± business model. Which meant that the Academy proper was only really meant to house a fraction of those enrolled in it at any one time. Typically around ten percent. Hence the term.

    But the biannual festival of the second sun was a treat to which all up-and-coming Pyrates were entitled. And so it was naturally a tempting lure that very few hard-done scavengers were of a mind or will to pass by.

    Consequently, despite being ten times the area of an Olympic arena, on this evening the courtyard was packed near to bursting. Bordered by a fence of long wooden tables with the same makeshift stage that Avlon had used that morning sat squared in front of the Penirn gatehouse.

    About nine out of ten students were there, as well as staff, visitors and guests. There were beasts of a thousand colors from a thousand lands. They were clustered around the long tables, eagerly gorging themselves on the host of rare and wonderful cuisines being offered.

    So redolent was the air from the aromas of so many succulent dishes that, had Amelia been blind, she couldn¡¯t have known what she was putting into her mouth.

    Fruit pies and savory cream custards from Iradyl stood alongside salty conger platters from Iralith. Huge bowls of Menta¡¯s infamous horned stew and Plantea¡¯s seasonal truffle delectables overrode the exotic vegetables and fruits from Amelia¡¯s tropical homeland.

    Sadly, Pink Berry was not among the vast culinary display. But this was not unexpected, as it was known to be as unappetizing as raw Magnolsis. Also, to a non-Anuran, imbibing Pink Berry had the added effect of feeling like getting smacked upside the head by a large rock.

    And since Pink Berry cost roughly three times more to produce than the average cocktail owing to the deliberate obscurity of its recipe, the rarity of the vital ingredient and its near total lack of value to non-Anurans restricted its sale and distribution all but utterly to the Amurzan jungle.

    Amelia, however, couldn¡¯t have cared less about the exclusion. Having just realized she hadn¡¯t eaten a bite since this time yesterday her usually proportionately mild ectothermic appetite had grown into a rapacious beast of singular will and autonomous tenacity.

    She greedily indulged in the rich variety of prepared dishes, drinks and cultivated food stuffs. Never once happening upon the thought that this was all an important lesson wedged inside of a carefully orchestrated trap. Which, of course, was the point.

    Fatigue was a warrior¡¯s most persistent and well known nemesis. Pain was his arch rival. This was less of a problem due to adrenaline. However, all three of these things could blind and paralyze, leaving the reckless fighter unbalanced or drained of vital energy and therefore helpless.

    But little was it spoken of in the realms of martial academia the fault of excessive pleasure. Nary a wit or wink was ever paid to the dangerous rut of trusted safety and security. This was a fault Avlon had sought to rectify upon becoming Headmaster.

    When a sword arm is tired it gets sloppy.

    When it is injured it goes numb.

    When the arm is in perfect health but the brain in encumbered by alcohol or atrophied by comfortable neglect, the result is just as catastrophic.

    ¡°Death has no pride,¡± he¡¯d said when asked by a close companion to explain his thinking. ¡°No pity. No preferences. It cares not for the weak, the wealthy or the innocent. As Pyrates we live alongside death so that we may better predict his moves. There¡¯s no room for petty things in battle and so are a dangerous burden to a warrior¡¯s heart.¡±

    Night had well and truly fallen by the time the empty food carts and kegs were being rolled out.

    Ten minutes to the stroke of midnight Avlon once more took to his stage and tapped out an aharmonic tune on the rim of his personal goblet for attention.

    When he was satisfied that he had everyone¡¯s attention, he began what started off sounding like the typical day one welcome speech. One which most of the students and staff would have inattentively tuned out. But all eyes were fixed on the Headmaster as he withdrew a crinkled scrap of yellowed parchment from one of his many concealed pockets and began to read judicially aloud from it.

    ¡°Your privilege,¡± he read. ¡°Is the clay from which we are cast. And the ashes and dust to which we will return.¡±

    Amelia¡¯s blood ran sickly cold. Suddenly she felt like a speck of dirt staring up at a mountain whose summit was hidden above the clouds.

    This wasn¡¯t her godfather talking. Nor was it the same kindly old Claus who¡¯d inducted them into their herds that morning.

    This was the Chief Pyrate speaking. Flint¡¯s handpicked successor. And this time his words were his own. The stage and scene his alone to helm.

    Gone was his monotonous drawl. His elder sparkle. His voice was pure steel. His words were naked blades. His periods their dark scabbards.

    All who still were of wit to hear him were snared by the net of his inexorable will. Even through the plaster of alcohol, invisible athames had etched Avlon¡¯s every word into their tender brains like ritual runes.

    Even the elder students, most of whom had heard this talk several times over, still were locked in the moment. Frozen in space and time under a hypnotic spell.

    ¡°Your freedom,¡± Avlon continued, ¡°is to choose your own sacrifices. And what pain, what losses, what suffering you chose to bear. These things will be your true teachers.¡±

    He paused and looked about him. The whole yard was the opposed side of a mirror. Still silence hung in plates of ethereal glass.

    Even the air was as dead as ice crystal. The whole world swung by a hairline thread and the Headmaster held the blade that was to cut it free. This was the power of Word, Avlon knew. His innate gift which had promoted him to Flint¡¯s right hand. His voice could move, if not necessarily mountains, then masses who could reduce such cumbersome obstacles to gravel on his order.

    He had seen that power to work many times since. And seeing now that it was still good, he kept reading.

    ¡°The oaths you swear. The promises you make. The molds you fill or break. The wars you choose to wage. The banners you wave. The altars you kneel to. These are all yours alone.¡±

    He paused again. The silence hung like an executioner¡¯s axe. And when the blow finally came, the words cut straight into the hearts of all who heard it, ¡°and when oblivion finally finds you, you will face it ¡­ alone.¡±

    In the prickingly sober aftermath of his speech Avlon calmly rolled up the parchment and slid it back into its place. Then he clasped his hands behind him and stared out at the assemblage. His keen eyes alighting on new faces the way fire catches on the driest timber in a forest.

    Avlon raised his chin, and all eyes once again gave him their undivided attention. He looked around, then said, ¡°those were the last words Captain Flint spoke to me before sailing into Daggerpoint¡¯s Folly. I pass them on to you now. Think of them as your first and final gift. Tomorrow you will face the first of many trials. And we will see who amongst you is fit for the Pyrate¡¯s life ¡­¡±

    He paused a third and final time. By now the very walls were holding their breath. ¡°And who will be left in the dust.¡±

    With that final lie he disembarked the stage. Sheathing himself in the darkness behind. And with him his will, and consequently his spell, melted back into pure liquid air.

    Without the strength of the Words to keep the entropic lifeforce at bay, it could slowly dissolve back into its proper vessels. Albeit not without the odd bit of uncomfortable lag or synaptic clumping.

    Then the clock tolled once of twelve. That seemed to jar most cogs back into something resemblant of normal motion.

    Together with the senior staff, the ones that weren¡¯t drunk stupid anyway, and whatever senior students could still walk and talk, Drake took the Headmaster¡¯s place and began herding the junior student portions off towards their respective ships, dormitories or temporary shelters.

    Being still lucid enough to remember her earlier issues with crowds, but being too full in every sense to resist or care to, Amelia filed numbly out of the courtyard with the rest. And when she finally flopped into her bunk she let the cold vice that had been waiting take hold of her heart.

    She lay awake for an unknown number of hours.

    Avlon¡¯s, or was it Flint¡¯s, chilling words clawed and scraped inside her skull like unlubricated gyros. She needn¡¯t have taken the time to set her alarm.

    It wouldn¡¯t be necessary. Her heart was a ball of burning ice and her head was already pounding. Neither of which owed anything to the alcohol.

    She seriously doubted she would be getting any sleep tonight.

 Chapter 6: Tainted Hearts

    Amelia snapped awake not for the first time to the subliminal chime of a tiny bell. An unchartable emotional itch had her in an uncharacteristically irritable mood.

    She sat up, then instantly fell back and had to pause all other brain function to recall why her stomach felt like a sack of rocks.

    ¡®I think it¡¯s called a hangover.¡¯

    The moral here, she supposed as she willed her uncooperative body into vertical mode and wormed it into the standard three additional weather layers, was that spiced Mentan ale and hard Vjordka, an infamously caustic Horntooth beverage reserved for weddings and male adulthood rites with good reason, should never be imbibed within two sunsets of each other. Especially by one who just barely outweighed the empty keg.

    The even greater moral was that not everything permissible was wise. But that insight would just have to come by itself with some further aging.

    For the time being she would simply have to bear the fruits of her mistake. If Avlon¡¯s speech was to be taken at face value, she wouldn¡¯t have the luxury of mediocrity or laziness.

    The Headmaster''s words still buzzed about her brain like angry Hornets. And like most Vespids their offensive effects ranged from irritatingly painful to painfully irritating.

    ¡®With carrots like that who needs the stick?¡¯ Amelia thought as she glanced at her nightstand and realized with a start that she had once again overslept.

    Ellie and Bon Bon had already left, and her poor Chimer sounded like it was trying to shake off its chime.

    Amelia put the tiny machine mercifully to rest. Then, after taking perhaps three times the normal number of seconds to stash the sleeping contraption in her lock box, she secured the key and ran off. Pausing only as long as it took to grab and holster her itinerary parchment which had apparently been left in their dorms sometime during the festival.

    When, in the space of five heartbeats, she¡¯d reached the ground floor, she retracted the unsealed envelope,

    Unfortunately, thanks to her cerebral constipation, reading too proved a formidable rival.

    ¡°That¡¯s the big trouble with drink,¡± her mother had warned her daughters after one of her father¡¯s rare tavern outings had very nearly cost him an eye, a leg and a purse worth a fortnight¡¯s earnings. ¡°It shortens your reason so that you mistake your gun for a pointer rod. Common sense falls down the ¡®I¡¯ll think about it later¡¯ pit, never to be seen again.¡±

    In her case, haphazardly shoving into her pocket a parchment with still-drying ink on it, did not necessarily mean that she would read it later.

    ¡®How typical¡¯, Amelia¡¯s inner judge fumed, as she scrambled to find the barest scrabbles of language in the incoherent mess of blotched ink.

    ¡®Great start¡¯ her lower amygdala balked. ¡®Just wonderful. The legendary Pyrate, Amelia Roberts can¡¯t even stick something in her bloody pocket without shooting herself in the foot with it. The Gods must be having themselves a real good laugh right about now.¡¯

    Amelia had never had much use for the gods, and as far as she could tell they had no use for or interest in her either.

    Thankfully, cosmic prank or not, if some preternatural entity did have her on its scope, then it had also seen fit to dangle her a thin line of hope.

    Painstakingly scrutinizing the barely legible script, she more intuited than deduced that her first lesson would be at the target range.

    ¡®Well, at least I¡¯ll be on familiar ground.¡¯

    The fact that she actually found this comforting beleaguered her badly taxed brain all the way to the target sands.

    There, standing near enough to exactly where she, Ellie and Drake had all nearly learned the eternal secret was a group of about fifteen other students, all Prospects by the looks of them, crowded around a rather surly old bulldog, whom she recognized and knew from the initiation ceremony as Professor Hugh MacCuligan, but whom they would all soon exclusively refer to as ¡°Old Iron Hide¡±.

    And just as well, for they might as well have been two wholly separate beasts.

    The leather-encased, blast-shielded pyrotechnic Pyrate on that stage had looked like a convicted Mentan Sun Diver.

    This one, standing at half-again Amelia¡¯s height, his almost sarcastically broad chest and shoulders further emphasized by a stretched and stained beige linen shirt, bristled with that hard sailor aura she had caught ears of on the way here.

    The brackish old bruiser wore a quant deep water blue sailor¡¯s jacket and tricorn with a rustic bone pipe jammed into the corner of his  crooked mouth between crooked teeth.

    Over his left eye was a spot of black cloth veined with spirals of silver orbiting a sparkling blood-red ruby about the size of a large Dragonfly¡¯s eyeball.

    In short, he was the spitting image of the archetypal pirate. All he needed was the peg leg and hook.

    His good eye was so squinted that one could be forgiven for thinking he was asleep on his feet.

    At least until he started talking.

    ¡°Alright maggots, line up! No, you three get o¡¯er there. Right! Now stand still. Now, le¡¯see, that''s one, two, three, four ... Hey! Would you squawkers quit yer bloody squirmin'' already! How am I supposed to properly audit y''all when ye¡¯re wrigglin¡¯ about like mites on a crumpet?!¡±

    ¡®I doubt you could even spell the word audit¡¯ Amelia thought, but through sheer cephalalgiac trauma did not voice, as she inched reluctantly closer.

    She hadn¡¯t yet ruled out the idea of simply going back to sleep. She had already been thrown against more odd personalities than there were hours in a day and she was hardly in the right headspace just now for more.

    Unfortunately, if she thought she was going to be given a choice in the matter, she seriously needed to recheck her universal extension because she had the wrong number.

    For a stupid moment she wondered how Old Iron Hide had spied her hanging in the distance, what with him only having one eye already split fifteen separate ways. But then it occurred to her that she was a blue stud on a white beach. It would have been harder to miss an arrow lodged in his other retina.

    But it was what he did next that cemented her opinion of him squarely in the ¡®get out when and while you can¡¯ category.

    He somehow squinted even harder and bellowed, ¡°finally! Our missing link graces us with her presence at long last! Alright yer royal lethargy, get yer regal arse over here so I can count ye already!¡±

    This time she had to actually bite her tongue as the inexpertly concealed jeers and judgements of her classmates seared metaphorical brands into her flesh like a field of glowing iron pokers.

    Old Iron Hide put his fists on his hips while he waited. A mocking gesture that reminded Amelia a little too strongly of Ellie.

    ¡°Right! Now that''s all done and sorted, we can get on to the proper business o¡¯ gettin¡¯ you lot acquainted with the basic gets and goes o¡¯ Pyratin¡¯.¡±If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    He cast his steel gaze over all of them, as if the whole class had been complicit in some plot to undermine him.

    He strode over to a short-barreled cannon that Amelia knew had not been there yesterday. She regarded the thick iron barrel and surmised that it must have weighed more than everyone there combined. The old Pyrate must have had more than just a steel gaze if he could haul that thing out here all by himself.

    Old Iron Hide positioned himself behind the weapon¡¯s breach and placed one gnarled calloused hand on the lever. With the other he withdrew his chewed pipe and swirled it around as though it were a glass of cherished wine.

    The notion of this crude mutt ever partaking of anything more highbrow than a spittoon made every reasonable brain cell Amelia had balk. Though thankfully not audibly. Her mouth seemingly having fast learned the first lesson of adolescence which her addled mind was still fumbling with. Which was that if you don¡¯t want your thoughts scrutinized with a war chest, keep them to yourself.

    ¡°Right you lot, listen up!¡± he growled. ¡°First we¡¯re gonna run you over the bone basics. Starting with the HO regimen.¡±

    He held up a gnarled, stubby finger. ¡°Heavy.¡±

    Then a second. ¡°Ordinance.¡±

    A third. ¡°Proficiency.¡±

    Last, ¡°and Experience.¡±

    Amelia grimaced. Not just over her profound lack of interest in anything that was likely to see her flat on her ass again, although that did factor in. Mostly it was because years of primary school had taught her that any subject that had its own acronym was all but guaranteed to be a critical exam topic later.

    The ramshackle fixture and the way he expectorated the words gave her the added impression that Prokvert was this particular aural abortion¡¯s baby daddy.

    Fortunately for her, the FPA staff had several massive advantages over even the private side of Amurzan educators. Chiefly their being an elite class in the actual sense. Each and every body which held the coveted doctorate of teaching at Flint¡¯s Academy had earned it the hard old fashioned way.

    There were no soft academics here. Decades of live experience plying crafts in often ruthless and unforgiving fields sculpted their lesson plans.

    What Old Iron Hide in particular lacked in propriety and social grace he more than made up for with inexhaustible reserves of that most invaluable Pyratical asset.

    Despite his gruff manner, they all followed easily as he explained in expert detail the elegantly simple procedures for loading, unloading, cleaning and firing any type of standard artillery they would likely encounter aboard ship.

    After a solid hour, Old Iron Hide cocked his grizzled head and snorted. Whether this was a gesture of praise or challenge was not yet clear.

    The ambiguity would be rectified by his next question. ¡°Who among you can tell me,¡± he asked as he passed his eye over each set of wide eyes. ¡°the difference between slug and grape shot?¡±

    A murmur of collective uncertainty ran through the crowd. Both uncertain of the answer and whether or not giving it would prompt a similar hot round of accosting as Amelia had been dispensed for tardiness.

    Then one slender mustard hand rose above the pack. Dropping a cold silence on the rest like a glass guillotine.

    Amelia had read, or had she heard, somewhere this sort of effect referred to as Wild Magick. Essentially a free-range version of a spell. In this case the seizing life-jaw hex cast by the Headmaster last night.

    She knew the offender was Ogden before she¡¯d even turned to look. Who else could so easily unbalance an aura literally single-handedly?

    It somewhat offended her personal and logical sensibilities that she hadn¡¯t noticed him until he¡¯d wanted to be noticed. But it was such a minor offense she didn¡¯t notice it.

    Old Iron Hide looked pleased. Or as pleased as an old chunk of knotted wood can look. He pointed to the skyborne appendage and barked, ¡°step up!¡±

    As Ogden took the stage ahead of the shivering mass, Amelia could see that he wore the same posh attire as well as the same condescendingly miserable expression.

    ¡°Well sir ¡­¡± he started before Old Iron Hide cut him off. ¡°Don¡¯t give me that crap boy! Brown nosers make piss poor Pyrates. Name¡¯s Old Iron Hide. That or Professor¡¯ll do if ye¡¯re so inclined. But none of this ¡®sir¡¯ or ¡®mister¡¯ garbage.¡±

    He flung a spitting gaze over the rest of them. ¡°And that goes fer all of ye.¡±

    Ogden nodded blankly in acquiescence then started again from the top. ¡°First of all, ¡®shot¡¯ is the shorthand for a DLF, or Direct Line of Fire, projectile. One of two branches of which is a Slug, or a single solid round. Its main use is to pierce the enemy¡¯s armored flesh. The aim, both literally and figuratively speaking, is to cut straight into the enemy¡¯s vital systems. Hobbling or even destroying the vessel outright depending on the gunner¡¯s aim and the exact type of ammunition employed.¡±

    As he spoke there was no perceptible change in his countenance. Though if they could have peeled back the regency veneer and peered at the festering acreage within they would have seen a cauldron of assailant arrogance brewed in valleys of ambitious pining and stifling ineptitude.

    Amelia perceived, albeit as through a clouded, fractal prism, the presiding flame of sadistic thrill he took in the slight edge his noble inheritance afforded him.

    Though for now this would remain his secret pleasure alone.

    ¡°Excellent!¡± crowed Old Iron Hide, shoving his pipe back between his lips without opening them and giving a slow round of applause. ¡°Yer better¡¯n the last bunch of knockoffs I had, I¡¯ll grantya that.¡±

    Ogden ¡­ snarled. Or was that really his idea of a smile?

    Either way, he went on as he¡¯d began. Only now imitating the Professor''s perpetually incendiary manner and tone. ¡°These are further delineated into the strategic branches of HE, or High Explosive, and ED, or Electro Disruptive, ordinance. Both decimalize the ship¡¯s living internals. Only the latter cares to spare the squishy meat sacks. Unless they¡¯re too close to the blast that is.¡±

    His mouth stretched into an evil crook that didn¡¯t touch his eyes. Which stayed as dark and unyielding as Amurzan tarpits.

    ¡°If a Captain aims to capture an enemy vessel intact, then he may order a volley of grape shot be hurled into the enemy¡¯s rigging.¡±

    He cocked his head so that he could survey his classmates while still facing Old Iron Hide.

    ¡°This cripples the enemy¡¯s capacity to cycle and charge their systems, forcing them to draw on their reserves to flee or to fight back.¡±

    Old Iron Hide gave only a few slow claps. His whole aura was becoming a fuzzy superposition of taunting and actual approval. Though like most of the crowd Amelia was heavily inclined towards the former, a more experienced social agent would have seen clear to the buried truth in a heartbeat.

    ¡°Bravo,¡± the Professor chanted slightly too emphatically to have been genuine.

    ¡®Thought so,¡¯ Amelia¡¯s hindbrain exclaimed.

    ¡°Pray tell,¡± Old Iron Hide continued. Was that a burr in his voice or was Amelia¡¯s imagination throwing red herrings around again? ¡°What might one do once his enemy¡¯s at his mercy?¡±

    Ogden''s suppressed smile turned into a vampiric grin that coaxed barbs of electrochemical alarm from Amelia¡¯s central servo clusters.

    ¡°If he¡¯s an old pirate, shred em¡¯,¡± he chimed. The closing syllables dripping with salvatory pleasure.

    ¡°And if he¡¯s the new breed?¡±

    Ogden held his teacher¡¯s eye. His very wit had become a cudgel. His thoughts and words living razors.

    ¡°We are free beasts are we not Professor?¡±

    Old Iron Hide¡¯s lips pursed over snubby smoke-blackened fangs. He waited a moment before replying, ¡°aye. That we be lad.¡±

    The voice that followed up was a waft of hot steam. ¡°Then mercy does not become us.¡±

    In spite of her innate repugnance, Amelia took notes. This pedestrian Q and A session had morphed into a verbal sparring match between a veteran Pyrate and his uppity student. And the latter was winning, if only narrowly.

    Ogden appeared to discern as much. Recognizing that he had built valuable momentum, but that his foothold was still tremulous, he pressed his advantage without pausing for breath.

    ¡°Since Grape shot doesn¡¯t rely on indirect AOE methods to kill ¡­ splinters, shrapnel, etcetera ¡­ the Captain may just order the main guns to rake the enemy¡¯s deck before boarding.¡±

    He shrugged. ¡°Or, if he¡¯s not facing a war ship, simply forgo the volley fire and have his crew hop aboard and carve up the enemy with hangars and axes.¡±

    ¡°Oh, aye?¡± Old Iron Hide chided.

    ¡°Aye,¡± Ogden answered with a true sadistic growl.

    The rest of the line instinctively fell back a step.

    Aspirant free-blades they all may have been, but even the most true-to-letter pirates knew a monster when they saw one.

    Being the only body who knew that daemons and dragons came with the territory at world¡¯s end, Old Iron Hide stood his ground.

    Even still, clearly pleased at the effect he was having, Ogden continued his poetesque monologue.

    ¡°Use smoke to confuse, fire to corral. Claws, fangs and beaks work well in tight quarters where applicable. Any enemy beasts who fight well are to be slain on the spot. Those who cannot resist, women and children and the like, may either be kept as entertainment, souvenirs or sold to groups like Black Sky.¡±

    Amelia choked on a gag. Her stomach threatened to leap out of her mouth.

    It wasn''t so much Ogden¡¯s words. Most of them Amelia already knew or could have easily guessed on her own. It was the way he talked about slaughtering an entire ship¡¯s-worth of beasts like he was preparing a barbeque, that made her stomach twist itself into a ball.

    She busied her mind recanting poems and songs from her extensive Nursery repertoire to avoid thinking that, in the not-too-distant future, this was exactly the sort of callous butchery which she had signed up for.

    Even Old Iron Hide seemed to have lost his appetite for jests. The Professor remained silent for a long moment. Then he decided to resolve the matter the only way he knew how¡ªby pretending it did not exist and having them all spend the rest of the morning shooting large metal balls at rocks.

    Understandably, from that point on, the Prospects handled the equipment as if it were shards of shattered glass. They all steered well clear of Ogden, as though he himself were a bomb set to detonate.

    They all knew, perhaps not in such terms as their elders, but all the more potently for the lack, that a heart which saw the world through a lens of sulfur and brimstone did so for its own curse to blaze with the most sickly and baleful kinds of fury imaginable.

    Such wretched spirits walked as a torch amidst dying grass. Sometimes knowing, most often purposely blind to their own blight.

    Pitilessly consuming and reducing anything and everything within reach into ash. Inevitably ending in a pit of their own infernal design. Doomed to eternal exile, alone with their dragon heart, forever roasting on their own pale altar.

 Chapter 7: Visions and Voices

    That night Amelia didn¡¯t sleep again. Her hangover was long gone, but she¡¯d have happily traded this for that.

    Around her in what could have been a witch¡¯s Totemic circle were two semi-completed Abyssal current charts, four textbook chapters on the history of Aureole battle, the legacies of some noteworthy military figures, the general design and operation of nexel small arms, and the ¡°Basic Totemic Structure of Common Anamorphic Species¡±, , as well as nine pages of notes relating to the chemical and trajectorial properties of different munition types.

    Behind her in a stack beneath her hammock she was trying with minimal success not to think about were an additional twelve diagrams detailing the standard ship systems and their related functions and six scrolls written on actual papyrus relating to alchemy, astronomy, medicine and basic weapon maintenance.

    This was all a single day¡¯s worth of class assignments. All were due on the morrow or there would be ¡°consequences¡±.

    The deliberately calculated vagueness of this threat had had the intended effect on Amelia, who had fretted and frayed over the ordeal all the way through dinner. Completely failing to notice when Bon Bon swiped her apple tart right off of her plate.

    ¡°It¡¯s a test,¡± Drake had explained, promptly stealing back the dessert and scolding the Fox with an indelicate swat across the back of the neck which sent her off sulking, muttering something about how she and Tom always shared desert.

    ¡°To see who¡¯s really committed to the craft,¡± Ellie had added when Amelia¡¯s skin had gone several shades lighter. Which should have been physiologically impossible for an amphibian. ¡°It¡¯s more about your approach than how much you accomplish.¡±

    ¡®Which just means what I do gets graded all the harder,¡¯ Amelia interpreted.

    She hadn¡¯t come all this way just to be given an average C. Her honor, her quest, to be the greatest dragon the Nine Depths had seen since Drachyn would NOT be relegated to a middling midship post.

    And so she had set to work on her lessons at once. Leaving her uneaten desert for the Dogs.

    But she hadn¡¯t gotten far up the proverbial mountain before coming to the conclusion she was the folkloric tadpole getting suckered into playing Kobayashi checkers with the Mountain Goat.

    But stubborn pride and a fool¡¯s excuse for honor, both backed by an adolescent delusion of invulnerability, still demanded she finish what she¡¯d began.

    And so she¡¯d pursued her folly relentlessly until long after her far wiser elders were fast asleep.

    Like minerals crushing bones into fossils the seconds built into minutes which compounded to form hour layers beneath whose successive weight Amelia¡¯s tectonic will soldiered on. Refusing, if only via sheer mechanical impulse, to give in to the dragging anchors of sleep.

    When the Academy clock struck two she had tried coping by curling up in a ball and crying into her hands.

    When, an indeterminate while after this, she had failed to so much as dent the mountain she resorted to lightly banging her head against the wall.

    It was at this point that Ellie had elected to end her suffering. If only to put a stop to the racket.

    ¡°You did all you could,¡± she said. ¡°You¡¯ve passed.¡±

    Amelia slouched back, head hung, staring at her knees. ¡°But they said there would be consequences ¡­¡±

    ¡°Only if you gave up,¡± Ellie said with genuine maternal sympathy. ¡°Every beast has their limits. The fact that you got even a quarter of that load done will impress even Old Iron Hide.¡±

    Amelia stood up, walked over to her own bunk and flopped down. Then she started to undress and put on her night clothes as Ellie said, ¡°There¡¯ll be more work where that came from in the morning. It won¡¯t help if you fall asleep in the middle of class.¡±

    Amelia leaned her head back on the headboard. She knew Ellie was right. She¡¯d never get all this done and still have time to get any sleep before the first class tomorrow.

    Drake had said as much.

    ¡°The only thing more useless than a Pyrate who can¡¯t follow instructions is one who quits before they¡¯ve even started.¡±

    Dejectedly, Amelia slowly spun round and began collecting all the finished papers and setting them on her night table.

    Then she noticed that Bon Bon¡¯s bunk was conspicuously lacking an occupant. She was only surprised that she hadn¡¯t noticed it sooner.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Bon Bon?¡± she asked. Although if a meter existed to measure how much she actually cared she would have had to pry its needle out of the floor.

    Ellie didn¡¯t know why she bothered looking at the empty bunk, knowing full well that it contained no beast. She then turned back to Amelia and said with a faintly audible sigh, ¡°who knows?¡±

    Amelia¡¯s eyes asked what she couldn¡¯t quite find words for.

    ¡°She¡¯s a nomad among nomads,¡± Ellie answered with an indignant shrug, as if Bon Bon''s own personal lack of propriety were somehow a directed slight against her.

    ¡°She sleeps wherever and whenever the mood strikes. But mostly she wanders around at night with her nose stuck in some black book muttering and swooning over Tom.¡±

    Amelia¡¯s third ear detected the hint of longing in Ellie''s voice. It didn¡¯t take much thought to guess that when she was saying ¡°Tom¡± she was thinking ¡®Drake¡¯.

    Then a dagger, pattern forged of billet envy, melancholy and wanton longing, carved an abyssal gash through her heart. She would never have admitted it, even under torture, but there existed in her dreams a green, luscious farm field in whose verdant glades nested a mated pair with their six children and a swaddled seventh at its mother¡¯s bosom.

    Her truest Eden. Her favorite little slice of heaven to visit when the world outside showed her its frigid shoulder. The archetypal fairytale homestead. Clich¨¦ though it was, her child¡¯s soul refused to abandon its hopeless search for true love.

    The part of her waking brain that was still salient balked reflexively at the mere memory. ¡®True love? Really? You see, this is what happens when you don¡¯t get enough sleep.¡¯

    She started unpacking her night clothes. For want of a more enlightened topic to ease her mind into nocturn mode with, she sought the target nearest her nose and loosed a blind arrow.

    ¡°Who¡¯s Tom?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t know,¡± Ellie replied. ¡°Far as I can tell he¡¯s a Fox. But every time she¡¯s pressed for details she either changes the subject or just walks off.¡±

    Amelia suddenly forgot all about school and sleep. A subject Bon Bon didn¡¯t want to gossip about? If that didn¡¯t just scream MYSTERIOUS BAGGAGE she wasn¡¯t a bloody Frog.

    Also, what was that Ellie had said earlier about a book?

    Curiosity worked its incorrigible magick. ¡°She doesn¡¯t seem the secretive type,¡± Amelia observed.

    ¡°Indeed,¡± Ellie concurred flatly. ¡°But I suppose if I could see into another beast¡¯s head I could¡¯ve finished school years ago.¡±

    They both shared a stilted laugh.

    Just then, a high girlish squeal followed by a clamoring of rapid footfalls and slamming doors had Ellie on her feet and into the common room before she¡¯d remembered she was wearing only her silken intimates.

    ¡°Saarding panty-raiders!¡± she roared. Returning just long enough to throw on her shirt, trousers and tool belts before storming out again, cursing and shouting something to the effect of, ¡°I¡¯ll empty out your saarding skulls and make them into saarding goblets!¡±

    Amelia was of two minds. Three if one counted the portion that wondered how Hemlock managed to sleep through all this. Which nobody did, including Hemlock.

    On the one hand she was staring down the bore of a marathon gauntlet of a schedule run on at best half a fuel tank if she somehow lapsed into a perfect rem coma right there on the spot.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    On the other, a triage of mysteries weren¡¯t going to solve themselves. Or if they were Amelia wasn¡¯t about to miss it.

    She sighed, shucked her fractional night dress, reequipped her assortment of day gear, included a small dagger, trusty pocket-knife, a handful of pocket-torches and several other useful items, and took her audacious leave.

    It had occurred to her to stick tight to the walls to minimize the likelihood of being given away by any creaky floorboards, she instantly realized this would be unnecessary for one intuitive, albeit not entirely simple, reason.

    Nearly every other body in the tower was wide awake. Evidenced by their presently all being out in the common room in various stages of undress.

    It is common knowledge that animals who possess only a single brain are only able to focus on one thing at any one time.

    As is it so held that the more unusual, and thereby interesting, a thing is the more likely every beast is to want to look at it.

    Only slightly less well known it¡¯s that the typical female response to stress, regardless of age or species, is to huddle into tiny bunches and anxiously twitter at each other until their lips fall off.

    Tonight was not the exception. Consequently, Amelia was able to casually stroll out the door without a soul being any the wiser. Not that any of these were particularly wise under ideal circumstances.

    Be that as it may, from the bottom of the stairs onward she clung to the wall like it was their wedding night.

    Not that it mattered. Stone floors were as much less prone to creaking as they were more to resoundingly advertise the presence of hard boot soles.

    Nonetheless, Amelia maintained her Feline mission with zealous inflexibility. Taking short, toe-to-heel steps. Breathing slowly and deeply through her mouth. Never straying from the deepest, darkest shadows.

    It made for slow, arduous going. But when her quarry could hear a pin drop from across the island, the line between paranoia and wisdom made the divide between a cloudy horizon and the pearly Abyssal penumbra look practically signate.

    Of course it would only be after she¡¯d reached the courtyard door that she would finally consider what exactly her mission was and where it should begin.

    Ellie wasn¡¯t actually the murderous type. But she¡¯d taken her weapons. What did that mean?

    Balance of probability said not a bloody thing. Just old habit.

    But then where had she run off to? She wasn¡¯t still in the dorm tower.

    Had she followed the boys into the Walk? That would mean chasing them back to their own dorm ¡­

    Amelia smacked her forehead. Then she whirled as if intent to catch the echo like a runaway butterfly.

    ¡®You know what they say about love¡¯ the lagging portion of her brain said. ¡®And curiosity.¡¯

    But upon further investigation there was nothing outside except for the crowd of shadows shivering among speckled stars and moonlight strokes.

    Amelia was on her heel to head back inside, when an unexpected sound caught her ear and brought her instinctively to a crouch as though being fired upon.

    But she wasn¡¯t.

    Lacking a Canine¡¯s ears it took more than a few moments of intense concentration for her to categorize the sound as light melodious humming. Or was it whistling?

    Either way, it was coming from over by the clock tower.

    It wasn¡¯t until she was a bit closer that the ambiguous drones started to sound like the rudimentary patterns of words. At first, she couldn¡¯t make out much beyond the odd consonant, but as she drew nearer, Amelia recognize that voice!

    She cocked her head twice. First in confusion. Then again in utter astoundment as her jaw nearly fell off its hinges.

    Just inside the tower¡¯s pale-shaded shadow stood a lean figure, whose violet mane danced like cold fire in the breeze against her swaying umbral cloak.

    That in itself would have spurred Amelia¡¯s intellect. By her understanding Foxes lacked the chemical structures for bioluminescence.

    But that thought never manifested.

    For what chilled her bones was the source of that unnatural highlight.

    Perhaps a hand¡¯s length above the grass hovered the mangy, skeletal, lantern form of what once might have once been a young and possibly rather handsome Vulpes.

    But what was left was a pale lantern shade.

    His face wore the taught, tortured expression of the recently deceased. Though the rest of him suggested a more extent mortem date.

    Once vibrant autumnal fur now waved and shimmered as though reflected in a stagnant pool.

    Limbs once strung with limber muscle now hung like spindly chains from their sockets.

    The remains of a formal naval jacket that still bore the Silmarillion crest of Iralith hung in loose tatters about his auroral back, neck and shoulders.

    Like most Canids, the hair around and between his ears was worn long and would have mopped his shoulders had it not been lassoed back in the distinctive Royal Officer head tail.

    His hollow eye sockets were filled only with cold blue fire, and his head swayed gently back and forth like a flag in the breeze. Only there was no breeze!

    Despite her noxious terror, Amelia couldn¡¯t help but be impressed. This inarticulate Vixen had somehow achieved through the simple yet masterful application of her natural transitive grace what many of the most accomplished Arcanists and Alchemists this side of Crowley had spent their supposedly unnaturally extended lifetimes trying and failing to do through rigorous intellectual efforts.

    Like the grandest proportion of beasts, her knowledge and understanding of the paranormal was limited to and by the eldritch lore of old campfire stories.

    Actual information pertaining to the ethereal, arcane, supernatural, spiritual, metaphysical, transcendental, or any other apolitical spaces was either too heavily soaked in superstition and conjecture or had been so ruthlessly parred down, edited, abridged, revised, translated, lost, rediscovered, reinterpreted or otherwise tampered with by those with decidedly non-academic agendas in mind that they all amounted to as much barroom banter.

    The one point of consensus among those learned was that forcibly binding a spirit of any corporeal disposition to one¡¯s will was relatively straightforward. However, recalling it from whence it had no physical form required its own niche strata of expertise.

    It didn¡¯t require Amelia¡¯s level of imagination to grasp the allure of having an immortal, indestructible servant bound forever to guard and service one¡¯s every whim without question. In fact the concept¡¯s deductive barriers were so low and few in count that it had an official legal title. Necromancy.

    It was for this reason, whatever the moralizing propagandists touted, such practices were considered capital offenses and were usually punishable by death on just about every continent with a functional central government.

    But in accordance with the natural Law of Antipolar Resonance, like any prohibition this one only stopped those sorcerers who¡¯d never learned the true meaning of the word occult.

    Luckily for the Corpus Animus, though most unfortunately for rural society, a whole host of renegade Arcanists, legions of rogue Mages, and an army of remote Shamans who knew and thoroughly embraced the Secret Laws had lain low in the fringiest shadows of civilization since time immemorial.

    In darkness ever learning, ever stalking, ever prowling, ever lurking, ever hungering. Under the many pale eyes of the nocturnal heavens evil yearned for more souls to consume to expand and feed its terrible, unenviable power.

    All the while ingeniously shielding its wicked schemes by ensuring that regular beasts always had ample reason to fear the night.

    And tonight its sights were set on the Flint Pyrate Academy.

    For a long second, Amelia considered the wisdom of standing in the open as opposed to sprinting back to her bunk as fast as biology and physics enabled and hunkering there for the cleansing light of the morning.

    She decided on the former, largely because her legs were unwilling to comply with the latter.

    She momentarily considered that it didn¡¯t much matter where she stood. But then she considered what might happen should Prokvert be out on a midnight stroll and decided to err on the side of not preeminently joining the cajoled specter.

    When Bon Bon''s high and swift lyre tune dropped abruptly to a slow and somber shamanic chant, neither she nor her captive were of a mind to care whether they were being watched or not.

    As Amelia watched the proceedings unfold, she saw Bon Bon slowly remove a small silver vial from her inside cloak pocket. She separated the lid and extended the body as though beckoning the specter to come have a look.

    Just as she was about to reach her incantation¡¯s crescendo, the first and fullest moon Erandis ducked behind a cloud as though in panicked flight from the dark magick ceremony, and the ghostly visage vanished in a blanket of pale mist.

    Bon Bon¡¯s chant died in her throat. She sank to her knees, her whole body trembled. Whether it was from rage or grief was unclear. But either way, the show was clearly over.

    So, in the absence of any new source of adventure, Amelia decided it was best to leave her wayward bunkmate to sort her personal issues out by herself.

    By the faint glow of the waxing younger Savion moon she felt her way back down the corridor. A desperate yawn forced itself from her lungs as she compiled her alibi. Omitting the part about Bon Bon¡¯s ghost boyfriend until she could be more sure she hadn¡¯t dreamed it.

    ¡°I should probably tell Avlon about ¡­¡±

    She never got a chance to finish that thought before her mind was suddenly assailed by a new haunting refrain.

    ¡°Amelia. Ammmeeellliiiaaa,¡± it droned. Its quicksilver tones inflecting perfectly about the rim of an ethereal glass. ¡°Come back to me Daisha. My sweet child. I miss you.¡±

    This was not Bon Bon¡¯s doing.

    It wasn¡¯t even a voice so much as a silk ribbon of thought.

    Amelia¡¯s higher reason told her to cover her ears despite knowing it would do no good.

    But in any case her arms would not obey her. Her last sane thought was to scream, but a chill grip seized her throat.

    Compelled, or rather coerced, she let the voice lead her like a mouse following the scent of baited cheese. Drawn as though by an invisible magnet, she slowly became aware that she was at the southwestern docks, the place where she had first arrived at the Academy only two sunsets ago.

    There was a ship moored off the longest pier. This was the least unusual thing Amelia had seen all night.

    If her head had been clearer, however, she would have clearly noticed all the reasons why, by all conventional manner of reason and logic, this particular vehicle should have been at the bottom of the Abyss.

    The first and most obvious being her sails.

    Modern ships used advanced Arachnid micro-weave polymers to capture stray ions and harness solar energy. They typically emitted an amber glow when in use and a dull red when on standby.

    This vessel wore just three sheets of regular fabric bolted to what looked to be plain tree trunks with nothing but the branches and stray patches of the bark removed.

    As she drew closer she would have also seen that it had only the bare rusted skeletal frameworks of engines.

    Even in her mesmeric state it couldn¡¯t fail to register that all parts were so profusely, in some cases comically, perforated that it appeared to be half made of resurgent moonbeams.

    Had her ears been at their proper acuity, as she¡¯d walked through a gap in the hull that should have seen the vessel torn clean in two she would have heard that another voice, a real voice, was calling her name from back behind the pier.

    But she heard nothing. She saw nothing. She felt nothing.

    Her mind was shrouded in a dismal haze, and her senses could only poke pinholes through it, where she caught glimpses of the nightmare she was stepping into.

    There was only the enveloping mist, and the mournful, ominous cries of the damned.

    She might as well have been dead. And soon, very soon, she would sincerely wish she was.

 Chapter 8: First Blood

    Ellie mounted the tower stairs feeling significantly brighter, if still mildly butterfly-queasy.

    Not that this was of any real concern. After all, the imminent trip she and her swain had planned could hardly be considered ¡°safe¡±, and it was on the far side of the world from ¡°official¡± or ¡°sanctioned¡±.

    It just barely missed being outright illegal. Technically.

    Neither she nor Drake was na?ve or arrogant enough to think that Avlon didn¡¯t have some inkling as to what they were up to. But it wasn¡¯t his attention, or his retribution, they were worried about.

    As she climbed the steps, Ellie rehearsed the plan they had devised to slide their intended misadventure past Prokvert. But those thoughts vanished when she entered the bunk room.

    The Vixen sat cross-legged, paging through Amelia''s work stack in essentially the same spot and manner as Amelia herself had been when the raiders had struck.

    If Ellie didn''t know better, which she did, she would have thought her bunkmates had swapped places. Were it but for the question of why, apart from the aesthetic appeal, any beast with more sense than a bag of cement would want to step into Bon Bon¡¯s boots.

    Ellie was about to inquire towards Amelia¡¯s whereabouts. But when Bon Bon looked up at her with about as much life in her expression as one of the hammock posts, those words got lost on the way to her tongue.

    In their place came the question, ¡°where have you been?¡±

    ¡°Nowhere,¡± was Bon Bon''s unusually vacant response.

    Ellie dropped down on her bunk and began to undress for the second time that night. Something was definitely off here.

    ¡°I suppose you and Tom had a good time tonight,¡± Ellie said, fixing the Fox with her best imitation of Drake¡¯s penetrating stare.

    Like a boulder perched precariously on a mountain edifice, Bon Bon¡¯s stone face withstood Ellie¡¯s prodding pebble slide. Indeed, her compunction hardened into something that very nearly resembled full and normal sanity.

    But Ellie wasn¡¯t fooled. Her maternal instincts were second to none. And like any competent matron she knew an illusory wall when she saw one.

    ¡°I heard you singing all the way from the range,¡± she said. Letting a calculated dose of conspiracy sneak into her tone. ¡°Honestly, I had no idea you were ¡­¡±

    These pebbles formed a landslide. Beneath their tremulous weight, Bon Bon¡¯s strained emotional dikes snapped like rotten timbers.

    The weight of her compounded failures and their echoes all streamed over her heart. Reigniting her smoldering rage and grief and stoking them into a carrion inferno that ate at her very life force.

    With no tears left to dampen the pain, she crumpled like a burning parchment. Shielding her face with her hands as her entire frame shook with the force of unguarded sobs.

    For that first moment Ellie stood stunned.

    Sure, Bon Bon may have been a neodymium drama magnet, but beneath all her chaotic neutral eccentricity had always been a heart of pure wrought diamond that even the Headmaster admitted he respected and admired.

    Whatever had happened today, wherever she¡¯d been, whatever she¡¯d been getting up to, had somehow driven an adamantium nail through that prismatic gem.

    Maternal instincts being what they were, Ellie was by her side before her rational mind had finished computing all of this. She cradled the younger girl¡¯s slender shoulders and cooed softly the way she would soothe a newborn pup.

    Bon Bon fought vainly to steady herself long enough to form words. For a long time, the only sounds she could make were odd pathetic squeaks interspersed by rapid volleys gasps.

    Either through tremendous effort of will or simply the exhaustion of her emotional boiler pressure, she eventually managed to croak out the words, ¡°I saw him.¡±

    Ellie was still trying to hammer out a means to process this when the door to the common room, then the door to their bunk room slammed open in rapid succession.

    The elder Canid was already armed and on her feet when their door burst aside revealing not another petty delinquent, as she¡¯d expected, but a thoroughly wind-swept and frantic Drake.

    With reflexes only a few microns faster than the seditious combustion rate of rumor, forgetting Bon Bon and practically hurling her weapon to the floor, Ellie hauled Drake in by his collar then shut and bolted the door behind him.

    Before, during and after her thoughts rocketed along the ¡®please dear merciful gods let no beast have seen that¡¯ telemetry.

    Safely absconded from scandalous view, Drake¡¯s fatigue caught up with him. In what amounted to a controlled collapse he sank to the floor in between the astonished females. Who both stared at him as if he had just returned from the land of Nevermore.

    Ellie didn¡¯t so much settle by his side as nest. The way a Bee colony readjusts after its hive gets blown away.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

    A bed of squirrellous snakes writhed in the pit of her stomach.

    How extreme must whatever calamity had spurred him have been to cast not only Academy policy but even the most basic norms of social decency into the irrelevance basket?

    A wave of electric dread rippled through the arid silence as Drake fought to take in a sure breath. Which itself only brought another ringing hammer blow down on the matter.

    For a beast in Drake¡¯s prime athletic condition to be so utterly reduced to the state of a hump of heaving laundry meant he must have bolted clear across the island at a pace that would have added a tint of blue to Adrian¡¯s prairie pallet.

    Again, not something he was prone to do at the drop of a hat.

    And again the question ¡®why¡¯ slashed at Ellie¡¯s brain like a fulgor maelstrom. But she bit her tongue.

    Eventually, after a painful minute, when Drake had reconstituted enough lung capacity to gasp out a few words, the ones he chose were these: ¡°Amelia ... gone ¡­ Taken ¡­ I couldn¡¯t ¡­ I wasn¡¯t ¡­¡±

    Ellie stopped him there and pulled him over to her bunk. Forcing him to lay down and fully compose himself.

    At any other time, under any other circumstances, such action would have earned the couple an infinite supply of inuendo-laden taunts from Bon Bon.

    Here and now, however, the Vixen did little more than whimper in vicarious agony at watching Ellie¡¯s tender nursing.

    ¡°Who took her?¡± the golden Dog asked in the golden voice that had earned her first love.

    ¡°Ghost ship ¡­¡± he coughed. ¡°Black as the night. Looked like the grave. Riding on a bed of fog.¡±

    He shot bolt upright with such violence that his own circulatory system reprimanded him. He swooned and fell back in a haze.

    This got a tiny, furtive smile out of Bon Bon.

    When he stood back up more carefully he said, ¡°we have to go after her.¡± Then, in the manner of one recently gifted a sword by a magickal rock he issued the general command to, ¡°rally the herd!¡±

    At the mention of ghosts a slight squeak escaped the Vixen as she curled into a fetal position below Amelia¡¯s hammock.

    Neither one would admit it even in the privacy of their own brains, but this take-charge persona was the beast who had first won Ellie¡¯s heart.

    They nodded in mutual salute then Ellie strode over and pulled Bon Bon sharply to her feet.

    ¡°You heard the Captain,¡± she barked, slipping into her Quartermaster¡¯s boots with the same fluid ease as Drake assuming his Captain¡¯s crown.

    When, after a few seconds, Bon Bon had failed to budge, Ellie nudged her in true Pyrate fashion.

    ¡°What¡¯re you waiting for girl, an engraved invitation? Get off your ass and move like you¡¯re getting paid for it!¡±

    While it wounded Ellie at her most fundamental layer to verbally assail a beast in such a wretched state, especially a crewmate, greater needs than hers called at present.

    And besides, she¡¯d often found that the best cure for Bon Bon¡¯s melodramatic stupors was a stiff kicking. Even if this particular episode seemed a bit more heartfelt than most.

    Even in her pitiful state, the tear-sodden Fox snapped briskly to attention. An action built into her sinews through years of dutiful training, and activated now by habitual motors rather than spawned in actual conviction.

    That so, the Vixen fell into her role now like an out of line bearing knocked back into its running groove.

    With a boisterous snort which Ellie chose to interpret as ¡°yes sir¡± and a hasty swipe of a sleeve across her eyes, Bon Bon hit a level-headed sprint out of the dorm tower. Very nearly forgetting to unbolt the door first.

    She slammed it behind her with such intensity that the dense wooden slats which housed the latch and handle birthed a two inch split down the grain.

    Drake and Ellie both grimaced. Any beast who hadn¡¯t already been rocked awake by Drake¡¯s crashing entrance surely had no excuse now.

    ¡°Subtlety is not one of that lass¡¯s strong points,¡± Drake remarked.

    Ellie let a hissing sigh escape through her nose. Then she smiled and jabbed playfully as Drake¡¯s lower ribs with an elbow.

    ¡°Well, Captain, you''re our paranormal expert. How do we find this ghost ship?¡±

    Drake¡¯s expression turned steely and his whole aura fell a number of palpable degrees.

    He shook his head as if trying to dislodge some irritating parasite. ¡°We¡¯d need its name. But it was too dark for me to make out any detail.¡±

    He looked down at his boots. Then back up at Ellie to see her asking with a slightly tilted head for elaboration.

    ¡°It¡¯s a type of Wild Magick. The Druids called it a Soul Splinter. When we love a thing enough to name it, as in actually give it a name, it becomes ¡®real¡¯. It gets a soul.¡±

    ¡°So you mean,¡± Ellie said, genuinely interested and curious, ¡°when we¡¯re born, our parents ¡­¡±

    Drake shook his head again.

    ¡°No. For us names are more of a badge than an anchor. They¡¯re a projection of our identity, not its source. Nobody gives you a soul. You have to ¡­ you have to grow it, if that makes any sense.¡±

    He could see it did not. But time being of the essence, he sidestepped the issue. ¡°It¡¯s the same reason why many warriors name their weapons, you see. When a Captain names his ship, he gives a piece of his soul permanently to the craft, whether he realizes it or not. Hence why ships are referred to as ¡®her¡¯ and not ¡®it¡¯. It¡¯s like a marriage ¡­¡±

    He caught her eye and it was like catching a direct sunset ray.

    Drake felt his heart leap as if being struck by an electric probe, so he forced his gaze out the window instead. He took several breaths to clear his head, then continued.

    ¡°A Captain becomes ¡®bound¡¯, in a sense, to his ship. Forever. Even after death.¡±

    He could feel Ellie''s gaze boring holes through the side of his skull as he said that. But he did his best to ignore it. ¡°The problem is, a ghost anything doesn¡¯t strictly exist. What I mean is, it could theoretically go anywhere. It could be in the very Core right now. Or on the other side of the suns. Without that name we don''t have a prayer of ¡­¡±

    As if summoned back by an involuntary spell, Bon Bon''s frazzled head popped back through the damaged door.

    ¡°It¡¯s the Sleeping Giant,¡± she said. In answer to Drake and Ellie¡¯s confused looks she hurriedly added, ¡°it was Tom''s first ship. Her Captain¡¯s Long John Silver. Far¡¯s I know it was last heard of making landfall in Cape Madea ¡­ if that helps.¡±

    As quickly and mysteriously as she¡¯d come, she retreated before the first drops of the initial wave in their sea of damning questions could break ashore.

    Ellie looked at Drake and saw him smile a smile that usually meant a plan. What''s more, it made her want to bolt that door and lay him back down on her bunk for real. But she shook these thoughts off like a bad dream. There was serious work to do.

    ¡°I should go put the other girls back to bed,¡± she said, donning her full battle attire.

    As she was reaching for the door, however, she was stopped by a question she knew was not going to leave her alone until she tackled it. So she did exactly that in the only way that was known to her. Squarely head on.

    ¡°What exactly can we do if we catch these ghosts?¡± she asked. ¡°I mean, after all, recognizing a problem ¡­¡±

    ¡°And actually solving it are what a stick is to an axe,¡± Drake finished the quote from Old Iron Hide, almost as if he¡¯d heard it as many times as she had.

    More to the point, he¡¯d clearly been ready for this question.

    Brandishing his sharpest teeth in a grin that gave Ellie running chills of mingled fear and desire he announced with considerably more assurance than he actually felt, ¡°when we catch them, we¡¯re going to teach them why Pyrates are called the ¡®Terrors of the Nine Depths¡¯.¡±

 Chapter 9: Encounters of the Worst Kind

    Amelia woke with a start ¡­ again.

    She glanced around shakily only to wish desperately that she had kept her eyes shut. Everything she saw was either dead or dying. Rotten wood and rusted iron told the story of a vessel that had once been as true as dry land, but now it had no business being afloat. Every inch of it reeked of death.

    Tendrils of a pale mire wafted in through the cavernous holes in her sides and keel as though it were suspended in a cloud, halfway between the waking world and the afterlife.

    To help further drive home the ship¡¯s cursed disposition, the lifeless cadavers of her former crew lay strewn about like discarded rags. Around each body there buzzed a veritable swarm of flies, eagerly devouring what precious little protein there was left on their sickly yellow bones.

    Amelia kept her eyes squeezed shut and her hand clasped firmly over her nostrils. This had to be a bad dream. It just had to be.

    But it wasn¡¯t, and her rational sense refused to let her deny it.

    She¡¯d had many vivid nightmares in the past. Several of which took place onboard ships. All had been horrible beyond description, but this odious simulacrum broke several leagues past them like an Olympian Stallion racing a Tortoise.

    As wild and vivid as her imagination could be at times she knew that even her most delirious raves couldn¡¯t have concocted a scene so transfixingly vile.

    It wasn¡¯t the bodies on the floor that made her quake with dread and terror. After all, what had she to fear from beasts that were already long dead?

    No.

    What kept her eyes securely lidded was the blue spectral visages of the dead crew wandering lazily about as if they hadn¡¯t already long ago passed on.

    Had she been more lucid, she may have noted that their ranks included one of almost every mammalian species under the suns.

    She might have also found this odd had she been properly salient, seeing as how the vast percentage of cloud-faring beasts were ectotherms and Avians. The former having a general predisposition for great tolerance to the elements, specifically to prolonged solar exposure and high winds, and the latter had the obviously useful ability to circumvent the need for cumbersome flight gear to traverse the spacious Abyss.

    Her skull rang like the inside of a steeple bell, and her eyes were glazed as she staggered blearily to her feet.

    Whether this was all in her head or not, she was of sane enough mind to know that she had to get out of here. The only problem was how. How did one escape the only cage more certain than death? More absolute than insanity?

    She didn''t dare light a flame amidst such ripe tinder. She felt her way carefully abaft, probing the black space ahead with her hands and toes. All the while only daring to open her eyes just enough to distinguish light from shadow.

    After a timeless spell of aimlessly meandering like a drunken Serpent she found what may as well have been a golden loot chest.

    Stairs.

    She hobbled up the creaky, rotten boards until she came to the disintegrating access hatch. It swung open readily at her touch. Both the lock and the hinges had long since rusted away into nothing.

    She poked her head out onto the deck like a frightened Fox in recent flight from a hunter reemerging cautiously from its den.

    At least a dozen ghastly pale, disembodied shades of the dead drifted lazily along the length and breadth of the ship.

    It hit her like a bell¡¯s tolling hammer how much they resembled the FPA Prospects. Wandering nebulously to and fro like they knew they had someplace to be but couldn¡¯t quite remember where or when.

    To a beast they wore weapons. Swords, axes and pistols being the plurality. With the odd hook, hammer, knife or cleaver making up the greatest of the remainder.

    Amelia figured it safe to assume that, whatever they had been doing during life, it most likely led to their quick and messy end.

    It was then that Amelia spun her head about forty-five degrees to peer up at the raised quarter deck. There she had expected to find the ghost captain forlornly governing the helm.

    What she saw instead turned her already frigid blood to ice.

    She ducked back into the dark and took a second to gather her senses. Then she did a double take. And then she did a third, then went back for a fourth. Still her brain refused to accept what her eyes were telling it.

    Whether this was some great, and remarkably sturdy, hallucination or not, one thing was for sure: whatever she¡¯d been roped into was no ordinary Casper chariot.

    Who or whatever it was steering this dreadful craft was no mere specter. If Amelia was forced to compress it into a single word, the first and only one that came anywhere near adequacy was Dragon. Or perhaps Chimera.

    Although in either case, the term ¡®near¡¯ was meant to the same degree that the moons were nearer to Aevon than they were to the suns.

    In this low visibility it appeared to be a bipedal hunk of obsidian wrapped in a suit of shimmering plate steel.

    A pair of angular, raptorial legs culminating in zygodactyl sickles carried the creature¡¯s head a good ten or twelve feet above the deck.

    Its face, assuming it had one, was totally obscured by a helmet and mask. Half incandescently pale like the Erandic moon face. The other half as vacuously black as starless space. Through a hole in the moon side a single yellow eye glared unblinking into the nocturn gloom afore.

    A pair of massive curled horns protruded from the back and wrapped around the side of its helmet, framing a crown of billowing blue and violet flames.

    Its long tail was composed of interlocking metal blades, culminating in a viciously acute spike that snapped back and forth like a serpent¡¯s needled tongue sampling the air.

    Liquid bolts of roiling sapphire energy licked and patterned the entire nightmarish body from devilish head to fiendish talon.

    After about thirty more glances to confirm she was not hallucinating, Amelia decided to go on the assumption that this was all real.

    Which meant she had a real problem.

    According to tales told by those that no wise beast would ever have paid any attention to, anyone who had ever set foot on a ghost ship, willingly or otherwise, had never been seen or heard from again.

    But she didn''t have time to dwell on this. The creature had apparently noticed her and had signaled to several of the dead crew to fetch her from her not-so-reclusive hiding place.

    Amelia held fast. The way one would when facing down an advancing mortal predator.

    From her limited knowledge stores on the paranormal, which was just ever so slightly less than the average psychic, while their aptitude for magick, namely sirenic enchanting, was self-evident, they could not physically harm or even touch a living body.

    She was dead wrong.

    The pair wrenched her from the hatchway as though she were a leaf of parchment. They hauled her up to the quarterdeck with the kind of easy strength afforded by proximally powered muscles and brought her to kneel before the towering armored monster.

    At first she avoided giving it attention.

    Instead, she focused on the spectral helmsbeast. Watching as he wound, spun, twisted and jerked the wheel about as though fighting a nonexistent torrential maelstrom. Though after a few moments this became unbearable as the logical disconcert between his actions and the apparent trajectory of the vessel was quickly expounded to painful existential orders by the propounding lack of environmental topography of any kind.

    By contrast, the definitive horror of the horned creature seemed an enthralling lighthouse in the sprawling etheric void.

    What once might have been a small tree presided over its left side. Albeit a tree grown from a nest of golden twine and encased in black shale bark. Of no such specimen was any biologist, botanist or artist on Aevon familiar.

    Its right hand clasped a staff of elder make. That is, composed of Elder wood. As evidenced by the distinctive molten copper granular ripples and veins of hardened deep red sap that patterned the entire length and quarter of the weapon.

    Its crown top, which stood at least as far from the deck as the earliest live adult tree, trio of uncannily lifelike constrictor serpents had been exquisitely carved from the root leg of an Amurzan Black Piewye tree. Between their clamp jaws was clutched a flawless ellipsoid opal that pulsed unnaturally regularly like a metronomic heart.

    Its conjoining end was curved into a bulbous Scorpio hook not wholly dissimilar to the scissoring spines culminating its master¡¯s own tail.

    Then, in a voice hard enough to shame diamonds and cold enough to flash freeze acid, the creature addressed her, ¡°who are you?¡±

    She imagined if a thundercloud could speak, it would have sounded soft by comparison. She marshaled her entire resolve garrison to the front she had to answer the question calmly.

    Unfortunately, what came out sounded more like an intoxicated bellows being violated by a waterwheel.

    ¡°Ah ¡­ A ¡­ Am ¡­ Amelia¡±.

    The monster did not stir. It made a sound like boulders evacuating a mountain but otherwise remained as stoic as a sentient mountain. After a few minutes of terrible silence Amelia dared to hazard a question.

    ¡°Wha ¡­¡± she started, then caught herself and began again. ¡°Who are you?¡± This time managing to inject a morsel of self-assertion into the words. Albeit in an amount proportional to a pepper sprinkle at a buffet.

    To her equal surprise and chagrin, the creature responded immediately as though it had known her question before she had.

    Its answer was a single word delivered like a fallen comet. ¡°Saedel.¡±

    She knew that name from somewhere. But her brain was still far too addled by fear and magickal aftershock from her trance to remember more than simply having the memory.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    Saedel waved his free hand, and the two ghostly crew-members, who each still held an impossibly steel grasp on Amelia''s shoulders, backed off and straightaway set about their usual business of aimless floating.

    Amelia considered whether she should try to stand, but Saedel answered that question for her as well.

    ¡°Stand up,¡± he commanded.

    Amelia did.

    Saedel aimed his scepter over the prow and said, ¡°look there.¡±

    She did. And she was met by a sight that scared her more than any ghost or monster of fact or fiction ever could.

    Looming ominously before them was a thin bony crack of an island, thickly shrouded from below by an undulating layer of sickly smog.

    As the ship swept its lonely way closer, in minutes the black craig bulged into a full-blown landscape. It flashed through Amelia¡¯s mind that they must have been pressing against the sound barrier. And yet there was no air turbulence. Indeed, not even the clouds around them seemed perturbed by their prodigious motion.

    Which meant either they weren¡¯t moving at all or something far stranger than a mere bedtime story was afoot here.

    This precipitous line of thinking was intercepted by another one brimming with the most noxious poison known to any philosopher or sorcerer. Hope.

    Her father''s ship, The Royal Rover, had reportedly been sunk by Eviscean Raiders about an hour off the nadirwest coast of Draconia. Taking all thirty-six hands with her straight to the bottom of the Abyss.

    Both in the hold and on its deck, she estimated at least three dozen souls trapped onboard this vessel. Could this, what she was standing on, possibly be the Rover¡¯s incorporeal aspect?

    If so, then she might just have a sliver of hope. She knew it was a faint hope. A glint in the dark of a black Cat that wasn¡¯t even there, staring directly into the storm of rational evidence decrying ¡°HERETIC!¡± like some unbalanced roadside cultist.

    But still she clung to it anyway like Gretel to a promising bread crumb.

    As they neared the desolate plight, Amelia was wrenched from her contemplation by a stupendous realization. They were bound straight into the rocks!

    She turned to the helmsbeast and cried, ¡°turn back you idiot! We''re going to crash!¡±

    He ignored her in the absolutely aloof way only a disembodied specter can.

    Forgetting sanity, in her ardent panic she appealed to Saedel. But he stayed as implacable as the oncoming stone.

    Desperation took hold and in a moment of unthinking terror Amelia lunged to wrest control of the wheel. Only to be captured by the crook of Saedel¡¯s staff and shunted easily to the deck so hard the decrepit timbers bulged and cracked.

    Amelia shut her eyes and braced for the ship¡¯s inevitable impact against the black wall looming off their bow.

    Being exhausted of practical options, Amelia clenched her every muscle against the expected shock of sudden death. In accordance with their routed danger protocols all of her senses sharpened and her perceptions slowed to a Snail¡¯s crawl.

    Her eyes locked themselves behind impervious blast shields while her ears waited for the sharp snapping of timbers and her nerves bristled in expectant dread of the first brief shocks of pain she knew would herald her invariable demise.

    But it didn¡¯t come.

    Her only sensations were abrupt changes in air temperature and motion. Carefully, as a skittish prey animal fully anticipating the waiting teeth of a predator, Amelia pried open one eye.

    This was not, despite what her intuition first suggested, the afterlife. Although that would have been the far easier solution.

    It took her about three times longer than she would have comfortably admitted to realize that they had in fact passed through the solid cliff wall. Emerging, just as she plucked up the courage to investigate, into an impenetrably black space, whose frost-bitten air marked it as a cave. One far too deep to have ever been warmed by the suns.

    ¡°Right ¡­ ghost ship. Idiot¡± Amelia scolded herself. But that still didn¡¯t explain her momentary exemption from basic physics. Or Saedel¡¯s for that matter.

    Of all the beings on this ship, as far as she could tell both he and she were, and had never not been, as solid as anything could be.

    The only conceivable explanation was that he must have had some exceptionally powerful magicks at his disposal to have such mastery over both the mundane and metaphysical planes.

    Even after her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could hardly see anything past her own nose.

    Not that there was very much of anything here to see.

    As far as caves went it was woefully banal. Not that Amelia was in a place to know.

    But for an evil lair too it left as much to want as to the imagination. And that, ironically, was a topic Amelia was far better versed in than geology.

    Its only distinguishing feature was the lack of the distinctive fermenting odor of thriving fungal colonies. Meaning that not even organisms which most beasts readily tread upon could make a life here.

    After what seemed like an eternity spent in complete blindness, Amelia could pick out a vertical silver seam tearing in the black curtain up ahead. One which grew exponentially in size and intensity over the course of a single minute into a sky-high wall of caustic radiance.

    Amelia¡¯s eyes slammed shut and even some of the ghosts shielded theirs with translucent hands. Though for the dead this was obviously the product of long spun habit from their bygone lives rather than actual necessity in the hereafter.

    When her eyes had restored her normal vision she had to physically catch her dropping jaw with her hand.

    The space they had entered was so vast, she couldn''t even see the top of it, assuming it had one. Precariously sitting on the loosely spun web of wooden gantries attached to either side wall, were thousands of slipshod wood and brick constructions.

    Most of the structures piled between five and twenty stories. Many others, most of which were carved directly into the rock faces, reached as high as a hundred floors. And they all looked as though they¡¯d been casually spit out by the god of scrapyards and log piles.

    An aurous spectacle of gold and purple light beams lancing from their every slit, window and loophole were the only indicators of intelligent effort being present in their construction.

    It was like some beast had asked a child who¡¯d been raised in a cave and was just barely competent in the Adamic language to draw for them a city based on nothing but a garbled description by a drunken hysteric.

    Were it not for the sake of taxonomic accuracy, Amelia wouldn¡¯t have considered calling these slipshod simulacrums of civilization houses.

    Why any beast would consider building a home inside of a vacuous cavern in the belly of a foreboding island, accessible only to the dead and assorted varieties of magickal monsters, was a question answerable only by the inhabitants. Assuming there were any. Which, under the circumstances, seemed the sort of logical leap that would make the springiest Anuran look like an uncoordinated tadpole.

    But they were the very least of this space¡¯s speculative attractions.

    Millions, nay tens of millions, of fist-sized blue crystals were ensconced into the colossal walls around the window holes, mirrored these rays of light. Sparkling like the heavens, they cast the entire subterranean pit in a haunting iridescent sheen.

    Whether these were natural or artificial was impossible to tell.

    Not that it really mattered. For the moment she was just happy to be able to see anything outside of the depths of her own skull. A luxury that would presently become soured.

    There was no physical movement or sense that alerted her to the presence at her back. Not a particle of air or drift of scent. But a familiar tickle in the base of her skull spun her about faster than her neocortices could process.

    When her reason had caught up as far as the ¡®why¡¯ of the matter she fully expected to find Saedel or some other unsightly monstrosity looming over her.

    But when the cognitive bridge was fully reformed, she saw that not only was she wrong, but for once may have been in a positive way.

    Behind her stood not a monster in the strictest sense. But the recognizable, albeit incorporeal relic, form of a beast who looked down on her solely because he stood on an invisible platform a few finger widths over the deck.

    He was an Anuran. Or rather had been at one time. Specifically another Dart Frog of the poisonous variety like herself.

    Although his livings colors and patterns had been lost in the etheric transfer, his translucent veil of flesh shimmered the soft sky-silver blue of packed ice.

    Though he was taller than Amelia by a head, she took comfort in the fact that he was at least far less imposing and monstrous than Saedel.

    He wore a dark brown coat with a bloodied white shirt underneath. His trousers were a dark muddy brown to match his boot, of which there was only one. His left leg looked to have been amputated at the hip and replaced by a staunch wooden dowel. He was leaning on a wooden cane, whose head was carved to look like a feathered Corian. In his off-hand he brandished an old Tempest-Series Bombash pepperbox revolver.

    ¡°Strange,¡± Amelia thought, eyeing his empty sword belt. ¡°This pirate doesn''t carry a sword.¡±

    A new pattern of thoughts that included questions like ¡®why is that so strange?¡¯ and ¡®how do I know he¡¯s a pirate?¡¯ was already being cartographed by Amelia¡¯s mental substrates when the ghost¡¯s hazy pistol bore appeared at the tip of her nose, slamming her forcibly back into the present.

    With a twitch of his head the pirate, which he was in fact, attached to it indicated the hatchway she''d emerged from and said in a hoarse, gravitational whisper that sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a gravel pale, ¡°Captain¡¯s orders. Gotta follow the Captain¡¯s orders.¡±

    Amelia was about to ask what he expected to do with an ethereal gun but thought better of it. This ship and its crew had both proved solid enough. Good sense dictated she assume that their weapons were solid, too. Silently consigning herself to an unforeseeable fate, she obediently returned to the hold with the ghost pressing the incorporeal gun to her back.

    Having completed his mechanical task, the specter wordlessly left, closing the hatch behind him, sealing it with what Amelia guessed was a magickal enchantment. She had heard tell that spirits possessed a high affinity for magick due to their ethereal state.

    Alone with her own thoughts, she waited a terrible few minutes then tried the hatch. Not really expecting it to give, but for no more than to soothe her own sense of completion. At least she could go to her grave, or nearest equivalent, saying she didn¡¯t just lay down and do nothing.

    Sure enough, the panel was welded fast by some aphysical method. There might as well have never been a door there at all.

    Resigned to this fate for the time, she made the coziest corner her home and there sat hugging her knees to her chest, letting the full weight of her situation wash over her.

    All the adventures she was bound to have but never would. The prospective bright career and rewarding path of Pyracy she¡¯d started on now withering on the vine. All the friends she might have made, all the enemies she might have conquered. All the things she might have learned and experienced. All of it once so exciting and vital, if terrifying, now cold and hard and bitter.

    Like the pathetic prey animal she¡¯d sworn never to be again she cradled her last vestigial happy memories as they lay before her dead and rotting.

    She didn¡¯t know or have the capacity to care about just how long she dwelled there in the dark. Too frightened to move, too miserable even to form cohesive laments.

    The only thought, which wasn¡¯t even as much a thought as a feeling, a raw, passionate chord playing her frail heart strings over and over again was just how completely and utterly she had failed. Not just herself, her personal mission, but also her family. Her father, her mother, her sisters. Those she¡¯d sought to avenge. The one who she knew would sit up late for weeks by the fire wondering what had become of her now only child.

    No one would ever know what had become of her. And all because she had been so WEAK and so STUPID! She should have stopped Bon Bon from playing that song! She should have told Avlon the moment that damned spirit had appeared! She should have ¡­ done SOMETHING!

    Instead here she was. Alone, afraid, utterly helpless, vulnerable, all but given for dead. All of the plagues she¡¯d set out to rid herself of she had brought down on herself at once and now she was being crushed beneath their tremendous weight and was powerless to do ANYTHING about it.

    She wanted to be angry. She wanted to rage, to scream, to FIGHT! She wished upon all the heavenly names for the power to burn this saarding hulk to saarding oblivion!

    Even if it meant her death, even if it literally consumed her body and soul, she wanted to rampage against the wicked forces which had conspired against her.

    But the heavens were deaf to her prayers. And all as well, for she had no room in her for such feelings. Her heart had swollen like an overripe melon. Its grotesque mass starved, suffocated and crushed any opposition her brain could compose.

    It occurred to her at one point to just throw herself through one of the ship¡¯s gaping wounds. To surrender to the hot and swift mercy of the Abyss. But she discarded that notion on the rational premise that Saedel could simply conjure her spirit back from beyond. Then she¡¯d be eternally bound to this pit.

    Truly a fate worse than death.

    ¡®Funny how words only seem to mean anything when they apply to you.¡¯

    Was that a memory of a quote or was she growing a poetic side now?

    Ah well. What did it matter? The sentiment was true enough wherever it came from.

    A fate worse than death. A phrase she¡¯d read so many times she¡¯d come to regard it as clich¨¦, but now felt as real as her own skipping heart.

    Closing her eyes brought only further despair. In her mind she pictured Ellie, Drake and the herd all coming to rescue her. They staged a daring attack, boarding the ship and banishing the ghosts back to the Abyss.

    But it was only a lamp wick hope. The kind that smolders pitifully amidst the dark, oppressive tides of reality and gives only hot, empty smoke for comfort.

    They couldn¡¯t track a ghost ship. Even if they knew to look for one.

    Nevertheless, hope was a light, however faint. And by light she could see. And if she could see, she could act. So she clung to her fantasy despite how its placebo flame burned her heart.

    The fact was she was on her own. No beast outside the FPA would even know she was missing until this time next year. If ever. And no beast there, save for her godfather, had the motive to help. And while Avlon was a beast of many, many, many talents, she doubted he had a spirit tracker up one of those multifariously layered sleeves of his.

    This was a Pyrate¡¯s life all the way through. To stare into the Abyss and face whatever stared or crawled out without shame or fear.

    And she WAS a Pyrate, damn it all! That¡¯s why she was here!

    First Rule of Pyracy: there¡¯s no better friend than the one behind your eyes.

    As her father had always said, ¡°you have hands and a brain. That¡¯s worth more than all the riches in any vault.¡±

    Alright. Great. But how was she going to plan her way out of a ghost ship inside of a bottomless cave inside of a black island inside a cursed fog vale?

    Well, she supposed, as good a first step as any would be to quit shivering in this damned corner ¡­

 Chapter 10: Pyrates, To Arms!

    Neither Drake nor Ellie had arrived at the gatehouse expecting to see more than two or three of their herd-mates assembled. Most probably Tim and Crow. Both famous nocturns. Maybe Adrian if she caught him during one of his nighttime trysts.

    They would likely be half-dressed, sleepy-eyed and cranky about being summoned in the middle of the night, by an unofficial Captain no less.

    Instead they found their entire herd. Adrian, Crow, Tim, Bon Bon, Hemlock, the Blunder Twins and even Steve the Skull, who was somehow floating over Tim¡¯s right shoulder. All alert and awake in their full journey gear. All readily, nay keenly, awaiting orders.

    Ellie and Drake looked at each other with expressions that had multiple interpretable meanings. They couldn''t help but feel a mixture of surprise and pride at Bon Bon¡¯s efforts. Neither had seriously thought she would be willing or able to so much as coax Adrian out of bed, let alone muster the Blunder Twins.

    The group was gathered in the Academy gatehouse. Except for Crow, they were all anxiously prowling around busying themselves with menial tasks, double and triple checking the fittings of their combat harnesses and cleaning their weapons.

    Upon noticing their Captain¡¯s approach, their restless fidgeting ceased and they snapped to what loosely passed for attention.

    Drake greeted his herd with a flick of the fingers towards the heart, a gesture they understood which amounted to a Pyrate salute and which they returned in hearty unison.

    In his best, albeit involuntary, impression of Old Iron Hide, Drake said, ¡°I take it you all know why you''re here.¡±

    Tim answered first. With a nod at Bon Bon he said, ¡°she said the Runt was in trouble.¡±

    Drake gave a surreal nod. ¡°Fraid so.¡± Then he elaborated while keeping Bon Bon under an inquisitorial eye.

    The air froze and fractured into a field of glassy splinters as soon as the term ¡°ghost ship¡± met it.

    They had all heard the stories of course. Every child on Aevon had.

    Stories about engine-dead ships lost to storms or pirate attacks still roaming the Abyss, seeking vengeance, closure or simply to rid parents of their naughty offspring. Others rumored that they trolled the depths of the underworld for wayward souls to add to their ranks.

    None were oblivious to the surface absurdity of this claim. Although some of their skulls hosted stricter skeptical minds than others, they had all passively relegated these stories to the bin of made by and for easily-amused children, drunks and, in certain regions and customs, drunken children.

    Though their rational minds scolded them, a far older, far wiser part born of wild lands, jungles, deserts and forests, each brimming with their own feral brands of nightmarish fiends, spoke to the truth in his words.

    But Drake didn''t tell tales. Any beast who knew him would confirm. However, this didn¡¯t stop them from coming to their own conclusions all the same.

    Adrian was the first to voice the thought he was sure was on everyone else¡¯s mind. ¡°I always thought ghosts couldn''t leave their ships.¡±

    This got low mutterings of concurrence from the group.

    ¡°And I vaguely remember reading somewhere that ghost ships couldn¡¯t go near land,¡± Hemlock put in. ¡°Cursed to roam the Abyss forever and yadda yadda.¡±

    Again some confirmative nods and mutterings to the same were exchanged.

    But Drake didn¡¯t respond for some while. Indeed he didn¡¯t seem to even notice. Somewhere between his last words and now he had slumped into a comatose trance as though his mental furnace had run inexplicably cold.

    The reasons for this were, at least for the time being, his sole mental property.

    Though none but Ellie knew the full extent of his occultic experience, no beast who¡¯d spent at least a fortnight under the Pyrates¡¯ roof could have avoided the swirling tales about the sire Drake¡¯s darker exploits.

    Drake''s father, the legendary pirate captain, Sir Francis Drake, was notorious for his impressive resume. He had amassed a personal flotilla of half a dozen ships and plundered well over four hundred during his long and prosperous career in good-old-fashioned piracy. That which some in the new regime referred to in contemptuous tones as ¡°plague-baiting¡±.

    An ancient, thoroughly frowned-upon and as such mercifully forgotten, religious practice of hanging a dead animal, usually sacrificed livestock, from a post or tree along the road outside of town to draw away disease and ward off evil spirits.

    But, if the extent of the truth was to be fully realized, most of Sir Francis¡¯s post mortem name recognition came from his reported dealings with a triage of the secretive cults known to infest the wilds of Draconia. Namely the Ordo Pentecost, the Ordo Draconis and the Ordo Necropolis. In whose rites and passages he was believed to have been instructed in the darkest elements of the arcane.

    It had once amazed, and now mostly amused, the youngest Drake to see how quickly and ardently such stories spread. It hadn¡¯t yet been six years since Sir Francis disappeared and already mass migratory flocks of myths, rumors and legends patterned the talking air on ships and in taverns as abundantly as the ionized Archaizer storm clouds that plagued the Abyss.

    He had once been regaled by a nomadic cleric about how his father had sold his soul to the ¡°Night Mistress¡±, Iralith, in return for power over the Nythriin. A word that, loosely translated from ancient Aguileran, meant the ¡°Black Dawn¡±. Or, to use a more common term, the Underworld.

    It was with this ill-gotten boon, or so said orator had told, that Sir Francis earned the bulk of his worldly fortune. Cloaking his ships in impenetrable Nihil Fog and either sculpting from mind or conscripting from the infernal Void fiendish hordes to crush any who would dare offer his will any resistance.

    Stories said that towards the end of his life, Francis Drake set about creating his own magickal domain to dodge his outstanding debt to the Dread Queen.

    It had seemingly been fate that during this conversation they had been joined by another beast, an Oreamnos, possessed of an unusually vivid recollection of Sir Francis¡¯s Magnum Opus.

    Unusual since Drake had actually been there for most of the frightful episode and couldn¡¯t recall having seen this beast before.

    Regardless, being in no flavor of mood to turn down free entertainment, he¡¯d listened intently to how the elder Drake had used all his powers to conjure his own island into existence out of the very Primeval Void that gave the universe its shape and substance.

    That fool¡¯s companion would go on to proclaim that, in order to protect himself and his creation from the minions of Iralith, Sir Francis stole and corrupted the spirits of those he killed and bound them to serve as his undead legions. He then laid an impregnable curse upon them and his island sanctum, shrouding them from any form of detection, magickal and physical, in a loathsome miasma that slowly sapped the life out of any who inhaled it.

    Drake was one of two surviving beasts who knew the terrible truth behind most of these tales. In short, they were a kaleidoscope of truth and mystery. If inspected in just the right way under just the right light their seemingly disjointed fractals aligned to form something resemblant of cohesive reality.

    But that was only if one knew precisely how and where to look.

    So far as all but two beasts on Aevon need be concerned, however, the Dragon was gone along with his necronomical fortress. And for so long the Dragon¡¯s youngest heir had been happy to let such horrors sleep in the realm of mist and fantasy.

    But now the heavens had shifted. And as any Abyssal veteran knew like the pattern thudding of his own heart stamp, shifting solar patterns required a new alignment of sails.

    The ghosts of his father¡¯s ambition still prowled the Nine Depths, eternally doomed to seek out fresh batteries of souls for their kamikaze mission.

    That much was widely known, if only to the same obscure degree as the theory of gravity or atoms were understood.

    What Drake himself had left to tell, had yet to even tell Ellie, was that the counter force to this inclement crusade, the sole reason it had yet to spin into full apocalyptic overture, were also still very much in play.

    It was these latter abominations, with their insatiable appetite for soul matter, that lent their name to that accursed castle.

    Naarfynder.

    These things were Drake¡¯s family curse. His burden. His cross to bear until the site of his death. Or so had been his view.

    Now that torturous secret had been thrust upon another. Now he would need to wash his hands of its sealing wax or have them forever stained with pure blood.

    But as any Pyrate knew, need and rightness didn¡¯t always wear gently upon a heart. Theirs was hardly a light burden either, and they weren¡¯t without their thorns or splinters.

    In the wake of that wisdom, as Drake¡¯s head and his heart waged war over possession of his body, his stumped herd appealed to Ellie for direction.

    Having no answer for them, she too turned to Drake. Whose continued vacuity spurred fears which compelled her to touch his arm. Which seemed to awaken something deep within the young Captain. Something dangerous that had been laid to rest some time ago and with good reason.

    As if emerging from a deep, intransient, slumber, Drake eventually answered with the rhyme which his and his brother¡¯s mentor had beaten into their brains since they were pups.

    ¡°A bygone crew and captain abstain from beasts of vital bloods¡¯ domain. But sithyl thorn and crude stream bar not the one whose blackened heart yet beats.¡±

    There followed an uneasy silence. Every beast shuffled blindly through their own mental labyrinths for a thread that remained frustratingly elusive.

    ¡°Eureka,¡± Tim said. His voice striking the relieving tones of a morning bell after a harish night. ¡°I see. A ¡®ghost ship¡¯, as it were, has to have a tangible presence to take a living beast onboard. Therefore, whatever this mysterious trespasser is must be composed, at least in some part, of solid matter.¡±

    ¡°And solid matter can be tracked,¡± Steve finished with a light bob as in a shrug of nonexistent shoulders. ¡°Right, anybody got a long range ship detector on them?¡±

    Drake made a contrarian snort, which landed on their huddle like a primed mortar bomb.

    ¡°Well, yes and no. You''re right, Tim, in that the ship itself should be physical. That¡¯s good news for us. Plus it means she has to make port at some point.¡±

    A + B = ¡­ Q?

    Everyone stared at Drake as though he himself had dematerialized. Though all were smart enough to spot a continuity break when one smacked them upside the head, the actual fault in his phony logic was obvious to none but himself and Tim. But his counter consisted only of a slight twerk of the lower jaw muscles, whose meaning was only apparent to those who knew him well, the list of whom started and stopped with Steve.

    Thus, being caught between Tim¡¯s implacable stoicism and Steve¡¯s nonexistent expressional portfolio, the subcutaneous motion and the cool, platonic judgement it represented would remain suspended in dark limbo for all eternity.

    ¡°The bad news,¡± Drake went on unfettered, ¡°is that she doesn''t require a typical landing stage. That means it could, in theory, just as easily make port inside the saarding Core!¡±

    Every civilized beast on Aevon understood, as well as they understood any science, that the roughly spherical orb they called their planet consisted of five roughly-distinct layers.

    The uppermost of these, the Crust, was the most well documented on account of it being the physical domain of all known sentient and non-sentient life.

    Consisting of between two and five hundred distinct Islands and Continents depending on the Era, the ¡°Life Zone¡± rode on, and was dispersed by, a veritable cushion of isotopic fluids and ionic gasses known on most maps as the Abyss.

    Many beasts not overly burdened by education believed that the Core lay directly beneath and was what had spawned and now spun the Abyss.

    They were, of course, wrong. The actual Abyssal bed was a layer dubbed by the sectors of thinkers whose career object was to discover and name such things as the Harvest Lands.

    Although, again, in the interest of scientific correctness, a better, albeit less catchy, name might have been the Spots Of Particular Interest, as, while the layer itself was planetwide, the only bits anyone really cared about were a few key vat locations which in total amounted to less than two percent of its area.

    But what these ¡°sunspots¡± lacked in scope they made up for a thousand fold in import. For what it wrought was a large percentage of Aevon¡¯s most lucrative mineral resources, including raw Magnolsis, aka ¡°Sundust¡±, and the single known source of the namesake mollusk seeds used to make nexiis.

    For those unfortunate beasts resigned to passing their meager lives away in its infernal depths, it was a nightmarish workspace filled with brimstone and fire, fit only for the most loathsome of society¡¯s underbelly.

    The air, if that word even applied, consisted of acidic fog and roiling plasma flares that were known to literally vaporize beasts, even within their protective steel harvest bells.

    It was as good a reason as any, some saw, for certain irredeemable societal elements to be sent into the Pits to live out their days as little more than squishy machine parts. Hauling, refining and smelting the raw materials into their functional iterations to later be sold at legitimate markets across the scarred and fractured globe.

    ¡°Killing two birds with one stone,¡± the Tail Islands Don, Alistair Machiovolo, had once infamously remarked.

    The furthest layer down had creatively been labelled the Dumping Grounds for reasons that should negate need for explanation.

    Recently, as in within the last two centuries, it was where all the refuse from society both sentient and otherwise was discarded and forgotten.

    Finally, at the center of it all was the Core. This ball of super-heated, radioactive material was so hot and so dense, that the energy fields it produced were held, in academia, to be responsible for the planet¡¯s strange propensity for gravitational antivism.

    It was also thought by some strange mystic sectors that Aevon¡¯s twin moons, Savion and Erandis, played some sort of role in evening the stability. Although three to one in the same and closely orbiting spheres believed that the initial theorist on that front had been high on ¡°lupoids¡± at the time.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Whatever the case, the one fact not up for dispute was that so far no philosophic, academic, psychedelic, arcane or paralegal group had come to any meaningful consensus on the matter. And any beast who claimed otherwise was either a fool, a moron, or a charlatan. Esse repetita.

    ¡°I¡¯ve already done the math,¡± Tim reported, producing seemingly out of nowhere a palm-sized black tablet and a brass stylus.

    ¡°Assuming the radius of Crow''s spotter horizon to be roughly twelve leagues under ideal conditions, assuming the number of registered vessels globally to be roughly one hundred and ten thousand, factor in an additional thirty percent for antique, trade and illicit vessels, and given the collective solid Crust mass to be one point twenty-two times ten to the eighth parayards square, which give it an approximate total perimeter of ¡­¡±

    He scribbled furiously on his pocket easel as he spoke. More muttered actually, as he went on. Evidently his definition of ¡°already done¡± needed some fine adjustment.

    After a minute wrestling with whatever the mathematical equivalent of an existential crisis was, Tim jerked abruptly to attention and looked about him as though only now noticing where he was.

    ¡°That puts our odds of finding and identifying any particular ship at roughly three hundred and eighty-eight thousand three hundred and thirty-seven to one against,¡± he said on the back of a deep excising breath.

    He looked over them. ¡°And that doesn¡¯t even take into account the fact that no beast apart from Bon Bon seems to know what the Sleeping Giant looks like ¡­¡±

    To a beast they rolled their eyes.

    Even Steve, having no eyeballs that could roll, rolled his entire body in admirable imitation.

    This was not just their reaction to Tim''s overly cerebral response. Though it did play a role. They''d experienced him long enough to become well acclimated to his flagrant candor.

    In truth it was more a defensive reflex. Tim, the ¡°living Antikythera¡±, was very rarely wrong about such things. Less than two tenths of one percent of the time, by his own calculations.

    Thankfully, Drake was never one to let a minor thing like mathematical fortifications dampen his momentum. But he would be the first to admit it did little use if they were running around in circles.

    Though he knew better than any of them where that ship was bound, and indeed who this Captain Silver was, he didn¡¯t know how to follow.

    His father had been many things in his final days and weeks. Paranoid didn¡¯t begin to do it justice. It had been as if ¡­ as if he¡¯d somehow known that his proverbial sand glass was down to its final few grains.

    As such he had instructed his most loyal savant, the powerful, venerable and rightly both revered and feared Tortoise ¡°Allseer¡±, Nikodontus, to activate what his sons had heard him call ¡°Project Sanctum¡±.

    Though his second son had never learned the full working details on any of his father¡¯s ¡°Projects¡±, he knew from what few tidbits he¡¯d been able to pry out of Old Nik that the miasma barrier that guarded Naarfynder was far more insidious than a simple fog cover.

    It was a Nevermore field. That had been what Nik had called it. A Nihil Eye, as the alchemists knew it. In simple terms it expunged its protectorate object from the normal dimensions of travel. Which made it so that only beasts, and in this case vessels, which didn¡¯t wholly belong to the mortal plane could find it without express permission.

    Presently Drake did as was his way when deep contemplation was required. He paced the entire Adamic alphabet out on the floor.

    After a seemingly indefinite solitude wrapped in his thoughts, his head snapped back, his eyes and nostrils flared and his ears pricked up. All the trademark signs of a hunting Dog who has caught a fresh whiff of his prey were on display.

    The rest, who had by then become as thoroughly engrossed in thoughts of their own, snapped instantly to alert. They all knew that look. It being such a universal sign of keen intent. Even if Ellie alone was in a privileged place to know it specifically meant that Drake had a plan. Or at least something he could legally pass off as one.

    He turned his Captain¡¯s glare on Bon Bon and asked as if inquiring after some navigational figures, ¡°was Tom onboard?¡±

    Bon Bon didn¡¯t answer. She just stared miserably at her feet. Adrian put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, and he smiled at her knowingly.

    One of Adrian''s many fine qualities was his kind and radiant heart. He could light the darkest cave with his whistle or melt the coldest frost with his smile.

    ¡°I don''t ¡­ I don¡¯t know. We ¡­ Tom and I ¡­¡± she choked on a sob.

    Adrian¡¯s hand held fast to her shoulder. Its gifting strength the only thing keeping her from breaking down and start bawling again and he knew it. She pressed on in a hoarse rasp, ¡°Tom ¡­ I ¡­ I never knew ¡­¡±

    ¡°Yes?¡± Drake prodded with clearly straining patience.

    Ellie restrained him with a hand. She knew that Bon Bon¡¯s every instinct fought against letting this secret out, and it was tearing at her more than any weapon of steel or magick.

    Ellie walked over and took the slender lass into her arms. Bon Bon¡¯s muscles, hidden beneath her fanciful garb, were like whipcords, tightened by her repressed emotions. Her words came out in a blinding staccato blast, like an exhaust pipe being unburdened of its years of accumulated filth.

    ¡°He was always a ¡­ a ¡­¡± she wailed, stumbling over the eternal hurdle at the end. Her voice then dropping off as if she¡¯d stumbled and dropped it down a well. ¡°When I said he was my lover ¡­ I ¡­ it was a lie.¡±

    ¡°And when you said you''d known him since childhood?¡± Ellie asked, giving Drake the eye that any husband alive would know meant ¡®keep silent or there will be consequences¡¯. True to the staple, but also to his right as Captain, he held his tongue as well as her gaze with a very poignant air of.

    ¡°I have no idea when ¡­ or how he ¡­ he ¡­ died. I don¡¯t know why he was even on that saarding ship. All I know is ¡­¡±

    Even with Adrian¡¯s curative engine aura driving her mental turbines, the cavernous wound in her heart had turned to a gaping maw through which gushed her entire life¡¯s emotional reservoir. And drawn into that tidal outrush was the part of her spirit which gave strength to her muscles and imposed normal upright posture on her bones.

    She crumpled. Even with Adrian¡¯s borrowed strength, her anger and grief burst forth in uncontrollable spasms. She buried her face in her hands, no longer able to bear to look her friends in the eye.

    ¡°I love him,¡± was all she managed to choke. ¡°I love him ¡­¡±

    She repeated it over and over until her throat mutinied. But she still continued to mouth the words in between her racking convulsions.

    Who exactly she was intent on convincing was unclear. Be it herself or the others. But whatever was the case, Adrian and Ellie worked in concerted physical, and unconsciously in auric, tandem to soothe her emotional tempest.

    Drama was nothing new for them where Bon Bon was concerned. But this was a different species of dragon altogether. For once there was nothing petty or coy about or in it. Gone were the hyperbolic exaggerations and the ditsy fa?ade.

    Every hoarse note, every transparent expression, every pitifully pronounced dot and agonizingly strained chord came from a sanctum long buried beneath mountains of shame and pain. Its horded truths as jealously and vigilantly guarded as the Imperial Treasury Vaults.

    It was not so much what she revealed, but how. Her raw, unshielded emotions managed to even wring a soft touch of sympathy from Crow. Tantamount to tapping Heavy Water from an anvil.

    That said, Drake was the Headmaster¡¯s third hand and eye for a reason. He remained unmoved. A damning silver glint from Bon Bon¡¯s inadvertently exposed inner cloak had caught his eye.

    He¡¯d known for a while, as had the Headmaster naturally, that Bon Bon had been secretly dabbling with some fringe form of magick for some months now. As subtlety had never been the Vixen¡¯s strongest suit, he and Ellie had observed her on several occasions doing her nightly s¨¦ance practice sessions.

    With his powers of perfect hindsight he could plainly see the error in letting such things merely slide past him undisturbed and uninvestigated.

    But at the time it had seemed perfectly reasonable. Or at least rational. Seeing as how nothing had mysteriously caught fire or exploded, and given the absolute dearth of unexplained disappearances, mysterious actions by inanimate objects, delusional outbreaks, or any other traditional hallmarks of supernatural meddling he¡¯d figured it best to not make problems where none existed.

    He should have known better. He did know better! He, of all beasts, understood the dangers of playing with fire. Both in the proverbial and literal sense. He remembered how his brother had got his first scars. And still he¡¯d done nothing.

    Contrary to what he told himself, he¡¯d had no greater mission on those nights. Not in the lofty sense of the ¡°greater good¡± typically pawned off by churches and public charities at any rate.

    No. He¡¯d been with Ellie. And though he couldn¡¯t say in good faith that he regretted a nanosecond of their time his reason could not let go the fact that he had been blinded. Willfully blinded. He¡¯d let his carnal, immature impulses get the better of his duty and judgement for years and now he was staring down their loaded consequential bores.

    He ¡­ THEY could no longer afford the luxury of ignorance.

    Pyrates¡¯ Second Rule, courtesy of Professor Shanter: ¡°blowing out your candle doesn¡¯t slay the monster under your bed.¡±

    Now, with his understanding of the full gravity of what she had been up to and what needed to be done, he would not make the same mistake twice.

    He waited until Bon Bon had sufficiently emptied her emotional well, then he brought Ellie¡¯s attention to the partially revealed evidence.

    Both Ellie and Bon Bon glanced down and then back up at him in near perfect unison. Their faces bore identical expressions of incomprehension and horror. Bon Bon moved to cover up her secret, but Drake would not be so easily dissuaded.

    He was about to press upon her the fact that Amelia''s life hung in the balance. But Ellie, in her way, sensed his incoming beratement and cut it off the vine with a sidelong glance.

    Leaning silently over Bon Bon in the manner of a doctor inspecting a bandaged wound, she tenderly pulled back the corner of her violet cloak, revealing the claimant silver ritual vial.

    Adrian stared at it in a state of bewitched wonderment. He didn¡¯t know yet what it was or what significance it held to the present situation. But the aura it exuded was like nothing he¡¯d ever experienced.

    It was like a song, or a memory of a song, calling him, telling him to go ¡­ somewhere. To do something. He just didn¡¯t know where or why.

    Drake shook his head as if to shed weighty rain. At which point he realized that he¡¯d been drooling. If nothing else, that was as clear a sign as any of how great the trouble was. Thankfully nobody else had noticed.

    Snapping back to Captain mode, he clicked his fingers for attention then motioned for Adrian to back away and for Ellie to take the vial.

    After offering a final consolatory squeeze on Bon Bon¡¯s trembling shoulders, Adrian obeyed.

    Ellie then held the Fox at arms¡¯ length and, on the end of a compassionate smile, intoned in a low resonance, similar to how a gold brick might sound if given the power of speech, ¡°you know I have to¡±.

    Bon Bon''s muscles tensed so hard that all her joints cracked. But for the same reasons as she had always done, she capitulated. Albeit this time absent any theatrical mood swings or pouting.

    She simply splayed out her arms and spat out the words ¡°just take it¡± as though they were venom sucked from a wound.

    Under Bon Bon''s loathsome glare Ellie took the small silver tube. Which she held reluctantly in her fist. She couldn¡¯t put her finger on what, but something about it made her skin crawl. The metal felt somehow unnaturally cold.

    She handed it off to Drake and he examined it as though searching for a maker¡¯s mark. He then looked at Bon Bon and said, ¡°you know exactly what you were doing with this.¡±

    This was not a question.

    The response was a flickering gesture, which could have meant anything. ¡°I just wanted him to be happy,¡± she replied, her voice cracking on the final word.

    Drake had had enough. His patience had been shaved clear to the bone at the very start. He waved the confiscated prison tube aloft as if it were a piece of damning criminal evidence.

    ¡°Would you be happy being jammed into this thing?¡±

    He may have phrased it as a question, but his tone and manner exposed his real intent. Bon Bon just stared dejectedly at the floor without responding.

    Drake handed the vial to Tim, who slipped it into his trusty bandolier satchel. Then he turned, and while sparing only a momentary glance in Bon Bon¡¯s general direction, he addressed the herd at large as if for the first time.

    ¡°As ¡­ misguided as Bon Bon¡¯s actions tonight may have been, they might prove to be Amelia¡¯s salvation.¡±

    He wasn¡¯t sure what brought about his sudden bout of charity. But in the interest of preserving momentum, he didn¡¯t wonder too long or hard about it.

    ¡°While she failed to fully capture Tom''s spirit, she may have done enough to build a fragile bridge between him and her capture vessel. If so, and if Tim can figure some way to transpose that link onto a compass pulsar, there may just be hope that we can find our missing Runt before she becomes a permanent part of their troop.¡±

    Everyone, with the hardly unusual exception of Crow, who remained as stony as the FPA walls, beamed with the kind of exploratory zeal Pyrates and pirates alike were known and regarded for at nursery bedtimes.

    This would be the first real action they had seen since they¡¯d helped ground a Conshortan Brigantine trying to sneak through the Great Border Wall last year.

    But to say they weren''t all a little bit scared too was to insinuate their complete and total lack of skill or sense.

    Admittedly, Conshorta was a school in the sense that a rock was a pillow. It was attended by the elite who had been brought into the world on a satin cloth. But as Old Iron Hide had effectively taught them all, ¡°to underestimate any opponent, no matter how slack jawed, is to all but ram your own sword through your belly¡±.

    Every Pyrate would, sooner or later, become well acquainted with their chief rivals. If not through frequent, and often brazen, antics, then their myriad attempts to sabotage the Academy by launching ¡°surprise¡± raids on key fortress locations along their nadiral boundary.

    Most of which ended in flame and disaster while offering little more than scheduled target practice for the Pyrates.

    The ¡°University¡± may have predated Flint¡¯s legacy by several centuries, and the fact of its having the general blessing and tacit backing of the world¡¯s correlated governments may have offered it a sheen of legitimacy to the legally illiterate masses, its ¡°students¡± near-universally substituted real skill or tractable expertise for sheer blockheadedness, political meandering and nepotism.

    Everyone on Aevon knew that Conshorta was all about strutting and talking the talk then just as often as not cowering behind the Empire or Crown¡¯s naval skirts when things got too heated.

    As far as Flint¡¯s champion heirs were concerned Conshorta represented everything the FPA was built to oppose.

    But these enemies were no baroque barnacles yet to evolve past the playground. Necrophagial constructs of any sort were dangerous. As any one of their thousands of folk and fairytale references would attest. But ones that could still think, move and fight represented an epoch-defining threat. The kind of danger that, if unchallenged, could reshape or destroy the world as they knew it.

    As if tracking a phantom ship wasn¡¯t tricky enough, doing battle with her already deceased crew was its own proprietary metric of impossible.

    If their presupposition about the ship itself being tangible was true, he reckoned it wasn¡¯t outside the bounds of possibility that the ghost crew might also be corporeal enough, if not to be harmed, then at least be warded off or defended against somehow.

    The problem still was how.

    Tim, of all beasts, answered that question with an unusual amount of enthusiasm. ¡°I think I might have a few tricks that most weaponsmiths don¡¯t. But I¡¯ll need as many nexels as we can find.¡±

    Drake gestured a command which Tim comprehended immediately. He marched off purposefully with Steve in imminent pursuit.

    Instantly thereafter, with a flick of the snout in the direction of the armory, Drake ordered Hemlock and Bon Bon off to gather munitions for Tim to modify.

    Crow was to secure their supplies and provisions.

    All three nodded assent to their tasks and took off.

    Turning last to Adrian and the Blunder Twins, Drake knew he didn''t need to give them specific orders. Their missions and the stakes thereof were as straightforward as they came. And as well were waiting on him, for they first required a ship before they could get to work.

    In an uncharacteristic bout of inspiration, he adopted a dramatic persona that would have done the greatest Felinistic playwrights proud, ¡°arm yourselves well lads! And wisely! For tonight the very gods themselves shall envy us our deeds!¡±

    Their shared charismatic whoops and cheers, followed by their scampering feet and carrying raucous laughter as they went to presumably go wake the harbor master gave Drake pause for simultaneous adoration and admonition.

    ¡®That¡¯ll either make him way friendlier or more trigger happy¡¯ he thought.

    He stood there marveling at their impressive capacity to simply revel in the moment. Completely forgetting that they were all embarking on what was essentially a suicide mission if Tim¡¯s weapon mods didn¡¯t pan out.

    Then Ellie materialized behind him unexpectedly, breaking him out of his reverie. She squeezed his waist and nestled her chin on his broad shoulder.

    ¡°You know, I think you¡¯d make a great actor if this whole Pyrate thing doesn¡¯t work out,¡± she said as she gave his trim middle a loving squeeze.

    He smiled and gave her nose a fond tweak. She then lifted her muzzle right up next to his ear to suggestively whisper ¡°my Captain¡± before planting a kiss on his own nose and dash away.

    He watched appreciatively as she jogged to catch up with Hemlock and Bon Bon. He¡¯d have been lying if he¡¯d said it didn¡¯t occur to him to call this whole mission off and just run away with her to some desert island where they could live happy, multiply and grow old together.

    But the moment quickly passed. Flavorless reality sank back in and it was back to the jolly old business.

    Once alone, he turned his thoughts to how he was going to convince the harbor master to let them take a ship in the middle of the night to go search for their missing Runt by trailing a ship that reportedly sank to an island that didn¡¯t, strictly speaking, exist.

    If it came right down to it, he might just have to steal a ship and have words about it with Avlon later. Assuming they lived that long.

    As much as it tore at his honorable sensibilities to betray the Headmaster¡¯s trust in such a way, he knew it would scar his heart far more to leave an innocent life to the winds just because all the saarding paperwork wasn¡¯t in order.

    Besides, wasn¡¯t that the Pyrate¡¯s way? Stealing ships? One might just look at this as one of Old Iron Hide¡¯s instances of ¡°learning on the job¡±.

    His rationalizing was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder.

    Hardened reflexes older than his species snapped Drake around, dropped him into a fighting crouch and brought a hand to his sword in a single clean move.

    It took a few seconds for the logical assessment board in his brain to register the new scene. And once it had a further few were required for inquiry as to how to file the information.

    The Goat who had been the cause of his undue alarm stood there with hands clasped behind him and wearing a strange masque of monkish calm. One which left the eyes, figuratively sodden with melancholy, exposed.

    He was clearly waiting for something. What, Drake was a loss to guess.

    Preferring knowledge to ignorance he asked the stranger his business.

    The Oreamnos answered in a lackadaisical drawl as though he¡¯d had this same conversation many times before and was now reading it off a prompt in his head.

    ¡°Name¡¯s Jacob. Your Sailing Master. Ready for orders Captain.¡±

    For the third time in as many days, images from the past years careened through Drake''s mind like shot from a blunderbuss. Knocked into a furtive daze by the sensory quagmire, he blearily told Jacob to ¡°go help Crow gather supplies. Then write up an inventory list and give it to Ellie. She should be out by the student docks by the time you¡¯re finished.¡±

    Jacob nodded curtly and went on his way. Leaving Drake in a fuming stew.

    How could he be so blind? What kind of saarding sorcery was at work here? He¡¯d get to the bottom of this ¡­

    But the memories were gone again. Evaporated into the ether of thought like snowflakes on a hot stove.

    Feeling just slightly dazed, Drake spun about and continued on his lonely trek as if nothing whatsoever out of the ordinary had just occurred.

 Chapter 11: Fighting Spirits

    Tim and Steve so utterly fixated on their project that neither noticed when Ellie and Hemlock entered the lab. Each of their arms leadened with wooden boxes stuffed to bursting with dormant nexiis from the FPA¡¯s general armory.

    Only when Hemlock relieved herself of her burden with a tremendous THUMP did Tim nearly chuck his soldering iron at them like a non-aerodynamic kunai.

    Though his higher order cortices caught that ingrained reflex in time to avert a friendly fire calamity, they weren¡¯t quite fast or adroit enough to save the nearby book pillars from his startled tail swipe.

    ¡°Sorry,¡± Ellie said reflexively.

    ¡°Thanks,¡± Tim answered, reassembling the pile right there on the floor then turning back to his instruments.

    ¡°So what''ve you got for us?¡± Ellie asked, wiping the sweat from her brow with one hand while rubbing her aching shoulder with the other.

    With a prodding nudge from Steve, Tim stood and offered her his stool. She dropped onto it gratefully without any hesitation.

    ¡°I¡¯ll show you,¡± he said.

    Talented and intellectual though Tim may have been, his one failing, well known to all, was his propensity and eagerness to play his own horn at any and every opportunity.

    Under Steve¡¯s expert supervision he explained how he had carefully isolated Tom''s unique spectral energy signature to relay it to a special device he had built called an ¡°ana-spectrometer¡±.

    Ellie gave her best contemplative effort trying to decipher its strange combination of elements and shapes. The technical extent of her ogling was to observe how the genius composition of brass, copper and crystal looked like a gallows tree engaged in some extremely scandalous activity with a diving bell.

    Sensing a chance to exposit, the Marsupial wasted no time diving straight into a complex scientific lecture. One which Steve tried and failed to foil by driving his ridged cap into Tim¡¯s dense trapezius cluster.

    ¡°Basically,¡± the bulky engineer said, seemingly oblivious, ¡°once this baby¡¯s dialed in we can isolate the animating wavelengths in this vessel and reflect them off the Abyss.¡±

    Tim twitched his nose at his disembodied partner, who made an inarticulate sound that was his airless equivalent to a sigh then added, ¡°in theory. There are just a few more minor variables we need to account for.¡±

    Tim bent over his tools again but kept up a consistent recital stream.

    ¡°There is a kind of three-dimensional grid that encompasses all of existence. The energy within the grid bundles itself into tiny packets of matter we call particles. Every particle is a tiny wrinkle in this cosmic fabric. Each has its own unique signature and properties.¡±

    ¡°Like folds in cloth,¡± Hemlock said while massaging her temples. Not unlike an exacerbated parent culminating dialogue with a prodding child.

    Tim turned and regarded her with a mixture of surprise and deflated irritation.

    ¡°More like a stack of crinkled parchment. But, in essence, you¡¯re correct,¡± he said in like monotone. He continued to tinker as he talked. ¡°Some ¡®scholars¡¯ refer to this pervasive natural structure as ¡®Aura¡¯ or ¡®Wild Magick¡¯.¡±

    An irreverent snort punctuated the term.

    ¡°It¡¯s a kind of microcosmic orchestra if you like. Precisely how or where it originated is unknown. What is clear is that conscious manipulation of its folds, though evidently possible, requires a thorough knowledge of the precise order and frequency of its chaotic tendencies. Striking them as lyre strings. Breaking their exponential bubble and quenching it into a single line of reality. Transforming the merely possible into the probable and then into the actual through pure will.¡±

    Somehow, as though by an effort of cosmic local narrative trying to reassert itself, the question of what any of this had to do with their current object floated through their abstract reaches.

    Tim paused, collected himself, then he jabbed a finger at the stack of abused tomes.

    ¡°Needless to say, having the knowledge and skill to conduct such an ensemble would be to have the proverbial White Wand buried in your somatic neural layers.¡±

    Where he¡¯d been meaning to go with this was lost. The moment of clarity again was shrouded by intellectual stimuli.

    Though her Pyratical bent prejudiced her the opposite way, having met, and to her undying shame bedded, a few Macropods in her time, Hemlock saw why Tim was made a pariah.

    Put simply, if Tim¡¯s mind were a razor, his species¡¯ average would be a down pillow. His notion of surprise involved systematically restructuring the classroom order of theoretical mathematics. Theirs was punching with the left fist instead of the right.

    His body and voice trailed off. His hands fell to his lap. Steve having to take and replace the soldering iron with his teeth. His mouth kept putting out words, but they were directed out the window at the pre-dawn cloud cover. Moreover, they carried on their air a wistful, almost pining, pattern commonly associated with the likes of some young poet in plight for his extra-relegate sweetheart.

    Not that Tim would ever stoop to such primitive constraints, obviously.

    ¡°To see the cosmic tapestry laid bare,¡± he sighed. ¡°To see and then to strike a single fulcrum in the matrix of Life with exactly the right percussion to achieve a chosen result. The sheer amount of study and discipline required would melt the mind of all but one in about ten or twenty billion.¡±

    Ellie and Hemlock each sat in vegetative fog of their own. They didn¡¯t need to look at the other to know they were thinking that Tim was just stringing made up words together at this point. Of course they knew that probably wasn¡¯t the case. Which was why they kept their opinions private.

    ¡°Like a book of sheet music,¡± Steve broke in. ¡°Only a million million times more complicated.¡±

    ¡®What the saard ISN¡±T with you?¡¯ Hemlock thought through the seismic pressure headache she always got whenever Tim got onto talking about anything science related in her presence.

    If she¡¯d thought she would be saved from further monologuing when Crow suddenly popped in she was sorely mistaken. He took a silent seat opposite Ellie and settled in for the oncoming storm.

    And come it did.

    Though he was too smart and well-traveled not to believe in practical arcana, Tim had never accepted the concept of ¡°magick¡±.

    ¡°Pathetic pseudointellectual garbage,¡± he called it. ¡°A childish excuse for feeble mindedness invented by fools who want to sound smart and indulged by parasites in order to fatten their purses at the complete expense of actual learning and progress. Relegating to the ¡®supernatural¡¯ whatever their prenatal minds can¡¯t encompass, as though theirs were the be all end all of comprehension. Anything that can be observed by natural means always has a natural explanation. Any beast who says otherwise is either a fool or a lawyer. But I repeat myself.¡±

    What he put all his stock in was natural law. Like all laws he knew they had loopholes that could be exploited. It was just a matter of where to look.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    ¡°Large artificial reservoirs of energy disturb this cosmic tapestry. The ripples they create emanate outward in unnatural ways. Like rocks impacting the surface of an otherwise tranquil lake.¡±

    ¡°Or some idget banging on live Magnolsis drums instead of bongos,¡± Steve addended.

    Tim indicated his device and said, ¡°by broadcasting our own signals at a known frequency and reflecting them back through the ana-spectrometer¡¯s sensor suites, we can detect anomalies in Aevon¡¯s surface resonance fields¡ªprovided I know what spectrums to scan for.¡±

    Indicating an even more alien block of components linked to the device by a dense wire and flex tubing bundle, he continued, ¡°using this, and with the moons acting as our reflectors, we can scan the entire Crust for anomalies in a matter of hours.¡±

    Crow steepled his fingers and closed his eyes. Meditation was the gateway to calm, which was the gateway to understanding. Or so his first master had taught.

    They were making progress. That was good. But the other front still remained uncontested. What to do about the bloody ghosts?

    As if fighting something that had no physical body to speak of wasn¡¯t already a herculean task, how in the scientifically proven hell were they supposed to kill a fold in the very fabric of spacetime itself?

    Tim concurred¡ªthough his explanation for why differed slightly. ¡°A ghost is nothing more or less the corporeal imprint of a micro singularity. The result of the collapse of a dead beast¡¯s signature aura,¡± he explained, more to himself than to the group.

    ¡°Think of the funnel in the draining sand in an hourglass. We can¡¯t see the energy vortex, but the initial surge leaves an imprint on the volatile fabric of the cosmos. One which can sometimes be perceived by the naked senses, but always inevitably breaks down and fades due to basic entropy. A learned and powerful enough sorcerer may, in theory, duplicate its general shape and properties. Although, as much as I¡¯m loathed to admit it, the precise mechanics of that and the exact decay rate of spiritual essence are, as yet, unknown to me.¡±

    Equal and opposite tones of incuriosity and confusion reverberated through the scholamandraic tower. Stilling each other until all that remained was a still, glassy silence that sliced bare thought to the bone.

    Snagging on a thought, he paused and frowned down at his thumbs. ¡°Also, what force could be responsible for animating it is also a mystery,¡± he admitted.

    ¡°But no matter. Whatever its cause, the singularity circulates power in a convectional loop. Under normal circumstances this would be nothing more than a hot ball, analogous to a star or one of those high end iridium glow-lamps. But the fact that we can see it at all tells us that the containment is not perfect. Further, the greatest probability for my money is that what or whoever is giving it life is also managing its dissipation.¡±

    Slowly, as though learning to skate on molten sand, Ellie offered up an analogy. ¡°Like ¡­ a cork ¡­ ?¡±

    To which Tim blinked and Steve responded for him. ¡°More like a slow release valve. But good try all the same.¡±

    This Crow liked. Many bodies weren¡¯t as much of a problem if there was only one mind to go between them.

    Then Tim, for a second time, leapt to his feet shouting, ¡°eureka!¡±

    All three of the other Pyrates smiled knowingly at each other. Albeit each for slightly different reasons.

    Hemlock for that he had finally stopped blabbering.

    Ellie for that they could finally get on with needful things.

    Crow for his definite certainty that Tim had just come by, in his own fashion, the same conclusion as he had.

    Through the chaotic stirring of his ¡°idea soup¡±, as Bon Bon had so cleverly deemed it, Tim had inadvertently stumbled across what just might be the answer to their greater dilemma.

    His one flaw being his hyperactive prefrontal cortex. Fathomlessly brilliant, a genius by any sense, he could often as easily fall into his own mental looking glass. Sometimes not emerging for days or weeks. Hence his paradoxically abysmal classroom scores.

    In fact, it was only by the interceding grace of the Headmaster that he had been spared expulsion thus far.

    Luckily for him, most of the time all he needed was a gentle outside nudge to get his cortical cart righted and rolling again. That said, they had learned it was typically wiser, and more valuable, to let his proverbial map route trace itself out before jamming him back into his head. Thus was the rationale behind their respectful silence.

    And once again their patience had paid off.

    If the ghosts were, in fact, simply metaphorical corked bottles, then the answer was obviously to create an even more metaphorical corkscrew.

    The nexels they had just brought, provided Tim with the perfect solution. ¡°All we need to do is cause enough of a counter force to disrupt whatever cork is binding the specter, and that should release all of its stored energy ¡­¡±

    ¡°In a massive explosion,¡± Hemlock finished with a barely perceptible grimace.

    Tim and Ellie stared.

    It was often easily forgotten due to her blunt and stoic tendencies, but Hemlock was named for a virulent poison, not a cudgel. Her wits were as sharp as her aim, her mind as fleet and agile as her step.

    ¡°Well,¡± Tim said defensively, pointing to the stacks of boxes behind them. ¡°that''s what those are for.¡±

    He walked over and pried the lid off the top-most nexel crate. He plucked out one of the gold-streaked indigo crystals, held it up to the light and studied it intently for several seconds.

    ¡°My working theory is that a form of negative energy is what keeps the spectral bubble from collapsing.¡±

    He loped back over to his desk and placed the chosen pellet on one of the few uncovered areas.

    ¡°If that¡¯s the case, then all we need do is introduce an equal and opposite positive energy dose to cancel it out.¡±

    Hemlock hacked a verbose snort. ¡°I smell a lot of if¡¯s coming off this plan.¡±

    In an uncharacteristic show of humility, Tim responded to this brazen jibe with a sheepish shrug and a rather halfhearted mutter, ¡°it''s the best I can do.¡±

    It was this moment Drake chose to announce his presence.

    Or perhaps announce wasn¡¯t quite accurate, as it implies a conscious effort to be noticed. This was more a sudden lack of conscious effort to remain hidden.

    He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. After a silence that stretched out like drum-top leather he asked in the stressed monotone of a beast who wanted nothing more than to be in bed, ¡°how soon can we be ready?¡±

    Tim answered instantly. ¡°Give me an hour or so to test my hypothesis¡ªmaybe another four to make the nexels.¡±

    ¡°You have thirty minutes,¡± Drake snapped before spinning around, donning his cloak¡¯s dark emerald hood and abandoning the tower like an arrow flown from a besieged castle.

    Tim blinked.

    Ellie gaped.

    Crow cocked an eyebrow.

    A tensile quirk in one of Hemlock¡¯s jaw muscles was as close to a gasp .

    Steve was the only one to respond verbally. Albeit in an extremely loose manner of speaking. In so far as a burst of raucous laughter at Tim¡¯s expense counted as speech.

    The moment, and with it the shock, came and went. Then Tim¡¯s face and manner hardened as his species would recognize as nonverbal pronouncements of a thrown gauntlet taken up.

    Contrary to his ancestry¡¯s belief, though he played the part of studious intellectual well, Tim was no gentle giant. He was a Pyrate. This was not the first time his technical innovativeness had been pitted against the clock.

    Still the serrated edges of Drake¡¯s words carved deep stress lines into his features. Even Hemlock was noticeably unsettled. Though none who knew her any less well than those present could have divined it.

    Not one of Drake¡¯s herd could reconcile this hard crack of the whip with the stern but understanding Captain they¡¯d all come through their own ways to respect and admire.

    Especially Ellie, who sometimes seemed to know Drake better than he himself did. She could count on one hand the number of times she had seen him lash out ignobly.

    Each and every one of those other incidents had been either in the sparring ring or in some seedy cantina or back alley. And none had ever been directed at a close friend, never mind a herd-mate.

    There was something about this tonal shift. It was disturbing to see in a beast known for his unmatched charisma. It was distinctly and directly piratical.

    Falling with near primal ease into the role of the folkloric Sparrow Queen chasing after the deadly Black Arrow as it sailed towards the noble Knight Garand, she got up and pursued her noble paramour. Pausing just long enough at the door to say, ¡°take as long as you need Tim,¡± before shutting it meaningfully in her wake.

    A cold tendril of dread snaked its way down her spine and coiled into a constricting knot around her heart as she leapt to make up the distance. Its grip tightened with every crack of boot leather against stone until it was all she could do to take another breath.

    Catching Drake up not ten paced from the dock door, she seized him by the arm and in a deep growl meant as much to lend her words gravitational force as to keep her voice from trembling, ¡°we need to talk.¡±

    This was not a suggestion. Nor was it explicitly a threat. Normally Drake would have had more sense than to test that particular wire, but this was not most nights.

    ¡°No,¡± he said flatly. ¡°I don''t. What I need to do is find the Blunder Twins.¡±

    Ellie¡¯s jaw clenched so tightly her teeth creaked.

    The dread serpent clenching her heart metamorphized into a strangulating band of electric fire. But, in the grandest testament to her Pyratical discipline, for as much as it ate and tore away at her she held back its wicked venom.

    Meanwhile, back at the lab Tim and Hemlock both shrugged. Steve bobbed once as a shrug. Then all three went about their standing task of prepping the arsenal as if the past five or so minutes hadn¡¯t happened.

    Pyrates¡¯ Third Rule: observe all, but subtract everything that does not add.

    To no beast¡¯s surprise, Tim¡¯s Bipolar Energy Matrix (BEM) theory would very quickly start to bear its first fruit.

    Their work would consist of creating what he would christen his ¡°Spectral Field Nullifiers¡±. But that Steve would later rebrand ¡°Nulls¡±. A move which he personally considered quite clever. And though Tim would never admit it aloud, at least not in so few words, reason forced him to concede that the term had a better market ring about it.

    Hemlock quietly resigned herself to being Tim¡¯s assistant for lack of any better alternative.

    She consoled herself with the certain knowledge that no matter how dismal or tedious the next few hours¡¯ work got, Drake would likely have given all he owned to be in her boots right then instead of his own.

 Chapter 12: Way Anchor

    As Ellie escorted Drake outside and down onto the student docks, she considered, not for the first time, where Amelia was at that very moment and what might be happening to her.

    The image of little Amelia sitting scared and alone in the hold of some infernal ship swam around her head like a craven Locust horde. Devouring all that entered its flight path, leaving her mental fields utterly barren of all necessary thought.

    She damn-near cracked her own teeth trying to restrain the mighty dragon threatening to unleash its swelling inferno on Drake. Which she knew would be actively counterproductive.

    Having his uniquely qualifying skillset and experience at their helm was their best hope for finding Amelia before the worst should come. But in order for that to be realized he first needed to be relieved of his self-inflicted emotional constipation.

    While Ellie would have been one of the first to espouse the utility of fighting fire with fire when it came to instilling discipline, she understood better than most that a hot prod was about as much good for solving matters of the heart as a wet blanket for stoking a hearth.

    Pyrates¡¯ Fourth Rule: beating a Mule with the carrot or feeding him the stick are the best means of motivating him to cave in your skull.

    Drake didn¡¯t make a sound the whole way down the long, vacant hall. He just stared and marched straight ahead like an ancient Lovatian Legionary on campaign.

    She shadowed him until they¡¯d reached the exterior Penir door. The instant the unshielded night wind met her nose the infernal dragon she¡¯d been fighting down finally broke free of its fettering chains.

    She caught Drake by the elbow and slung him around to the side as though he forcibly pinning him against the wall.

    She pulled back his hood with one hand while taking and lowering his muzzle with the other.

    Drake may have been her Captain, but that wasn¡¯t because she was without her own strength. They both knew, even if not on the level that they could express it, they wouldn¡¯t have lasted this long as a couple, nor indeed she come this far in her own right as a Pyrate, were she just another tame, decorative damsel.

    She took him firmly but gently by the hands, mostly to stop her own from shaking. She would follow on that proverbial Sparrow¡¯s wings along his fabricated trail. Snatching this problem in its errant flight and snapping it in one powerful blow.

    At least that was her intention.

    What actually happened when their eyes met, the treacherous Eagle she met there snagged her naivete in wicked talons and snuffed it out under a metal heel.

    Where she knew ought to be a pair of portals into a wild but bountiful woodland stood instead indomitable shields of emerald glass gleaming with tint streaks of wicked steel in the pale night¡¯s glow. Baring a raging furnace of immeasurable fury and power.

    Ellie had witnessed this kind of internal firestorm only once before.

    It had scared her beyond reason then.

    Seeing it now in Drake, the one beast in all the world for whom she would have battled an entire necrotic armada, made her want to curl up under the nearest cot, shut her eyes and never emerge.

    She forced several long doses of air through her lungs. Such thoughts weren¡¯t getting any of them anywhere.

    Meeting a wall with a shield was a stalemate. Meeting a spear with another spear is a slaughter.

    What this scene needed was a compassionate score. Not the kind shared by bonded brothers over tavern ale, but the only music a truly world-damaged heart could hear. The complimentary beat of another.

    This here was mother¡¯s work.

    Using her own inner fire to scour away her lingering doubts and with the impregnable honeyed calm that had bought her the moniker ¡°Momma Bear¡± she asked, ¡°Drake, what¡¯s really eating you?¡±

    For what felt like an interminable Era he said nothing. He just stared at his boots, half snarling, half looking like he was about to hack up a hair ball.

    She swallowed the draconic urge to strike out at what she considered the universal male handicap of internalizing a problem rather than allowing another beast to help share the load.

    Seeing the latter was a conclusion he was clearly unlikely to come to on his own, she decided to coax him into it by inching their bodies closer and closer.

    Knowing that subtlety of the heart did not come naturally to most males, and knowing her chosen mate was no exception, she told him very slowly and bluntly, ¡°we¡¯re doing everything we can. We¡¯ll get Amelia back.¡±

    She cocked her head to one side and offered truthfully, ¡°you know, we never would have even realized she was gone if you hadn¡¯t spotted ¡­¡±

    Drake took a deep sigh. He knew there was no getting out of this intervention. Not with Ellie at its helm.

    He also knew that there was no diverting her. She had a mother¡¯s eyes, to which all his rivers were glass.

    With her there could be no deceit, no evasion, no obfuscation. Her heart was the spiritual version of the nexel cartridge in that it rendered his mental armor and shield obsolete.

    And this was why she was the only one to whom he could or would ever have entrusted his.

    With her there was no anger, no fear, no regret, no resentment, no retribution, no intolerance. There was only the simple, brutally honest truth shared between equals. A transaction facilitated by the kind of clear and unambiguous  known only to those who have experienced love like a key perfectly tuned to the tumbler metrics of a masterfully crafted lock.

    ¡°It''s my fault,¡± he said. His hands trembled to compensate for his inability to shake his head.

    Spitting the words out like mouthfuls of rancid vinegar. He hated the way they made him sound like a child. Like a coward.

    ¡®You¡¯re a Pyrate dammit!¡¯

    And what was more, he was a Captain.

    He couldn¡¯t afford to be weak or soft, especially not now. Not when the life of one of his herd depended on his capacity to lead.

    But still, within every word, every breath, he felt his very soul being torn to shreds until all that was left in its place was a pile of worthless sand.

    He choked against the leash of his shame and tried to turn away, but Ellie held him fast. Seeing the beast she had believed unbreakable being torn in half dug the searing dragon¡¯s teeth into her heart.

    There were not words to describe how desperately she wanted to just curl up in his arms by the fire and fall into a blissful sleep.

    But Flint¡¯s Fifth Rule for Pyrates was very clear on this point: ¡°what we want and feel is of no consequence. Ten thousand dreams never amounted to a single honest deed.¡±

    Like it or not this was their cross to bear. If for no other reason than the Sixth Pyrate axiom: to each his own hand, to each other hand the next.

    She needed their help. In order to provide that they needed their Captain properly fit and capable. For that he needed his full untainted spirit back.

    She pressed on as smoothly and evenly as an oiled rifle action, ¡°what¡¯s your fault?¡±

    Drake almost smiled. He¡¯d never understood how she did it, and had long ago resigned himself to the idea that he likely never would, but Ellie had a way of drudging secrets out into the light regardless of the willpower being posed against her.

    Her seeing him as this pathetically vulnerable husk struck at the very core of his pride, both as a Pyrate and as a male.

    ¡°I let them take her. I let them get away.¡±

    Hearing his own words as though through from the mouth of another beast he despised, he ground his teeth as if in attempt to destroy them on egress.

    He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles cracked¡ªcompletely forgetting that her fingers were still entwined with his. She gritted her teeth against the pain but otherwise did not falter.

    ¡°I should have stopped her,¡± he snarled, more to himself than to her. ¡°I should¡¯ve been faster. I should¡¯ve ¡­¡± He cut himself off.

    He knew he was being foolish and irrational. He knew Ellie¡¯s next words before she¡¯d even opened her mouth.

    ¡°You are many great things,¡± she said in a firm but quiet voice. ¡°But you¡¯re not a god. You said it yourself, she was bewitched.¡±

    ¡°I know that,¡± he barked, suddenly windless. ¡°I just ...¡±

    Ellie¡¯s dread serpent lashed at her throat so that she sounded like an old Lice addict when she said, ¡°you did everything you could. More than anyone else could have. And you aren''t giving up. You''re fighting.¡±

    She flicked her muzzle back in lieu of a thumb. ¡°You saw them back there. How eager they all were ¡­ are ¡­ to follow you, even before they knew where or why. How many beasts this side of Flint could have pulled that off? How many would have the heart to even try? Especially for a beast they¡¯d just met!¡±

    Drake tried to shake his head. This time out of sheer stubborn habit than willful defiance. But that infernal will¡¯s light had finally left him. His eyes were clear and clean like a summer glade again.

    Ellie¡¯s black dragon tormentor reared back and howled as blades of sunlit joy lanced through its Abyssal scales. But Drake¡¯s own inner daemon had fangs and claws too. And it wasn¡¯t about to give up its host without a bitter and brutal fight.

    ¡°What good will it be if I¡¯m too late?¡± he asked. ¡°If we don¡¯t¡­!¡± He cut himself off. His nobility and strength were fast regrouping, but they were still on the back foot.

    ¡°Don''t say that,¡± Ellie scolded, driving her proverbial cavalry to the front to reinforce the new effort.

    She distantly thanked Iradyl that Drake¡¯s head was still too foggy to hear the tremor in the back of her voice, and that it hadn¡¯t broken entirely. ¡°We will find her.¡±

    She omitted saying ¡®whatever her condition¡¯.

    Drake didn¡¯t hear her. He was lost in his own mental forest. A long moment of silence settled between them as portions of Avlon¡¯s intro speech ran through Drake¡¯s mind, and Ellie stood by in silent recognition of his epiphany.

    He pondered first the extraordinary power of circumstances to so vastly alter one¡¯s perceptions and understandings.

    He thought on what he knew of senior Pyrates and how they might handle this situation.

    He knew Prokvert¡¯s attitude would start and stop with, ¡°the curfew is there for a reason. Amelia knowingly broke the rules and now she must face the consequences.¡±

    Avlon, he thought, would counter by saying something like, ¡°if the price for every mistake is death no beast would ever learn anything. Then there¡¯d be no point putting them in school in the first place would there?¡±

    He then supposed that if old Captain Flint was still around his advice might have been something to the effect of, ¡°that Runt chose to become a Pyrate didn¡¯t she? Nobody forced her hand? If her will wasn¡¯t hard enough to stand against a little ghostly charm, what hope would she have of holding her own in a pitched battle with the likes of Black Sky or Conshorta?¡±

    This hit Drake¡¯s ignition switch. The shield line of his will hardened, their metaphorical boot heels dug in.

    He was neither Captain Flint nor his prot¨¦g¨¦. One of Flint¡¯s most abhorrent aspects, in Drake¡¯s eyes, had always been his borderline sadistic sense of tough love.

    Straightening, he finally looked at Ellie. He knew she was right, as she most often was about these things. All of them were doing their best and going as fast as any beast reasonably could.

    Whether or not they were in time, whether or not all their plans and preparations held as much water as a broken sieve were irrelevant. This was their decision, to a beast. Their path was their own. That was the Pyrate¡¯s way.

    She didn¡¯t care if he saw her tears. ¡°You won¡¯t let anything happen to her. I know it.¡±

    Her dragon was dead. But it had left its sordid mark.

    ¡°Every road leads two ways.¡± The original source of that oft-cited and even more often paraphrased quote had been subject to fierce academic debate for centuries.

    However, its meaning was well known and comparatively straightforward.

    Every night has its dawn. Every coin has two faces. Every torch casts a shadow. Et cetera.

    Drake had always, and would always continue to take the heaviest burdens upon himself. Whether he was asked to or not. Whether they were indeed his to carry or not.

    It was his greatest virtue, or so Avlon had often said. It was what had first drawn her to him, oh so many seasons ago. Though, in retrospect, it really hadn¡¯t been that many. Less than five months ago they had passed the world¡¯s most stringent legal age barrier for matrimony on Aevon.

    Even Ellie¡¯s fearsome father, known to most beasts as the legendarily ruthless pirate Blackbeard, respected Drake enough to not impale him outright when the two had met briefly during their first semester hiatus.

    Whether this actually owed to Drake¡¯s perceived courtship worthiness or because Ellie was the only beast Blackbeard cared enough for to worry about what irreparable damage live-spit-roasting her swain would do to their relationship was known only to the ¡°Scourge of the Nine¡± himself.

    Regardless, his self-sacrificial nature would be the death of him one of these days if Prokvert¡¯s many warnings were to be counted as credible.

    If pressed hard enough on this front he would undoubtedly have prattled off some crap about it being ¡°for the greater good¡±. What was worse was that, in his truest heart, she knew he would mean it.

    More than anything, the thought of traveling that fateful road to its end terrified Ellie. Not just because her mother had died on a Raider¡¯s blade when she was around her current age. Although that played more than a token role in the equation.

    At that time Ellie had been too small to even comprehend where her mother had been taken off to, let alone feel sorrow at or avenge her untimely passing.

    After her first combat exercise at the Academy, during which she had taken on and nearly beaten three senior students, each at least once again her size, the Headmaster had remarked that she¡¯d had raw grit, spirit and will enough to weld the Continents back together.

    To which Old Iron Hide had concurred in his way. Adding that all she wanted for was the reach.

    Against her soothing embrace his heart¡¯s crucible walls melted. ¡°I¡¯m not giving up. I just ¡­¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Ellie pressed.

    ¡°Something Avlon said once,¡± Drake said, suddenly finding something on the floor extremely interesting. ¡°About the burden of command. He said that when a beast under your command dies you¡¯re haunted by their ghost forever.¡±

    Ellie picked his chin up. She could see within him the remaining fire being held in check by a single thought, one unbendable thread of light.

    ¡°We haven¡¯t ever lost anyone yet,¡± she blurted automatically. ¡°And you won¡¯t.¡±

    She inclined her chin just far enough so that her next words were focused directly into his ear. ¡°That''s what we have these for,¡± she said with a light tap on her mace and an implied impish grin.

    Implied, only because her lips were, at that very moment, otherwise occupied. Releasing her hold on restraint, she¡¯d allowed a brief but intense taste of that cozy, familiar fire to seep through her skin and warm her blood.

    She savored the intensity of his barely bottled fervor as it rushed through her, setting her nerves alight like a hot wind over dry reeds. She almost literally jumped when its current laced through her heart like a shot from a recoilless chase gun.

    All too soon reality came crashing back down on them, as all paradoxes are wont to do. Past and future became disparate entities from the present only when she took an imperceptible step backward.

    ¡°I''ve always admired that in you,¡± she breathed. The words misting slightly as they hit the air. ¡°Even before I really knew you.¡±

    She drove the galvanized lances in her eyes through him. ¡°Your willingness to throw yourself into fire for others.¡±

    Lacing her fingers behind Drake''s strong, muscular neck, she held his chin up with the backs of her thumbs. From Drake¡¯s still hazy perspective, Ellie might have been speaking with the Mother Goddess¡¯s voice when she said, ¡°you would fight the world for your friends. And we all love you for it.¡±

    She pulled his face in and rested her forehead gently against his and whispered, ¡°me especially.¡±

    He half-braced himself with the heels of his palms against her shoulders then he whispered, ¡°I''m not my brother. If he were here, he would ¡­¡±

    ¡°He''s NOT,¡± Ellie snapped. She seized upon his scruff and pressed his forehead into hers as if trying to literally, physically force her point into his brain.

    ¡°You are. And you ... are ... not ... alone! You have me. You have us! You have your herd. And we are not going to let Amelia go without a fight!¡±

    She loosened her grip. Drake didn''t move. The hanging cloud of doubt over his mind broke apart. A ray of pure sunrise shone through the abyssal dark. In whose eye was pictured the truth of just how right he had been to choose Ellie as his Quartermaster.

    ¡°You don''t have to prove anything to anyone Harold.¡±

    This startled Drake out of his daze. It had been a long time since any beast had called him by his first name outside of a formal address. The last time he could recall hearing Ellie use it had been three summers ago when he¡¯d nearly started a fight over the price of a mango. Through to this day she¡¯d never believed it had been a simple linguistic twist up.

    ¡°You''ve met ghosts before. How many alive can say that?¡±

    A thin smile slowly slithered onto his face like an old scar being unveiled. He came just short of voicing the fact that he¡¯d never actually fought one of his father¡¯s netherite brood before. Aborting course on the sole basis that she had a legitimate point, if a slightly underinformed one.

    The number of beasts who had actually witnessed and lived to tell about the necro planal denizens were few and far between. Sir Francis and his favorite heir had seen personally to that.

    But on the other hand he knew for as sure as he knew he had two hands that if Ellie knew the whole extent of his experience with the paranormal, or if anyone, including the Headmaster for that matter, had ever gleaned so much as the foggiest insight into what sorts of vile, despicable, wholly and utterly depraved evil he¡¯d been a partner to in his youth they would have turned on him as quickly and as utterly as his onetime mentor had. And frankly he wouldn¡¯t blame them. In fact he hoped they would have enough Pyrate character to cut him down on the spot.

    Thoughts on this front quickly dragged him down to the lowest pits of Tartarian loathing. The frigid depths of that infernal valley¡¯s shadow froze his nuclear Magnolsis chamber of a heart into glass. Which already threatened to crack open the fresh mold Ellie had just spent so much of her intractable magick to build for it.

    ¡®Get a grip you saarding coward!¡¯ his rallied inner general roared. ¡®What was and could be are immaterial! What will be is up to you! Your father¡¯s own words.¡¯

    That was true. His life was his to foretell now, thanks in no small measure to the Flint Pyrate Academy.

    He shut his eyes. Sparks flew where should have been blackness.

    He drew in air tinged with smoke through his nose and excised a long breath that tasted of sulfur and acid.

    He owed it to the Headmaster to save his goddaughter. He owed it to Amelia to not let her pay for his family¡¯s mistakes. And he owed it to himself to not let all the hard work and faith Ellie et all had invested in him go to waste.

    He opened his eyes. Ellie blinked. A steady flame burned amidst pine and woodland prairie. Her Captain was back.

    Her tears came freely. He brushed them off and took of her what only the gods themselves were thought to have to give.

    After that brief but bright pulsar of a farewell they resumed their respective duties with a freshly kindled fire in their spirits and a corresponding spring in their steps.

    Drake went out to inspect the ship which he somehow felt absolutely certain would already be signed out and getting prepped for launch. Though for the life of him he couldn¡¯t think what made him think so.

    Meanwhile Ellie went back to the supply quarter to collect Bon Bon. Having just recalled they¡¯d left her there slaving over inventory sheets to keep her mind out of her personal drama tub. At least until they were away.

    Perhaps the most oxymoronic aspect of Bon Bon¡¯s entire character was that she had a head for abstracts and figures that was nearly on the level with Tim¡¯s. Were it not for her pandemonious nature she may have had a promising career shot in one of the three cranial fields.

    As it was, she would have been lucky to hold down a job as a stock clerk were she not a part in Flint¡¯s foreign legion. And that would owe more to her sheer biological magnetism than any of her technical merits.

    Ellie considered now how many ghosts she would be willing to fight bare-handed to not have to be the one to tell.

    She consoled herself with the hope that Bon Bon, as per her usual M.O. when faced with tasks she didn¡¯t want to do, had gotten bored and had just left to do some last-minute training exercises or simply gaze up at the stars.

    One had to wonder what Bon Bon saw when she looked up at that infinite spread of microscopic pinholes of ancient light.

    Drake was treated to a genuine shock when he arrived at the Zenward docks and found Headmaster Avlon standing outside on the narrow boardwalk.

    He was decked in his full and proper station¡¯s attire. Autumnal robes wafting in the early breeze conversing by a flickering lantern with a mountain-goat that Drake couldn''t recall ever laying eyes upon.

    ¡®Uh-oh¡¯ was Drake''s first and only thought as his feet brought him into hailing, then further into barking, and finally into talking range.

    The Headmaster didn''t come down to the student docks on a whim. Much less in the middle of the night.

    It had, until that very moment, somehow flown over Drake¡¯s head that he¡¯d completely neglected to inform Avlon about why they were in so desperate a hurry to commandeer a ship or why he felt it so urgent to do so at such an unusual hour.

    But it didn¡¯t really surprise Drake that Avlon had discovered them. Avlon wasn¡¯t the same dictatorial taskmaster that his brother was.

    Contrary to what his general disposition suggested, he was as much a bleeding heart as a Magnolsis Godard Stone.

    Unlike his brother and their mentor, Avlon¡¯s perceptions often seemed to border on the supernatural. Trying to keep an operation like this from him, within his own domain, would have been like trying to keep the stars from fading at first sunrise.

    Avlon had his back to Drake. He was speaking in a soft, hushed voice, barely above a whisper. Even Drake¡¯s Canid ears had trouble picking out more than isolated syllables amidst the pervasive background clatter.

    As he drew up on them, the old Pyrate turned and greeted him with a smile and a mechanically polite ¡°good morning¡± then went on conversing with the Oreamnos as though the younger Captain were a mere construct of air.

    Drake elected not to intrude. No sense inviting a wild wyntyrdyr into his house when it was perfectly content to romp in someone else¡¯s.

    As he made to walk past them, however, Avlon beckoned him over. The Headmaster pulled Drake in close, so they looked like two children huddled together trading secrets on the schoolyard.

    ¡°I know your mission, and believe me I''ve no intention to stop you,¡± the silver-maned Collie said. ¡°But I would offer you a few words of caution.¡±

    If Drake weren''t already on high alert, he certainly was now! Avlon was not a beast given to bouts of fretful doting, at least not when it came to his students. Nor was he the type to offer pointless or hollow sendoffs like ¡°be careful¡± or ¡°keep your weapons handy¡±.

    If Avlon had thought for a moment that any Pyrate needed to be told not to try fighting partial-residents of the eternal kingdom with only their bare teeth and fists he would have shuttered the whole Academy, written it off as a failure for the ages and retired to one of the several private islands he was rumored to possess decades ago.

    Whatever was on Avlon¡¯s mind warranted his personally coming down to the docks in the middle of the night, and it would be behoove them all greatly to take his words as though they were holy text.

    ¡°It has come to my attention that some of our local fence sitters have taken a curious interest in your quarry.¡±

    Drake bit back a foul curse that would have made Blackbeard blush.

    ¡°Fence sitter¡± was Academy slang for a Conshorta freelancer. What with their constant habit of buzzing around the Great Border Wall like fleas orbiting a mangy street wiler.

    Whenever they stuck their greedy punk noses into anything anywhere things tended to spiral off into a maelstrom of bad news in record order. If they¡¯d somehow gotten wind of this their odds of catching the ¡®Sleepless Giant¡¯ would drop through the Harvest Lands.

    And should the Armada get involved, as they were oft wont to on Conshorta¡¯s behest, Amelia¡¯s chances of rescue would soon be banging on Drachyn¡¯s door.

    With all but the most superficial trace of a militaristic clip scrubbed clean from his voice, Drake asked, ¡°how do you want us to handle it?¡±

    Outwardly, the Headmaster was implacable. He stroked at his long white beard and allowed his eyes to wander freely over the rows of tightly moored ships ¡°acquired¡± over the years by students and then ¡°donated¡± back to the Academy upon their graduation for training and grant mission purposes.

    ¡°Our sentinel garrisons can intercept and cordon anything that lot can send our way,¡± he said distantly. ¡°And I¡¯ll rally a flight squadron to see you safely to the Imperial border.¡±

    Drake let out a relieved breath and almost had his mouth open to thank him before Avlon held him up with a finger.

    ¡°That said,¡± the old master continued very slowly in the manner of one indicating a conspicuous trail of breadcrumbs, ¡°I expect you all to hold to our Academy¡¯s standards for excellence. Whatever you find out there.¡±

    A venomous film coated these final words. His sky blue eyes had turned abruptly sharp. The mind behind them as clear and precise as a glass blade.

    Drake comprehended and assented with a mockingly exaggerated military salute. A deliberately crude imitation of the ludicrous heel-clicking, chest-pumping, arm-waving formalities cherished by the likes of Armada drones and Conshortan brats.

    ¡°Yes sir,¡± he said. His derisive intent betrayed only by the slight ruffling of an exaggerated accent flaring the arc of his r.

    ¡°Good,¡± Avlon said with matching underpinned mirth.

    ¡°Now I expect you still have much to do, so I¡¯ll trouble you no further.¡±

    The Headmaster turned to head back up inside but stopped at the edge of the first step as if snagged by an invisible hook.

    For a few moments he stood motionless. Only a veteran fighter could have sensed the subtle articulations of muscle and tendon beneath the robes. The sign of either an indecisive traveler at an unfamiliar crossroads or a trained alpha predator steeling himself for combat.

    Thankfully there was no violence to follow. But the hint plus the razor clip in his voice when he at last spoke set Drake¡¯s well-tuned battle faculties on emergency standby.

    ¡°One last piece of advice son,¡± the Headmaster said over his shoulder. His use of the para familiar term ¡®son¡¯ further priming Drake¡¯s captive anxiety. ¡°Something Flint once said to me that I think you¡¯ll find especially resonant in your journey; beware the False God.¡±

    Drake was about to ask what in the name of some-rude-and-possibly-blasphemous-expletive that was supposed to mean, but Headmaster Avlon was already gone before Drake could even settle on the right expletive.

    He shook it off, remembering his errand. They needed a ship. He was going to look and feel pretty stupid if the girls and Crow showed up with carts full of their supplies and he didn¡¯t have a hold ready for them to stock yet.

    He snatched the nearby lantern from its rest and fast-marched with it down the winding old wooden steps to the quay. Upon reaching the first corner he struck an immediate right toward the Shipmaster¡¯s quarters.

    Before he¡¯d gotten halfway to the longhouse he stopped dead. His procured light glancing upon a glinting sliver of silver jutting from a mooring post which a closer look revealed to be one of the Headmaster¡¯s Punch Marques.

    At a glance it appeared like any ordinary carpentry nail. That is unless one paid it any amount of nearsighted attention, at which point would be revealed the cross peened block at its middle, the pinched neck space right below the head tied with black cord, and the abstract representation of a snarling wyntyrdyr skull etched into the rounded top.

    Drake let loose a low whistle. The last time he knew of one of these being issued had been a few years before he¡¯d enrolled. They were a privilege exclusive to the Headmaster. A stark symbol of his executive command authority. Typically only employed in the gravest of emergencies, their most general his personal commandment of a given vessel along with its crew, Captain, cargo and any other associated assets.

    Drake took a step backward. Directing his lamp light up, he thought back on his and Avlon¡¯s conversation. There could only be one explanation for the totem nail¡¯s presence here. This was to be their charge craft.

    And what a beautiful charger she was too.

    A War Sloop, if Drake¡¯s categorical memory served him well. A long, sleek razor crest of a craft with a silver and black painted hull. Designed purposely to be light on the draft, she had a limited cargo capacity and was therefore not suitable for long voyages.

    But it was faster than a Praetor Raptor according to open sourced word of mouth. Which any savvy Captain knew better than to take as gospel.

    However, reputational exaggerations for the sake of market capital notwithstanding, what stood beyond dispute was its ample, if not overqualification, as a chase and capture vessel in every respect.

    Which was only to be expected as the sloop line in general had been the favorite of classical pirates for at least five or six decades by the time the Academy¡¯s first foundational blocks were being quarried. And the ¡°War¡± variant had been Flint¡¯s new Pyratical take on the design model.

    Increasing the length from just fifteen meters to nearly fifty, when all other dimensions grew proportionately, allowed room for engineers to boost its lousy effective range, storage space and firepower. As well it offered leeway for further modification to weapons compliment, armor configuration and equipment loadout.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

    In short, it was a light, nimble, versatile craft that perfectly encapsulated everything upheld as exceptional in the concept of Pyracy.

    Its steeply angular prow tapered into the streamlined midsection, giving the ship a keen dagger-like appearance from this angle. Aloft it carried a pair of twin masts, each one sporting four glittering triangular sails.

    Twin knife-shaped vector-net fins which functioned as vectoral controls as well as polarized the ionic discharges from off the Abyssal corona flanked the stern just ahead of the four main engines.

    By drawing the otherwise corrosive particles away from the ship¡¯s vulnerable underbelly and converting them into second stage charge they served as the backup generators for essential systems. Mainly the lofting field generators. Which, as the name somewhat alluded, kept the distinctly non-buoyant tubs of metal and wood from plummeting into infernal oblivion. As well as acting as electrodynamic wing foils generated via the ionic ¡°wind¡¯s¡± intercourse with their statically polarized surfaces.

    Which had the additional benefit of letting them serve as rudders or emergency stabilizers in those particularly desperate circumstances where the main gyro-line jammed or was disabled by a cannon shot.

    Like their lateral counterparts atop, these fins also served a dual role as high-electrical conduits. In more popular terms: lightning rods.

    This being as much a boon as a necessary safety feature for countering the fierce lightning storms that raged over the open Abyss. This intrinsic multifunctionality being another sparkling gem in her polished Pyratical crown.

    Poetic sects had called these the quintessential expression of both Pyracy and magick. Turning nature¡¯s impersonal fury into a servile instrument of progress.

    Normally these features would all be stowed away at the dock. The sails corded and stashed within the ships armored body. Their rods retracted by a series of gyros.

    But this morning she stood proudly unfurled, her sails and engines already primed and ready to make windway. All she needed was a capable series of hands to guide and pilot her.

    Despite its relatively light frame as far as warships went, being a Pyrate ship meant that, from bow to stern, her vantablack hull was rich with armor and bristling with weapons.

    As per Pyratical standard, in so far as the liberal mass standardized anything, her primary armament consisted of eight 100mm ¡°Medium¡± Bombadard carriage guns evenly distributed about her waist, four per side, and eight ¡°Light¡± 50mm guns spaced out along the deck and hull.

    All of which were installed in biaxal turret bays and pods which were remote controlled from a pair of nested nerve cells just aft of her sensory forecastle.

    An array of quad-bore volley guns and hex-barreled rotary turrets accented her deadly physique. About a mixed dozen lined the gunwales and half again as many dotted the side planks. The latter sect being attached in remote hard points, though unlike the main guns these could be overridden if more direct fire control was deemed necessary.

    In the bow and aft quarters a pair of 105mm and 50mm Chester8 chase guns bracketed the bowsprit and rudder jig respectively like the jutting horns and lethal tail spines of the mythical Prehistoric prey beasts.

    Would any of these so much as bother a ship that shouldn¡¯t even be their company in the sky to begin with? Doubtful. But then, supernatural hunters the original designers of these crafts and systems were not. Nor were the foes they had long cultivated their arsenals to combat nearly so foreign as this one¡¯s destined prey.

    Case in point: Conshorta. The single largest and most prodigious paramilitary force on the planet, both in terms of raw territorial scope and resources.

    But as ruthless and chaotically lethal as their agents were, all were still as fully susceptible to death by Rapid Cranial Decompression as anyone else.

    All that said, even the undead were a known quantity compared to this False God the Headmaster mentioned.

    In all of Drake¡¯s esoteric and exoteric education, and even throughout his limited personal study, he¡¯d never come across such a reference.

    But between this sturdy boat as their ferry, Tim¡¯s Nulls as their sword and his inexpert expertise as their nav beacon, all sarcasm notwithstanding, Drake actually harbored a small kernel of optimism.

    He reached to take the Punch Totem from its burrow and noticed that what should have also been there wasn¡¯t. The ship¡¯s certificate. It should have been tied in the Totem¡¯s cord, but was missing.

    Drake looked around. Nothing.

    He scanned the ground with the lantern. Still nothing.

    Had Avlon forgotten to leave the certificate? It didn¡¯t seem the sort of mistake the Headmaster was liable to make.

    But then, he was getting a bit long in the tooth ¡­

    A new voice trickled into his ear. Punching into his hallowed mental orchard like a felled star.

    A short reem of words, one of whose meaning broke through as his own name, dutifully hacked its way through the abstract jungle of his tired brain to spin the motor receptor valve which brought his head, and by near extension his eyes, into track line with the upending vocals.

    The strange Oreamnos to whom Avlon had been speaking standing, apparently waiting for him, at her helm. The trim-bearded Kid waved and held up a square slip of parchment with a dark splotch in its center.

    Drake couldn¡¯t make out much of his face in the clouded gloom, but his posture and tone suggested, not quite pleasure, but pleasant familiarity. Which was odd. For as far as Drake could recall he hadn¡¯t seen this beast before five minutes ago.

    Well ¡­ maybe he¡¯d glimpsed him once around the Second Sun festival ¡­ And maybe they¡¯d passed ways near Tim¡¯s lab once ¡­ ? Maybe it was one of Tim¡¯s friends? That would certainly make him a beast worth getting to know. As if his being onboard their ship wasn¡¯t already reason enough ¡­

    Drake had just enough time to register the Goat¡¯s next belted words, ¡°at your back Captain!¡± before nearly being shoved off the way by what felt like a fleshy boulder.

    He¡¯d hardly had a chance to recapture his bearings when a familiar rude voice clapped right into his ear, ¡°get outta the road ya blinkin¡¯ idget!¡±

    Drake absently stepped aside as Tim slipped past him with a heavy steel strong box under one arm and a faintly glowing satchel slung over the other with Steve the Skull floating along in front acting as a combination lighthouse and horn.

    ¡°Hey Steve!¡± Drake called. ¡°Congrats on your new wings!¡±

    Steve opened his mouth to answer but Tim beat him to the punch. ¡°I was experimenting with a nexel when I discovered that they produce a kind of repulson field when compressed. Synching one with Steve¡¯s core matrices and rigging it to a liaison pod was relatively trivial.¡±

    Steve shuddered indignantly.

    The irony of how such terms as or relating to ¡®simple¡¯ signified humility when applied to oneself but were considered passive aggressive when describing anyone else was, ironically, the only part of this whole exchange that wasn¡¯t totally lost on Drake.

    Likewise the irony of the Canid Captain¡¯s confusion only not being lost on Steve was his alone to cherish. And it was only compounded by him trying to explain things in this wise, ¡°you¡¯ve heard of getting your sky legs Captain? Well, now I¡¯ve got a ship¡¯s legs ¡­ so to speak.¡±

    Drake momentarily considered grappling with this further, but let it drop. The same way an Oreamnos chooses his mountain footholds with great diligence and care, so too a wise Captain knows where best to place his cognitive resources.

    As far as Drake was concerned, that meant solving practical problems such as getting this ship loaded up and her crew seated ASAP. After all, bending his brain over arcane science problems was Tim¡¯s specialty.

    In any case Steve seemed happy. Ecstatic, in fact, was more accurate.

    He did an oblong loop de loop and chirped, ¡°how great is this?! I¡¯m not stuck on some saarding shelf anymore! Ha Ha! Barking brilliant!¡±

    Drake smiled blankly and gave them both the signal to head aboard.

    He then aimed the lantern¡¯s beam where the duo had come from and spied Adrian and Bon Bon coming down the steps hauling another large crate filled with several large sacks.

    Behind them, not as much seen as inferred from the disorderly counterplay of their shadows, came Crow. He hefted a pair of line and wire spools the size of metric water barrels. Each of which, Drake noted absently, would have balanced a scale with an adolescent Bison.

    The only thing that surprised the young Captain was that, when he checked the registration packet tacked to the mooring post, the ship had already been signed out to him.

    No doubt Avlon had something to do with that. But who had co-signed the registration?

    He¡¯d have to remember to speak with the Headmaster or Yard Master about that if ¡­ when they got back, he remanded himself.

    It was all well and good they had a ship that was suited to their task, but he couldn¡¯t abide some beast strutting about impersonating him, even if it was on Headmaster Avlon¡¯s authority.

    Drake shrugged these thoughts off like a thick blanket on a hot summer night, when out of the corner of his eye, he spied Ellie cautiously feeling her way down the steps with Hemlock behind her doing the same. Both girls were struggling painfully with crates of green Nulls stacked precariously over their heads.

    Without any precognition or intention of moving, Drake blinked and found himself at his paramour¡¯s side, relieving her of part of her burden. In the flick of a mosquito¡¯s tongue, he glanced over and saw Crow taking some of Hemlock¡¯s load upon himself.

    Like a paranormal clockwork organism they inhabited, possessed, loaded and readied their ship for cast off in the time it would have taken Drake to fill out the registration forms had Avlon not nullified that procedural step.

    Drake almost felt bad for Avlon. Knowing as well as the Collie that his brother would never let such a flagrant abortion of covenantal bureaucracy go unchallenged. But as it stood, Drake would have been more inclined to pity Prokvert, were it not for how easily his sympathy for the statist mutt could have fit into a matchbox without even slightly displacing the full original garrison of matchsticks.

    While the final systems checks were being completed, Drake and Ellie ducked into their seminal home¡¯s hold to check off their inventory receipt for final deposit with the Yard Master. Which he would then copy in triplicate and further distribute to the Academy¡¯s Quartermaster, Treasurer and Head Secretary.

    All going well, this would happen several hours after they¡¯d put a horizon between them and the island.

    Drake read off the parchment, ¡°rope?¡±

    Ellie replied curtly, ¡°check.¡±

    ¡°Sails?¡±

    ¡°Check.¡±

    ¡°Hooks?¡±

    ¡°Check.¡±

    ¡°Poles?¡±

    ¡°Check.¡±

    ¡°Arms?¡±

    ¡°Check.¡±

    ¡°Ammo?¡±

    ¡°Check.¡±

    ¡°Sundust?¡±

    ¡°Ch ¡­ Uhhh¡­¡±

    Ellie swept a keen eye about the space. Packed with surgically neatness in a cultivated pattern into every cubic inch were food sacks, water kegs, bed rolls, spare cord, rope and wire spools, piles of spare sail cloth and patches, medicine and surgical supply satchels and neatly arranged tool pouches.

    But nowhere did the cylindrical steel cages of the compact reactive fuel rods needed to drive the ship¡¯s hungry reactors present themselves.

    Drake rolled his eyes and was instantly glad for their being in the dark. Ellie put her hands on her hips. Her thoughts clearly going the same way as his.

    Without fuel they might as well all just go straight back to bed.

    Almost within the same heartbeat, both Canines realized that they couldn¡¯t recall seeing the Blunder Twins since their herd¡¯s initial gathering in the gatehouse.

    To say they weren¡¯t slightly tempted to shrug and say, ¡°to the gods their play¡±, or to think that they wouldn¡¯t rather be sawing the fins off a Leviathan than dealing with the L¡¯Olonnais brothers¡¯ antics would be in the same sphere as the belief that either of them seriously entertained the notion of flapping their arms to fly to Naarfynder and literally, physically beating the ghosts back into the underworld with wooden mallets.

    But experience had taught them both that inaction was often as dangerous as thoughtless reaction where, when and however the Blunder Twins even might be remotely concerned.

    With precious seconds ticking threateningly away, Drake took off in search of their walking destructive devices. Leaving Ellie informally in command as Standing Captain.

    He moved room to room, systematically searching empty halls and dormant towers and even scouring the Walk from Apheler to Penir, Zenith to Nadir. All of which yielded naught but frustration.

    He checked the dorms. Nothing.

    He looked out on the range. Nada.

    He even checked in Tim¡¯s lab. He couldn¡¯t have said what he¡¯d have done if he¡¯d actually found them skulking around in there. But thankfully for them the lab appeared entirely too quiet and peaceful to contain a single chaos singularity, let alone two.

    This was a real problem.

    Comfortably under the max bar of Amelia¡¯s height and weight class they may have been, but stealthy they most certainly were not. Nor were they the disloyal type. Though they were notoriously prone to distraction.

    Combined with the circumstances and their established propensity for collateral damage, their conspicuous absence worried him even more than that of the missing fuel rods.

    His frustration exponentially mounted towards fear as his narrowing search continued to turn up nothing.

    As he passed through the fuel storage silo, he discovered at least a dozen empty cannisters strewn about, as if a weather had passed through.

    ¡®Two fronts¡¯ Drake¡¯s disgruntled sub-mind corrected. ¡®A cyclone.¡¯

    Drake sighed. Righting the wreckage out of pure habit before leaving. stormfronts on legs with so little regard for protocol they would sooner cart the volatile fuel out to the ship by hand rather than having to return the storage containers to their proper places afterwards.

    Hope now brimmed over the bleak curtain of dread that had previously fallen over his thoughts. His heart drummed hard in his ears like the report of an angry volley gun as he ran back to the quay to confirm his theory.

    Upon reaching the top of the quay-ward steps he discovered, to his relief, that the ship was ready to cast off, and Ellie was waiting for him at the bottom of the stone flight.

    Optimism blossomed into a squall of exuberant relief inside him. It showered the furnace of his anger, quelling its blistering rage down into a manageable simmer.

    For the first time in what felt like years, but he knew couldn¡¯t have been more than a few hours, he took a full and free breath. As though a window to his dark, self-made prison had been cracked open.

    He allowed himself a moment to revel in this sweet respite. Suspecting his time to enjoy it would be severely limited. Euphoria had not completely robbed him of his sense.

    He was right.

    Having detected no trace of either the Twins or their Sundust regimen but being fresh out of places to look, he¡¯d cobbled together a new stratagem on the way back to the shipyard.

    Maybe if he got the rest of the herd in on the search one of them would see something in this mess he¡¯d missed.

    It was a slim hope, but it was better than wasting more time chasing his tail.

    He¡¯d just mounted the first steps down to the quay when, by the thin cracking light of dawn he caught the distinct glimmer of golden fur at the bottom step.

    With admirable reserve he noted the haunted look on her face as he drew nearer. In the flickering yellow glow of her lantern Ellie appeared to have aged a decade in the span of a single hour.

    The young Captain braced himself for the worst.

    ¡°What''s wrong?¡± he asked autonomously when he¡¯d closed to within earshot.

    Bottoming out the stairs was when he finally saw the crumpled scrap of parchment she clutched as if it were the last remnant of a dear departed relative.

    Silently, and from at what seemed an infinite distance of thought, Ellie handed over the sheet as though handing him his own signed death warrant.

    Drake skimmed the single line of neatly handwritten script. Absently placing the formulaic penmanship as a product of Tim¡¯s hand.

    46.42o Nadir/ 86.57o Penir, Nadwest, 135.66o

    His blank look was his question. Her answer was another slip of parchment produced from seemingly out of thin air held out for his inspection. He recognized it instantly as being the one he¡¯d given her just two nights ago under the clock tower.

    He passed an absent eye over the newly scrawled series of numbers then turned back to Ellie the same questioning eye. ¡°I just got that from Tim,¡± she said dryly. ¡°It¡¯s The Giant¡¯s projected sunrise heading.¡±

    Without a moment¡¯s hesitation Drake whirled and started towards the ship, but Ellie caught him with one arm.

    He looked back to see her holding up the parchments as though they were his nearly forgotten wallet.

    ¡°Read both sets of numbers again,¡± she said with the repressed urgency of one trying to allude to a fatal disease.

    He did. Afterward, he met her eyes with the same cold, unreadable countenance he had seen from her only moments ago.

    The coordinates were an exact match.

    ¡°Where did ¡­?¡± He stopped short when the words ¡°projected sunrise heading¡± finally found and fell into its place in his mental puzzle. Rendering the question redundant and its attendant thought chain obsolete.

    His eyes glassed over. From the outside it would appear that a dozen years had suddenly and mercilessly piled on him like he¡¯d just issued a vulgar blaspheme.

    ¡°The Blunder Twins,¡± Ellie said, placing a habitual hand on her hip. The hollow dreg in her voice burned away before the heat of recalled irritation.

    If there was one way to dredge Ellie out of a graveyard slump, it would seem, it was to bring the Blunder Twins back into her field of thought.

    ¡°They came back and gave it to me a few minutes after you¡¯d left. Jerome said they''d stolen it from Bon Bon. Who, in turn, told me that she took it from Hemlock. Who claimed she got it from Steve to give to me. Who said Tim had forgotten about it but he thought it looked important.¡±

    Drake and Ellie stared at each other for a while with perplexingly adorable expressions of befuddled bemusement. Under less urgent circumstances, they might have shared a laugh or Ellie would have wrapped him in her arms, cuddling him like a small child as she had taken to doing when they¡¯d first started seeing each other seriously.

    As it was, this coincidence of fate signified a larger game at play than any of them initially suspected.

    ¡°How did ¡­?¡± Drake started again.

    This time Ellie cut him off. ¡°I tried for hours to make headway on that bloody Codex thing you gave me,¡± she lamented. ¡°But I couldn''t. So I took it to Tim and made him swear to come straight back to me with any progress. Obviously I didn¡¯t enunciate that part clearly enough.¡±

    This was too convenient. A pair of roads leading to the same eventual endpoint, Drake knew from years of study under a prolific seer who had trained him to spot the difference between real coincidence and a pattern.

    Though his master had made clear the point that the simple existence of patterns in the universe did not in itself signify intelligence, he knew also that the vast majority didn¡¯t arise by pure random chance.

    Something about this whole ordeal stank like a rotten corpse. The problem was he couldn¡¯t figure out just how or where the pieces were misaligned.

    All he knew for sure was that an instinct that had yet to steer him wrong had spectrum-shifted this whole mess into the infrared and it was glaring with the thermal intensity of a thousand suns.

    ¡°Too hot for its mass,¡± to quote Nikodontus verbatim. ¡°It¡¯s an uncommon saying, even among the alchemists whose bygone members coined it. But it means that there are fractal spheres of the universe that we are unaware of. Dangers a thousand fold what your mind can encompass lurk in those depths, young one. Do you understand?¡±

    At the time, being a na?ve pup, Drake had answered with a definitive, ¡°yes master.¡± But now he wasn¡¯t so sure. About anything.

    ¡®You know where your feet are¡¯ his inner monologue interceded, ¡®and your hand and your sword.¡¯

    He thought of Tim, so entangled in his labyrinthine mental palace that he¡¯d have long ago misplaced his thumbs if he hadn¡¯t crafted a literal second head to remind him to check in front of his wrists.

    He looked down at the coordinates again. Two keys to the same lock. What were the chances?

    The words ¡°I should have thought of that¡± and ¡°it probably took Tim all of ten seconds to crack¡± held fast on the back of Drake¡¯s tongue. Awaiting his conscious signal to go ahead. But he wasn¡¯t that tired of living just yet.

    Realizing Ellie was waiting on him for a reaction, he instead plied her with the first whole question of the morning. ¡°And the Sundust?¡±

    Ellie answered with a curt nod.

    Drake breathed. At last a spot of good news. Excellent.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s go,¡± he said, shoving the parchments into his pocket and leading them back to the ship at a dead run.

    Rushing up and over the gangplank at a blitz pace, Drake nearly toppled over Adrian as he bolted up the steps to the quarterdeck. Once he was secure at the helm station and Hemlock gave him the signal from the fo¡¯c¡¯sle, Drake bellowed, ¡°all hands to stations! Make us ready!¡±

    This was met with a resounding reverberance of ¡°aye Captain¡±s. Even from the animus skull.

    Within seconds, the ship became a hive-swarm of activity. Beasts were scurrying hither and to, moving with the kind of fluid precision and intensity that would have impressed even the strictest Imperial Admiral.

    Tim slid nimbly down to the engine room. An impressive feat for one of his height and bulk, considering that the hold of a Sloop, even a War Sloop, was only six feet at the highest point. Making it a claustrophobic nightmare for beasts much larger than globally standard. Not to mention a strain on the thighs.

    But Tim could be appreciably agile when the situation demanded it, and he made the contortionist maneuver with seemingly little effort. Also, as all beasts who knew him could readily attest to, he was by no measure claustrophobic.

    If anything, he reveled in the relative solitude provided by the dark environment. It gave him plenty of time and a quiet place to indulge in his life¡¯s two greatest passions: tinkering, and inventing. After all, it wouldn¡¯t do for the herd¡¯s blacksmith and chief engineer to let his skills at metalworking get rusty now, would it?

    His was not always a perfect isolation, however. With Bon Bon serving as their cook and deputy ensign her duties often brought her into Tim¡¯s tiny black box of a world. Or so her story typically went.

    Though her windblown, impulsive nature might have made her an odd choice for the latter, her keen head for complex tables and figures more than made up for it in a pinch.

    But her skills in the former were unparalleled at the Academy. Her ability to conjure up exotic, intoxicating and exotically intoxicating delicacies seemingly out of imagination space with only their utilitarian shipboard ration stocks to work with made her a favorite among crews and kitchen staff alike.

    This creative genius on top of her beauty had led to her being lovingly christened ¡°the Gourmet Witch¡± by the FPA¡¯s Chief of Staff, one Miss Alexandria Ambrosia Hopkins. Miss AAH for short.

    And though no amount of torture would have induced Tim to say so to any beast, he did, at times, actually sort of like Bon Bon¡¯s spontaneously erratic company.

    She may have had the attention span of a suns-struck moth, but her mind, and memory, were sometimes sharper than an obsidian razor.

    This made her a superb lab assistant, when she wasn¡¯t getting hopelessly distracted or ¡°accidentally¡± mixing a beaker of carbonic acid with a flask of ammonia sulfate.

    Tim and Adrian vividly remembered the last time one of her improperly calculated misadventures had frothed out of its beaker and had nearly eaten a washtub-sized hole in the floor before Tim had managed to neutralize it with a potion made out of, in his own words, ¡°common bar soap, a dash of saltpeter and a pinch of sodium nitrate¡±.

    Hemlock, by contrast, had earned her moniker solely for her meticulousness and patience. Traits found in every successful hunter since time immemorial. Traits that also readily lent themselves to her preferred stations as carpenter, cooper, seamstress and relief spotter.

    Hemlock was also known for often sitting alone for hours in a meditative trance. Her focus was so finely tuned, it was said that she could split a candle wick with her throwing knife from twenty feet away. An impressive feat if true. One matched only by her chief comparison, the ¡°One-Eyed Bandit¡±, Crow.

    The Wolf was, at that very moment, nimbly scaling the mainmast with his bare hands. Where, at the very top, his unnaturally keen senses and impeccable aim would serve as their ship¡¯s outermost fortress line.

    A common misconception was that his feature position, the crow¡¯s nest, was the source of his monosyllabic title. The actual truth was that no beast alive knew what Crow¡¯s full or real name was, or if he even had one.

    For most who knew him, a number countable by most species on their hand digits, they never asked and he never told. They had a means to address him and that was enough for all.

    Adrian stood ready by the main mast terminal in his Rigger position. His responsibility mainly revolved around keeping and maintaining all the ropes, wires, circuits, gyros, and generally everything within the hard-to-reach nooks and crannies.

    It hardly needs to be said that the Blunder Twins were the herd¡¯s gunners and weapons specialists. They took their places at the fire control station while Drake took his at the helm with his Second in Flag position at the port gunwale.

    The only station yet to be filled was that of Sailing Master. Whose standing station lay at the base of the quarterdeck just ahead of the helm.

    Like most things of supreme interest and import, it looked crude and uninspiring at a glance. A circular brass table with glass top measuring around three feet at the center, it was anchored to the deck by a single titanium leg and four tungsten bolts.

    The quarter section facing the foreward bore a thirty degree slope, which was impregnated with a dizzying array of buttons, knobs, keys and switches.

    But all that was tertiary window dressing compared to its primary feature. Its artificial turquois sapphire top protected a complex topographical array of laser and plasma projectors.

    When calibrated by the Chief Ensign, or the ¡°Sailing Master¡±, depending on how much of his ancestry the Captain owed his station to, these would render a tri-dimensional scale model of the environment. The stream of data for which was collected and updated twice per second by an array of alchemical sensory nodules dispersed along the ship¡¯s bowsprit, masts, sail yards, fin trusses, and raft beam.

    Drake looked down at the nav station and saw an ambiguously familiar form hunched over it. The Oreamnos must have sensed the presence of suspicious eyes on his back, since he turned around in short order and gave Drake a melancholic salute and smile. Then he went back to his work.

    Drake blinked and shook his head as if to throw off a persistent insect trying to roost in his ear.

    That instinct warning about unrealistic correlation was back in force. Drake felt in his marrow that he knew this beast, or at least knew his face, from somewhere. But for some reason he could not nail down any specific details to attach it to.

    It was like trying to catch smoke bare handed. Only not exactly. As regular smoke didn¡¯t swim through purposeful hoops to evade capture. This mystery was more like a swarm of butterflies, only some were hallucinations and others weren¡¯t.

    And he didn¡¯t like it.

    Indeed, he couldn¡¯t decide what part angered him more: the imprudence of the universe to just go and drop an invisible wall straight into his path, or his utter impotence to do anything about it.

    ¡®Well, as Noah always said, when a razor won¡¯t cut it, use an axe.¡¯

    He whistled and the Goat turned to silently regard him again. Drake then offered the beast a salute in the customary manner of all Pyrates.

    Like all real codes and signals, its meaning was cryptic but straightforward. An offhand index finger aimed at his jugular meaning simply ¡®be ye friend?¡¯

    The Goat¡¯s reciprocating affirmative, the same hand¡¯s thumb and forefinger pinching his own throat, was all Drake needed.

    If Avlon trusted this beast enough to let him sign out a ship, then at least for the moment he could feel alright letting it stand.

    There would be plenty of time for pleasantries once they were away and well on course.

    Drake engaged the wheel hub¡¯s drive circuits with a few neat strokes of the lever. Then he barked, ¡°loosen sails and trim the prime valves!¡±

    As Ellie watched him, shouting orders and just generally being their Captain, she was reminded sharply of just how short on years Drake really was. They all were.

    A few seconds later, the ship¡¯s powerful Magnolsis engines roared to life, shattering Ellie''s daydream. She watched with pragmatic appraisal as Tim expertly dialed in the Sundust reactors, and Adrian skillfully guided the golden triangular sails into alignment. The whole affair, a seamless concert of technology and teamwork, played out in under a minute.

    Through the near perfect blackness of the still overcast night, their sails glowed heavenly like a legion of distant flickering torch lights, as the high-yield Adamantium Corp fuel rig below drew power from their cosmic and solar absorption cells as well as the ionic field exciters in her fins.

    The rest of the power it garnered from burning their reserve Sundust to power the ship¡¯s two Sterlent generators.

    This created enough power to excite the now super-heated Magnolsis core and focus the resulting explosive flare into a coherent surge, which blasted out of their aft burners with such tremendous force that the entire reinforced docking platform which they were foolishly still anchored to started to shudder and buckle under the strain.

    ¡°Someone cut those lines!¡± Drake shouted, managing to restrain a venomous curse at his own expense.

    He¡¯d been so focused on the broader mission that he¡¯d forgotten Pyracy¡¯s most understated rule: never touch anything you don¡¯t know how to use or aren¡¯t prepared to pay for.

    There came three distinct loud POPs as the electromagnetic mooring clamps which anchored the vessel to the dock were sequentially deactivated. This was followed by a long, whining HISS as the ship¡¯s internal hydraulic winches effortlessly retracted the cables into her belly.

    At last, clear of any hinderances, the ship gracefully rose twenty feet as Drake expertly maneuvered them up and over the chaotic tangled mess that was the FPA''s student shipyard. Drake had seen enough commercial and military shipyards to know that parts of each ship should not be overlapping.

    Undoubtedly the result of letting unpracticed novices behind the wheel. Novices who, if their parking skills were any indication, would be better suited to the lifestyle of wild wyntyrdyr tamers than that of professional Abyss farers.

    Once free from the litany of crowded hulls and lattice of sprits and fins, Drake sent down the command for Tim to ¡°open throttle¡±. Then he shouted for the rest of his herd to ¡°brace for speed!¡±

    This proved to be an unnecessary order. Without having to be told, every hand onboard except for the Blunder Twins and Steve was inexorably drawn to a mast stave, a gunwale, or the nav table ... Basically, anything that was bolted down and could feasibly withstand the force of a full-grown beast''s mass accelerated at three times the gravitational norm.

    None of them needed to be reminded of the consequences of remaining unsecured.

    Tim did as his Captain ordered. By the set tune of his talented fingers, the engines¡¯ initial dull humming slowly opened into a seismic rumble then crescendoed to a mighty roar like a giant awaking from a slumber.

    The whole ship trembled as, with magnetic shield and quantum pulsar spear, her tempered steel and alchemically braced tungsten heart fought to contain and direct the crystal star fuel¡¯s unbound fury.

    The horizontal tail silos ruptured the quiet night behind them, magnetizing the air and vectoring it into Galvan spurts of pale white plasma. On whose eerily billowing masses were cast both ship and crew into the enveloping dawn.

    Meanwhile, from his sanctum vantage on his office balcony, intentionally obscured from outside via a sophisticated encephalographic field beneath the clock, the Headmaster watched them go with a familiar potion of pride, fear and shame framing his thoughts.

    Once they had hit the first league marker, Drake personally cut the throttle to the minimum necessary to maintain headway. Leaving the ship to coast mainly on its own momentum, with only the most minute vectoring and trim controls allocated to the automated way marker.

    The Oreamnos gave him the nominal thumbs up. He then relayed the okay to Tim to engage the Abraxas cycle.

    A network of tubes, turbines and wires engaged at Tim¡¯s command. Until the suns rose, they would channel the excess heat generated during the explosive takeoff to spin the six gyroscopic Sterlin wheels that ran the length of her keel. These were to top off her reserves until dawn broke and they could open sails and open throttle again.

    All but the most critical systems, those being the lofting fields, secondary engines, and nav sensors, would be offline while the power systems recycled. That meant that, until the suns came up they were essentially adrift and defenseless.

    But Drake could already see the pale streams of his escort squadron coming up from behind port and starboard. So long as there were that many guns and a Great Border Wall between them and the great unknown, Drake knew that he and his own were safe as houses.

    That being the case he stepped away from the wheel and took few great heaves of breath to compose himself. Then he stepped up to the rail and looked out at the sleek black dagger of a craft he was commanding.

    ¡°If we pull this off it¡¯ll be one for the histories¡± he thought. Then he scoffed at how he sounded like an addled pup who¡¯d never so much as seen a ship up close before.

    While he wouldn''t become a legally recognized Pyrate Captain until he turned eighteen, he had headed enough missions already to know a good solid vessel when one was under his feet.

    Her sails exuded a faint candle-orange pulse as their semi-organic composites worked to extract all the ambient energy they could from the environment, to recoup their massive recent expenditure.

    They would have a much easier time of it in a few hours. The first sun¡¯s coronal rays had already turned the cloud-strewn horizon into a bubbling scarlet blade.

    Drake looked out over the calm vestiges of night and said out in his strongest Captain''s voice, ¡°nice job, all!¡± Which led to a dim round of whoops, mainly from afore.

    A few minutes later he called in a less formal tone, ¡°first watch! Any takers?!¡±

    In what some more experienced officers might have interpreted as a textbook gesture of token solidarity to promote morale, Drake raised his own hand first. Just as the textbook predicted, a few others shot up shortly thereafter.

    He knew his taking first watch wasn¡¯t the wisest choice. If any beast was going to need their full rested wits at daybreak, he would be the chief candidate.

    But he enjoyed these respotic moments being alone on a deck floating over the empty Abyss.

    This, right here, was the Pyrate life¡¯s premium face. The feeling of total, unabated freedom. That sublime sense, however illusional, of being able to go anywhere he wished. It reminded him of a much simpler, better time. A time when his imagination could and did take him either high above the stars or below the most infernal depths of the Abyssal miasma.

    When he was a pup Drake had made many voyages across the endless expanse with his father and older brother.

    The few, very few, good memories he had of his youth were the times when he¡¯d felt truly at peace. Like he had finally come home.

    But that was before his father had gone off on his ill-fated escapade into chaos. And also before Prokvert had come upon Drake alone, stranded and working for his keep in a dissolute tavern on one of the Tail Islands.

    None but the Head Secretary himself could say what had compelled him to offer the scroungy pup a place at the FPA. But so far as the nascent Captain could see that life now seemed like it wasn¡¯t even really his life anymore. It belonged to some other poor, lowly beast whose only joy was watching the suns set because it meant the escape of sleep.

    Drake returned from his reverie as the herd dispersed. Some took their posts. Others retired to their beds for a few precious hours of shuteye. Drake turned his attention at last to Ellie, who had come to stand by his side at the helm.

    ¡°You should get some sleep,¡± he said as she took his hand in hers. ¡°I¡¯m gonna need you come the morrow.¡±

    He was awake enough to be conscious of how deliberately she stroked his wedding finger.

    He acknowledged this in his way. With a cocky half-smile and what he¡¯d meant to be a hearty addendum, ¡°it¡¯s gonna be one saard of an adventure.¡±

    She opened her mouth to protest that it was her Quartermaster duty to be on watch with her Captain. What came out instead was a long, drawn out yawn, after which she found herself devoid of strength enough to even argue. His smile broadened, and he nuzzled her cheek with his snout, as if he were a new father and she his little puppy.

    She swooned theatrically, then kissed the end of his muzzle before trotting off below to her own welcoming bedroll.

    Once she was gone, a loud thump from below jerked Drake out of his thoughts. He peered over the rail to see the Oreamnos Sailing Master lighting up his station¡¯s holo-screen and carefully setting the needle on its peripheral compass.

    ¡°What''s our course?¡± Drake asked. To which the new guy replied in a clipped, mechanical monotone, ¡°fifty-three degrees nadirwest till we hit the Great Border wall ¡­¡±

    The Oreamnos checked a flashing readout on his table screen. ¡°then a leeward drift to account for turbulence ... then straight through the Burgaal Depth until we reach Iradyl.¡±

    Drake inhaled to inquire about their ETA, but the Oreamnos seemed to read his mind and answered before he had even finished formulating the question.

    ¡°Provided we have no border hang ups, and assuming fair weather conditions, I¡¯d say we should peek over your dead island¡¯s horizon by the third sunrise.¡±

    Drake exhaled. That had been mostly what he¡¯d expected to hear.

    And, of course, by ¡°border hang ups¡± was understood by both beast as, ¡®if the Empire doesn¡¯t invent a new cargo tax when they see our colors.¡¯

    These irregular searches were sometimes known to keep non-Conshorta or Imperial ships tied up for weeks or sometimes months. Drake briefly entertained the notion of blasting any Imperial ship that tried to board them. But then his higher faculties started working again.

    ¡°After that we have to skirt around the High Continent to Siril where we¡¯ll resupply. Then it¡¯s roughly another two-day journey at forty-five degrees Nadward past Phakathi ¡­¡±

    He paused and twerked his mouth into a mangled half-frown. ¡°If your coordinates are right, that¡¯s where we¡¯ll hit Naarfynder.¡±

    Drake squinted at him through the dim light. A whisper of recognition hung round the edges of his mind. It was like the fading memory of a dream.

    But just like a dream, the harder he tried to bring the fuzzy images into focus, the looser his hold on them became.

    This beast somehow knew Drake¡¯s every word before he spoke it. He seemed to be allowing Drake to finish his sentences only as an act of professional courtesy.

    ¡°Do I know you?¡± Drake asked suspiciously.

    Two words later his mind exploded as though the fluids in his brain had been flash boiled by a Harbinger sniper¡¯s plasma beam.

    ¡°Name¡¯s Jacob.¡±

    For what was, yet unbeknownst to him, the second time that day, images like flurries of icy hail peppered his mind and turned his very bones into icicles. These images burned and twisted in his brain like a forge-hot nail under a blacksmith¡¯s hammer.

    ¡°Jake!¡± he blurted.

    His shock and shame and fury over forgetting his best mate burned hotter than the Magnolsis reactor core. It also conveniently blinded him to the fact that his outburst had caused his voice to crack.

    Was this periodic memory loss new? It wasn¡¯t unique to his mind, Drake had seen that. And why was it only centered around this one beast?

    It had to be magick. That was the only explanation that made any sort of rational sense.

    But what sort of magick could wipe all memory of a beast only to return it at the mention of a name?

    He¡¯d heard of family curses before, but none like this. And that still did nothing to address the larger questions of why the Hornigolds and why had it only just started happening?

    A satisfied snort from Jacob snapped Drake back to reality. He saw in his old mate''s face that their thought trains hadn¡¯t so much converged as collided.

    The sardonic quirk in the corners of the Sailing Master¡¯s mouth indicated that he knew something Drake didn¡¯t. Which, in fact, he did. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that his friend would forget all about him again before the last vestiges of night had given way to silver-screened day.

    But one question did come to mind, whose answer he would not soon forget. He felt incredibly stupid that it had not occurred to him earlier.

    He folded his arms over the wheel and asked as casually as he could, ¡°what did you say was the name of this ship?¡±

    An impish grin tugged at the corner of Jacob¡¯s mouth. ¡°I didn''t,¡± he said as if answering a private riddle between he and himself.

    Drake relaxed. This was the sort of quiet, easy banter one didn¡¯t often get to partake in as a Captain. What with everyone always expecting you to be the stoic, upright beacon of certainty.

    He rested his chin on his knuckles in imitation of an odd museum statue he¡¯d once seen. ¡°Would you care to enlighten me?¡±

    Jacob¡¯s grin settled into an earnest smile as something vaguely reminiscent of joy started fluttering around in his chest.

    They were both deliberately dragging out this interaction for their own reasons and both knew, or at least heavily suspected, as much.

    Jacob couldn¡¯t remember the last non-transient conversation he¡¯d had that hadn¡¯t mainly concerned his identity or lack thereof and he wasn''t about to let this one pass him in a hurry.

    ¡°She¡¯s called the Iron Maiden,¡± he said at last.

    Drake glanced musingly up at the graying mass of the early sky. He liked that name. ¡°I like it,¡± he said distantly, and Jacob nodded in preoccupied accord.

    Both stood silently for a long while. Neither beast was willing to walk away from the other. But neither had anything else to offer to fill the conspicuous void. Finally, reluctantly, Drake broke the stalemate. ¡°The first sun will be up soon.¡±

    Jacob nodded, not trusting himself to speak, while knowing Drake couldn''t see him, as the young Captain had suddenly become keenly interested in the state of his fingernails.

    The elder Pyrate-in-training seemed to be having similar trouble. When he said, ¡°you should go get some shuteye,¡± it came out as though from the mouth of one who had never heard his own voice before. ¡°Something tells me we¡¯re in for a really interesting trip.¡±

    The words fell like a black storm front over Jacob''s budding heart. Drake¡¯s speech was only impaired when something deeply troubled him, or when he was in a hot rage. Jacob decided it fair to assume the former.

    Again, Drake sensed his friend¡¯s thoughts and offered what he¡¯d meant to be a reassuring smile. ¡°Go on, get yourself below before the good spots are taken.¡± He waited a moment, and when the Sailing Master still did not move, he added what he had meant to be a light-hearted jest. ¡°That''s an order.¡±

    There exist no words to describe how badly Drake wished he could recant those two decisions.

    Jacob¡¯s face fell. It was like watching lead sink to the bottom of a crystal pool. He sighed dejectedly and gave a half-hearted salute. Drake¡¯s mouth opened, but then he shut it again. He had already done more damage than could be repaired by any amendment to their current schedule would allow time for. As Jacob opened the access panel to go below, he cast a weary eye up at Drake and said, ¡°Aye, Captain,¡± with perhaps a bit more resentment in his voice than he had intended, but much less than what he felt.

    Had a situation arisen then that required their Captain¡¯s immediate attention, Adrian or Crow would have had to locate the nearest bucket of cold water or else find themselves as Acting Captain. Their ghost ship quarry could have appeared at the tip of Drake¡¯s nose right then, and he would have seen straight through it.

    He was beyond time and space ... staring off to the horizon as though trying to will it closer.

    In another instant, all recollection of Jacob having ever existed was gone from his mind. Drake reset the altitude vector and paced lazily up to the bow. He nearly stumbled over himself as the ship reared up at a nearly twenty-five-degrees slope designed to hoist them into the Zenith corridor. One of the ninety six charted pan global ¡°Oscillating Magnetic Vortex¡± tunnels used to expedite sailing for centuries. One of the nineteen they would need to charter between here and their destination, and one of the three they and their escorts would plot before reaching the Imperial boundary.

    Drake stared drearily out at the open Abyss. How beautiful and primal it seemed. Terrifying and boundless. How ancient and yet new. All the lands of the world were slung easily upon its back and yet the lightest graze of a breeze could toss it, tear it open and sow its ectoplasmic guts across hundreds of leagues.

    Drake jarred himself back to reality, slapping himself awake. He dragged his uncooperative legs onward and forced himself to go about the first watch as if they weren''t sailing right into enemy Depths.

    He and Adrian wiled away the hours, as if they weren¡¯t going to fight an enemy that any beast with any amount of sense would turn tail and run from.

    ¡°What the saard are we doing?¡± he asked himself for the umpteenth time.

    He didn¡¯t say a word to anyone when Hemlock emerged to take Adrian¡¯s place an hour past first sunup or when the Blunder Twins next took to their preferred roost an hour after second sun.

    It was only when Ellie came up an hour after that to take over the command watch that anyone realized that the Captain was in fact fast asleep with his eyes wide open.

    Being of the most practical, if not the most socially studious, mind, it was Hemlock who shook him awake, to her instant regret.

    Drake awoke with a start, and his hand flew to his sword. Only Crow¡¯s phenomenal reflexes stopped Drake from doing something he would have always regretted.

    Ellie escorted him below, ignoring his many protests. It took a dose of Trevemil Root greater than most doctors recommend, a powerful sleeping agent, mixed with some of Bon Bon''s Thorn Beef and Raptle Leg soup, to get him properly to sleep and stay that way.

    When he awoke at half past cardinal noon, he lay there in a state of tranquil summer bliss. His muscles were spry and healthy again. His mind and heart were as clear as a mountain spring tap.

    But the certainty that he should have stayed in bed fell on him when he saw the look on Ellie¡¯s face when she shook him awake again an hour later, a few minutes after crest noon.

 Chapter 13: Land of the Lost

    Amelia awoke feeling like one of the hull boards. Stiff and rotten, structurally unsound and yet still somehow attenuative. A team of microscopic ants had taken to excavating in the back of her skull.

    Having her first sight be a spectral cutlass aimed at her throat and the first waking sound being a low gravelly voice snarling at her to ¡°get up¡± had lit a fresh fire under their ¡­ whatever the anatomically correct term for insectoid buttocks was.

    Neither of these phenomena was new to her. She had already spent what she guessed had to be at least several days in this horrid simulacrum of a ship.

    The nigh comatose state of misery and terror she¡¯d been in at the start of the trip had worn off fairly quickly, only to be replaced by an engorging sense of insignificance.

    At first she¡¯d tried patching over this nihilistic wellspring with anger. She¡¯d recounted every last infraction and slight the universe and anyone in it had ever imparted on her, however minute and petty. But this had been like trying to dry out a marsh with a piece of match cord.

    Conversing with the animated husks of the crew had been like talking to the walls, so she had consoled herself by talking to the inert planks as they disturbed her slightly less. At least their degradation was normal and comprehensible.

    At no point had she been the slightest bit tempted by the oddly colored bits of food and pot of stale water one of the phantom servitors had left for her. No matter how much her belly churned or how often her lips cracked and bled.

    She instead numbed her body by opening her perpetual coat seal Willingly submitting her naked skin to the fractious chill.

    And she numbed her mind by wholly ceding it to the visions and voices her delirious imagination conjured to fill the hole left by the hours of near total sensory deprivation.

    So absolute was her confinement that she was almost relieved to have a weapon being hung in her face, as long as it meant that there was something resembling a sentient beast attached to the other end.

    Almost.

    She rose stiffly. But she felt nothing. The ghost offered her a hand which she didn¡¯t think twice about accepting. Only blearily coming to recognize after she¡¯d gotten her footing the oddity of the thing, if that was even the correct term for it, in her grasp.

    She regarded the murky, translucent form of a beast in the same disillusioned way she had come to regard the Petrie water cup. Somewhere in the dim blankness of her hollowed mental cavity it registered that this was the same beast who had put her down here. Only now his voice sounded more like a flooded ditch than a shallow grave.

    He seized her arm with strength rivaling that of a blacksmith¡¯s power hammer and forced it behind her back. He pressed her face into the wall and leaned in so close she could feel the cold drafts simulating breath wafting from him.

    Directly into her ear he hissed in what just barely exceeded the minimum threshold between a voice and a breeze, ¡°the Captain wants you.¡±

    Not for any particular fault of her own the subtle arc of a hint in his voice was lost on Amelia. She answered his words directly in the only way that made sense to her at that moment. She bared her teeth and growled like a fur-clogged Kitten.

    She would never know whether the sound he made after was a sigh of a poor attempt at laughter. But either way its meaning rang all too clear.

    By digging his surprisingly dense icy digits into her neck he cut off her last remaining strands of defiance.

    ¡°Listen to me carefully young one,¡± he hissed. ¡°I don¡¯t have much time and your life may very well depend on what I¡¯m about to tell you.¡±

    He pressed closer. His lips coddling the rims of Amelia¡¯s auditory nodes. His voice was little more than synchronistic air. ¡°I know what Saedel wants. And believe me, you don¡¯t want any part of it.¡±

    Before she could so much as take stock of this new information, he took from his pocket what sounded like a bag of cracked walnut shells. But it turned out to be a fragment of scroll that at first appeared to be of papyrus make, but that a closer inspection revealed was actually a piece of dilapidated canvas.

    Such a thing had not been in common circulation for going on three thousand years.

    He pressed it into her numb hand.

    ¡°You''ll be thanking me for that very soon,¡± he said, easing his grip on her neck just enough to allow her freedom for speech.

    When he read nothing in her body language of gratitude, but rather mute inquiry, he explained in the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

    ¡°Think of it as a map.¡± He jammed her chambered witticism in the breech. ¡°I know what it looks like. But it guides you from point A to B, ergo it¡¯s a map. Technically.¡±

    When he let go a counter-insurgent rush of of brain-melting panic and cosmic rage surged through her. Her blood went ice cold and her vision turning red.

    She didn¡¯t remember asking ¡°why should I trust you?¡±  or him replying gruffly ¡°because you don¡¯t have much choice,¡± or ¡°I''ll explain later if you live that long.¡±

    The only part of the next few minutes¡¯ internship she would retain was the wholly irrational single urge to ¡®kill him. Kill Him. KILL HIM! KIILL HIIMM!!¡¯

    Consequently, at no point during said exchange would it enter into her pan of speculation to wonder about his sudden upward bent in sophistication. posture, accent and grammar.

    ¡°For the time being,¡± he continued in a hoarse whisper, ¡°all you need to know is they¡¯re throwing you to the ¡­¡±

    He never got to elaborate further.

    A voice like the grinding side of a rasp came down from on high. ¡°Silver!¡± Chased shortly thereafter by the specter of a lean, sinister, glowering Rat with a fanged tooth and a left eye that seemed to have lost its heading somewhere between the casket and the underworld.

    ¡°What¡¯s takin¡¯ so harin¡¯ long? Cap¡¯n¡¯s getting¡¯ impatient!¡±

    The Frog ghost, apparently named Silver, snapped his sword back up to Amelia''s windpipe faster than any living tendon could have managed.

    ¡°Whas it to you Rat,¡± Silver answered in a hastily reverted drawl. His jarring degradation in intellectual caliber striking Amelia with the tune of an overcorrection in error.

    The Rat, whose parents had either been the laziest or cruelest beasts on the planet, squinted through his working eye and said, ¡°been sent to collect er. An¡¯ you. ¡®E says getyer ass up top ¡®fore he has us all flayed.¡±

    Silver straightened and sneered. ¡°Jus¡¯ havin¡¯ a bit of sport¡¯s all ¡®fore the boss puts her through the ringer.¡±

    The lazy eyed ghost looked unconvinced. He squinted at Silver through his good eye and said, ¡°well knock it off!¡± Amelia could see ripples of a wicked thought course under his tram car brow. ¡°Cap¡¯n wants her alive an¡¯ incorp ¡­ uh ¡­ inca ¡­ uh ¡­¡±

    His mind cast off through his eyes and seemed to circumnavigate the globe before reentering his body through the back of his skull.

    ¡°Intact. He¡¯s got some special plans fer her.¡±

    His prominent incisors glinted like daggers as he aimed his own sword¡¯s point at Amelia. Then he started waving the pale blue blade back and forth as if casting a ward.

    When Silver made no move to either hand Amelia over or to take her above boards, Rat¡¯s malfeasant grin morphed into an almost sarcastically evil sneer.

    Amelia¡¯s eyes and brain twisted as he sauntered over. Or rather ¡­ floated?

    No ¡­ Fluctuated was the only verb that properly fit. Though Amelia was in no state of either mind or learning at present to make such an esoteric connection.

    Had Tim been present he might have recognized this pretense at perspective tunneling for what it was. The square peg of a fifth dimensional topographical animus matrix trying, and only partly succeeding, to conform to the round hole that was three dimensional geometry.

    These specters, these lingering abstract aspects of a prior world frame, didn¡¯t as much move as loiter across spatial instances.

    Exposure to this counter rational phenomenon Sir Francis himself had coined ¡°inverse negative action¡±, essentially the desynchronization of a subject¡¯s movement through space and time, would be unfairly taxing on any regular corporeal mind. But on one which had all but gone the way of a dehydrated grape it had the nauseating effect of a tumor being forcibly excised with a spoon.

    She pressed her body into the wall so hard that the dilapidated boards creaked. With every fiber of will she had left at her disposal she silently prayed to every god, daemon and faire she could name that she might somehow phase through the solid wood.

    For the span of a single butterfly¡¯s wingbeat the hard planking behind her fingertips felt like it might be liquifying. Perhaps with just a bit more pressure ¡­

    But Rat was on her before she could force her way through to tumble into the unending blackness of the cavern depths beyond. He knocked Silver away with a very real, and very painful sounding, crack upside the temple with his cutlass¡¯s basketed hilt.

    Rat seized Amelia by the collar with his free hand and dragged her up top as though she were a blocky bedroll.

    He pushed her up onto the quarterdeck and shoved her hard onto their knees in front of Saedel, brandishing his sword as though he intended to stab her with it. He looked up at his master and said proudly, ¡°here she is Cap¡¯n. Still alive an'' undamaged. Just like you ordered.¡±

    Saedel glanced down at them with the same contemptuous glare one might give a pestering pet.

    ¡°Where is Silver,¡± he said in a voice that would make the harshest Erandic blizzard seem like a cozy hearth fire.

    ¡°Right ¡®ere Cap¡¯n,¡± Silver said, limping doggedly along to stand beside Amelia.

    The image of a beast who was already dead quaking in his boot should have defanged a fair fraction of childhood night terrors. And indeed this would have been true were it not for that the superior monster had her in its clutches as well.

    ¡°He says he was interrogatin¡¯ the prisoner on your orders,¡± Rat said without any effort to conceal his smug delight, ¡°but I ain''t never heard you give such an order. I brought ¡®em to you so you could ¡­ ACK!¡±

    In a blur, faster than the thought itself could have traveled through organic neural fibers, Saedel seized the gloating rodent by the throat and hurled the strangely solid specter into the main mast, leaving a shivered crater in the dense wood and cracking the three foot trunk so that it skewed aft a full two degrees.

    If Rat was still conscious after that Amelia felt sure he was thanking his immortal maker for his lack of bones.

    ¡°Never presume my intent fool,¡± Saedel boomed in a voice like a burly gale force. ¡°I shall do as I will. And you shall do as I command!¡±

    When he turned his wrathful attention back to Silver, the poor beast had bent nearly fully in half. His crutch stuck out behind him like a wooden tail and his neck seemed to stretch out like a convicted traitor waiting for the axe as Saedel declared rather than asked, ¡°you spoke to the prisoner.¡±

    Silver said nothing. He stood trembling, or rather rippling, staring at his boot like a plucked instrument string. A realization whose gravity was compounded by the fact that this beast had, inexplicably, shown her compassion, despite having every obvious reason to do otherwise.

    Her heart cracked when she saw in her would-be helper a dismaying reflection of how she herself must have looked upon her arrival at the FPA.

    ¡°Is that how Drake saw me?¡± she thought. Then, for all of a single beat, her molten heart hardened into diamond glass. ¡°Pathetic.¡±

    She looked up to Saedel. Nowhere in that fa?ade did she detect a trace, a whisper of fear, mercy or doubt. Just power. Raw, unencumbered, unbeholden strength.

    Her pulse spiked.

    Saedel held out a hand and Silver flew towards his waiting palm. The towering monsters claws closed around the dead Frog¡¯s throat and into his face that seemed to have gone several shades lighter and more transparent the behemoth growled, ¡°give me one good reason why I shouldn''t cast you straight back to oblivion.¡±

    Silver could barely stutter, ¡°C-Captain ¡­ I ¡­ uh ¡­ I, I know the path through the Labyrinth. I-I have been there before ¡­ as you well know. I-I-I ¡­ I could guide the girl to the Entrance.¡±

    He paused as though trying to gauge Saedel¡¯s implacable mood through the faceplate. After a frigid moment of unsuccess he added weakly, ¡°¡­ if it would please you that is.¡±

    Apparently it did. When Saedel again spoke, the whole of the known universe felt to be in attendance. ¡°John Silver, you will escort this child through to the Sanctum. Once there she will retrieve what is mine and you shall become its indentured sentinel for all time. This I COMMAND!¡±

    Amelia¡¯s chest became home to a nest of slithering serpents. Their icy fangs tore at her lungs and heart with wicked zeal.

    They infected her blood with their dread poisons and constricted her lungs, so her breath came packed with sharp needles of prickling frost.

    Silver''s shuddering instantly ceased. His entire countenance sank below despair and into what Amelia could only understand as grim acceptance.

    She wished so direly to hold the Dawn Sliver of Ancalagon so as to summon the Black Dragon just as the righteous knight, Sir Gillian, had done in that old story.

    She wanted the power to crush these wretched creatures and their infernal master in her clenched palm.

    The venomous snakes that had been coiling in her belly had metamorphized into as many feral dragons. Their black venom turned to seething Magnolsis fire in her veins.

    It took a tremendous act of will for her to not actually attempt to leap up and seize this monstrosity by his jugular.

    This had the unintended effect of encapsulating her rage so that it multiplied and congealed to fill her every gland, crevice and pour like the vital gel of a Textar CANDY mine.

    Only unlike the patented cream, which was renowned both for its mechanical plasticity and chemical stability, without an ignition source or viable outlet, her hot emotional bile sought to excavate its own egress through any means.

    She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to tear into the very deck boards with her bare fingers.

    A curtain of baneful fire drew across her mind and heart like the Allfather¡¯s vengeful horde with Saedel as its target beacon.

    She couldn¡¯t have said, not that she would ever dare to think, what might have happened were both her hands and feet not at that same time being bound in what looked and felt like iron ropes by Rat who had, by this time, hobbled submissively back to his master. Physically unaffected, though thoroughly chastened by his ordeal and, for lack of a better term, broken.

    At some point Saedel must have released Silver, for the next thing Amelia knew was Rat binding his arms and crutch behind his back.

    He then hauled them both over to and knelt them by the main mast facing what, in the ship¡¯s previous life, had been the port gangway.

    From here the cesarean crack in the mast was plainly visible.

    The twinkling star lights she had seen on the way in were now nowhere to be found. Only the pale lanterns that were her ethereal compliment stood out against the umbral pale.

    As a consequence Amelia could see nothing beyond the ship¡¯s rails. How she could even see this far, or why the very matter of the ship seemed to pulsate with harmonic diffusions of pondwater colors, and why a persistent chime like tiny bells seemed to strum the bones in the backs of her ears eluded her.

    The only thought, the only feeling, was that of the pervasive, perpetual, antipathical nothingness.

    ¡°Where are we going?¡± Amelia asked.

    ¡°The Labyrinth,¡± was his monotonal answer. ¡°Or the Necropolis depending on who you talk to.¡±

    ¡°What do they want with me?¡±

    ¡°They want you to find something in the Sanctum.¡±

    ¡°But why me?¡± she asked again.

    Silver shrugged, ¡°apparently, it can only be used by a mortal. Or so I''ve been told.¡±

    Amelia scowled into nothing. ¡°What is it?¡±

    Silver shrugged again. ¡°Couldn''t tell you. I never made it past the Sanctum door. I died before I ¡­¡±

    He suddenly jolted as if he¡¯d taken a dagger to the spine. ¡°Oh, uh, by the way,¡± he said in a pensive whisper, ¡°I realize it''s hardly my place to ask, but I wonder if you might find it in you to do an old, dead Pyrate a favor?¡±

    ¡®Pyrate¡¯ Amelia¡¯s individual brain cells repeated in tandem. ¡®Is that with a good aye or a bad I?¡¯

    After finding nothing to do with this information, she returned to the question itself.

    Much to her surprise, despite her logical neural crews scrambling to hit everything that even vaguely resembled an ABORT or MAYDAY switch, she couldn¡¯t find it anywhere in herself to refuse.

    Maybe it was the impending threat of her own demise that made her so amiable to the spirit¡¯s needs.

    Maybe it was the lack of food, water and sleep causing her brain to run on an archaic circuit to conserve energy.

    Maybe it was all of the above.

    Or perhaps this was all one of her grand, elaborate nocturnal operas that she would at any moment wake up from having never left her bed in Amurza.

    That was definitely her imagination talking.

    Regardless of the why, she suddenly felt like she¡¯d known Silver for far longer than three days. She heard her mouth say, ¡°name it.¡±

    She then heard a voice in the back of her mind that may or may not have been hers say ¡®what? Why?¡¯

    Her ear couldn¡¯t tell whether the sound Silver made in return was a snort or a sneeze, though her mind preemptively assumed the former.

    After a trepid pause he said under a dense intonation canvas of nostalgia, ¡°you are so very much like your mother.¡±

    Her reaction was as reflexive as it was stupid.

    She shot to her feet, only to be instantly felled by Rat¡¯s all too tangible raining cannonball of a fist as though he¡¯d been waiting eagerly for exactly this occasion.

    She collapsed in a dull heap. Her mind forcibly reclused to a murky realm of spinning dust and celestial helixes.

    The last thing she heard was a thunderous roar and something like a city-sized island disintegrating.

    ****

    When, however many hours later, Amelia regained consciousness an unbound John Silver was squatting over her like a mother Bird over her newborn brood.

    She tried to push him away, but her arms behaved as wet rags. This, however, was evidently proof enough of life for Silver. For he backed off immediately and took to harrying away two other ghosts who had wandered dumbly near.

    As Amelia crept slowly to her feet, it dawned on her that she could see again. She wondered where the light was coming from, but she couldn¡¯t identify a likely source anywhere.

    Her eyes eventually found their way over to the mast pole where she and Silver had been sitting. There she saw something that her brain initially struggled to compartmentalize. But when it did, the realization struck her like a loaded cargo tram.

    At the foot of the mast was a pair of pistols. Next to which a single strait saber morosely lofted its hilt .

    Next to the crater left by the hurled Rat, the mast now sported a jet-black scorch mark, the kind made when a candle¡¯s fire meets the edge of old or dry parchment.

    Amelia gulped and then choked on her own dry gullet when she remembered Rat¡¯s fist hitting her skull. The pieces of the grim puzzle finally fell into place.

    Silver caught her up by the elbow mid-swoon and led her hastily toward the lowered gangplank.

    Amelia hazarded one last glance back at Rat¡¯s final resting location and was suddenly, inexplicably, and violently sick all over the deck.

    When she¡¯d recovered a wave of warm revitalization swept through her.

    Whether this was catharsis or the start of hypothalamic shock was a matter she was in no mood or mind to ponder.

    For lack of a useful covering to offer her, Silver draped his arm over her shoulders and led her silently down the plank. Which still had the opposite of the intended effect. The equivalent of drying someone off with a wet sponge.

    But she appreciated the gesture nonetheless and so let it rest despite its raiment chill.

    Marching with purpose, their heads held high and their shoulders back perhaps a bit too stiffly the thought, ¡°if I die, I¡¯ll die with my head up¡± passed through Amelia¡¯s cerebrum.

    She wasn¡¯t sure why, but she felt like she¡¯d expected that to be of some greater comfort than it was.

    Beyond the plank bridge they saw the ghostly crew and Saedel prowling restlessly about the cliff. The infernal captain pacing about like a hungry predator.

    Had Amelia¡¯s thinking regions been a bit more solvent than a pudding dish right then she might have contemplated the oddity of how the ghosts seemed to emit faint traces of light but Saedel¡¯s fiery crown did not.

    But she wasn¡¯t, so she didn¡¯t.

    What even she couldn¡¯t fail to notice was the gaping monster of a cave that loomed at the back fringe of their Halloween glow.

    No sooner had her boots touched the rock then Saedel, with no more than a wave of his scepter, rallied and herded them all through the oblivion portal.

    Less than three yards in they hit a dead end.

    Even by the diffuse light of the undead throng, the back wall struck Amelia as being somehow unnatural. Though exactly how was impossible to ascertain beyond an intuitive guess given the near zero visibility.

    All the same, it was not of as much immediate concern under the circumstances as it might otherwise be. Given how far removed the preponderance of things around here stood from normal reality already, her threshold for abnormal she felt was gaining by the second. In fact, she¡¯d hardly have batted an eyelash if Lord Nightwish or the Hogfather decided to just pop in here for a chat at some point.

    Not that she wouldn¡¯t still have questions, of course.

    When Saedel ignited the green plasmatic torch stone on the head of his scepter, the exact form of the structure ahead was revealed. A wall of white marble about twenty by twenty paces divvied into six equilateral sections imbedded into the natural rock.

    Each slice sported an intricately carved sigil personifying one of the six cardinal elements of alchemy. Though that wasn¡¯t something Amelia was privy to.

    At the convergent point of all was set a hexagrammid plate upon which were carved hieroglyphic versions of the same icons. Only some were misaligned as if the lead sculptor had suffered a stroke midway through construction.

    Upon closer inspection, Amelia also discovered that the points and angles of the set were askew. Together they formed a mini hexagonal opening roughly the size of her head.

    Silver leaned in to her and said, ¡°that¡¯s the entrance.¡±

    Amelia nodded. She¡¯d already figured as much, but confirmation was never to be shunned.

    It did nothing to ease her disquiet that all of the ghost crew were nervously flitting around like plump roasts about to be slaughtered, cooked and carved up for dinner.

    Saedel approached the bone white obstacle with intent.

    The fact that he cast no shadow evaded Amelia¡¯s grasp for her utter, enrapturing fascination with his conjuring to his hand from thin air a six-sided silver bar etched in detailed rectangular glyphs that seemed to correspond to the symbols on the marble sections.

    Like an overused, underappreciated feather duster, her brain only slowly began absorbing further details of the object after Silver inadvertently wrung her out by saying, ¡°Dolsenec¡±.

    She blinked, looked at Silver, who seemed lost in his own elusive world, then returned to the bizarre ritual.

    From one end of the bar there protruded a hexagrammid alignment of hooked barbs which looked to be of solid brass construction, but were in fact a carefully cultivated alloy of titanium.

    From the opposite end grew a bewitchingly ornate lapis dragon whose golden talons clutched an obsidian sphere and whose golden-veined serpentine tail coiled solicitously around the shaft.

    Its three sets of piercing ruby eyes flickered as though the twin suns resided therein. Their light played off and through its forest of horns and combed spines, throwing black images of crooked fiends dancing by an infernal bonfire across the walls and over the mist-born onlookers.

    Saedel inserted the barbed end into the hexagonal hole in the wall and gave the dragon a hard pull by its purposely roundly crooked neck. The key and plate came out from the door about half an inch. At which point he spun the whole apparatus clockwise until the symbols aligned. Then he pushed it back in up to the base of the dragon¡¯s pointy tail.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    The mammoth barrier responded by retracting its six triangular slabs noiselessly into the parent walls, ceiling and floor like as many daggers sheathing themselves.

    This perfectly orchestrated, elegant dance of sophisticated machinations granted the inanimate components a profound aura of sentience that Amelia would have found eerie were it not for her real present company.

    The very instant the machinery had concluded its work, Saedel handed Silver the key, who then tucked it dutifully into his coat. An act which, had he or his garments been corporeal, Amelia might have questioned the geometric logistics of.

    But them being as they were not, strictly speaking, bound by the conventional laws of physics or standard universal energy dynamics, she saw no reason why such comparatively menial concepts like physical displacement or object permanence should matter either.

    His slavish demeanor lent even more credence to her initial suspicion that these instances of the paranormal were not the sort which lurked under the beds, in the closets and atop the pillows of broodlings or whose tales were swapped by sailors, soldiers, adventurers and nomads around hearth, camp and cook fires.

    What of all this her face betrayed Amelia would never know or think to wonder. But she knew some fragment of her thoughts had leaked out because when Saedel turned his back Silver winked and whispered in what was surely meant as a warm, comforting tone, ¡°trust me.¡±

    When the last of the ghostly party had entered the revealed cave system, the ancient entrance behind them resealed, leaving them in a state of utter oblivion. Even the forms of the ghosts cast no visible presence here.

    Fortunately for her, Amelia had learned the hard way the dangers of being unprepared and so she had taken to carrying a two knife set and multiple P.A.O.I.S.Ts, or Pocket Aluminum Oxide Integral Striker Torches, with her at all times for just this sort of occasion.

    After several minutes of floundering in her pockets and a few embarrassing failures to find and pull the match cord she at last managed to summon the chemically bound flame.

    Being essentially an elongated flare, she knew the effulgent light wouldn¡¯t last more than thirty or forty minutes. But since having the ability to see her own feet was a dramatic improvement she wasn¡¯t about to tarry over details.

    Besides, that¡¯s why she carried five spares.

    Saedel evidently had zero problems seeing in the dark as he was already a few hundred feet ahead of them.

    Not that she minded.

    Ghosts she was finding she could handle. At one point they had been regular flesh-and-blood beasts like her. So they had at least that much common ground to work from.

    But the further she got away from that ¡­ thing the better.

    No sooner had Amelia thought herself ready to take the lead then Silver tapped her on her shoulder.

    ¡°You should probably let me go ahead,¡± he said, opening a hand to take the torch.

    To answer her silent question he flicked an ear Saedel¡¯s direction and said, ¡°if I get on his nerves he can¡¯t exactly kill me twice.¡±

    ¡®Yes he bloody can!¡¯

    The thought sailed into Amelia¡¯s head like an assassin¡¯s arrow. Its piercing razor head was the image of Rat¡¯s Nigredo remains. The one which followed after was the poisonous lace.

    ¡®And who knows how much worse?¡¯

    But having no reliable way of articulating these points that didn¡¯t make her sound needy or paranoid, she let out her feelings in a snorted sigh before handing over the light.

    Silver gave back a consolatory tip of his indelible hat, then proceeded to lead their posse along the long dark and narrowing way.

    Even in the dim light of her pocket torch, the gold and silver ornaments embedded in the sandy-yellow colored stone walls glinted like many twinkling celestial points.

    The geometric slabs that made up the entire structure were so perfectly formed and fitted that a razor¡¯s biting edge couldn¡¯t have intruded more than a hair¡¯s width.

    The floor and the arched ceiling were carved with intricately erratic patterns and painted in exotic colors that seemed to dance and twirl to the rhythm of the pocket torch''s flickering golden flame.

    Her circumstances notwithstanding, Amelia marveled at the neat mathematical artistry around her. Apart from its geometric harmony, every part and particle of this place seemed practically marinated in auric honey and glaze.

    Granted, it would be disingenuous to say that a large part of the aesthetic didn¡¯t owe to the walls and arched ceiling being made of a desert-gold cement.

    Every so often Amelia would catch Silver eyeing Saedel with the patient, feral intensity of a caged circus wyntyrdyr waiting for a chance to gore its tyrannical captor.

    A more charitable, or at least slightly more fortunate, beast than Amelia might have actually felt sorry for these poor devils. But, being in more or less the same boat dampened her sympathetic gene sufficiently to make the feeling fractally symmetrical to trying to run a mainline cargo hauler off a bank of potatoes.

    It was an irony of a sort that would forever elude her that this would be the moment that her brain chose to reintroduce to her awareness Silver''s earlier comment about her mother.

    Seeing that she didn¡¯t have a sword, gun barrel, fist or boot near her head at that moment, she decided that now was as good a time as any to try and get some real answers out of him.

    She doubled her pace to pull up alongside him.

    She was almost starting to see some appeal in disembodiment.

    Almost.

    Silver didn¡¯t seem to notice her approach. Not knowing how quite to phrase her question, or even exactly what she wanted to ask in the first place, the words that came out of her mouth could have been torn right off a page of some tweeny romance novel written by a dyslectic Chameleon.

    ¡°So ¡­ if you don¡¯t mind my asking ¡­ how did you and my mother meet ¡­ exactly?¡±

    Never before in her thirteen years of life had Amelia wished so desperately to have been born a Tortoise.

    It didn¡¯t help that Silver¡¯s response was to throw his head back and laugh.

    Amelia glanced back. None of the trailing ghosts seemed at all interested in the commotion. Though that did nothing to assuage her embarrassment.

    Silver¡¯s lacking physical lungs or diaphragm meant that when the expenditure of humor was over it ceased as if some beast had hacked his nonexistent windpipe in two.

    He then straightened as much as his dependency on the wooden pole that seemed a few inches too short for him would allow.

    ¡°Your mother and I shared a ¡­ we shared a ¡­ a dream,¡± he said as though trying to force the complex memories into a simplistic mold they didn¡¯t fit in.

    He stared off into the darkness ahead and his milky mist eyes turned to inky glass.

    A solitary moment of mourning later he shook himself back to here. He indicated the hole in his chest. ¡°But you see, the problem with dreams is that you have to wake up at some point.¡±

    Forced levity strained the ends of his sentence as though the whole weight of a lifetime were suspended from them by chains.

    Amelia wanted to press the point. But something raw and familiar like a nostalgic scent tugged at her most soluble heartstring. Spinning her back through the decades to before she had even been conceived.

    A peaceful time. A time before Pyrates, before swords. Back before monsters and ghosts and evil necromancers. A time when the world was all of one thing. A time when nothing died. When nothing haunted. When nothing scarred or tarnished. A time when everything could simply be as it was and no more.

    She honored its memory with deep silence.

    Then she inhaled deeply the dry, dead air of this forsaken catacomb and lifted her eyes to study Silver¡¯s face again. When next their gazes crossed she did not falter.

    Emboldened by a newfound assurance from she knew not where, she stayed strong and held him fast.

    She studied the ghost¡¯s grim face for a belying hint of magickal foolery or any telltale sign of good old-fashioned deceit. But all she found in his tired features were the gentle warmth of a father¡¯s kindness and ... was that sorrow or pity?

    Maybe it was both.

    ¡°I wish I¡¯d told her ¡­ quite a few things come to think,¡± Silver said. A low whistle served his unreal airways for a sigh. ¡°But you''ve got your father''s grit.¡±

    His eyes glazed over again as he sailed back to that obscure place between thoughtfulness and delirium. ¡°For your own sake I hope you¡¯ll prove wiser than he,¡± he said as though from inside a barrel.

    This dropped a block of ice right through to Amelia¡¯s center of mass.

    This haggard, lingering, locomotive figment of a beast seemed to be better informed about her family¡¯s internal business than she was.

    However, circumstances being what they were, she didn¡¯t have time to dwell on this before she was jolted back to the present.

    For no immediately discernable reason Silver came to an abrupt halt. His head twitched about in the way of Felines and Canines tracking a strange or distant sound.

    Then, in one impossibly swift motion Silver snuffed out the torch, which itself should have been impossible, spun around and easily caught Amelia up and pressed her against the wall.

    Plunged back into absolute blackness without warning, her natural impulse was to ask what the saard was happening. But Silver''s hand being clamped over her mouth put that idea on ice.

    She could breathe through his hand, which was odd, but on reflection, not unexpected. The air she took in was made thick and heavy like watery syrup, which made talking through it all but impossible.

    A few seconds went by during which very little of anything unusual or noteworthy happened.

    Amelia considered trying to free herself from Silver¡¯s grasp, but even had she the levels of supernatural strength needed to rival his undead bones, muscles and sinews she wouldn¡¯t have gotten the chance to try.

    Her eyes tilted in the direction of an unnatural rolling moan wafting up from the deepest bowels of the cavern.

    She could discern nothing apart from the pitch void but the demure seafoam shimmer of the hand that thankfully held her own voice down.

    As the sound drew closer, guttural snarls and curdling hisses sporadically grew out of its reverberant pitch.

    In a few more seconds there evolved alongside the angry ensemble a train of fast metronomic ticks which Amelia¡¯s oldest intuition recognized as the sritchscratching of claws against hard stone.

    She didn¡¯t need to see Silver¡¯s wide eyes or bulging jaw areas to know he was in a similar state. Just the extra tinge of pallidity in his exoteric shell was proof enough that whatever was coming scared him. Which in turn further fed into and hardened Amelia¡¯s paralyzing dread.

    Whatever could scare a ghost must be at least quintuply bad news for a still flesh bound mortal.

    The howls of racing death expounded with each racing thud of Amelia¡¯s heart. Ripping into the secluded space like glaives through a thick curtain.

    She scanned vainly in the black for a real image to substitute for the hellish creations her mind was augmenting the din with.

    Soon, there came the unmistakable slurping of a wet tongue lapping against bared teeth. Then a loud swoosh of air went rippling past her, followed by the sounds of what could be best likened to rocks grinding metal into flaky shards.

    Amelia was suddenly glad for Silver''s hand restricting her ability to scream. She doubted she could have managed it on her own.

    Even through the filter of Silver''s spectral appendage, the rancid odors of rotting flesh and singed fur were still potent enough to make Amelia want to stuff hot coals up her nose.

    But the horrid sounds and smells of the creature itself paled in comparison to the demented wails that shortly proceeded its passing.

    Amelia¡¯s blood flash-froze. Her veins were streams of frozen mud. She couldn¡¯t have moved or screamed even if she''d wanted to.

    In the terrible silent aftermath, Silver cautiously reclaimed his muting hand.

    A tidal foam of exclamations, some portion of which took the form of questions, crested the back of Amelia¡¯s tongue.

    Luckily for them both, at some point in the chaos her throat had been involuntarily rinsed with stomach acid and so the only sounds that came out was incoherent squawking.

    The second after he let her go entirely she dropped, nay, plummeted to her knees and shook more violently than if she had been naked in the midst of the polar deserts.

    Upon following Silver''s breathily whispered instructions, and with his gentle coaching, she took several slow, deep, calming breaths ... each time expecting the cool underground air to be a welcome relief.

    Unfortunately, her next lesson that day was that incorporeal flesh, when ripped apart by preternatural claws and fangs, produced an even more appalling smell than real torn rotted meat.

    When at last she had regained what only loosely resembled her sanity, Amelia noted that, contrary to only seconds ago, she could now clearly make out Silver¡¯s spectral aura perfectly against the abyssal backdrop.

    Something niggled at the back of her mind as she observed him. Something deviant ¡­ out of place ¡­ wrong. A thing that took her a fair minute to compute, but that hit her like a Barahman Pachyderm charge.

    Her being able to see him sat as proof that he emitted some sort of emissarial radiance. However, there appeared no corresponding radiance on any adjacent surface. He was like a vampire casting no shadow.

    She had to smile at the unusual sight of a grown Anuran fumbling with her torch like an infant first learning to hold a spoon.

    Did the process of dying and partial reintegration with the mortal coil alter one¡¯s procedural memory? Or had he just been dead for so long that he¡¯d simply forgotten the normal way how to use his fingers?

    Before she could offer to help he¡¯d managed, with no small sample of frustration, to strike the lower reserve primer. When he beckoned her into the chemical candle¡¯s glow she acquiesced with zero hesitation.

    She could have carried her sum knowledge about magicks and their spawn in a bottle the size of her little finger, but some primordial instinct her told her that in this necrotic temple fire would be to survival what eyesight was to vision.

    After she was certain the most imminent danger was a fair distance behind them she cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered, ¡°what was that thing?¡±

    After taking a quick survey back to ensure their continued safety, Silver replied, ¡°tis a Naarfynder lass.¡±

    A dreadful shiver wracked her bones. Silver interpreted her silence. Which he promptly did.

    ¡°Absolutely wicked creature that. Makes a bull wyntyrdyr during mating season look sophisticated. No living beast has ever seen one that up close before far as I know.¡±

    Amelia¡¯s mind curled a snare spelled like so: ¡®A curious turn of phrase that.¡¯ around a particular idea spring and waited for a particular thought to exit.

    For bait her logical precepts rewound the past minutes. Spreading their deduced vulgarity over the well top.

    Less than a second later, her imagination had its prize. And from its dense entrails, fractal images were ripped forth. Graphic depictions of what carnal fates had befallen the rest of their landed party rolled and crackled over her mental plains like infernal hooves. Tamping their memories¡¯ bones into the soil, from which then sprouted new pictures of events that had yet to be. What would befall them, her and Silver, when that creature had finished defiling the stalk and turned its lidless eyes towards the bud and the leaf?

    Her immediate surroundings offered no help or comfort either. In fact the only light in this dismal tunnel they shared was ¡­

    ¡°Enough!" her exhausted brain silently cried.

    Alright, if she couldn''t escape into her mind, she would have to resort to the unorthodox. She turned back to Silver.

    The irony of evading her imagined daemons by striking up a conversation with a ghost was not lost on her. But she was at the end of her rope and lacked any better solutions.

    ¡°What''s it doing here?¡± she asked. ¡°I thought they lived in the Gnarled Wood on ¡­¡±

    A dozen switches flipped on in rapid succession which, frankly, should have done some while ago.

    Silver''s next utterance may have been intended as a belligerent snort, but it came out more like a steel grate being hacked apart by primitives who had yet to comprehend the power of modern metallurgy.

    ¡°It¡¯s likely some form of barbaric security system.¡±

    He jabbed a thumb back over his shoulder. ¡°Saedel lets him out every so often, so he can feed on the new batch of goons he sends down here as ¡°backup¡±.

    Amelia didn¡¯t need look at his face to know what she would find there. ¡°That''s ¡­¡± she said, wanting to fill the void at the end with every synonym for awful known to her in Adamic. But feeling the fractal frost crystals inside take a fresh leap and bite temporarily cost her the ability to cohesively weave thoughts into phrases.

    Thankfully, Silver picked up rather swiftly on her drift. ¡°That''s our host for you,¡± he stated flatly. ¡°Only a living hand can pierce the heart of the Labyrinth. Or so he says. But only a ghost¡¯s flesh can satisfy a Naarfynder.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s more than one ¡­?¡± Amelia croaked. This day just kept getting worse.

    Silver spread his one free arm wide. ¡°Where do you suppose this island gets its name?¡±

    Amelia choked again this time on her own uvula.

    Silver made a noise. It might have been a cough if he''d still possessed a solid trachea. Amelia suspected this was more a sympathetic gesture than an actual expression of thirst, but one which she appreciated regardless. It could also have been an obtusely subtle means of changing the subject. One that she was only too happy to take him up on.

    Amelia croaked dryly, ¡°you wouldn¡¯t happen to have a water skin on you?¡±

    A morose shake of Silver¡¯s head made the little dust devil in Amelia¡¯s throat spin a happy little dance.

    ¡°Fraid not. Not much use for it in my condition.¡± He then bobbed his nose forward down the passage. ¡°But there''s a water font about forty yards ahead. Or at least there was last time.¡±

    Amelia tried to speak, but what came out resembled the sound of a sputtering candle. She just nodded and let him lead. Not that he needed to, as there was only one conceivable way for them to go if they didn¡¯t fancy becoming ectoplasmic flambe.

    They walked in parallel silence. Amelia wrestling with the strange disassociation of her senses, seeing Silver¡¯s feet walk but hearing only her own feet¡¯s refrain. Silver aiming his apparitional senses back intently for the slightest hint of anything that might signify the monster¡¯s return.

    Thankfully, they detected no such sign. For now the creature seemed too fully invested in its feast to be in a hurry to chase down a few loose scraps.

    Not a hundred paces on Amelia perceived the babbling tunes of flowing water plucking the restless vacuum.

    Amelia took off at a run. She did not think. Didn¡¯t even feel. A force as basic and as powerful as the nucleic bonding soul of the materium brought her the sound like mass producing life by aligning stagnant energy.

    When she¡¯d found her horizon event she plunged neck deep into the refreshing spring.

    If she¡¯d had her wits about her she might have pondered the power of primordial instinct. So effortlessly eclipsing one¡¯s perceptions and rationality so completely. She hadn''t realized until that moment just how empty she¡¯d been.

    With her belly now exclusively full of fresh spring drink, an intense, painful knowledge of the power of hunger came upon her like a feral beast.

    She couldn¡¯t even remember the last time she¡¯d had a proper meal. Time, she reasoned correctly, is a slippery thing when trapped in the waking stasis of an exoteric hull.

    Having drunk her fill, she lowered herself back onto the inexplicably soft floor, closed her eyes and reveled in this practically prairie respite while she waited for Silver to catch up.

    This would have been the point when, had her genius been a separate entity with its own eyes and mind, would have reminded her that the minimum speed for figments of the ether was that of conscious thought.

    When Silver deigned it appropriate to make his presence known he came and knelt by her side at the fountain¡¯s edge.

    He wished he¡¯d had something more nourishing than a banished father¡¯s hand to offer her. But his having long since forgotten the need for chemical sustenance meant that the hand he placed on her scrawny shoulder had to spin both her emotional and metabolic axels. A task which would have been called Sisyphean by any arcanist whose knowledge of his craft wasn¡¯t solely derived from nebulous fairytale depictions of magick.

    Oblivious to her companion¡¯s secret conflict, Amelia steadily came back to herself and as she did started to take stock of their new surroundings.

    The first and most forceful thing that struck her was the lighting.

    Rather than the harshly pulsating ambiance of the torch fire, which she would shortly note was under the water, there exuded a soft blue aura fringed with pale gold which only partially seemed to stem from the buds and strange bulbs that lined the fountain¡¯s poolside and inhabited much of the semi-paved floor.

    Speaking of which, she realized her knees rested on the single point of deliberate architecture left below knee height. An oscillating patterned ring of tetrahydric stones arranged in a perfect semi-circle around the pool of crystalline water. Itself continually incubated from a tiny spigot carved in abstract homage to a helmeted and plumed Equestrian a few hands up the wall.

    The rest, in stark contrast to the expert masonry they had seen thus far, was a lopsided recipe of roughly one part scattered flat stones, six parts bare dirt, and three parts assorted alien floral and fungal species including, but by no means limited to, crocheted vines, ranks of albino mushrooms, fluorescent algae and a diverse pallet of flowers, spore shoots and seed pods.

    The vaulted ceiling, which now hung not more than half and again her own standing height overhead, was buttressed by bone-white scaffolds that gave her a sickening insight into many a rodent, and likely many of her own relatives and ancestors¡¯ final life minutes. Forcibly caged and locked behind the ribs of a massive serpent.

    She retreated her gaze away. Gently stroking one of the nearby flower heads with a finger.

    At her touch, a swarm of luminescent insects materialized from the very roots and soil. Some had been posing as the very mineral grains.

    They unfolded themselves and floated up on wings patterned like the frozen helical matrices of volcanic glass. Only richer and more vibrant.

    Silver sat agape and said with airy wonderment, ¡°this ¡­ is new.¡±

    The logical incongruency of this took Amelia only a single extra heartbeat to comprehend.

    ¡°I thought you said you¡¯d been here before,¡± she said in a cloudy voice.

    Silver bobbed in a shrug. ¡°I''ve ¡­ studied the lore and maps of this place,¡± he replied. Seeming to draw his words straight out of the fountain head. ¡°I¡¯d thought I was ready for anything.¡±

    The amending clause ¡®but I was gravely mistaken¡¯ hung around him like a blood-stained medallion.

    Amelia needed to schedule an intercranial meeting. Thinking she was going to inquire down this ready road she¡¯d given her mouth liberty to form words. However, there appeared to be a mistake in translation somewhere between her brain and her tongue, as what actually came out of her was, ¡°where¡¯d Saedel go? I mean, wasn¡¯t he leading us somewhere?¡±

    She heard that. She processed it. It made sense, objectively speaking. But why did she suddenly care about their supposed ¡®mission¡¯?

    ¡°Not that I¡¯m complaining mind you,¡± she added, more to square her own oblong reasoning than anything else.

    Without diverting his eyes from the ¡°Necropolis Menagerie¡±, as some of the old scrolls had referred to this place, he said, ¡°if I were to guess, I¡¯d say he''s probably back on the ship.¡±

    An image pattern of thoughts and questions not wholly dissimilar to that of the twinkling life cloud around her lit up Amelia¡¯s prefrontal cortex.

    ¡°He comes down here, releases the Naarfynder,¡± Silver continued in a lecturer¡¯s drawl that reminded Amelia strongly of Talia, ¡°knowing it¡¯ll go straight for the largest bunch of necro plasm it smells and then he leaves. Don''t ask me how. If I knew I¡¯d ¡­ well, I¡¯d at least have something better to do than float around and go uueeerrrhh all day.¡±

    For what felt like the first time in her whole life Amelia felt the niggling froth of a laugh creeping up into her chest. But a chain of bellicose roars and scratching like the tearing of avalanche rocks from a mountainside shoved any sampling of humor straight back into its prison and fed the key to Drachyn.

    Silver sounded Amelia¡¯s first cogent thought back to her in one urgent word.

    ¡°Run!¡±

    She did. Silver raced a steady number of paces ahead, his candle aura flaring in lieu of her guiding torch.

    When the Naarfynder¡¯s cries had safely diminished, and when Amelia was physically incapable of exertion, they halted at a three-way junction so that she could catch her breath.

    The architectural sophistication of what modern society collectively called the Labyrinth, but which a more literate few knew as the Necropolis, had, by this point, been totally abandoned for the bare rock aesthetic of a natural cavern, complete with forests of jagged stalactites and stalagmites.

    However, if their six geometric sides slopes weren¡¯t proof enough of their unnatural origin, the strategic cropping of the latter to form a worming corridor of rough stepping stone stumps would have done the job just as neatly.

    The deliberately uneven gaps between the artificially grown plates were mortared with fine, rusty orange gravel and what looked and undulated like thick tar but smelled suspiciously of rice wine.

    Whatever it was it smoldered under the thick oily gloom like a latent match cord.

    ¡°Why¡¯s he ¡­ feeding it ¡­ anyway?¡± Amelia panted when the normal tunnel resumed and they finally came to a stop. Clamping one hand on her aching side and leaning the other one against the wall.

    She wasn¡¯t in bad shape by ordinary standards. But keeping pace with a creature who could outrun heat and who was literally incapable of fatigue over a hundred yard dead sprint with nothing but water and pure adrenaline in her system was hardly a standard schoolyard fitness exercise.

    ¡°It¡¯s a guardian,¡± Silver said, checking back behind them for the millionth time. ¡°It¡¯s here to eviscerate any intruder body and soul.¡±

    ¡°Oh ¡­ great,¡± Amelia groaned, straightening. Then her brain caught up with the rest of her sensory organs and she snapped upright so fast that something in the middle of her spine popped.

    ¡°Wait ¡­ Iradyl? I thought Sir Francis ¡­¡±

    ¡®Drake.¡¯ The word fell from her mind onto her tongue like a salt brick.

    Silver snorted. ¡°The weight of any printed word is measured in units of gold on a scale of praise.¡±

    Amelia looked up at him as though he¡¯d just sprouted a third arm.

    Was he quoting Benjamin Lutein? The anarchist? It was appropriate given Silver¡¯s apparent piratical proclivities.

    She knew the meaning of those words too. They had been one of her father¡¯s many favorite sayings. And they¡¯d always rung as true to her as the tune of the dinner bell.

    But since when had this cowardly bone-rattler become a scholarly sage?

    ¡°Think about it lass,¡± he said, apparently reading her thoughts again. ¡°I knew old Black Spot. Here was a beast with brains like the stretching sky, but whose arcane skill could be held in his baby¡¯s hand. Now, take that beast and read him a few books and POOF, he¡¯s suddenly able to pull a whole bloody landmass out of his butt like it¡¯s as easy as getting out of bed? I¡¯m sorry, but if you believe that then I¡¯ve got a magick island to sell you.¡±

    Amelia thought on this. Assuming it was true the reasoning held fast.

    ¡°But why would it matter if a ghost managed to get ¡­ ?¡±

    Her voice swallowed itself. Midway through her thought Saedel''s last minute curse on Silver materialized and cancelled it out. Drenching them both in a verbose quantum sea of emotional silence.

    Forced to wander alone in the dark forever was tortuous enough a punishment to her fledgling mind, but to also be rent to constituent threads and consumed repeatedly until there was nothing left but a shambling, miasmic shade totally bereft of mind or spirit. Stripped of all hope and desire. Robbed of any hope or purpose but to wait for an eternal end they would never reach.

    This was to be the fate of any unfortunate spirits who didn''t manage to gain passage into the blissful realm of the dead the old Amurzan Sagas called the Crystal Pond.

    Amelia had always hated those stories. That the filing down of a multifaceted spirit into a monocrystalline parody of life was completely irreconcilable with her inordinately mature idea of happily ever after.

    Lightning spears of empathic dread ripped across her heart.

    Something familiarly tender bridged the temporal and spatial gaps in their experience, compelling her to throw her arms around him and squeeze as though she could excise the evil magicks through sheer physical might.

    When her emotional haze parted she would recall this as one of the strangest sensations she¡¯d ever sensed. It was like taking a misty shower while clutching a swaddled fern.

    She had only just started to wonder if there wasn¡¯t a far simpler, if less intuitively friendly, explanation for their seeming extrasensory connection, now she¡¯d come upon the fear that neither of them would live long enough to find out.

    At the tickling chill carried by Silver¡¯s consoling hand embracing the back of her head and neck a pressure release valve in her composure popped open, releasing a brief but therapeutic atonal flute solo of a laugh.

    After a minute, Silver ditched his crippled pantomime long enough to pry her back with both hands and hold her fast at arm¡¯s length by the shoulders.

    He then raised her chin with a once-calloused forefinger, looked into her watery eyes and said with a bravado that might have been more encouraging were he of a larger stature, ¡°don''t worry about me lass. Death and I are old bedfellows.¡±

    He flicked a finger down the precursing tunnel. ¡°That mongrel won¡¯t enjoy this meal.¡±

    Amelia tried to smile, but that only made her tears come faster and less controllably. She turned away so he wouldn¡¯t see her cry.

    Far from the scolding response she had anticipated, Silver wafted back and forth, pried away her hands away from her face, and gently swabbed her cheeks with his technically nonexistent sleeve.

    Physically this had the proportional effect of a butterfly¡¯s wing in floating a castle. As he¡¯d halfheartedly expected.

    Psychologically it had the effect of a bellows¡¯ breath on a coughing furnace pit. As was his exact design.

    Once his little psychodrama had done its devious work, taking on the role of stoic parent he¡¯d never gotten to play, Silver adopted an appraising posture and said the one thing Amelia had least expected to hear from him.

    ¡°I can¡¯t and won¡¯t say I¡¯m glad you¡¯re here Daisha. But I am proud ¡­ and I know your mother and sister would be too.¡±

    Amelia didn¡¯t know how to answer. Her mind, heart and tongue each had swelled too large for their respective cavities and were diced a thousand different ways.

    So what sound came out to grace the eternal record was the throaty belch of a congenitally deaf toad.

    Once again Silver seemed to intuit the private turmoil incubating in her skull. This time, his awkward, misinterpretive attempt to smother it beneath forced bravado only deepened its suffocating roots.

    ¡°I swear on ¡­ well, on my own bloody grave I won¡¯t let you to end up a picked pile of bones.¡±

    She sniffed and tried to conjure a smile.

    He straightened, laid an oddly warm hand on Amelia¡¯s head and took her, still quivering like a lost kitten, under his arm.

    ¡®You¡¯ve got a long, hard path ahead of you Daisha,¡¯ Silver thought to himself as he led them down the narrower of the two branching forward paths, ¡®and Avlon ¡­ there¡¯s more than a few reasons why that beast never had children.¡¯

    What may have been several hours or maybe just one passed as the intrepid duo traversed many countless parayards of coiling tunnels and paths through stalagmite maws.

    Many sprawling intersections, many dead ends, many fallbacks and curling winds and so many branching paths that Amelia started to wonder if this wasn¡¯t something akin to the pocket portal sack pioneered by the ancient Trisphraestus sorcerer, Dehdi.

    When they finally came to what seemed to be a plain, perfectly ordinary white marble wall, their initial reactions were paradoxical.

    But in the eternal dual spirit of the hunt, the moment¡¯s jubilation was followed by a triplex of perplexion, anxiety and disappointment. Before Amelia could offer comment to either effect, however, Silver walked over and practically stuck his nose into its glassy surface.

    Even on an island that shouldn¡¯t exist, inhabited by the living dead and by magickal monsters, this wall had an unnatural quality about it. It was perfectly smooth, unlike the ones before.

    It had no markings, carvings, not so much as a dent, pit or scratch visible anywhere on its surface.

    Nevertheless, Silver examined it with the practical and reverent air of a shaman checking over a newborn.

    Finally, he found what he was looking for. At which time he produced the Dragon Key from the lining of his coat. Which, Amelia reasoned, still counted as thin air in some abstract philosophical sense.

    He stuck its unornamented tail end straight into the solid stone and twisted it clockwise ninety degrees so that the eyes stared at the ceiling.

    Just as Saedel had done, he withdrew it. And just like the last time a loud clang sounded within the great stone barrier.

    ¡°I guess that¡¯s why Saedel''s afraid of ghosts,¡± Amelia quipped.

    Silver had his mouth open but whatever words had marshaled in his throat died to the piercing roar storming from behind.

    If Amelia had had mammalian blood she would have turned as pale as the granite. Which, as if on cue of a twisted cosmic comedian, at that same instant chose to part and hide in the sanctity of the base cavern rock.

    Silver didn¡¯t miss a beat. Putting his unnatural speed and strength to work, he pulled Amelia over to the opening and veritably flung her over the threshold as one would toss a delinquent sock into the wash pile.

    Faster than the thought to turn and face him had run the parayard from her brain to her feet he spun her around by the shoulder and thrust the draconic key into her hands.

    ¡°What¡­?¡± she started to ask. Stopping on account of an heirloom prejudice against making unnecessary mouth noises.

    Silver answered her anyway. ¡°I can¡¯t go any further.¡± Sensing her expletive-riddled ¡°why not?¡± in the works, he bowed low his head and said more to his own foot than to her, ¡°you heard what Saedel said. I can¡¯t¡­¡±

    Amelia didn''t budge. ¡°I don''t care what that bastard said!¡± she cried. ¡°You don¡¯t ¡­ ! You can¡¯t ¡­ !¡±

    Again, words failed her and she resorted to primal expression.

    The Naarfynder bellowed again. It was closing on them faster than the fastest storm winds. ¡°I won¡¯t leave you to that ¡­ that thing!¡±

    The fact that Silver couldn''t or wouldn''t look at her pressed blades hotter than any blacksmith¡¯s forge through her heart.

    ¡°I''m afraid neither of us has a choice.¡±

    He showed Amelia his wrist. An amethyst symbol Amelia couldn''t identify branded his spectral flesh. The lines pulsed and writhed with yellow sparks as though infused with tiny electric serpents.

    ¡°I''ve been branded by the Nizarrat Autumn. Roughly translated from Equestrian, it means the perfect pact.¡±

    He made a crestfallen gesture. ¡°It''s a magickal seal, as you can probably guess. A binding rune. I believe the official term is Totemfide. Though that may or may not be how you pronounce it. Every ghost on the Giant has one.¡±

    Silver threw another wayward glance backwards. More out of habit by this point than actual expectation. ¡°It¡¯s why I must obey him,¡± he said ruefully. ¡°So long as it¡¯s here I can¡¯t not.¡±

    Amelia''s insides ached. Her stomach collapsed into a crushing microcosmic vacuum pit. In whose transmutational core was fused impotent wrath and fear into a white hot nugget of phosphorescent rage.

    ¡°That saarding ... AARRH!¡± she roared into the earless void.

    Silver flashed her a Pyratic grin. And like the proud father he''d once dreamed of being, he heartily declared, ¡°that''s the spirit Daisha.¡±

    He positioned himself at her eye level. ¡°If you truly want to avenge us then you''ve come to the right place.¡±

    He pointed to the blackness beyond the opened wall. ¡°You see down that hole there? At the far end, you''ll find an open cave. Get through it, and you''ll find something that even Saedel is afraid of. If the legends are worth their weight it can grant the power to destroy that monster and this whole saarding island.¡±

    She took a step towards him. He shoved her three steps further back into the waiting womb of peerless black.

    ¡°Go. Hurry. Don¡¯t look back.¡±

    She turned back to see him square down the charging howls draw his spectral sword and pistol.

    For the briefest instant Amelia considered that they might fight off that creature together. Sadly, her dreams were cut short when the portal began to reseal itself behind her. She had one last look at Silver as the apathetic stone began to close.

    He shouted to her one last time over the encroaching wails of the Naarfynder. ¡°Give your mother and sisters my best! Good luck, Daisha!¡±

    The last thing she heard was Silver¡¯s afterlife imitation of a traditional Amurzan battle cry as the animus granite slabs slid silently between them. Sealing both of their fates.

    Alone again. This time with only the cold metal of the artifact and what her four remaining pocket torches for company.

    Amelia sank to her knees. Her vital heat leaking into the dissolute stone like water through a valve. Her thoughts didn¡¯t as much swim as pulse in nucleic clouds such that she couldn¡¯t tell the leading edge from the contrail of another. Could she go on alone? Did she even want to? After all, what was the point?

    ¡®We don¡¯t have a choice.¡¯

    Somewhere near the motor chords in her spine a minor capillary captured a spark and with a small marathon of effort brought it to her heart where it was enriched by her life breath and ignited by her dormant will.

    Its liquid flame of passion spread through her body like amaterial wings. Setting her blood and tissues ablaze with catalytic courage.

    Thus it was that under the bearing hood of the nocturn pit she stood up tall and straight. A beacon to her kind in the absolute night.

    She drew the next torch and brought its zygote pyre to life.

    With her proverbial spear in hand, her shield at her back and her literal and metaphorical lantern at her fore she declared through bared teeth, ¡°so be it Saedel. You¡¯ll get your wish. But I¡¯ll be damned if I don¡¯t get mine first.¡±

    With her war banner thus lofted, the lonely young Pyrate strode off into the black ether. Whether towards an epic destiny or a fool¡¯s death the gods¡¯ secret to keep and her fate alone to set.

 Chapter 14: "Forbidden" With Extreme Prejudice

    The basic concept of the ¡°Ironclad¡± warship was hardly a novel one. In point of fact the idea of sheeting a ship entirely in munition-reflective metal had floated around for as many centuries as ships had carried armaments. Predating all modern navies and all but the most mott and baily iterations of piracy.

    However, so few of them had ever been manufactured, and those that were in active service so rarely ventured more than a few leagues from the Iradyl mainland, that to see one up close was still a sight that inspired awe and fear.

    Each ship spanned the length of two conjoined FPA buildings. From stem to stern they bristled with every caliber and weight of shipborne armament under the suns. From gargantuan rotary siege artillery, which sailors knew as shore cannons, to the standard midrange brawling variety.

    The largest, which also included a pair of deep-set mortar wells known as Star Gazers at the bow and stern, were flanked by blocks of Sierra Flamel cluster rocket tubes. The rails, decks and crenellated terrace steps of their fortress flat pyramid bodies were lined with stacked phalanxes of octuple volley turrets and rotary cannons. With staggered wedges of pillbox tetrahedrons sporting the main spearpoint casts of capital armament planted along the main deck and up the shallow slopes of symmetric ramps up the foreward segments of the domineering central structure.

    Every surface inch of their hulls and stocky pentagrammic upper bodies were formed from massive alchemically tempered armor panels. Even the four electromagnetic rail turrets were tubbed in glassy terra-steel.

    As well as an expanded maintenance and engineering staff, even the simplest operations of the goliath machines required dedicated specialist teams to perpetually monitor and manage the ship¡¯s energy allocation.

    In addition to costing the Ironclads dramatically in the areas of speed, range and cargo capacity. Which was one of several reasons the three working service vessels found themselves relegated to domestic guard and patrol duty.

    But for all they lacked in versatility and grace, the one thing that any intellectually honest Pyrate freely acknowledged, was the supreme and exacting, nigh mechanical precision, with which they filled out their intended role as projective instruments of prejudicial terror.

    Indeed, so perfect was the design to the role of statutory deterrent that a theory had arisen amongst their Zen neighbors that the design hadn¡¯t originated in the Imperial war cabinet at all, but rather within the political megasphere.

    As Avlon had once intoned it, ¡°the Imperial propogandists fashioned the Ironclads the way a master cobbler might warp and fit and bend a shoe around a genetically deformed foot.¡±

    A single shot from the tertiary cannons could crack an enemy battleship in half from a standoff at more than twice a mainsail spotter¡¯s horizon.

    The morning after their departure, shortly after the Maiden had left the relative safety of the island chain known as the Great Border Wall, three of the floating fortresses blockaded their path and insisted they submit to ¡°standard routine security checks¡±.

    Luckily for the Iron Maiden, her hands and their mission, Drake had had the foresight to hide Steve amidst the depths of tidy clutter in the engine room.

    Had he not, their stay in Iradyl might have been a considerable stretch longer than their present timetable would have allowed for.

    But the Imperials¡¯ search had turned up nothing of interest, of course, and they were let go within hours, rather than the usual days or weeks.

    Despite this unforeseen run of good fortune, Drake remained on attentive alert until they were well out of sight of the Imperial home mass.

    At which point he thanked every remote divine spirit he knew of that the Pyrates were presently on ostensibly cordial terms.

    His antithetic feelings towards the regime and all it entailed notwithstanding, on a purely pragmatic level he didn¡¯t much fancy the idea of having to face one of those behemoths with little more than his sword and some harsh language.

    ****

    His waking call several mornings later was the familiar bone-shuddering booms of cannon fire and an unfamiliar pair of hands shaking him like a dusty rug.

    His extensive verbal arsenal unloaded itself automatically upon this stranger until the remainder of his brain was at last salient enough for the Oreamnos¡¯ words to take standing root.

    ¡°Wake up!¡± the beast snapped, literally slapping him out of sleep. ¡°Get up Captain! We¡¯re under attack!¡±

    Drake heaved himself up and shoved the newcomer away with a blind arm swipe. A glance at his timepiece told him it was mid noon.

    He bounded up on deck half-dressed, having wasted just enough time to snap on his utility belt and weapon harness.

    The first thing to strike him upon entering the open verse was the sickly gray-green fog that swallowed all but the nearest seven steps of his visual radius.

    ¡®The Miasma¡¯ his secretarial sector told the rest of him.

    The rippling war bellows of the cannons brought him back to the immediate. He didn¡¯t need his eyes to tell him that the Blunder Twins were well at their work.

    No sooner had he taken it into his mind to inquire after what they were shooting at than the answer came to him of its own accord in the form of a massive black shadow passing over the main mast¡¯s flag summit.

    ¡°You missed one,¡± he snarled mostly to himself.

    He rounded on the quarterdeck to see the stranger at the nav station and Tim at the helm.

    This Drake had fully expected. ¡°Status!¡± he shouted over the cannons¡¯ racket.

    The Blunder Twins were working the Maiden¡¯s main belt teeth to the limits of their technology. Both boys were firing blindly into the mist, trying to hit the enigmatic shadows which, despite their massive size, continued to evade the guns¡¯ arcing showers of plasma.

    ¡°Cease fire!¡±, Drake roared.

    Their fruitless barrage came to an abrupt halt. At which Drake allowed himself a brief self-satisfied smirk. It wasn''t just any beast who could simply order the Blunder Twins to stop blasting things and not get lit on fire themselves for the effort.

    ¡°Status!¡± Drake shouted again, sheathing the sword he hadn¡¯t remembered drawing as he bounded up the quarterdeck steps.

    ¡°Can¡¯t rightly say Captain!¡± Tim replied when he reached the top. ¡°We met this fog screen about an hour or so ago and it¡¯s throwing our sensors around like . Then that massive thing came out of nowhere ¡­ !¡±

    He flashed a rude hand gesture towards the bow. ¡°And then those two brainless saards started shooting at it and I think they¡¯ve just made it angry!¡±

    It was only after the last thirty seconds replayed themselves in Drake¡¯s mind when a sudden lurching realization seized control over him and turned his heart to solid granite.

    He threw a wild eye about. When what it sought failed to manifest he asked, ¡°where''s Ellie?¡± with a sharply pronounced urgency that naturally flew right between the Marsupial ensign¡¯s prong ears.

    Tim mimicked Drake¡¯s movements before answering, genuinely, if clinically, puzzled, ¡°I thought she was with you.¡±

    The dense black chip in Drake¡¯s chest exploded to a ball of churning materia, halfway between liquified mineral and charged gas.

    ¡°What?¡±

    Tim aimed a finger at a looming black mass just off the bow. The scaley slope of its back gently nudged the tip of the bowsprit as the creature rode the Abyssal tide waves below them.

    ¡°Stow sails!¡± he ordered automatically. The herd complied with speedy intensity.

    ¡°When that thing ¡­¡±

    ¡°Leviathan,¡± Drake corrected.

    ¡°Appeared,¡± Tim continued, tracing a rough shape in the air, ¡°Ellie went down to fetch you. When neither of you came back I sent the new beast to check on your status.¡±

    ¡°Did you see any other beast below?¡± Drake asked the Oreamnos. A trace of unreal panic starting to creep into his voice.

    Drake knew that to abandon one''s senses when things were going horribly wrong was the quickest and surest way to get into even bigger trouble. But he had also spent enough time around Ellie to know that sense had exactly no sway over the heart.

    ¡°Nay Captain,¡± came the new mate¡¯s stagnant reply.

    Drake¡¯s magnol chamber of a heart stood a hair¡¯s breadth away from erupting.

    Under most similar circumstances, he would have waved his feelings away as irrational and unproductive and then would have castigated himself for being too overbearing and overprotective.

    But in the wise, and thus seldom heard or heeded, words of Professor Shanter, the heart and the mind are their own individual creatures. More akin to dominion deities than biological components. Each ran its own realm in accord with its separate needs and wants and in this accord generally operated on entirely distinctive wavelengths, indecipherable to all but the most pervasive and attentive minds. And even then only with the multiplicative powers of hindsight.

    Drake wove an abominable mental curse string against himself. His many insubstantiations had already cost him the latest conscript note to his marque letter. The gods could damn him to the coldest sphere of oblivion if he was about to let Ellie slip into that same void.

    He was about to head below to do something he hadn¡¯t entirely sorted out yet when something monstrously huge and black lunged out of the port side Abyss and with barely a minor glance wrenched the fin¡¯s hydraulic geartrain out of alignment.

    As if to prove his neocortex right, at that very instant there came an impressively loud SNAP as the Leviathan made another impossibly nimble pass over them.

    For a horrible instant Drake feared it had severed the main power cable. If that happened their chances of making a round trip would be pounding on Drachyn¡¯s floorboards.

    Then another black shape, considerably smaller and more canine, landed with a hard, crunching THUMP at the mast¡¯s foot.

    ¡°Crow!¡± Drake and the Oreamnos yelled at once.

    Both were at their mate¡¯s side at the same instant. Both equally amazed to find the Wolf not only very much alive but already most of the way back to his feet.

    It took Drake a moment to discern that the crunch had been the resulting failure of the deck planks to bear the force of the adolescent beast¡¯s impressive impact.

    Drake, now fully reverted into Captain-mode, asked curtly, ¡°can you still climb?¡±

    Crow nodded.

    ¡°Is there anything up there to mount yet?¡±

    Crow nodded again.

    Drake wagged an ear at the height of Crow¡¯s fall.

    ¡°Off you go then.¡±

    The Wolf nodded and flew right back to the top almost as fast as he had come down.

    Even under such oppressive conditions, Drake couldn''t help sparing a moment for appreciation. Then it was back to business.

    First things first, if the Leviathan was awake that meant they couldn¡¯t be more than a few leagues off their plotted point. It also meant that they, or at least somebody corporeal and unfriendly, were expected.

    Drake turned on the Oreamnos. ¡°What¡¯s our bearing?¡±

    ¡°Unknown Captain. Our chart and compass are all over the map.¡±

    ¡°Well figure it out. And tell me as soon as you have something.¡±

    The beast nodded and nimbly vaulted back over to the nav station.

    Drake followed suit. Exercising a single tally margin¡¯s more restraint in climbing back to claim the helm.

    The brainy giant relinquished it readily but did not return to his usual post below boards. With Ellie gone and the Sailing Master occupied he was the next in rank order for the First Mate post.

    He took Ellie¡¯s spot tentatively, which gave Drake an idea.

    ¡°Hey Steve,¡± he called into the intercom. The floating head bobbed into stationary view above the nav station a few seconds later.

    ¡°You wrang mister big boss sir?¡±

    ¡°I need a favor. Float yourself below and see if you can see any signs of ¡­¡±

    What, exactly? Clearly he hadn¡¯t thought this idea through entirely.

    ¡°Anything unusual.¡±

    If Steve had had eyebrows one would have landed in Crow¡¯s lap.

    Lacking it he threw what was a quizzical look at Tim, whose profound ungift for normal facial decrypting left him with little choice but to shrug.

    Likely having expected as much, Steve turned back to Drake and, having been suitably reminded that he had no face, chose to say rather than surreptitiously imply, ¡°define ¡®unusual¡¯, Captain¡±.

    Drake had only half of his answer configured when Tim plucked Steve out of the air with both hands like a sports ball and dunked him through the open hatch. At which the Goat yelled ¡°score!¡±

    Steve''s belligerent curse was drowned out by the Twins unleashing a random volley at a looming shadow.

    ¡°I said hold your damned fire!¡± Drake shouted, more at the guns themselves than at the Twins as they were more likely to listen.

    ¡°Tim, go check on our reserve tanks. If we''re going to drop out of the sky I''d like to have an idea when so I can plan my last words accordingly.¡±

    Tim nodded silently and headed off after Steve. As his head was dipping a thought snagged on Drake¡¯s brain. The young Captain looked down at himself then yelled after Tim, ¡°and grab my cloak when you come back up will you?¡±

    A hand and a raised thumb was Tim¡¯s answer. He hadn¡¯t made it five more steps when the entire ship lurched like a bodied sofa.

    A quick glance over the side revealed a colossal black mass scraping along the ship¡¯s underbelly. Drake leaned his head farther over the gunwale than most doctors or physicists would have advised, making sure that none of their essential components had come loose.

    ¡°Damage report!¡± he shouted.

    ¡°Nothing a little boot string and grog won¡¯t fix Captain,¡± the Oreamnos replied dryly.

    Drake let out a frustrated snort. He¡¯d forgotten how much he loathed this saarding fog. It had nearly been the death of him the last time he¡¯d traversed it alone, and unless his eyesight had taken a substantive cut in the interim or it had gotten several shades darker since then.

    He had seen Leviathan before. knew that they possessed some magickal method of keeping themselves airborne. But this did nothing to absolve the fact that he couldn¡¯t see the damn things until they were close enough to kiss.

    Paradoxically, his feelings of helplessness and inadequacy in this instance only fueled his determination. Perhaps a bit beyond the reach of wisdom or even sanity.

    If Ellie had been there she would have easily pegged him down with some snarky comment about overcompensation and mast length.

    He thumbed the intercom switch and almost literally barked into the hand phone, ¡°half speed.¡±

    A heart¡¯s swallow later a high, scratchy whine like a temperamental kettle came from abaft as Tim cranked open the reverse gates. Sleeves of carbide-coated metal parted along the rims of the vector engines. Catching and diverting portions of their hot ionized thrust forward, which dropped their already hobbled pace to a crawl nearly instantaneously.

    For any beast wondering why everything aboard Pyrate ships is always fastened, strapped, nailed or bolted down at all times, or why there appear to be random wood or metal rods stuck on and into everything, this is the primary reason.

    ¡°Hold steady,¡± Drake ordered. He stared into the amorphous mire at approximately the spot where the lookout post should be.

    ¡°Crow! Anything I should know?!¡±

    A rapid sentence composed of sharp, angular tweets came from the masthead. This was Crow''s version of shouting ¡°all clear!¡±

    Thuswise informed, Drake pushed a small button on a panel in the wheel hub.

    ¡°Tim! How''s it look?¡±

    After a few moments a static brush came over the speaker, out of which a staticky voice shuddered through the harassed speakers.

    It would take three attempts for these to crystalize into intelligible speech.

    ¡°The Twins'' spurt of roughhousing didn''t help any, but we should be fine. Provided we can get some power through the sails soon.¡±

    ¡°Define ¡®soon¡¯.¡±

    ¡°Two or three hours.¡±

    ¡°Understood,¡± Drake grumbled.

    ¡°If I may be so bold Captain, I''d recommend getting those little hooligans out of their chairs for the time being. You know ¡­ just so that they''re not tempted.¡±

    Drake could practically see the petulant grimace on his engineer¡¯s face as he said that last word, and the expected concordant smile found itself on his face.

    It wasn¡¯t a real smile. Not in the conative way. For such a thing didn¡¯t belong in this place or time and on the whole the universe was extremely proficient at weeding out that which had no place.

    But from all angles it put on the act well enough to unleash the ballista coils winding his brain and let his thoughts fly free.

    ¡°Noted.¡±

    Then, without warning, Steve shot out of the hold like a bolt-charged nexel. He soared over the quarter rail and came to a physics-defying halt an inch from Drake¡¯s snout.

    ¡°Woah!¡± both yelled in mutual surprise. The forest weave of a cloak dropping from Steve¡¯s teeth to drape over the wheel.

    ¡°Beggin¡¯ yer pardon Captain,¡± Steve said with a untoward crackle of conscience about his tone that made the hairs around Drake¡¯s nose bristle with static. ¡°We¡¯ve got a problem.¡±

    Drake¡¯s heart turned from rock to glass to plasma and then back again in the span of a few beats.

    ¡®Tell me something I don¡¯t know,¡¯ his head said.

    ¡°Go ahead,¡± said his mouth as his hands put on the cloak.

    Steve neither wasted time nor minced words. ¡°I think Ellie¡¯s been done away with.¡±

    ¡°What?!¡± Drake blared. His molten heart erupted in a geyser that spread through his veins, transmuting his bones and muscles into rods of solid steel.

    This moment of adrenal shock a dormant power awoke. Only for an instant. A kind of strength, named the Regis Vitae by the alchemists, rarely called upon by mortals poured out from his very marrow, fractally scaling through his fibers, cells and tendons until he nearly crushed the pressure-treated wooden wheel spokes in his hands into pencil twigs.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    Steve paused. His mouth opened and shut in nearest imitation of a consternated blink as he could manage.

    ¡°Begging yer supreme pardon fer the poor turn of phrase Captain. I meant only to say that someone, or rather something¡¯s gone and done a runner with yer mistress.¡±

    Drake¡¯s head and heart were so shot that neither had the space to fully process that last, slightly less accidental, crude mannerism.

    ¡°You¡¯re sure.¡± The words came out of him like water from a sun-drying sock.

    Steve bobbled a nod. ¡°Sure as I''m floatin'' here. She¡¯s nowhere to be found onboard.¡±

    Thought patterns formed and melted in Drake¡¯s head like nested snowflakes. Their common through line was a single question that glinted menacingly in the air between the conferring heads. Whether this was because one was afraid or the other too polite to voice it was unclear.

    But either way, Steve¡¯s maker was not a condolent, or indeed any kind of sensitive, sort. And any artist could tell a soul for a tool kit, and even the dimmest light among them would have known Tim¡¯s for one wanting anything sharper than a screwdriver.

    Steve took his blanched silence as permission to elaborate. Which he did in this wise: ¡°I admit even I didn¡¯t notice until I started lookin¡¯ for it. But soon as I scanned fer anomalies there it was, plain as day. A trail bluer than the sky leadin¡¯ straight into the bloody hull.¡±

    Drake stroked his muzzle. A sure sign of the greatest trouble.

    His rational sense tried to console him that this was a valuable piece of insight into their enemy¡¯s capabilities. The pup inside that had grown up on this island yelped as though feeling the familiar sting of his father¡¯s disciplinary hand.

    He knew ghosts could parse solid objects as easily as glass, much like how everyone knew that forks were a poor utensil partner for soup. But had they always had the power of transposition? If so had Noah or his father or Nikodontus known? And if not then where had they gotten it?

    Another resounding crash directly into their keel that bumped the ship a good six inches nearer to daylight sent shock tremors of every dire emotion known to science raking through his nervous system.

    They had to get above this saarding Nihil field RIGHT NOW or they¡¯d soon be joining their supernal guest in semper necrose fidelis.

    He pressed the intercom button again. ¡°Tim, you think she''s got it in her to take us sky side?¡±

    After a thoughtful pause Tim''s honest, crackly response came back. ¡°I can¡¯t say definitively ¡®no¡¯. But I wouldn¡¯t exactly stake my life on it either.¡±

    Drake was in his element now. With nothing but a ship under his boots, a sword at his side and a clear objective in front of him, the whole rest of the universe just seemed to fall right into its place.

    Here, in the Pyrate¡¯s world, next words came easily.

    ¡°I¡¯d just ease into it if I were you Captain. That last brush knocked something loose on the port side. I can¡¯t tell exactly the extent of the bad news without physically going down there, but if my readings down here are anywhere near accurate, that whole fin might snap out on you if you¡¯re not careful. Then we¡¯re looking at a one way trip at the very, and I emphasize, very, best.¡±

    ¡®Don¡¯t I know it,¡¯ Drake thought.

    ¡°Don''t worry, I''ll be gentle,¡± he said aloud. Then he closed the intercom channel and shouted over the whole ship, ¡°every beast hold fast!¡±

    ¡®And think lofty thoughts,¡¯ his other voice added.

    Keeping his left hand on the wheel he worked the pitch and yaw levers with the other. Adjusting all three of their rotational angles purely by his own sense of balance and working in close concert with Tim to keep their thrust,

    Even without instruments, out in the open air he could have done this kind of basic maneuver in his sleep. Using the bodies of the planet below and cosmos above to keep them oriented.

    But the uniform mass of vomit-gray forced him to fall back on experience and instinct to make sure he didn¡¯t accidentally veer them dramatically off course. Or worse, dump them all into the Abyss.

    This took what otherwise would have been an elementary exercise and dragged it out into ten painstaking minutes of constantly fidgeting with the controls, making many minute adjustments, coordinating all his efforts with the Sailing Master and masterfully tuning out Steve¡¯s incessant narration of Leviathan¡¯s every move.

    What had become apparent to all of them during these past few days was that the techno-arcane breakthrough that answered mainly to Steve had as much the makings of a child as a piece of artwork or technological inventory. Meaning that he had inherited bits from his creator that were beyond any of his intentional design parameters. Including his propensity to let his mind run ahead of his mouth, and vice versa.

    This was the crisp excellence of Pyrate training at work. Which wasn¡¯t to downplay Drake¡¯s particular skill by any means. But he was the Academy¡¯s golden pupil for a reason.

    Being a Pyrate, on top of being a Drake, he had learned early the sorts of hard lessons the average beast would sometimes go until middle age without so much as hearing of. Such as the inherent danger of letting eagerness get the better of him.

    Even when he finally thought he could see a tantalizing slip of daylight his hands kept their pace steady and true, as if riding on a bomb¡¯s taught trigger wire.

    When they finally broke through the miasmic barrier, Drake waited for his eyes to adjust before taking professional stock of his surroundings. He saw nothing except the unbroken layer of murky cloud vapor in every direction.

    Save one.

    ¡°By the gods,¡± the Sailing Master whispered.

    Looming off their bow, only a few parayards away, was a baleful craggy mass of an island that Drake estimated to be roughly fifty parayards across. It was peaked by a megalithic black spire which stabbed into the pale mid-day sky like a cobbled, midnight spear.

    The only open area of flat land that could be seen from this distance was totally surrounded by a tangled field of warped, viny simulacrums of trees. These were twisted and knotted together like a den of coiled snakes, creating what looked like the world¡¯s largest malevolent tumble weed.

    The necrophagic fog swirled around the island¡¯s Stygian base like a kraken feeding frenzy. With the monsters¡¯ innumerable seething tentacles winding and grabbing into every nook and cranny of the ebony shoreline. Bursting through and strangling the very stone where no natural purchase was on offer.

    Drake whistled a long and slow drone through his fangs in the way his sire had inadvertently taught his sons to do.

    He didn¡¯t believe in fate. Or at least he didn¡¯t like to stake much on it if and whenever he could help it. And since he¡¯d inherited the popular understanding of fate and coincidence being two strings on the same puppet, he¡¯d long ago rinsed that off in the bath too.

    Still, he couldn¡¯t deny that their timing was uncanny. If they had stayed submerged just a few minutes longer they would have become a small, and rather embarrassing, blemish on the island¡¯s obsidian carapace.

    ¡°Thanks Nik,¡± he muttered. Feeling, despite every one of his better senses chiming like bells in a windstorm, like maybe just a bit of the old soothsayer had worn off on him.

    Or maybe it was that the old Saint¡¯s ghost was hanging around here somewhere.

    Could he have been the one that ¡­ ?

    Drake surveyed the mass of shadows and creeping flame-red tendrils before them. Proof for his expectations, but an added grain of slag to his ego, he didn¡¯t recognize a square or cubic bit of the mangled mess.

    He appealed to Crow¡¯s higher eye. ¡°Can you see a place to set down?!¡±

    Crow responded with a fluid sentence of tweets which the Sailing Master interpreted as a set of broad coordinates which he entered into the table¡¯s logarithmic charter. A triage of concentric crank-fed number wheels, the analog setup could calculate any trajectory in three dimensions with an accuracy hitherto only achievable by Sabathian snipers.

    It would surprise nobody to learn that such an ingenious marvel was designed and patented by Nicolai Bombadash.

    The selfsame, self-made technocrat who, by way of his unconventional technological and innovative genius, had made himself the single richest beast who had ever lived as well as the simultaneous personal hero of Tim, Hemlock and the Blunder Twins.

    ¡°As improbable a feat as the old gizzard¡¯s tax receipts I¡¯d wager,¡± Ellie had once remarked.

    A few deft keystrokes later and the nav station¡¯s cartography algorithms calculated the most efficient route to the landing area, and within seconds it flashed the all-clear green which he relayed to Drake by stabbing the air with his thumbs.

    Drake then gave the order to ¡°¡¯lease full sails¡± and ¡°press at full speed¡±. Risky though such a maneuver was at this range, they complied.

    The second sun was starting to dip and Drake knew the Gnarled Wood was one of the last places they wanted to be caught alive or dead after dark.

    Drake circled tight rings above the area Crow had designated. His decade¡¯s harsh experience notwithstanding, the dark beauty of the evil jeweled stage below didn¡¯t escape him. He was not, after all, soulless.

    The rusty beaches perpetually slashed with refracted rods of twilight flame. The quiet grandeur of the dark mirror prism slabs of the midnight basin.

    These were not actual minerals, Drake knew. Not the sand, not the soil, not the bedrock. None had an ounce of naturality about them in any respect or aspect or ration.

    All were false. Mimicry. Sorcery by any other name. An upside down, backwards and crooked satire of a looking glass simulacrum.

    Material coagulants of the sire Drake¡¯s impregnable iron will. Crude, hard-edged imitations of the natural splendor he, and many dark wizards before him, by their nature had sought to cordon and control.

    Most other beasts lacking his intimate familiarity would be easily snared in the mesmeric net cast by the lake of static fire. Even if they were trying to land a ship on it. Which was not a coincidence.

    Crow directed Drake as best he was able, but even for the Wolf¡¯s extraordinary eye and the ship¡¯s seeing through the mangled mess of flora was like trying to read through a straining cloth.

    Drake spun them over to the proposed landing site. It turned out to be a round flint axe-blade of a cliff overlooking a particularly dense halfmoon tentacular thicket.

    Even as a pup Drake had sometimes wondered where the Gnarled Wood had come from.

    Not the actual plants. He¡¯d watched his father and Nikodontus conjure the first ones out of a dark materia cocktail of their own blood and sacrificial bone meal gotten from the gods knew where.

    No. Where had the name, the ¡®Gnarled Wood¡¯, come from?

    Not from any of his family, Drake was sure. And probably not anybody who¡¯d actually seen it before, let alone set foot, hoof, wing or tail in it.

    As someone who had been brought up in and under that wicked grove, it was the youngest Drake¡¯s view, even if he would never think to word it so, that to call that tangled matte of biomass a forest was like calling a blunderbuss a pop gun.

    It made sense in the same way it did to say that the suns and moons rose and set. But as any mathematician whose fortunes had them, whether by coincidence or errand, aligned with the sight markers of the fabled ¡®pirate gun¡¯ could tell, the only thing that generally went POP in the vicinity of a blunderbuss was its target¡¯s head.

    It was still well within sight of the coast. Hopefully outside the reach, or at least notice, of any Naarfynder who may be out searching for a late snack.

    Had he been any other beast, one not armed with his extensive foreknowledge, Drake might not have believed the tales of wild, dark-magick monsters roaming the island¡¯s gloomy tangles at night.

    He might have relegated the idea of warped, demented abominations with the power to consume and digest life down to its most fundamental essence to the same empirical place most adult beasts stashed the knowledge of ghosts, fairies, hogfathers, nymphs, syrens and other such sideways wonder-mill fodder.

    But, being as he was himself, and more a Pyrate, he understood that working on the faulty assumption that one knows everything was an error made by the terminally ignorant and the hopelessly deranged.

    Drake powered down the thrusters and ordered only a single anchor cable to be let loose.

    He ordered Tim to keep the sails loose and the engines on standby, in case they needed to make a swift exit.

    He told Adrian and Bon Bon to gear up and be ready to fight and ordered the Sailing Master, whose name he made another mental note to query at the first opportunity, to retrieve and distributed the Nulls equally among the chosen ground party.

    ¡°We should all go with you,¡± the Oreamnos said, indicating the rest of the herd, who were already kitting up. ¡°You''ll need all the support you can get down there.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Drake stated in the stern, flat voice of command. ¡°If anything happens to us, I want you and Tim to take the Maiden and get the saard away from this island. As fast as you can fly her. Am I clear?¡±

    Without waiting for an answer he pointed back astern, against the trajectory of the suns.

    ¡°I know exactly what I¡¯m asking. But if this goes belly up, we need at least one witness and it takes at least two to pilot a ship this size.¡±

    He laid a hand on the Oreamnos¡¯ shoulder, as he was the closer of the pair and because Tim¡¯s would have been awkward to reach.

    ¡°Amelia¡¯s the Headmaster¡¯s goddaughter. Go back and ¡­¡±

    He stopped himself from saying ¡°tell him not to send anyone after us¡± as it was a waste of words. Not simply because the Headmaster outranked him.

    Which, if one took the official Pyrate credo on faith, he didn¡¯t. On account of each individual being, first and foremost, his own actor.

    Although any sensible Pyrate who¡¯d made it more than five minutes into the game knew that figurative philosophy, however grand or eloquent, didn¡¯t buy a single gram of food, an ounce of water or drop of fuel.

    Few besides Avlon knew that Flint had once seriously considered hanging a sign above the front door reading ¡®Abandon Yer Faith, or Be Ready to Put It to the Sword¡¯.

    Fact: Avlon was the Headmaster. Which meant he held supreme executive control over all the Academy¡¯s assets. Including, but not at all limited to its militia defense flotilla, the armory and the ¡°X Factor¡±, Goldfree. In short, he held most of the deck, ergo he was in charge.

    But all this was so readily understood that it didn¡¯t even count as a factor anymore. It was baked into the very format of the calculation.

    No.

    The cause of Drake¡¯s consternate disentanglement of thought was because he knew they sounded heartless. Also he knew full well the folly of trying to give Avlon an order, even notwithstanding the power imbalance.

    Thus it was he chose a more generic line that, because he knew Prokvert would appreciate it, drew the faintest lines of an animal snarl into his features. ¡°Report our failure.¡±

    Drake buckled himself into his full battle kit as he talked and threw over his ¡°adventurer''s cloak¡±, as Ellie sometimes referred to his favorite forest cloth.

    He did this to distract himself from the very distinct possibility that Amelia and Ellie were already dead and possibly listless otherworld slaves by now. Or worse, they might have been sacrificed to the Naarfynders, as he knew the unkempt thralls often did to sate the ravenous hunters between culls.

    He couldn''t afford to burden himself with maybes or perhaps. As both Nikodontus and Professor Shanter were both so fond of saying, in near enough identical terms to beg the question whether it wasn¡¯t some universal Tortoise saying, ¡°until the possible becomes actual it¡¯s irrelevant.¡±

    As a consequence, his molten caldera of a heart froze into a plate of tarnished mirror obsidian.

    Drake ran a routine equipment check with Adrian and Bon Bon. After determining they were ready, he started to hook himself into the rope sling and prepared to head over the side.

    He was about to throttle them into approach when a hand the size of his head clad in thick brown leather waved to him from before the quarter rail. He looked over to see Tim, armed and in full battle harness, with Crow and Hemlock standing in full battle dress at his back.

    ¡°We''re coming with you,¡± he stated.

    ¡°No,¡± Drake stabbed back against his own wishes. ¡°It''s too risky. Who knows what¡¯s been festering down there these past six years.¡±

    ¡°All the more reason for us to all go,¡± Tim said. ¡°Elementary algebraic symmetry. Greater uncertainty equals greater risk. More eyes plus more guns equals less chance for surprises. Ergo less risk. Thus the equation balances.¡±

    This knocked Drake back a step. Of all the mouths he¡¯d expect to hear this kind of sideways reasoning from, Tim¡¯s ranked just one spot Zenward of Hemlock, who tied with the Blunder Twins.

    ¡°We¡¯re all trained for battle,¡± the Marsupial said with a mild side helping of disgust. ¡°We all know the risks. None of us is afraid of the dark.¡±

    ¡®You¡¯ve never really seen it,¡¯ Drake¡¯s internal dragon said. It¡¯s fangs curling over each word like ivory cage bars.

    The moment came and went. The thought sank into the abyss of the past. And in its place was a well of sympathy and regret.

    He knew it was overly harsh. He knew it. Nearly every creature that found his or her way to the Academy did so through a gauntlet of one form or another.

    But that only made them stronger. The brambles that had dug into their skin and bled them in their youth had become kindling for their hearts in age.

    One by one he met their gaze. Challenging them. Studying them as the ancient Spartan elders examined each new cub that came into the world. Searching with predatory keenness for any signs of weakness or insincerity.

    He found none. Not that he¡¯d expected to.

    Though it may have been logically sound to question the objectivity of his assessment given the circumstances, it ultimately didn¡¯t matter. The decision was already made. All that was left was to settle with the consequences.

    With an indifferent shrug and in a tone as used when ordering food at a restaurant Hemlock said, ¡°personally, I''d take any excuse to get away from those two.¡±

    She bobbed her chin over to where the Blunder Twins were merely tussling and chasing on another about the deck.

    The thought then sprinted across Drake¡¯s mind, waving to him in passing as it went, that the Twins were only fourteen years old.

    He cast one last consolatory look over all of them before letting out a defeated, but grateful, huff.

    ¡°Very well.¡±

    Thus relieved of their mutinous duties the herd almost literally lined up before their Captain to receive orders.

    Tim was first on Drake¡¯s priority list, him being the Acting First Officer. ¡°If we''re not back by this time tomorrow, you, Adrian and ¡­¡±

    He paused. What was the Goat¡¯s name again? He scribbled another note for the mental discard pile.

    ¡°Sailing Master whatsisname take the Maiden and get the saard out of here.¡±

    Tim straightened indignantly. Hadn¡¯t they just had this conversation? ¡°Hold on!¡± he bleated.

    And as if pulled by an invisible string, Steve the Skull joined in the scolding. ¡°Are your brains leakin¡¯ there beast?¡±

    Adrian took this as a chance to throw in his two fennings. ¡°Yeah. What¡¯s the deal? You just said ¡­¡±

    Drake trained his sternest Captain¡¯s eye on all of them. Choking out their rising discord with a clenched eldritch fist.

    Evidently his father¡¯s assessment of him being the magickal equivalent of the number zero wasn¡¯t entirely accurate.

    ¡°We can¡¯t leave the Maiden empty handed,¡± he said slowly, deliberately, as though explaining complex algebra to an invalid. Delicately but resolutely committing to each syllable like a needle driving a stitch.

    ¡°She¡¯s our only way out of here. And if this thing goes the way I fear it might we¡¯re going to say our goodbyes with extreme prejudice. You get me?¡±

    They did. And they nodded accordingly.

    ¡°When that time comes, I¡¯d like to know I have some competent beasts,¡± he opened a gestural palm afore, ¡°up here who won¡¯t ¡®accidentally¡¯ blow up the ship,¡± the quotation marks were so bold in his tone that they hung themselves on the air without any extra help from his hands, ¡°or sink the bloody island until we¡¯re ready. Clear?¡±

    Again, nods all round.

    Drake looked from face to somber face. He could see they understood rationally. But still, some part of them remained unfulfilled.

    It was the Pyrate spirit he knew. The lust for action, the compulsive need to preserve honor not easily denied and almost never fully quenched.

    A light sparked on in Drake¡¯s head. Some fraction of which must have shown through his eyes as even before the first word left his mouth he could already feel all of their counterpoints peeking out of the trenches, ready to charge at the first quiet moment.

    ¡°Besides, Tim, you''re our only other trained pilot.¡±

    Adrian¡¯s mouth clamped shut.

    Steve¡¯s jaw hung partially ajar. His teeth ground the air as though punishing an invisible nut.

    Tim¡¯s face went blank as mirror copper while his brain grappled with the how and why of the moment. To wit, how and why such an obvious point could have not occurred to him first. Or at least long before now.

    ¡°Oh yeah. Right. You¡¯re right. I am. That¡¯s right.¡±

    Steve bounced playfully once between Tim¡¯s tall ears and remarked, ¡°If yer thinker''s getting a bit worn I''d be happy to take over for a while.¡±

    This got a bout of genuine humor from everyone, including Drake. His dry slab of a heart melted just slightly along the rim as the image of Ellie¡¯s smile wedged itself between his mental lenses, only to harden into a black razor again when the fictitious reality of the event came crashing back into focus.

    ¡°Alright,¡± he said finally, turning and addressing Tim as reluctant Acting Captain.

    ¡°Keep a body in the crow''s nest at all times. We''ll signal you with flares if we run into serious trouble. Whatever you do, and I''m sure I don''t need to tell you this, but I''m going to anyway, DON¡¯T let the Twins out of your sight for an instant. Copy?¡±

    ¡°Aye Captain,¡± all three answered with the utmost seriousness.

    ¡°Good,¡± Drake said, firmly back in Captain mode. ¡°Now that¡¯s settled, every beast, let''s get a move on! I¡¯d rather not give the Necrophages a nicer dinner platter than we already have.¡±

    Drake knew that no one outside of his father¡¯s inner sphere could know what a Necrophage was. Indeed, he himself had only ever heard the term in distant passing and was pretty sure his father had made it up.

    But thanks to Nikodontus he knew what was meant, mostly by the old sage beast, when he mentioned Spill Thoughts.

    What the term Necrophage was to the grand sum of unnatural nightmare spawn, Spill Thoughts were to all the most vital ideas that were not spoken and yet were clearly understood.

    The ¡°Dark Matter of conversation¡± as The Alchemist had put it.

    Thanks to this invaluable army of quantized information bits, his meaning couldn¡¯t have been clearer if he¡¯d made it out of window glass.

    On his order a quartet of woven steel braids headed by electromagnetic plumbata were driven by seismic spring coils into the cliff¡¯s alien soil.

    Sailing 101: Some Finer Points on Attunement. Any excursion on or over land carries an inextricable cost. Namely the fractional power consumption, owing to the dearth of ventral particle flow. Thus limiting a ship¡¯s power return to her sails. Strictly limiting their offensive, defensive and aerobatic options to those achievable on internal energy alone.

    Therefore, it is generally advisable that a Pyrate Captain refrain from conducting operations over land to those wherein the substantial risk of becoming grounded are calculatedly minimal, preferable or unavoidable.

    Misloff¡¯s Unmoderated Guide to Wayfaring

    Like the rest of his herd, Drake had studied Misloff¡¯s alleged works. Like they he knew also to measure the worth of printed words in how much rice they bought him.

    Much of what the over-acclaimed, self-revered, obsessively philanthropic playwright, poet and author extraordinaire wrote was practically soluble. This much was common knowledge among experienced wayfarers also.

    But Misloff hadn¡¯t become a global literary tycoon by playing his cards evenly straight. Even the half of his corpus that was allegorical, misleading or outright fictitious was generally engaging enough to make the lonely watch hours pass less noticeably. Thus were his ideas generally, if not accepted, at least begrudgingly tolerated by aureole officers and continental command corps.

    Under ordinary conditions Misloff would have been correct in his assessment about the unwisdom of hanging a ship over a bank of inert rock for an unspecified number of hours.

    However, Naarfynder was no normal island. And these were no ordinary stones.

    Power aboded here. A primeval sort. A chaotic sort. The signet seal of a twisted personality¡¯s excrement domain was stamped upon every atomic structure and quantum matrix of this infernal abstract playground.

    Sorcery 101, Elemental Basics: Animancy, as it is commonly understood, is the art of ¡®life magick¡¯. It deals with the acts of willful reimbuing, reimbibing, rebinding or redistributing the natural life giving properties, or ¡®essence¡¯, of a living being.

    By diffuse contrast, Necromancy is the art of mimicking, replicating, manipulating or outright manufacturing those same processes in an ordinarily inorganic, or nonliving, body.

    Misloff¡¯s Moderated Spell Guide, Chapter 2, ¡®Atlas of the Occult¡¯

    As any halfwit arcane acolyte could and would freely acknowledge, the physical properties of the so-called ¡°life force¡±, whether going by chi, prana, brahmin, ashlar, aura or aether this century, were functionally indistinguishable from the more profane forces like electromagnetism or gravity.

    Consequently, the Iron Maiden¡¯s ordinary harbor cables¡¯ conventional power conduit channels were perfectly adequate for syphoning energy directly from the bones of this island-shaped necromantic magickal construct.

    Drake knew this.

    As did he know that ghosts and their Necrophagic predators no more needed ropes or gantries to scale such a paltry distance than Avians needed ladders in order to fly.

    But, staying in line with his earlier coincidently objectively rational premise of their flying within narrowing margins for escape velocity and vectors on this mission, by his order there was to be no other direct contact with the land until or unless he specifically, that is in the flesh, gave the command to do otherwise.

    Until such time they were to stow the fins, lock and brace the guns and hunker down until nightfall.

    ¡°And if we¡¯re not back by dark,¡± Drake had told Tim privately, ¡°take her offshore and do a perimeter sweep until crest noon. And under NO, and I mean NO, circumstances are you to come onshore and look for us. Either we come back to you or you will leave without us. Is that understood?¡±

    Only once Tim had answered with an unambiguous ¡°aye Captain¡± did Drake and Crow slide down the aft anchor cord together as vanguard set. With the rest of the waiting party acting as first line backup and aerial fire support.

    The Sailing Master took to Crow¡¯s usual post with such speed and cunning deftness as to firmly seat himself on the midway rung between the elite Oreamnic Sturmj?gers and Crow himself. It was only a shame that no beast other than himself had been keeping score.

    Tim, by contrast, was working on the most unsolvable problem of his life. Trying to chase, herd, corral and finally coerce, in that order, the Blunder Twins below boards and failing miserably in that same order.

    Eventually he resorted to waving Steve¡¯s magickal headlights in front of them as a shiny, and helpfully rather noisy, lure. This worked only because Steve had the brilliant idea of convincing the pair that if they could catch him there might be a reward made of sugary dough in it for them.

    There was not, of course. And no doubt there would be endless whining about it to bear through once they inevitably were forced to unlock the hatch.

    But that was for then. For now they could be sure there would be no distractions or wayward fireworks. At least not from their end.

    Crow first touched down like a wraith on the sable plane which, when viewed from only head height away, peered back sightlessly through a field of sunken maroon eyes.

    Drake almost literally followed in the Shinobi Wolf¡¯s shadow.

    Together they combed the nearby tree line for threats, and when they found none he signaled for the next pair to join them.

    The female set navigated the cable flight as though they were abnormally narrow stairs.

    With the efficient grace of a dance team, the instant their hoof and paw met terra incognita they set forth, drew their weapons and formed the counter angle of the males¡¯ open shield diamond.

    As he waited for his companions, Drake stalked cautiously over to the nearby cliff edge and took a long, hard look at the path that lay ahead of him.

    Impartially scanning and absorbing every detail of every rock, every glob of fleshy maroon and slash of wicked crimson amidst the swamp of ebony shadows. Categorically analyzing each and every knot and crescent dagger for any wandering parts. Namely those of a lunging out of the shadows persuasion.

    Falling back to his approach and seeing the rest of the ground party assembled and standing guard with expectant looks, Drake felt an irresistible compulsion to kindle another light of humor.

    In honor of Ellie? No! No. She wasn¡¯t dead yet. Not until he saw her body and checked her pulse ¡­

    At the risk of achieving the opposite result, in a move that stunned the whole herd into silence, Drake spun on a heel and spread his arms wide in the universal posture symbolizing ¡®universe¡¯ or ¡®look at me¡¯ or ¡®I¡¯m the center¡¯. Or, most often, all in one.

    Putting on his most convincing ringmaster hat he announced with theatrical comedy, ¡°ladies and gentle beasts of all ages! Boys and girls of all stripes, angles and scales! Welcome, one and all, to the Island of the Damned!¡±

 Chapter 15: A Plot in the Dark

    Amelia had spent many an hour alone in the dark contemplating odd and interesting topics. Granted, the overwhelming majority of those had been lying awake on her bed back home, but aside from the general comfort level the difference between then and now was entirely aesthetic.

    She didn¡¯t know how long she had been here. At some point during that span she had reached an irrevocable conclusion, which she had then proceeded to periodically mull over and quash down, but that now blazed in the forecastle of her mind and stared her down with the white hot intensity of a newborn star.

    That was that she was, in fact, completely, perfectly, and in the true spirit of the Labyrinth, hopelessly, lost.

    Though she''d known this for at least a good hour or so by this point, she was only now allowing herself to admit to it. The only reason she knew how much time had passed was because she had burned through three of her four pocket torches since she¡¯d been down here. Now the last torch was less than ten minutes from dying out.

    The big problem with caves, she decided as she trudged uneasily onward, was that every square inch of them looked exactly like every other square inch.

    If it weren¡¯t for gravity''s inexorable influence, she could have just as easily been walking on the ceiling for all the difference it would have made. She had contemplated trying to find her way back to the door and going in after Silver. But that idea evaporated when she realized she didn''t even know forward from backward anymore.

    She was as utterly and pointlessly lost as a beast could be.

    This wasn''t a narrow avenue of stalagmites like she''d been following before. It was a cold, dark, unevenly-floored cave, with large, sharp, angular protrusions jutting out in every conceivable direction. More than once she had felt a hot swell of gratitude for the bespoke rhicor-scale boots her mother had bought her as a going away present.

    Were it not for these she would have had a few large holes in her feet by now and little or no skin left below her knees.

    ¡°As vicious as a wyntyrdyr and tough as diamond,¡± the old cobbler had told Mrs. Roberts.

    And he had been right.

    Designed by evolution¡¯s exacting hands to deflect hunting spears and adolescent wyntyrdyrs¡¯ curved belly tusks, the armored hide of the rhicor fish wore the sheen of oiled pack ice in its depths. Which turned the creature into just another random spurt of sunlight in a river¡¯s rapids when not seen from just the right angle.

    Being about as long as Amelia was tall, it would seem only logical that the miraculous plates would be heavily prized, nigh deified, amongst Amurzan warriors. And indeed they were. Which was precisely the reason why only chieftains, warlords, authorized military staff, economic elites and esteemed political figures were permitted to wear more than supplementary bands of the stuff outside of ceremonial rituals or propagandistic pageants.

    The six expertly shaped bands guarding Amelia¡¯s calves and shins were just thick enough to be proof against small arms, and thus technically qualified under the thoroughly nebulous ¡®Castle Privilege Act¡¯. But once again, being the offspring of a famous, famously ruthless and, most poignantly, famously wealthy, ¡°Private Military Officer¡±, as the Amurzan senate referred to pirates who paid all their racket dues, had its privileges.

    It was amazing, Amelia thought, how fast a body and spirit dried out and toughened after just about a week spent absent a mother¡¯s tender warmth and stove.

    Like many privileged youths she had taken her above average living conditions for granted. Living under the roof of one of the most successful pirates of his, or any other living, generation had literally afforded her and her sisters the best their semi-aquatic region of the world had to offer.

    Whether it be food, medicine, clothes, education or any of life¡¯s myriad trims, trifles and fittings, the Roberts family had wanted for very little until their patron had been ripped from the world.

    Each of the following three years had been distended trials in and of themselves.

    The first had seen the disappearance of Amelia¡¯s older sister, Talia.

    The second the systematic seizure and foreclosure of most of Captain Roberts¡¯s tenant lands, side enterprises and capital assets by greedy ex partners, predatory bankers, corrupt tax officials and good old fashioned burglars. All of which Amurza sprouted in as abundant supply and variety as vegetation.

    The third and final year had seen Amelia, the middle and for all any beast knew sole surviving heir of the desecrated Roberts estate, make known her wish to follow in her late sire¡¯s legacy footsteps.

    Here, now, sitting blind and pitiful and alone with the bitter fruits of that dream come true, Amelia pondered on many of life¡¯s most ponderous conundrums in the way one ponders on a nonsensical dream.

    Thoughts like whether or not her famous father now being famously dead had anything to do with her mother letting her now only daughter, and indeed only family period, go with so little fuss, clubbed her fumbling faculties in the way tormenting mobs often did the weakling runt after knocking her to the ground and stomping on her favorite book while she watched in helpless agony.

    She stubbornly fought off the urge to cry by repeating one of her father¡¯s favorite expressions.

    ¡°Tears won¡¯t get you anywhere. They just blur your vision.¡±

    She and her father had, admittedly, not seen eye to eye on many an issue, not the least of which was their core ideal principles. Black Bart had earned his wealth and infamy through ruthless materialistic calculations and pragmatism.

    Whereas Amelia had always been drawn by the lure of the imaginative realm and was fascinated by the arts, both mystical and material.

    Her father had described both of these pursuits as ¡°pointless window gazing and wishing on stars¡±, with only subtle variations thereon.

    However, for all their many differences, of all the words Amelia could think of to describe her father, unwise or ignorant would not be among them. After all, he hadn''t become the richest and most statured pirate since Flint by having salt for wits.

    It was then that a ray of hope flashed into her mind as she remembered the parchment Silver had slipped into her hand.

    It was a slim hope she knew. But she had no other ideas. The irony that this was to be her first, and in all probability last, real leap into the realm of managing her own destiny was brought to her mind on a gleaming silver platter with a hefty side of sedative and melancholic sauce.

    It didn¡¯t escape her that one or both of those ingredients may just have been the early markers of dehydration or hypoglycemia masquerading as real emotions.

    But of course, she then thought, if any or all of the above were still happening inside her own head then what difference did it really make?

    Either way, what remained true was that if she didn¡¯t read the note now she¡¯d probably never get the chance, seeing as her last torch had less than ten minutes of light left in it.

    So then, with the last vestige of hope steadily consuming itself, she fished the tattered scrap out of her coat pocket. Ironically, it had been squished underneath all of her extra pocket torches.

    By the dimming light of her last torch Amelia began to read aloud. Albeit at a more ponderous gait than she was used to. Her eyes having considerable difficulty parsing Silver''s deselecting script.

    His disalivened state had clearly mangled his writing style, if he¡¯d ever had any to begin with.

    However, there being now no material barrier between his brain and his body enabled him to transmute thought directly, as it were, to parchment.

    This did not make the task of reading any easier. What with the letters being so incredibly fine and small she might have believed it if she¡¯d been told they¡¯d been typed in a butterfly¡¯s footprints.

    But as necessity is the mother of invention and a sinking lifeboat is the father of necessity, Amelia strapped her dwindling cranial resources to the task and after a few ponderous minutes of metaphorically scratching at the proverbial paint to reach the figurative bricks she at last came away with a serviceable transliteration of meaning, if not so much actual wording.

    A string of words passed over and through her mental eye. Raw meaning trickled into and around her very cells. This was the start of a dream, Amelia felt.

    She did not so much know as intuit also that it was the first stage of the dying process as well. The first gate between mortality and immaterial space, where the line between reality and fantasy becomes more of a fossil strata.

    But all of that was irrelevant. The optional paths before her were exactly twofold. Give up and die, or act and possibly live. This being the only action possible besides dying, there was no real choice at all.

    It cost her the first fourth of her light source¡¯s remaining lifespan, but she managed to extract the general arc, mill and cadence of Silver¡¯s penned paragraphs with gaps filled in by elementary deduction.

    The gist of what she deciphered went as follows:

    Alright lass, I¡¯ve not got the ink and methinks you¡¯ve not got the time for me to mince words. So I¡¯ll get straight to it. If you''re reading this you''ve realized Saedel isn''t keeping you alive out of the kindness of his black heart.

    He has something wicked planned for you. For us all.

    I don¡¯t know how to put this nicely so I¡¯ll just be direct. Saedel thinks he¡¯s found the Sanctum of the White Wand. Yes, THAT White Wand. I don¡¯t know how he found it or what he thinks he can do with it. But I doubt very much it involves sugar treats and unicorns.

    Don¡¯t panic! I¡¯ve researched more about Iradyl¡¯s Sanctum than Professor Shanter.

    I''ve written a brief description of each of the Seven Trials on the following page. It¡¯s not much, but I''m afraid it¡¯s the best I can do in my current state.

    One last thing, and you may discard this if you wish but you deserve to know. However this plays out, you¡¯re everything your mother and I had hoped for and then some. And I¡¯m sure she¡¯s every bit as proud of you as I am.

    Fare well Daisha.

    -Silver

    P.S. Sorry about any bruising from before. I had to make the whole ¡®loyal servant¡¯ thing look real. You know how it is.

    Amelia wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

    She hadn''t registered the presence of tears until the drop marks on the parchment gave them away.

    Splinters of ice shived and cracked the shriveled edges of her hollow chest. Pangs of guilt and rage shot through the cracks like rounds of thunder chasing lightning.

    The image of Silver lying shredded and being leisurely chewed on by a Naarfynder came unbidden to her mind. She pushed it away but couldn¡¯t help wondering why he couldn''t just escape through the walls.

    Maybe that was part of the Totemfide. But she couldn¡¯t be certain.

    Her actual knowledge of the arcane was limited to and by the handful of hand-me-down scraps she¡¯d bought off the Amurzan caravan haulers and tramp peddlers.

    Sadly, these were about as much use to her as a hammer for a lockpick. The study of anything deemed by the ruling powers as ¡°dark¡± or ¡°bloodless¡± magick was broadly banned on her home Continent.

    ¡°That means any magick the rulers can¡¯t see,¡± the Sire Roberts had explained to his girls. ¡°They like faith because it keeps people calm and tame. It¡¯s a blanket. Magick¡¯s a sword. To a tyrant, any sword arm that¡¯s not his or under his ministerial eye is a threat. So guard yours with care lest they be cut from your shoulders.¡±

    Amelia would later find that Black Bart had been even more right than he¡¯d let on. As he was about most things pertaining to the big bad world.

    Most typically, ¡°rogue¡± or ¡°aberrant magick¡± use was punishable by immediate execution. But some poor ¡°deviants¡± had been known to get off with an ¡°indefinite indenture¡± sentence if the relevant official had any outstanding debts or else an arrangement with the Black Sky.

    What few tidbits of actual hard lore her father¡¯s fiscal favor had bought past the censors had sadly told her nothing that her deductive reason couldn¡¯t have uncovered.

    ¡®Focus,¡¯ Amelia¡¯s second thoughts prodded her fractal higher nodes. ¡®Time and light¡¯s running out. Fast.¡¯

    She flipped the parchment over and found a maze of the most incredibly small and finely penned handwriting she¡¯d ever seen. It was so small she wouldn¡¯t have even known it for writing.

    But by the time her beleaguered brain had gotten around to thinking about how to go about making anything of it the last vespers of her last torch sputtered and spat.

    The sparks hissed a dying curse to the air for its foul betrayal before succumbing to their own inborne incubus. Leaving Amelia stunned and blind. Marooned and effectively as dead as her torch in the tenebrous belly of Naarfynder.

    A few heart pulses proceeded a rising hum from inside the walls. A few more in a steeply faster tempo carried images of a nefarious burrowing swarm writhing through her gray matter. Some ravenous monster hive like the hex-jawed Draconian Carver Worms, the saw-fanged Amurzan freshwater Piranha or the bioelectric Lekvolo eels of Lexa. Their multifarious maws held at bay by the threat of umbrielic fire, now emboldened in their native element to rush forth and collect their meaty prize.

    Not that she had much meat on her to offer. Though she doubted this factor would calculate.

    She shut her eyes and prayed to whatever powers her hopes may concern that death would take her swiftly.

    It must be true, she thought, the stories she¡¯d heard about death¡¯s impossibly sharp reaping tool. That its edge was so fine it could cut light from shadow, sever a soul from its incumbent flesh.

    She¡¯d heard old sailors talk of swords made by foreign master smiths so sharp they could cut your legs off and you wouldn¡¯t realize it until you tried to walk.

    Of course those same heady talers could have talked the legs off a millipede, no extra blade work required.

    Amelia did an internal diagnostic check. ¡®I don¡¯t feel dead¡¯ she concluded. She then did a peripheral sensory check. Tuning in first to her ears, nose and exposed nerve ends. Even going so far as to stick her tongue out and sample the air like a snake.

    And for her strange efforts the only clue she found of anything whatsoever having changed about her circumstance was a slim, dusky halo creeping onto the brim of her retinal scope.

    As she watched, a pair of pinhole fire spots emerged at her pupil focal centers. These grew out to meet the dawning rim fire. Both blooming along their journeys from the somber tint of aged wine to the deep burgundy of fresh blood.

    A solid minute or so turned the hot brand spots into ripe tropical fruits, and still their glow climbed upward. Through the longer wavelengths of the visible spectrum to become a fiery yellow nebula that enclosed the whole of her closed sight. Through whose amber miasma a fleet of vital purplish grey tributaries snaked along their propense course.

    Amelia had never had many units of thought to spare for theology, or higher spirituality of any kind for that matter, but here, now, trapped in the bowels of an island that shouldn¡¯t exist at the hands of a monster straight out of a storybook, she found her innate curiosity crushed in the oppressive, black gravitational fist of existential terror.

    Sensing nothing approach but feeling the warmth like a candle, she pried her self-made paddock gates open a hair. Then a sliver. Then an inch.

    Then a seismic cacophony of activity overloaded her neural dendritic cables, causing her muscular control centers to momentarily invert. Resulting in her eyes and mouth respectively springing and falling open.

    If she didn¡¯t know better she¡¯d have sworn some unhumorous deity had injected the island¡¯s vascular network with a stream of silvery gold coins. But then she remembered the gods had no senses of humor. And even if they did, this was the caliber of nonequatorial gag that would get a jester booed out of a butter churning convention.

    When her neural fibers had worked out which was back and front, and her optical signals had stopped trying to traverse them via cartwheel, she recollected her jaw and blinked as if preparing her orbiculari for a daring new career as automatic gun springs.

    To any beast whose proverbial book was considerably smaller and in a sizably larger print than Amelia¡¯s these creatures would have been simply marked down as some as yet undiscovered species of moth or butterfly.

    But upon the sort of closer inspection upon which all the best and worst philosophical foundations were predicated, a list of irregularities that would, in an aspherical sort of way, constitute a mathematical proof of paranormal fingers in the proverbial pie cropped into Amelia¡¯s secondary vision.

    As a particularly rich example, each individual creature seemed to be simultaneously transposed with each other beside it. It was as though they were performing a quantum-physical dance, wherein they and their nearest dozen partners would swap places at speeds unfathomable to any rational particle.

    Accordingly, their concert action was that of a phosphorescent flare. Their light and form fading, trickling in and out of existence in a vaporous wave and reemerging at the other end of some luminal tunnel. Only in the moths¡¯ case the tunnel seemed to be figurative and its exit destination chosen at random by a roulette wheel with an ever variant, and ultimately indeterminate, number of slots.

    And in keeping with that vein of borderline mania, what bodies they had in between Heinzen steps did not, in so far as Amelia¡¯s eyes and amateur understanding of insectoid physiology could tell, conform to any known structures of biology. Instead their forms better resembled a composition of gossamer circuitry than flesh, with delicate brass, or maybe gold, filaments for bones and intricate crystalline dynamos for organs.

    In the wake of all that, to say she reeled at the observation that they also exuded some fair amount of heat would have been to suggest that Old Iron Hide would be done in by a Llaman shepherd¡¯s stray hacking dart.

    Indeed, she only registered it when a rogue squadron of the baffling bugs broke away from the greater body and for no readily apparent reason started flying in surgically precise, gyrating helical patterns about her hands and forelimbs.

    Her impulsive effort to shoo them off her only served to rally further and greater swathes to their fluttering cause.

    In ascending quantities they flew in hypnotically kaleidoscopic arrays. Forming dynamic bioluminescent sigils in the air and organic circlets around her limbs and collar.

    Whatever the intended consequence of this display was she evidently failed to deliver.

    After a mesmerized moment of inactivity on her part, a dissolute section started dragging on her fur-lined cuffs with force that struck her keen intuition as proportionately incompatible.

    Not that this came as any great revelation. Frankly, at this point had she sampled the wall and found it was made of gummy licorice she would have just shrugged and kept on chewing.

    A useful feature of the ¡°karmic apathy¡± espoused by Chandralaic sage, Elkwielden Foalstest, was the beautifully elegant way it streamlined reason by conjoining subjective meaning innately to objective things. In the Stag Prince¡¯s own phrasing, ¡°if what we see means what we say it does, then our sight is what gives it meaning. Therefore, if nothing outside our sight means anything, everything we see means whatever we say.¡±

    There was, of course, more than a single reason why theirs was the first civilization to die during the 4<sup>th</sup> Divide. Their refusal to adopt aeraulic travel and trade practices because ¡°what¡¯s the point? We¡¯ll all either die here or die over there anyway no matter what.¡± had meant that when their land masses were violently shattered by the indolent tides of Aevon¡¯s draconic substrata they¡¯d had nowhere to turn and run. Left instead to the fatalistic whims of their burning slice of the cosmic stage.

    Finding herself in an eerily similar place, Amelia reached what some philosophers would have derided and others championed as a ¡®neutral¡¯, ¡®gray¡¯, ¡®nuanced¡¯ or ¡®compromised¡¯ conclusion, depending on their personal points of reference.

    The material result of her lateral figuring was that where an ordinary beast might have reasonably allowed space for reservations about taking directions from a swarm of mysterious biosynthetic creatures, Amelia decided that if she could forgo enough of her common sense to willingly follow in the footsteps of the living dead then this was the logical equivalent of practicing her harmonic scales or multiplication tables.

    Besides, it wasn¡¯t like she had any real choice in the matter. After all, even walking straight ass-backwards or off a proverbial cliff was preferable to lying still and slowly rotting wasn¡¯t it?

    As she consigned herself to their charge, she consoled herself with the thought that at least they weren¡¯t armed or carnivorous.

    They led her quite some distance, through long, narrow stretches of tunnels and winding caverns. Many times they turned left and as many times right. In all but a few rare cases she had to duck and weave through purposefully rough-sculpted fields of jagged mineral teeth.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    She might have almost gotten the impression that these transcendental jesters were secretly part Arachnid. That this whole tug and tie marathon was just them spinning her up into a pseudo material web for whatever exterior motives a gang of fourth-dimensional glitter bugs could possibly have.

    Maybe, thought her hypothetical alternate self, it was all an elaborate parliamentary trick meant to hide from her the real fact that she had trekked through more parayards of tunnels, both with them and with Silver, than should have been structurally feasible to fit inside this island.

    Whatever the truth, in this reality it didn¡¯t matter.

    Even if she¡¯d had the head for such things it was so full of other esoteric wonders at the moment that there was scarcely enough room left for such mundane tasks as walking, let alone complex, abstract concepts like spatial orientation, directional mapping, mathematical relations or the mechanical and material principles of architecture.

    In the last week she''d met a magickal talking skull, been beguiled and kidnapped by ghosts, and been held hostage by some fiend right out of an old fairy tale.

    And now here she was walking almost literally arm in arm with a transluminal drone swarm through an underground maze to procure a legendary artifact to topple a nightmare king.

    ¡®If I didn¡¯t know better ¡­¡¯ her inner monologue started. But she cut that hanging thread off at its root for they had just arrived at what she could only assume was their destination.

    The irony of her simply assuming a dead end signified anything but the universe having a laugh at her expense was not totally lost on Amelia. But her karmic erosion kept her eyes and head steady enough to assess the scene before her.

    Another moon-shaded facade. This one considerably smaller and more austere, though also more lustrous than the two before. Which itself was counterintuitively odd, which she was starting to accept as the new normal, at least around here. Its gritty, bonemeal texture shouldn¡¯t, by any intuitive reckoning, have lent itself to the polished veneer that scattered shards of particulate radiance in the same way the moths divided their local corporeality.

    She had half a mind to walk up and touch the barrier just to make sure it was real. But she didn¡¯t

    About three paces from the ending barrier at about her own eye level her sole respite from madness stood like the proud grand sire of the great stalactile army at her back.

    A hexagonal obsidian obelisk atop which rested a shallow silver crescent basin.

    From here the ornamental dish looked to her like one of the manicured bits of fine tinsel decorum she¡¯d seen flaunted in the mansions of many Amurzan elites than a piece of actual functional tableware. Its metallic skin gleamed and glittered like the white stone, except owing to a semi-organic pattern of embossed pictographic tile runes rather than an intrinsic quirk of the material itself.

    At the foot of the lordly pedestal a detail distinct in its disorderly presence caught Amelia¡¯s eye.

    A faded message, hastily scrawled in dappled deep red pigment. It read simply:

    Don''t turn around.

    She turned around, and then she screamed so loud that it set her crowning wraith mist of moths to panicked flight.

    Their quantum tangle gathered momentum as each bug seemingly tried to flee in every direction at once. Though, one of the rules of their strange matter state apparently being ¡®thou shalt not run away from yourself¡¯, the result was an exciting energy field that filled her view entirely with an impenetrable screen of jungle blues and greens.

    For the first time she could remember, Amelia would have preferred to stay in the dark.

    Lying roughly ten paces from the pedestal and basin were the dry and dusty remains of an old Frog. A pirate, judging by his garb. Dead at least a few years by the state of his bones.

    Even if its moth-eaten brown coat, one-legged trousers and single boot had not given away its identity, Amelia would have to have had the brainpower of a strand of mucus if it took her more than a single thud of her heart to fit this macabre puzzle together.

    His left leg was missing, wooden substitute and all, but that same hand still held his crutch. The other clutched what looked to be a blunted quill daubed in the same coagulated shade of pigment as his final message.

    Two and two always made four.

    Unless ¡­ She dared a closer look. Since when did quills have purple feathers?

    Something blinked at her from where the original John Silver¡¯s liver ought to have been. Something gray and wickedly jagged.

    A branch of questions and answers ricocheted through her mind like an impossibly fast sling stone.

    She thrust a hand into her pocket, seized upon Silver¡¯s final letters, crushed them in a fist and cursed them and then flung them away as though they¡¯d shot and dismembered a deep, personal conviction.

    In a sense, it might be argued, they had done just that. Albeit not intentionally.

    She felt sick. Then she was sick. Or tried to be, at any rate.

    She knew Silver was dead. She¡¯d even figured that he¡¯d been killed somewhere down here in the Labyrinth. But knowing was one thing. Actually seeing was another.

    She had no idea what to feel.

    She ran that thought over her tongue. She had no idea what to feel.

    Her emotions came and went without her. A transmutational maelstrom raged beneath her feel, but nothing stuck. Nothing felt right. She thought she ought to be feeling something.

    Instead they kept dividing and subdividing into every form, element and permutation of disgust, hope and terror before invariably clashing and eventually folding back into an impotent crucible.

    But even this was useless. Having nowhere to go, nothing to burn, her molten fire simply froze over. The leaden underbelly melted into black, solvent grief that stuck to and slowly infested ever cell, fiber and pore of her insides like primordial grease.

    ¡®Despair¡¯ a voice that may or may not have been hers told her.

    Numb shock forced her body backwards until it reached a solid object. At which point her legs gave out and she sank into a quiet heap against the cold obelisk opposite her lone friend¡¯s remains.

    She didn¡¯t move. Didn¡¯t think. Her chest rose and fell on standing orders from a spinal authority alone.

    She hoped beyond reason to simply open her eyes and be back home.

    She closed her eyes, mostly to stifle her tears, and in the quiet sanctity of her mind she prayed for a sign. Or if not that, then at least a distraction until death came for her.

    Much to her ¡­ consternation, she got both.

    When she opened her eyes her first thought was that she was dead. Her second was that she was hallucinating. Or perhaps dreaming. None of these would have surprised her at this point.

    A radiant apparition had materialized between the wall and the basin. Its aural fire dancing in the contours of both. Spraying silken diamond threads about like radial rain.

    The figure was female, or at least feminine. Her form the paradoxical compilation of the complex interference pattern of her own refracted rays.

    Had Drake or Tim been present, they would have recognized this clever trick instantly for what it was. But, stunted in her judicial reason by deprivation, exhaustion and inexperience, Amelia stood in starstruck awe of the ¡®Matron Primus¡¯, Aerion¡¯s, matrimonial twin aspect.

    In a word, she was gorgeous. And every bit as haunting as any ghost or monster Amelia had yet seen.

    She was about as tall as Saedel, but that was as far as the similarities went.

    Her piercing eyes were mini galactic vortices. Her glassy skin was pale like the night sky viewed through a daytime fog sheet. Her long pointed ears were wreathed in a delicate ethereal garland crown woven of pure gold and silver which wove around her brow, over the back of her head to lay all the way down her back to brush her bare heels.

    Amidst all this otherworldly splendor, the most distinctive characteristic to Amelia was her avatar lacking any discernable facial features apart from the twin white orbs.

    ¡°Amelia,¡± the being chanted like the vocal sector of a wind ensemble. Its saccharine chords penetrated her disaffected heart where they sat humming and chiming like a tiny choir of chimes, bells, harps and lyres to soothe the raging tempest that writhed beneath Amelia¡¯s exterior.

    ¡°How do you know ¡­?¡± Amelia started to ask. Only to have her question answered as soon as her own mind caught up with her mouth.

    Iradyl laughed in minstrel chords. Her eyes twinkled as what normal eyes do in the formation of a heartfelt smile.

    The Mother Goddess, for it was apparent that She could be none other, extended a glinting hand. ¡°Rise my child. And stand tall.¡±

    Amelia¡¯s body moved through mindless obeisance. Her mind racing a thousand leagues ahead at relativistic speeds.

    Could this all be some fanciful dream? It wouldn¡¯t be the first unconscious storybook adventure she¡¯d been on. But though every rational part of her tugged and gnawed and pleaded for her to see that something was amiss, that this puzzle had a massive, gaping hole right in the center, a part far older, far stronger and far less discerning that wished, oh so desperately wished  for it to be real turned her third eye¡¯s retinal lens into flash cotton.

    A shower of ancient evil flames spewed forth upon first contact with the prospect of being the first beast in over nine millennia to lay eye, finger, claw or talon on the White Wand. To be the next bearer of the ¡®First Gift¡¯. The heiress to the ¡®Second Sun¡¯, Aerion¡¯s, first and only mundane work.

    ¡°The False God craves my sacred dowry,¡± Iradyl said. Her miasmic treacle tone laced with crude contrails of cinnamon and vinegar. ¡°But only true living flesh may pass through my Sanctum.¡±

    She motioned to the rapturous plane behind Her. ¡°You will find it beyond the Hall of Trials.¡±

    A mercurial glint of what, on a lesser being, would be labeled mischief crept into the solar matron¡¯s veneer. Naturally, Amelia took no notice.

    ¡°Complete this quest and all the power you¡¯ll need to save your world and your friends will be at your command.¡±

    The chemical fire in Amelia¡¯s head waned slightly. Her frontal lobe seized upon this chance to launch a foray into the Cerebrum Primus.

    In stark deviation with statistics and tradition, it won. Partially.

    The words ¡®your friends¡¯ were thrust through the gates of her conscious world before their backing reason was swiftly routed and turned back. Leaving them floating there in abstract, with nowhere to direct their neural energy. The resulting feedback loop caused a cascade of shorts and failures in Amelia¡¯s otherwise pious neural banks.

    Iradyl, as if in answer to a question not even yet formed, waved a knowing hand and said, ¡°you think too little of yourself dear one.¡±

    Before Amelia had a chance to probe deeper into this, the avatar produced a palm-sized celestial orb from out of her own noncorporeal drape and cast it lightly into the air like she was prompting a butterfly to take wing.

    The orb drifted around for a moment, then settled directly over the basin.

    Amelia, sensing the words ¡®look closely¡¯ clinging onto the edges of this display, leaned in close. But she saw nothing but the familiar fleet of solar and galactic fires.

    The words ¡®see what¡¯s not really there, but is¡¯ crept around the aft sectors of her consciousness, searching for a staging point to charge through.

    They found one. Albeit in the next kingdom over. Though, ironically, and more to the point, paradoxically, ultimately in the right castle.

    Amelia¡¯s eyes started playing visual games with the swirling constellations of mini stellar points. Her mind arranged them in orders no god would have thought to.

    Just as a painter would never dream of incorporating real straw or dung into an idyllic depiction of a rural homestead, so too would no deity ever imagine featuring a spoon or a ship or a sword so prominently across the heavens.

    As she continued to gaze into the abyss of tithes, in its heart was birthed and grown a spark of bright azure into an amorphous alien pallet.

    Then, as Amelia watched, thoroughly bewitched, its insides started to swirl and dance, as if trying to break free of their crystalline confines.

    Much to her own confusion, she felt herself starting to empathize with the blob of trapped pigment.

    Perhaps indicatively, perhaps coincidentally, this feeling persisted exactly up until the colors in the beguiling bile began to shift. Then it was back on order.

    The colors, those of the tropics, ultra-neon blues, greens, yellows and oranges, started to blend, warp and mutate. Forming and conforming themselves to one another as if drawn through an invisible mold press.

    At first, all there was to see was a fuzzy line of gray below a fuzzier line of slightly darker gray.

    But in the time it took her to think this, the darker shadow deepened until it was as black as flint. Then it stretched tall and thin like the mast of a ship, until its end eclipsed the horizon of its crystalline prison.

    Meanwhile the bottom of the ebony spire funneled out and sprouted ridges and what looked like hair. These further solidified into abscess faunal strata and tangled masses of landscapes.

    During the same tenth of a second the lighter shade ballooned into a broad expanse of swampy murk which consumed the entire lower half of the globe.

    All in all it was a rather bleak and drab show in Amelia¡¯s view. This dark, perverse shadow of wonderland. One which langured in corrosive muck and lavished to the point of morbidity upon the mind the cruel contusions, inversions and hideous renditions of hallowed scenes.

    Or maybe it was simply that her eyes had yet to fully adjust to, or her mind yet to properly adjudicate, the new contrast.

    Once armed with this new attack angle, it took only a second for her formidable imagination to do its work.

    In a blink, where had been an abstruse hellscape stood the clear and unambiguous shadow of an island. Namely, a wordless, toneless voice from nowhere helpfully informed her, the selfsame abominable landmass whose randomly logical innards she presently had the displeasure of exploring.

    The nascent inkling of a budding spark of a question pertaining to the exact point of this had only just breached her head¡¯s photo-linguistic barrier when the image in the center of the crystal began to stretch, causing the rim to fold and cram in on and over and into itself. Quickly becoming opaque, then burning orange, yellow, blue and purple, then eventually glowing white like the leftover corpse particles of a gutted star spilled over the cannibalistic lips of a black hole.

    What was left was the perfect rendition of a small axe-headed ledge on the Zen-Aphelward edge of the claret coppice. Over the base of which was anchored a sleek black dagger tri-mast. And on whose ledge perched a gallant squad of fools, heroes or miscreants depending on the observer.

    When Amelia tried to voice her opinion, her entangled matrix of thoughts translated into a series of noises more like a sloshing bucket than harmonic speech.

    She shut her eyes, swallowed and began again. This time with the intent to ask if that had been a revelation or a premonition.

    What she heard come out of her mouth instead was, ¡°why?¡±

    It took her head a moment to comprehend that her body was attempting to communicate with a hologram that may or may not be a figment of her dying imagination.

    The Mother Goddess crushed the orb in a star-beaded fist, then said in tones like the wafting ruffles of a silk ribbon, ¡°your captain is a brave and noble spirit. His crew all love him dearly for it, and would throw themselves into fire at his command.¡±

    The Goddess¡¯s eyes flashed hints of scarlet. ¡°You ask why they would risk their lives coming here? It is because he has asked it of them.¡±

    Amelia felt her lips form a smile. Drake had brought them all the way here looking for her. But how ¡­?

    ¡°How they are here is irrelevant,¡± the goddess said sternly. ¡°What matters now is what you are going to do to protect them.¡±

    Amelia was dumbfounded. ¡°Protect them? They''re better fighters than I could ever be. If I can survive here, they can too.¡±

    Iradyl shook her head. ¡°You are here because your captor wished it so,¡± she said. ¡°He has kept you alive and safe thus far because he needed you so. But your friends are here by their own accord.¡±

    Amelia understood. Rationally, she knew it made sense. Though, predictably, her heart tried to stage a revolt. Screaming that it was Silver who¡¯d seen her safely through the Labyrinth.

    But she knew that wasn¡¯t the case. Yes, he had protected her from the Naarfynder. Yes, he had written her directions. Yes, he had walked her through the first portion of the maze and written her directions for the Sanctum. But it wasn¡¯t he who¡¯d summoned the moths, without whom she¡¯d still be in the dark and who still ornamented her head and arms like pristine costume jewelry. And it hadn¡¯t been entirely by his own choice that he¡¯d been there with her in the first place.

    And so her head, on countermand authority from some lower straight that hadn¡¯t caught up with the mood yet, drifted up and down as though moved by one of those expectorating radiometric spurts known by those who made travel over the Abyss their life¡¯s mission as ¡®Guile Fonts¡¯.

    ¡®How ¡­ appropriate¡¯ ruminated her animus stimulant pallia.

    Its rationale being that these ¡°Sun Mines¡±, as they were also known, were the product of extruded ionized particles stretched across intersecting magnetic fields whose poles suddenly, and with no perceptible warning above the surface, radically reorient or dispel completely.

    In the interest of clarity, such phenomena were nigh perpetual. But occasionally enough built on top of one another that their excreted energy didn¡¯t have the time or space necessary to harmlessly dissipate.

    The result being a dense concentration of charged particles directly below the Abyss¡¯s already tempestuous surface. The coronal shell would inflate like a bellows sack, sometimes growing to the size of a small island, before internal pressure would hit a critical point and the bloating bubble would pop. Its angry matter tearing itself free. Setting fire to anything remotely flammable within a dozen parayards and sending shock tremors that could be sensed, and often heard, around the world as the celestial cocktail blasted into the stratosphere.

    Many an ancient account described these apocalyptic spectacles as a flaming fan-tailed bird, and that many again depicted a birthing dragon or the ascension of some new god or another.

    These would often beguile early Era sailors by appearing as new land on the horizon. Even going so far as to fool their less qualified instruments. Only upon closer inspection did the doomed crews often realize their fatal miscalculation.

    Amelia remained obstinate. ¡°You know, he shot out a grenade fuse from a hundred yards. I mean ¡­ if any beast can put Saedel down it¡¯s him.¡±

    Iradyl chuckled. ¡°Your faith in your new entourage is admirable young one. But your lack of experience will be your greatest weakness.¡±

    Amelia paused. She knew the truth in Iradyl¡¯s words. But that didn¡¯t make hearing it sting any less.

    Iradyl placed a hand on the marble wall behind her. ¡°My Sanctum is both a home and a prison. It is a bulwark against the foolish, the craven and the evil. My treasure will only yield to one whose living flesh can withstand its torments.¡±

    Something inside Amelia dropped and landed like an anchor weight.

    The Mother Goddess reached out to pluck a smooth, rounded stone from the cavern wall and pressed it easily between her thumb and forefingers, producing a convex lens that, had she not been directly privy to its origin, Amelia would have thought was forged of crystalline light.

    Before Amelia could process this far enough to question it, Iradyl produced a long-stemmed, thornless, pink rose presumably from the same quarter of nowhere she herself had stepped from. As if Amelia needed proof this was no classical garden bloom, Iradyl then bent, twisted and tied the stem around the glass circle like a wire.

    She offered the botanic monocle to Amelia, who accepted it graciously but with the question, ¡°what¡¯s this for?¡±

    Iradyl pointed to the where Amelia had hurled the parchment. ¡°To see what your eyes cannot.¡±

    She rose until her head nearly brushed the ceiling and started to fade away.

    ¡°The challenges before you are many and time is short,¡± she said, her voice fading into fractious echoes. ¡°Remember this always; beware the False God.¡±

    A dozen thoughts battled for control of Amelia¡¯s tongue. But by the time any had formally staked a claim the last traces of the Mother Goddess were gone. As suddenly as she had appeared she had been replaced by disparaging antlers of shadow ranged in the moths¡¯ pulsating amber light.

    Amelia was stone for what felt like a year and yet less than a second.

    She¡¯d heard much of religious experiences, growing up in the backlands of Amurza. Beasts laid out prostrate in a Shaman¡¯s hut portending the future while on the cusp of death. Or beasts high off ecstasy or rendered dumb from extreme deprivation or exposure receiving help or guidance from on high.

    Most, if not all, courtesy of their favored Deus ex opium, or so her father had always led her to believe. And in the decade or so she¡¯d known him, rarely had she been given cause to question his worldly insights.

    Even so, having been in many a death hut, she¡¯d always expected a true visit from the divine to be a bit more ¡­ enlightening. Or at least comforting.

    But, as usual, she was left to stir a cold pot of whatever the intellectual equivalent of gravel soup was.

    Had they really come all this way for her? Did she dare hope?

    In truth, her choice was outside the question, for it wasn¡¯t truly her choice to make. A tiny chip of ice fell away from her heart¡¯s wall, and through its Nexi hole there seeped a dribble of the warm spring nectar known as hope.

    It gradually plied its work along her circulatory route. Purging neglected pipes and unseizing valves that had been jammed shut with infernal ice.

    Then another thought crashed through her glacial miosis like a spray of dragon¡¯s fire.

    If her herd really was here on Naarfynder and Saedel was still out there somewhere waiting with an army of ghosts, then they were ¡­

    ¡®No!¡¯ Amelia cried. Whether out loud or internally she had no idea. Not that it mattered. She would NOT allow them to die for nothing. She would get free and she would help them.

    Amelia retrieved Silver¡¯s crumpled ball of notes, reaching for the bloody parchment as if it were a hissing Cobra¡¯s egg.

    She opened the newest one gingerly as though it too might turn out to have fangs, and moved Iradyl¡¯s hand-made magnifier over the tiny script.

    She kept her back to the boney heap of Silver and tried not to think about the blood-sopped ¡°pen¡± it still held as she read by moth light.

    I don''t know if any beast will ever read this. But if you are and you¡¯re still sane then take this advice. GET THE SAARD OUT OF HERE!!!

    Oh who am I kidding? If you''ve come to this gods-forsaken place of your own accord, then you probably don¡¯t have that much sense.

    Listen up mate! I am going to paint you a picture of what you''re about to face.

    First a warning. Take your piety or dignity and shove em! They¡¯ll be the death of you where you''re headed. Though I suppose you can''t be that pure hearted considering you''ve just desecrated a corpse.

    Amelia pinched her mouth and nose in the crook of her elbow and squeezed her eyes as she fought back what struggled to get out.

    When she was certain her body had settled itself, she kept reading.

    All right. Now that you''re suitably humbled, you''d best say your prayers or mystic chants or whatever it is you usually do before throwing yourself into the jaws of death. Because I guarantee this will be your last opportunity.

    Amelia cocked her head unconsciously. Why would Silver be expecting a beast of the cloth to come down here? The only Order she could think of who¡¯d be interested in the White Wand were in the Imperial Ministry. And if they got ahold of the ¡°Ring Finger of Aerion¡± there was no telling what irreparable damage might be done.

    Silver hadn¡¯t struck her as the quickest match in the set, but he couldn¡¯t be that stupid ¡­ Could he?

    Take Dolsenec. That¡¯s the block with the dragon on it. If it¡¯s not with this note then the False God¡¯s probably already made off with it. If that be the case, then you might as well go right back to your monastery. Otherwise take the silver basin off the pedestal, put the key end into the hole and turn it the usual way.

    Amelia went over to the pedestal and gave it a slight tug. She found it was not attached. It was deceptively light for its size. She lifted it free with the slightest effort and laid it on the ground.

    Upon inspecting its former resting spot, she saw an indentation. There were odd lines carved at the very center of the depression. Around these lines were carved strange alien letters.

    They were in a language she had never seen, whose characters¡¯ meanings she couldn¡¯t even begin to guess at.

    Some instinct deep inside her told her they were important. Reasoning that her instincts hadn¡¯t steered her wrong yet, she took from her pocket a wooden wax tablet notebook and a brass stylus with a serendipitous butterfly carved into the ivory hand grip.

    By the light of her wraith moth bracelets and circlet she transcribed the carving for later study.

    Then she produced the Dragon Key and held it near the pedestal¡¯s revealed indentation. The only problem was there was nothing there even vaguely resembling a keyhole.

    At a loss, she tilted the alien artifact so as to examine its facets more closely by moth light. Upon reaching the supposed key end, she realized that the intricate draconic bas-relief thereon was the perfect mirror of the picture carved into the black stone indent.

    ¡°Conjoined twins,¡± she thought for some reason.

    She pushed the key into the space and, sure enough, found it fit like a bespoke glove.

    That being as it may, convincing the cumbersome mechanism to yield to her as the ones before had for Saedel and Silver drew on nearly every quantizable grain of power her body had left in it to give.

    When a few rotations produced no results, she tried half a circuit the other direction.

    Still nothing.

    Stumped, Amelia had just formed the question what to do when a tiny jerk on her sleeves caused her to momentarily forget what she was doing and so relinquish hold over the key.

    At which point, as though awaiting this precise cue, the pedestal began to sink noiselessly into the floor, taking the key with it and causing the white wall to split into six receding daggers.

    In the space they revealed Amelia saw another dark empty expanse. She discerned the same motif in the architecture and general layout of the two adjoining areas.

    She swore on Silver¡¯s grave that, even if she had to wander the Abyss for eight centuries like the 4<sup>th</sup> Era Centaur, Promeus, she would find a way to travel back in time, find the genius who designed this place and smack him so hard in the face that every beast on Aevon who looked like him would need dentures.

    It would be a lie to say she hadn¡¯t at all been expecting, and dreading, this.

    More of the same. Long black tunnels.

    Except ¡­ one thing was different. A faint orange bulb burned at the far end.

    She knew what it meant. But for some reason it took her brain a second to land on the right term.

    Light. That was it. A literal light had just appeared at the end of the tunnel.

    This cracked open her hope faucet a few degrees. Against her logical sense, she tentatively placed one foot over the boundary between captive safety and perilous freedom and wasn¡¯t sure whether to be relieved or even more worried when nothing at all happened.

    But something outside of her established cairn stopped her from completely crossing the threshold. An intuitive spike that brought the lens and parchment back out to the lamp light for a detailed inspection.

    Sure enough, revealed at the bottom of the last paragraph were four tiny words just barely squeezed onto the page.

    Don''t forget the bowl.

    She leapt back away from the Sanctum entrance and found the silver basin lying on the floor, right where she''d left it. She picked it up and examined it in the light of the haloing moths. It bore the same style of foreign symbols as the pedestal and Dolsenec.

    Since her inability to read a dead language had not drastically diminished over the last couple of minutes, she cradled it under her arm and looked towards the faint orange glow down the dark corridor.

    Just as she was standing up to go through the opening, she heard a soft ¡°chink¡± from the unmarked space where she was fairly certain had been a stack of black stone just a minute ago.

    She looked to discover that the Dragon Key had been quietly regurgitated by whatever force or mechanism had claimed the pedestal.

    After reclaiming it she reasoned that free hands would be far more useful than ones burdened with a bunch of stylized metal and stone, she turned a heartsick eye back to what was left of Silver''s first incarnation.

    Blinking back threatening tears she stripped the bones of the brown leather coat and trousers, suspenders and sword belt. Leaving him only his black tricorn for dignity. And also because she had no use for it.

    She knew that being alive meant that her need naturally outranked his. But she also knew that he wasn¡¯t dead. She knew it ¡­

    She set herself to the task of fashioning a crude but sturdy backpack, into which she packed and bound tightly both artifacts and the used notes.

    ¡®It¡¯s a shame you didn¡¯t have your sword or gun on you when you died,¡¯ she thought, catching the skeleton¡¯s eye then turning away, repulsed by her own callousness.

    She hadn¡¯t really known Silver all that well though ¡­

    ¡®Stop it!¡¯ she commanded, smacking her temple. Much to the displeasure of her flittering escorts.

    Thus readied, she stood and strapped on her motley creation. After a few quick bounds and jumps to test the weight and the straps, she turned to the Sanctum portal and on the end of a breath that could have intoned half a ballad she set her course for the lantern heart of the latest unknown.

    If her many escapades into the nether realms of fiction had taught her anything it was that a foray into the unknown depths was bound to be either extremely short, unpleasant or both.

    But if she thought she¡¯d already experienced the worst Naarfynder could offer then Iradyl had been all too right in calling her na?ve.

 Chapter 16: The Gardeners Epitaph

    Drake didn¡¯t often sit still. Part of being the Headmaster¡¯s left hand and an all but certified Captain in his own right was not having much in the way of free time.

    He remembered a time, however, when waking dreams were like butter on his proverbial steak. Though it wasn¡¯t a time he usually liked to remember, he found it forced upon him now as he sat in much the same spot as then. Lost in more ways than one on a branch of umbral wood, bracketed by sinister red thorns the length of a cutlass blade and just as lethal.

    There were many reasons why his father had forbidden his sons from entering the Gnarled Wood. The ¡°Black Vineyard¡± as some sourced knew it. Which, in Drake¡¯s book, was fitting. Although a very different kind of bounty grew in this thicket. The kind that grew fangs, claws and occasionally hooves and had a wanton thirst all its own.

    As far as their martial and aerobic prowess went they all paid exquisite homage to the FPA¡¯s reputation for high training standards that day. Being beset as they had been nonstop by creatures straight out of Bram Allen Lothcratt¡¯s bullied imagination from the moment they¡¯d touched planted ground, the several hours since had been a thoroughly arduous assessment of the reach of their physical and mental viability.

    He shifted his weight both from discomfort and impatience. All this hunting and being hunted had made the already daunting task of navigating the necronomicolocial labyrinth into a blindfolded quest for the lost city of Salamandra.

    Judging by the auburn light and preeminent shadows, they deduced that cardinal dusk had already come and gone. Now, being forced to just sit and wait for his return was like waiting for a pot to boil over a candle whilst trying to ignore a spreading fire in the attic.

    If they didn''t reach the Black Tower by dark they would be forced to make camp out in the Gnarled Wood. A situation no beast wished to avoid more than he.

    ¡°You¡¯d think a dead island would be less inclined to rearrange the furniture,¡± he muttered. ¡°But you would be wrong.¡±

    He had been persuaded to send Crow out in search of a safe path to the island¡¯s dominant feature. The place of his birth and site of his early training in the mystic arts. That place known to all but its inhabitants simply as the ¡°Black Tower¡±, but which Sir Francis had lovingly dubbed Castle Drohmsviire.

    The name having been derived by the Sire Drake from a curated mixture of Equestrian, Salamandran and Dram¡¯ Kulin.

    Altogether meaning something to the effect of ¡®The Root of All Wisdom is Pain¡¯. A sentiment which, in the youngest Drake¡¯s estimation, neatly summarized everything that ever needed be known or said of the ¡°Mad Dog¡±.

    Apart from that piece of fecund trivia, despite the lean fortress¡¯s prominent and, for want of a better term, formative, role in his primitive development, Drake knew as much about the spire as the next literate beast. Which was that on the sizable list of places he didn¡¯t want to be caught dead in it ranked nearly tied with the hot side of the island, and on the much longer list of places he wouldn¡¯t be caught alive in if his own volition had any sway on the matter it stood directly on par with the chairs in any tax or accounting office on Aevon.

    That had all been an excerpt from one of Nikodontus¡¯s more longwinded lectures on the lore of eldritch cyphers. But it was still encyclopedic compared to what insights he had into his father¡¯s open air laboratory, in which he et all were turned tail-end-over-snout in. No beast who had entered the Gnarled Wood had ever emerged, at least not with their sanity or spirit intact.

    Drake was getting anxious. Even though his confidence in Crow''s abilities was beyond question, he would have much rather risked his own life and spared one of his herd.

    ¡°Captain, Crow¡¯s fastest on his own,¡± Hemlock had said with an unhidden note of grudging respect. ¡°If he can''t make it through this ¡­ mess we might as well all get back on the boat.¡±

    Drake had never understood Hemlock¡¯s deep-set aversion to cursing while on a job. Was it superstition? Reverence? Or just good old fashioned professionalism? Whatever the reason, he knew her heart well enough not to stick his nose where it wasn¡¯t warranted. And he knew her mind well enough to know she would not say such things unless she thought it the best way to make her point. Which undoubtedly was this: ¡°you know our options Captain. Now get your head out of your ass and give the saarding order.¡±

    Crow had nodded his acquiescence to go. Upon getting the muttered ¡°all right¡± affirmative from Drake, Crow took off into the twisted mass of dark flora as swiftly and softly as a departing shadow.

    Now Drake looked up hopelessly at the rapidly reddening sky. Hindsight being what it was, it would have been wiser for them to have waited on the Maiden until dawn.

    He had since rationalized his decision as being in the best interests of their captive friends. But still, in some sequestered corner of a vault held deep in the shaded warrens of his mind, he knew better.

    Time, he knew, meant as little as hope in the realm of the here, now, then and soon-to-be thereafter.

    In truth he fought the clock because he dreaded that the coming of night also meant the coming of sleep. Sleep, he knew, brought dreams, and dreams here had powers unheard of elsewhere. They carried on their black wings the kinds of carrion truths and lies that pecked at the soul and gouged out the mind. Leaving only a morbidly beguiling husk for the soul farmers to till and the impious ground to gnaw on.

    Now they all were paying for his cowardice. In their haste to make headway into the Gnarled Wood, they had neglected to do even the most basic reconnaissance or cartography work. As a result, they had lost nearly two hours of precious daylight wandering aimlessly around in the tangled mess of prickly branches, thorny roots and poisonous blooms.

    If they didn''t at least make it to higher ground soon they would all be in for a very long night.

    Drake considered asking Hemlock for her opinion, since, next to Ellie, she was the most likely of the bunch to offer him reasonable, grounded insight, regardless of how she thought he might react to it.

    This train of thought got derailed when, in his peripheral vision, a swift black dart motion in the thorny canopy caught his attention.

    Without ever moving more than his head, Drake caught his friends¡¯ concordant looks and gave them a morse code variant of the Pyrates¡¯ ¡°take positions¡± hand signal.

    They both independently interpreted this to mean ¡°get behind those roots and be ready to kill anything that jumps out at me¡±.

    They did this. And in their flanking lairs they hunkered in near breathless anticipation of violence as a dark, lanky shape slipped silently and easily towards their lure through the undergrowth.

    Never once did they hear it make a sound or see it move in any way that would suggest it was anything less than supernatural.

    Contrary to what common sense would lead one to intuit, this in fact stirred in them a sense of relief. But, true to their lessons, they held their poise until they saw the distinctive scarlet slash between pointy ears. And they didn¡¯t break from cover until Drake blew out a breath and unhanded his weapon.

    Dismounting his root lap perch and rounding on the returned Wolf, the beleaguered Captain asked in what only came across as a stern but compassionate drawl by luck of sheer repetition, ¡°any luck?¡±

    To his admirable credit, only the hunter and huntress noticed the tightness about his vocal edges and neither were in a place or of a mind respectively to care, much less bring it up.

    Although, for reasons known only to himself, Crow was physically incapable of speech, in no sense of the word was he dumb. Cracking a thorn from a nearby branch he took a knee before the group and began tracing shapes in the soil.

    At first the silent consensus was that they resembled archaic runes and letters wrapped around and conglomerated in cloud pictures. But as more details were added, subtracted, divided, subdivided and multiplied, a loosely descript picture began to take shape. Although Drake was the first and only one to recognize it for what it was intended to be. And that only per the same basic circuit with which a newborn recognizes its mother¡¯s face.

    Crow was a beast of many talents, as his Captain would be the first and foremost to attest. Regrettably, art was the sole area the gods had apparently seen fit to utterly bar him from.

    When he was done Crow pointed to a blank spot at the leftmost edge with a thorn. He then pointed this same finger first at Drake then back at himself. Drake affirmed his understanding with a nod.

    ¡°We''re here,¡± he translated, indicating the marked spot. Crow nodded once.

    He drew another line from that first point to a concentric target shape which, from its prominent position, Drake assumed to represent Drohmsviire.

    Here, as though to confirm this, Crow made another mark. Then he stood up, spun about on a heel and stuck an arm out Penirward. With a downturned palm he made a setting motion then followed through a hundred and eighty degrees to point back the way they¡¯d just come from.

    Drake pondered all this then he postulated, ¡°we go that way until we see the suns, then spin back towards the ship?¡±

    Crow nodded more vigorously, tracing a halo with a forefinger.

    Drake frowned, studying his woefully outdated mental map of the island. He knew of one subversive route around the island¡¯s Aphelern flank.

    But he¡¯d never explored that sector before. His father and Nik had said it was too dangerous. That the ground there was violently unstable.

    ¡°Prone to spontaneous upheavals,¡± in fact had been Noah¡¯s exact reiteration of Nik¡¯s words.

    With his powers of perfect hindsight taking the reins of his thought, he said, ¡°we ¡­ circle around ¡­ behind the tower?¡±

    Crow nodded sharply once then snapped to his characteristic form of attention. With one arm and fist slung behind his back just above his tail, the other folded across his heart.

    With what was supposed to be a resounding clap but actually turned out a wooden thud through his padded gauntlets, Drake said with exactly the opposite pitch of finality he was going for, ¡°right. Time to get the lead out. Let''s move!¡±

    Silently, they picked up their gear and set out with Crow on point.

    After little more than an hour of hiking, as the second sun was just starting to disappear, they came to a cliff which Sir Francis had liked to call ¡°Execution Point¡±.

    In the dozen-odd years he¡¯d spent as unwitting accessory to this manifest rap novella against nature, Drake had never been able to figure out whether his father had meant that as a jest, or even if the beast indeed had a sense of humor at all for that matter.

    He took one look over the edge into the oblivion beyond and immediately wished he had a bucket on hand. Beyond the narrow spit of ground there was nothing but the thick gray fog of the Abyss.

    What terrified him more than the drop into sheer nothingness was that, for reasons he did not understand, he suddenly felt a powerful urge to throw himself to the whims of gravitational curiosity.

    Had it not been for his even more powerful will, set in high self-preservation mode by the tide of bad old memories, tying down his feet and Hemlock¡¯s preserving hand at his collar, he might have followed in his father¡¯s footsteps more closely than in his most exaggerated nightmares.

    ****

    A half hour of trooping, tracking and trudging later, everyone¡¯s feet were blistered and bleeding.

    This was not because they were unused to long marches. It was because this island had been designed to wear on every part of a beast. From their very souls outward, even the seemingly benign sand on this part of Naarfynder burned like hot coals. Stinging, scraping and singeing their living flesh while leaving the inanimate matter of their boots untouched.

    The nearer they closed on the spire, the more hostile and insidious the environment became.

    Wicked crimson thorns the size of steak knives and serrated leaves like the hands of claret goblins seemed to deliberately thrust themselves into the Pyrates¡¯ path.

    Clandestine barbs of incendiary rock cut through cloth, maille and leather like as much rice paper, yet somehow leaving never a mark on any.

    The Pyrates soldiered on. Both for the sake of their marooned comrades and because they had no other choice.

    Another full sector motion of the clock¡¯s stoutest arm saw their march lead finally out of the torturous brambles, past the umbral glass flat of the island¡¯s Aphelern beach and into the steep, canyon confines of a narrow ledge. Bounded on the one side by the masked and endless Abyss and by a sheer vertical obsidian wall on the other.

    The snaggled teeth and tangled arms of the cadaverous forest leered at them from above over the precipice, and wicked winds whipped at loose cloth and lashed exposed flesh with shrapnel dust as they traversed the harrowing corridor in single file.

    All the while the Cresting sun, the ¡°Queen Mother¡±, the ¡°World¡¯s Bosom¡±, bled more molten maternal fire into the affective horizon.

    Drake knew that, if forced to make a choice between being stranded in Drachyn¡¯s Garden overnight or being trapped in a maleficent tower known to every literate child of his generation as ¡°the Palace of Nightmares¡±, the more sensible, tactical option would be to set up camp where they could at least see any attack coming.

    But an essential detail always critically neglected by combat instructors is that no level of accrued adult reason, experience or education ever fully erases the child who learns at bedtime to fear the dark woods.

    Following the craned spinal ledge inward, the Abyss below them gradually gave way to a sloping field of strangulating vines and neatly arrayed ranks of black razor teeth.

    As they climbed, the Megalodontid maw grew in tandem. Eventually widening so far as to swallow whole wandering sectors of the Gnarled Wood.

    When at last they came upon the sight they sought but that for which not one of their hearts held any semblance of relief or gratitude, the sky above had been bled bone dry of the day.

    The night¡¯s awakening eyes painted the nocturnal sanctum in pale silver. And the great galactic field tore a nexel fire gash across the firmament¡¯s equatorial belt.

    About twenty yards away, stood a magnificent arched, black door. It was so perfectly camouflaged that, if he hadn¡¯t been actively looking for it, Drake would have assumed it was just part of the ominous spire.

    If ever for a moment they¡¯d expected their problems to start and stop with finding the entrance they were in for a devastating shock.

    Well, technically two.

    First there was the minor issue that the only key to the Castle had been lost with its original owner.

    Secondly, and preeminently, were the shimmering spectral sentinels patrolling the clearing just ahead of the black gatehouse like a pair of mirage puddles.

    The Pyrates instinctively dove for cover and drew their pistols. Loaded with Tim¡¯s new, untested, unproven, theoretically necrophobic ammunition.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    ¡®Here¡¯s to your brilliance Tim,¡¯ Drake thought, thumbing off his Clevette¡¯s hammer safety.

    Under the autonomous authority of hundreds of hardening drill hours, their eyes meticulously combed the area for every possible spot of cover, choke point, escape route and stable elevated platform.

    Their minds played through every conceivable scenario in as many heartbeats, exactly as they had been trained.

    ¡°First assess. Then address. Then conquer.¡± So saith the great war sage, Old Iron Hide.

    The first thing they all recognized was the unusual density of the growth cordoning the way forward. More of a trench than a path, with scarcely enough room between the branches to slide a rifle barrel, let alone a living body. And that was even before factoring in the abnormally abundant phalanx of saber thorns.

    Drake had to admit his father had designed his fortress smartly. The only clear path led straight into the arms of the unkillable guards. And even getting a clear shot at them from here was all but impossible without standing out in the clear wide open.

    That was, of course, unless you were Crow.

    The other Canids watched with what might be classified as reverent glee, the common emotional grandchild of prospective imminent vengeance on a playground nemesis vis a vis an older sibling, as the Wolf lay prone and crept into position to take his shots. Seamlessly melding with the horticultural necropolis like a snake within a nest of jungle vines.

    Drake didn¡¯t need to look at Hemlock to know that she bristled, mind, body and heart, with sinful levels of competitive current.

    Indeed, even if he had looked he would have seen nothing but the familiar cold steel jacket. But in the aural plane a hot draft akin to the excess heat bleeding off of a fresh broth bowl would have been impossible to miss. Were it only that he had the extra perception apparati necessary to sense it.

    Noiselessly, without disturbing so much as a pebble of the crimson walk, Crow shouldered his custom duplex rifle and fired a single shot.

    The Null crystal cracked as it shattered the very molecules of the air it passed through. A bone-chilling crack like an ax splitting wood rattled the cove as a shimmering trail of pure violet energy split the concave darkness like a scissor.

    The projectile found its unwitting mark like a sizzling bolt seeking a lightning rod. Striking the closest specter center mass as it floated across the canyon mouth. Showering his companion with a flurry of angry blue and yellow sparks. Flaring for an instant like a star¡¯s nuclear death before collapsing into a veil of misty sky silver.

    A casual spectator might be forgiven for chocking this accuracy up to pure happenstance, or for thinking that Crow might not have calculated his attack quite as thoroughly as he ought to.

    His weapon nested on his right side. A closer inspection revealed that it was clearly designed for a right handed shooter. This wouldn¡¯t appear to make any kind of sense given that this same side of his was missing its crucial aiming device.

    Like many things in the Pyrate world this was true. But also not.

    The sure quantity of it, as far as any of those whose needs be were concerned, was that Crow could shoot a needle through a thread at two hundred yards without the use of a scope and sometimes seemed to be able to see right out the back of his head.

    The singular fact was these things, paired with a body seemingly made out of steel and smoke, made him extremely useful as a covert agent and spotter. And a useful thing, however enigmatic, is never to be squandered, especially when your enemies might pay him more.

    Mystery boxes could be smashed open, burial caves explored, hidden secrets investigated, if and when they became relevant. Until then they were just more petty noise. Fostering unnecessary drama was for those whose minds were too shallow to dip a pen in.

    The second specter was left dazed and stunned, but only for half a heartbeat. His partner¡¯s killer took just as long to adjust his aim, then a second report like an engine¡¯s battle cry drove an entropic seed into his chest, consigning both spirit and dart to stark oblivion.

    ¡°Beautiful,¡± Drake growled through a grin. As usual, Tim¡¯s genius didn¡¯t disappoint.

    To his crew, he said, ¡°Crow, scout around. Make sure they don¡¯t have any friends. Hem, you and Bon Bon come with me.¡±

    Crow nodded and like a momentary shot of moonlight peeking through a storm cloud, he vanished in a puff of memory.

    Safely settled in the knowledge of their secured flanks and rear, Drake set his mind to the task of breaching the tower¡¯s actual defenses.

    The door was shut fast. Like he¡¯d expected anything else. Inset about three paces into a shallow archway, the black stone reflected the black tile of the hemisphere mosaic underfoot. Casting the whole veneer in an umbrella of sheer necrotic void.

    The frustrating, though not altogether surprising, thing was that there were no visible locks, fasteners, bolts, keyholes or even handles.

    Given that who it was who¡¯d put this door here was probably the same being who¡¯d locked it, some elementary reasoning on Drake¡¯s part put forward that the door had most probably been sealed magickally and could only be unsealed via some mystic, mysterious rhyme, rhythm or formula known only to the one who¡¯d woven the spell.

    A thought streaked into Drake¡¯s mind in that instant. Startling him, not so much for its subject, but for the fact that he hadn¡¯t thought it before.

    ¡®I wonder if his ghost¡¯s around here somewhere.¡¯

    He thought on this, then shook it off. If any of his family¡¯s astral shades were hanging around they would undoubtedly be of greater harm than help.

    ¡®As above, so below.¡¯

    Unburdened by her Captain¡¯s head for leisurely forays into the lands of ¡®if¡¯ and ¡®perhaps¡¯, Hemlock tapped his arm and pointed up.

    Drake followed her finger to a patch of deeper darkness within the umbral arch overhead. His eyes interpreted this as a squarish hole about the width of a cannon mount. Though what purpose this device had he couldn¡¯t be sure.

    ¡®Too big to be a cistern,¡¯ his brain mused behind his back. ¡®Just one, so unlikely to be a murder hole.¡¯

    Meanwhile his conscious sector had him pace the width of the anti-reception chamber. Using this, along with his thumb and foot as reference markers, he calculated the drop was roughly eighteen and a half yards.

    A quick gear check revealed they had just enough rope between them to reach the opening. The only hurdle left was the delivery. Not even Crow¡¯s arm was good enough to make that kind of shot from this angle. And talented though he was, Drake very much doubted the Wolf¡¯s tool kit included telepathic knot tying.

    No. This required a hands¡¯ on approach. And without Crow, their next best candidate was ¡­

    ¡°Think you can make that?¡± Drake asked. Knowing full well the one thing Bon Bon dreaded more than introspection was heights.

    True to her form, the Vixen appeared unperturbed. ¡°Just say the word Captain,¡± she trilled brightly.

    Hemlock stepped in. ¡°You¡¯re not strong enough to pull us up. And you couldn¡¯t pick a lock to save your own skin.¡±

    Bon Bon¡¯s eyes narrowed. An objection had just about reached her throat when Drake shut it down with the sharp, deliberate clearance of his own vocal tract.

    ¡°We just need her to poke her head in and see if it¡¯s anything worth trying for. If so I¡¯ll call Crow back for the heavy lifting.¡±

    He resisted the impulse to add ¡°she¡¯ll be easier for us to catch if she falls¡±, remembering their rapidly dwindling time allowance.

    Hemlock huffed, but held her tongue. She may have shared a paleolithic branch with the Oreamnos¡¯ Mountain variety, but her species nowadays had about as much upward mobility as an industrial servitor.

    Drake glowered up at the sky, as though trying to will the planet to spin backwards.

    The hour was fast darkening. Already he could hear the distant groans and rousing snarls of the hungry night terrors. What was hidden behind those sounds in the depths of that infernal sea weighed on him like a mining sub¡¯s steel trolling net.

    Once more, Hemlock was his anchor. Breaking into his parochial monologue with an oddly lucid query. ¡°Who brought the pitons?¡±

    Drake looked at Bon Bon, who shrugged and looked back at Hemlock, who folded her arms and blew out a derisive snort.

    Drake stroked the bridge of his nose. Not for the first time considering with mixed feelings the impossibility of Flint¡¯s original mission statement.

    ¡°From the erstwhile peat wrought of all the lands of the world I shall craft the most versatile, cunning, elite, master class of warriors the world has ever seen.

    By one they shall be unmatched in strength, skills and spirit.

    By en large they shall be unstoppable in force.¡±

    If what was commonly said to be true of the proverbial sculptor was true of his clay, Flint may as well have set out to make a third sun out of burnt bread crusts.

    Without a word, Drake hopped over to the thorny bracket of deadly alien creepers and hacked off a pair of bled thorn blades. Around half a cubit in length, the unnaturally dense mineralized pseudo-organic composite blades were as sharp as obsidian razors and tough like tool steel.

    These things made them awesome improvised weapons in a bind. Or, as the case may be, makeshift climbing stakes when you¡¯d somehow remembered to pack everything but.

    Drake drew his signal whistle from its home pouch and through its brass innards transmuted a full lung into a long hailing note. As if spawned from within the very device itself Crow materialized by Drake''s side in less than how many seconds it took him to holster the instrument.

    Not a moment too soon, as would soon become evident.

    Drake had scarcely completed his explanation of their plan when a cry like the howl of a deranged Chimeran cannibal tore at their ears and mortal hearts.

    Primal valves unsealed. Pulses quickened. Senses sharpened. Hands flew to weapons. Someone, specifically Bon Bon, had the wherewithal to strap pocket torches to branches and set them up at the line between dirt and tower stone like a flaming sentinel wall.

    Drake knew this would have the opposite of the supposed effect. But for the sake of time and morale he kept that particular jar of practical pessimism locked tight and sealed away.

    On his command, with guns and swords the hunter and huntress formed a perimeter inside their radiant barricade while he and his fiery junior kin saw to piecing together their lifeline.

    It would have been relatively straightforward work under normal circumstances. But this was the sort of place was normality came to die.

    Drawn like ravagers to a shipwreck by the unaccustomed warmth and light, Naarfynder¡¯s waking hordes shrieked their war cries to the stars.

    Which would have been bearable, were it not for the accursed Wood. The sounds that should, by all conventional reason, have been muffled by the perverse foliage were instead horrifically distorted and amplified.

    Warped by the synthephonic web, wanton screeches and bellows mutated into unreal, twisted and tortured voices and chants of the dead. As though the spirits the island regularly consumed were able to reach back into the living realm and speak through the very deconsecrated roots and unhallowed ground that had taken them thence from.

    Upon accomplishing their assembly task, Drake instantly summoned Crow to come do his part.

    With rope in teeth and commandeered claws in hand, the Wolf scaled the vertical incline with his usual astonishing speed.

    A hand¡¯s count of heartbeats after making first entrance into the cavernous cist he hailed back with the established ¡°follow me¡± tune.

    A part of Drake thought he should have felt relieved. That relative safety was within their grasp. But he knew better.

    The normal nightly aurora was gone. It had never, in fact, been there at all. This Drake knew. In its never actual stead was a hideous mockery. A taunting blanket that bled rather than twinkled. Curses rained from those inverse heavens in place of light. Instead of their usual sultry pale mauve, the moons glistened with rays of gold and silken streaks of scarlet and hazel.

    The whole sordid simulacrum flowed like water. Making everything beneath their gaze shimmer with the mirage quality of a hot iron plate.

    Stories here were real. This was a land of discarded dreams. Hope, envy, fear, gluttony and lust. All that its makers had felt that had gone unfulfilled found sanctuary here.

    Hate and despair fell upon every surface like a plague of blood-hungry parasites. Those things that too often were denied, mania and joy, surged up through the soil like maggots to feast on the rot and hopeless sorrows of the day.

    Naarfynder was awake now. Nay, she was alive. And she had smelled their blood.

    Drake ordered Bon Bon to quickly extinguish and gather up the torches under the assumption that they would most certainly need them where they were going.

    As she did this, without breaking frame he fell in swiftly towards the rope and gave Hemlock the signal to start her ascent.

    This she did with no complaints.

    By no coincidence it was remarked in those sectors of the Pyrate Academy sphere which Hemlock least frequented that she may have some Feline in her gene pool somewhere.

    This speculation owed itself to the popular misapprehension that while the lower strata of Iradylian were widely renowned for their near preternatural acumen when it came to precarious posts and prodigious heights, they tended to experience severe difficulty with the concept of down.

    Naturally, whether said in jest or otherwise, no beast foolish enough to flout the erroneous connection in Hemlock¡¯s vicinity, much less to her directly, had yet managed to retain both their courage and their full original tooth count.

    Upon reaching the chute¡¯s edge, with the aid of Crow¡¯s strong arms and no small amount of wriggling and cursing, she squeezed her armored, gear-laden, amply maternal form up and through the disobliging space.

    The stubs of what once had been an iron grate caught on straps and cloth, which were all too eagerly parted with after.

    The hunter and huntress knelt panting at the lip of the hostile portal. Or rather, Hemlock did. Crow sat in studious silence, absently rummaging in his satchel.

    In the time it took Hemlock to restore her breath he¡¯d produced a small black thumb candle in a brass holder. With a thwick of the tiny flintstone apparatus beside the finger hold he set the thermaturgically argent fuse ablaze.

    The space around them was cold, damp, impenetrably dark apart from the candle and portal¡¯s waning ambience, and totally barren aside from its new occupants.

    Indeed, not so much as a scrap of textile, fleck of d¨¦cor or splinter of woodwork lingered anywhere to cite that this place had ever been inhabited by anything that required mortal accommodations. Though at the moment this was Crow¡¯s truth alone.

    Meanwhile, a handful of yards below, a dramatic scene of a wildly different sort was unfolding.

    A minor misadventure in her early years had seen Bon Bon stranded on the topmost spire of her mother¡¯s flagship, the ¡®William¡¯, for nearly three straight days during the brunt of an Abyssal tempest.

    Since then she had actively dodged scaling anything higher or more precipitous than a flight of stairs.

    This event was no exception. For a minute it had looked as though horror-brewed adrenaline would override her ingrained phobia, but now it seemed the hard stone ground of realization had come up to meet her at the least opportune instant. As was its so odious wont.

    Drake urged her on from behind as best he could without shouting or cursing, but her fingers were like steel vice grips. She clasped the rope with such force that even over the rapidly encroaching rage of the wild hunt Drake could hear the fibers creaking like burning lumber.

    He didn¡¯t dare look down. The air was growing thick and heavy with the foul odors of unkempt fur, fresh blood and necrotic flesh.

    He didn¡¯t dare entertain the idea that any of his father¡¯s misbegotten spawn had caught their scent. Even though every instinct he had was plummeting into that well like as many doomed ships into a vortex.

    He momentarily considered prodding his reluctant crewmate with the point of his sword. But he dared not risk the shock costing her grip.

    Crow had to physically pry the whimpering Bon Bon from the rope. Whereupon she promptly latched herself onto his arm instead.

    When Drake finally crawled through the hole, cursing all the while at the stone¡¯s uncooperative texture, or rather lack thereof, he arrived a bit stunned to find Bon Bon restored to a state of mostly-matured calm.

    He passed a quizzical glance to Crow, who just shrugged.

    A piercing wail like the syren hallmark a murder in progress reminded him and Hemlock to steal back the line before they had a whole mess of very unwanted company.

    A minute later, with their lines securely back in hand and separated back into their resident packs, Drake gave Crow the thorns for safekeeping, spared a moment to curse himself for not thinking to grab a few more thorns, then he resigned himself to the present. Wherein he looked around and revealed to the rest that they had arrived in Drohmsviire¡¯s disused prison sector.

    ¡°Disused,¡± he clarified like a wayward husband explaining a mysterious perfume scent on his collar, ¡°because once the Miasma was released nobody ever made it this far again.¡±

    Logic was a funny thing. In the same fickle, tumultuous sense in which the gods took their amusement that is.

    It was a force of nature. Apriorist. Apathetic. Agnostic. Randomly generous and cruel. Completely and utterly devoid of tact or empathy. Its course ran straight through futile sensibilities and frail social etiquette like a hot cannon slug through a parchment screen.

    If what was most frequently said of the heart was true of the mind, then it was probably for the best that the two often sat at mutually exclusive ends of the table.

    Independently of her will and better judgement, Hemlock¡¯s brain connected the dots.

    Smooth stone meant fluid erosion. This was obvious. Drainage system meant lots of continuous fluids. Integral meant early anticipation.

    Conclusion: the most consistent reason for a dungeon to need drainage was ¡­

    ¡°Aackk!¡± she gagged and wiped her hands furiously on her trousers.

    It was plain that the last vestiges of moisture had evaporated some time ago, most likely around the time of the Castle owner¡¯s sudden departure, the idea of life draining away beneath her fingers snagged on her heartstrings like the thorny end of a harpoon.

    Were her eyes of the same enhanced quality as Crow¡¯s she would have seen the Wolf actually crack a smile.

    It was, by one side of the universal coin, to their mutual advantage that she hadn¡¯t.

    On the other, however, it might be argued that, against the common wisdom saying contrary, a distraction, even such a juvenile one, could have been most useful in this time and place.

    As it was, lacking such a bulwark of levity, here and now were where the full brunt of her Cervidite heritage shown in its full, unabashed, natural glory.

    Her species were known to be particularly prone to the prey side of the actuarial spectrum. Unfortunately, her exceptional predisposition did not exempt her from the rule.

    Three ongoing years of the Pyratical lifestyle had painstakingly worked to reverse or mute the patterns that millions of years of nature¡¯s heavily exclusive dance had beaten into her loadbearing neural lattice.

    The Castle¡¯s dermal layer was mildly preferable to its epidermis by sole virtue of there being nothing hungry in here. At least, nothing with big teeth and claws.

    Were it not for Crow¡¯s unflappable aura of strength and calm keeping her hardwired timidity in check, the Doe might very well have turned back and taken her chances with the savage denizens below.

    Calling on her years of training in the art of swift and methodical death, she inhaled long and deep through her nose.

    Holding the nocturn air in her core, transmuting it through cold alchemical fusion into unburdened crystal. As clear and crisp as the air atop a high mountain.

    Then she exhaled.

    The darkness stayed. It would always be there with her. That was what made her a Pyrate. What had been brushed off was the useless scale. All the pointless emotions, the corrosive doubts and anxieties.

    What was left was a cold, stoic, steel mirror of a mind. Off of which the world outside was captured and reflected, clear and unfettered, in every harsh spit of detail.

    At last she could see. She could fight. And so she had no fear. She took to her feet and defiantly brushed herself clean of nonexistent dust before turning and aiding Crow in hauling their emotionally trapped crewmembers to safety.

    ¡°So what now?¡± she asked once they and their enemies¡¯ means of pursuit were secured.

    ¡°Now,¡± Drake answered in matching cadences, ¡°we go find out what my father was up to.¡±

    They say experience is the father of wisdom. They also say that wisdom is the killer of conviction.

    If what was true of the mind was true of the spirit, that would go a long way towards explaining why the wise always made the worst Captains in psychological battle.

    Their conceptual ballast tanks were always leaking, and they couldn¡¯t help poking holes in their own saarding armor.

    An invisibly thin, impossibly sharp needle stitched an untraceably long thread of icicle fear into his words and aura.

    Nihil reverberances of which shuddered the gap between his mouth and their ears. Gaining exponential momentum upon contact with cranial causeways. Stealing warmth and vitality with every arc of their repulsive waves.

    They¡¯d come this far, they all told themselves. They knew their new ghost stoppers worked. They couldn¡¯t just abandon their friends now. And at the root tail end of it, they really didn¡¯t have much in the way of choice.

    Armed with what little reassurance null contrivances and a healthy allowance of pocketed fire could give the intrepid band pressed deeper into the depths of the unknown, foolishly thinking themselves prepared for the worst.

 Chapter 17: Down Where the Vermin Haunt

    Amelia hesitated. Her glowing escorts had apparently been recalled by whatever mysterious power had summoned them.

    When the portal shut her in she was guided only by her intuition and the dimly flickering orange light coming from the far end of the passageway.

    ¡®Strange¡¯, she thought, being not at all unaware of the symbolism, ¡®how it never seems to get any closer.¡¯

    She could see the faintest outlines and dimmest silhouettes of her immediate surroundings. From what she could make out this corridor was exactly like the one at her journey¡¯s inception.

    Every inch of marble was covered extensively by ornate, detailed carvings in the same style as those on the artifacts on her back, intermingled with the same sharp textual scrawl.

    Large sectors of the murals were unintelligibly carved up by the convoluting interplays of light and shadow.

    Under the flickering illuminati It all just looked like manic dragons, raging daemons and helmeted phalanxes hurling thunderbolts, all molded in white flames, dancing and spreading across the otherwise immaculate masonry.

    Given her current mental, physical and emotional state, she supposed it didn¡¯t stand outside the bounds of reality she could have just imagined the whole saarding thing.

    In fact, maybe this was all just a hallucination. Maybe she was in actual fact, hanging off the edge of mortality in the middle of the FPA yard and this was all just the dying gasp of a mind desperately trying to escape its inalterable fate.

    Or maybe that was just her wishful thinking.

    Eventually, after a minor eternity of walking, she came to a section that was infinitely more interesting, only because the light in this portion was finally substantial enough for her to perceive anything beyond the broadest structures of meaning.

    She couldn¡¯t decipher the words interplayed between the mural blocks, having to take it on faith that they were in fact words, but the sprawling pictographs wove a complex, bibliographic tale of a polymeric global cataclysm several eons in the making. Made all the more spectacular by the serendipitous mood lighting.

    But for as eerie and epic as it was, these balladic renditions of the world being repeatedly eviscerated and having its face frankensteined back into a mangled prosthetic version of itself spoke of nothing unknown to any beast born into even the furthest fringes of modern civilization.

    But there was something about this particular depiction. Perhaps it was this lighting, or this context, or maybe it was just her lack of sleep that gave it that extra tang of vivacity.

    Whatever its origin, the carnal intensity of the scene made her involuntarily shudder and turn away.

    ¡®And here we are¡¯, she thought to herself.

    Further on, the carving showed what she interpreted to be a glorious civilization rising from the ashes of devastation, only to be brought low by the Second Divide.

    Time and again the world was shattered, restructured and reclaimed. Each new Era rising from the funeral ashes of the world beneath, using scraps left over from their dead, and as often as not forgotten, forebears. Only to one day themselves be forcibly cast into the well of history. Everything about their lives, ways, culture and experiences discarded by fate¡¯s impartial, incalculable winds.

    For reasons unknowable to her Amelia stopped by a random panel and ran a respectful hand over it. Finding the stone strangely warm to the touch. And also ¡­ just strange in general ¡­

    Was she imagining it or was there the faintest tremor of a pulse coming from somewhere deep within the wall?

    Wait ¡­ was it ¡­ speaking ¡­ ?

    Or ¡­ chanting ¡­ ?

    She snatched back her hand as though stabbed by a wicked thorn. Then, remembering she had someplace to be, she went about her mayday adventure. Doing everything in her limited power to press thoughts about what had just transpired, and the army of monstrous things it potentially implied, out of her head.

    She didn¡¯t have to try very hard. For, not too very long after, she would have help. This came in the form of the light, that elusive beacon of wishful fantasy, she had been chasing suddenly appearing distractingly large in front of her like a giant stopped over for a surprise party nobody else had been invited to.

    Stopping just short of the portal, beyond whose glaring gloom she could make out only shades of gray and gold. Or was it brown?

    She pulled from her pocket the second of Silver¡¯s three trusty pocket guide sheets. This one with the words, Read ME First, plastered on the folded front in sprawling lathers of daubed crimson.

    With the aid of Iradyl''s lens, applied her eyes to the impossibly-fine print.

    One thing that became instantly apparent was that hers and Silver¡¯s notion of ¡°brief¡± were to one another as the imposing hem of nighttime was to the penetrant glare of the morning.

    His first paragraph read as follows:

    Trial 1 / The Trial of Strength: Here you''ll find two big stone statues. One of an amorphous thing slaying a large nondescript monster. My primary sources weren¡¯t very illustrative. My apologies. His partner is reportedly a male figure lugging a large globe on his back. When you enter the chamber, the statues will both ask you to help them. Yes, the statues will start talking to you. It doesn¡¯t matter which one you choose; a door will open to let you out. Yes, the statues move, too. Personally, Personally, I¡¯d say go for the globe. Just sounds easier and less painful. But then again, I¡¯m dead, so take my opinion for what it¡¯s worth.

    A smile formed in Amelia''s mind, though it got lost somewhere on the way to her face.

    She marveled at Silver''s lighthearted apathy to danger, wondering how he could come across as being so calm and nonchalant. While perfectly aware that he¡¯d already answered the question with his own self-deprecating line.

    He was dead. He had surmounted the last and greatest hurdle. What more was there to fear?

    If any worrisome thing in life could become bearable after one got over the initial anxiety of anticipation, she supposed it stood to reason that death, which was in many ways the ultimate worry, would be no different.

    Pocketing the parchment and prismatic stem she cautiously approached the chamber entrance. Bearing in mind the lessons learned from characters like Ali Baba and Aladdin and their subsequent centuries¡¯ spawn.

    Finding therein, to her relief, no mountains of cursed gold or bands of craven murderers. Nor, to her mild disappointment, were there to be found any wish-granting fonts or magick carpets.

    Indeed, not so much as a magick doormat existed here to greet her.

    Nothing but a vast, dark, empty chasm of a chamber bearing only the symbolic elements Silver had described. A dusty, desert-golden perm of aural radiance similar to that given off by the moths seemed to seep directly out of the polished mosaic sandstone underfoot.

    Two goliath sculptures featured prominently off of her left and right hands. Each featuring a main figure, whose bodies were archetypically male. With builds like the classic painters unwittingly codified as being ideally warlike. Broad, lean and heavily muscular. But whose heads appeared unfinished. Just a smooth, rounded polygonal placeholder with no identifiable species traits or faces to speak of. Nor were they demarcated by any species traits such as fur, scales, claws, hooves or even tails.

    As for why they would be fashioned this way, Amelia¡¯s most educated guess was that either the details didn¡¯t matter or the artist was operating under the modus of crafting a general ¡®alien, but not too alien¡¯ aesthetic.

    ¡®He certainly hit that nail on the head,¡¯ Amelia thought.

    Apart from that, they appeared ordinary enough, considering their existential context. Polished like gleaming diamonds, their skin shone like the Erandian moon¡¯s pale face.

    She double checked Silver¡¯s instructions. Sure enough, per his council, one statue was depicted wrestling with, and apparently losing to, a large indeterminately monstrous creature.

    From what little Amelia¡¯s image cortices could gather it was probably something mythological. Though she was quite sure she¡¯d remember coming across anything so surreal.

    It was difficult to describe, her impression of this abstract allusion.

    It was like trying to recall a word but never quite getting all the way there. No matter how hard or long she stared, it never quite seemed to align with anything she recognized as real.

    The more she tried to pin one down, it grew hazy and took flight as though frightened of her mind¡¯s intrusion on its nest space.

    If she didn¡¯t know better, she¡¯d think her very synaptic cables were somehow being altered or tampered with.

    In a manner of speaking, this was exactly correct. Just not in so obvious or intuitive a fashion as she would as yet understand.

    Presently coming to this conclusion, she turned her mind to something more within its grasp.

    The physiologically ambiguous golem opposite was on a knee being bent nearly flat over by a bone-white globe nearly ten times his size.

    This much she had been led to expect. And so all was well.

    At least until she took another step. At which point the statues both started moving. And talking.

    The fighting figure cried out in a voice like the lowest key signature on a pipe organ, ¡°help me stranger! Please!¡± as he struggled vainly with one hand to hold the snarling monster at bay while groping with the other for his sword, which had fallen just out of reach.

    She backed away. Which the burdened figure took as its cue to plead, ¡°please stranger. I beg you. I cannot bear this weight any longer.¡±

    Their voices were deep and resonant, as though they originated from inside a sealed urn. But the nearer they got, the more incessant and desperate their pleas grew.

    By the time she was directly between them Amelia was less at a crossroads about which one to answer than rather she ought to aid or smack them.

    Then she remembered Silver¡¯s advice and smiled. This time in full view at the synchronous cadence with which their mental gears ticked.

    Drawing on a lifetime of involuntarily accrued skill she expertly tuned out the wailing cries of the battling figure as she walked over to the one with the whole of the world mounted in a targeted effort against his spine.

    He said nothing as she approached. The boldness in her gait mounting with each step. Her sincerity and confidence gaining exponential momentum with every breath.

    Giant balls tended to hurt considerably less than giant monsters.

    Even bent low as he was, she had to climb up onto his thigh to reach the astrological sphere. Which, much to her relief, turned out to be lighter than appearances deceptively suggested.

    Lighter than air in fact. She relieved him of his cumbersome burden and floated down on it ground before effortlessly tossing it away into the rearward chamber void.

    Her first reward for this was instant and absolute silence.

    Her second, a key, in the form of a gesture. Like a proud teacher, the now liberated figure stood to its full towering height. Then it bowed so low at the middle that its glassy forehead nearly tapped hers.

    At the conclusion of this there was a long hiss and a cold rush of air as a section of wall like a cross section of cut gemstone behind the statue was pulled aside by an invisible hand. Revealing yet another long tunnel complete with its own pocket sect of oblivion.

    It was at this point that a quote from one of her favorite fictional creatures, a quote from the amorphous Lookingglass Vigo, Chester, came unexpectedly to mind.

    ¡°When the path is problematical, consider a leap of faith. Ride the wind.¡±

    As though via incanted summons, the common refrain of ¡°don¡¯t believe everything you read¡± appeared immediately thereafter.

    Amelia ignored the wisdom of her real life ancestors in favor of that propounded by a fictional Chimeran changeling. A choice that in the proceeding minutes she would hope was indicative of no more than her dire need for rest and calories.

    She skirted around the bowing statue and took off at a jog down the next corridor. Forgetting, in her joy and haste, that this was merely the first Trial of seven.

    Perhaps it had been by design that the first Trial had filled her with an inflated sense of accomplishment leading to her overconfidence and recklessness.

    She would very soon learn Pyracy¡¯s Seventh Rule when she reached the next Trial chamber.

    Look twice, step once.

    In this case, jump!

    Another desert arena stars could, and apparently had gotten trapped in. Only this one was mostly sand, with a few broken fossils of what looked like a lost civilization dotting the suffused sun-diamond sea.

    Another Guardian statue waited for her by the entrance. A carbon copy of the first two, save for that it was bulkier, as stoic as they were needy and as deadly as they were helpless.

    It pounced on her as she entered like a starving Leopard on a bleeding Gazelle, wielding a great quicksilver sword the size of a War Sloop¡¯s main beam that ebbed and pulsed with jungle-colored tides.

    Golden runic sigils and alien scriptures rippled along the undulation pattern and white lightning lanced from crest to trough and vice versa.

    Had nature seen fit to bestow Amelia with even marginally lesser reflexes than it had she would have been reduced to incongruent, and probably also quite toasty, pulp.

    The edge impacted the sand instead with such terminal velocity that it bloomed an electric scorch. Fusing the granules into mineral glass that wept off the unnatural blade like drops off a Bird¡¯s wing.

    Her brain swam with conflicting thoughts and reactions too muddled by chemicals and her clubbing heart drum to be of any help.

    But by that same coin they kept the mind out of the way of her body as well. Consequently, she dodged and leapt on pure, randomly intelligent instinct. Relying on raw elemental speed to keep sometimes just a few milliseconds ahead of the raining steel sledge. The slightest tap from which could have bisected a light Frigate.

    Eventually she managed to find fleeting sanctuary behind a pile of toppled blocks amidst a strew of languishing metal. Therein she took a moment to recoup and breath, then hurriedly skimmed through the second passage of her study sheet.

    It said this:

    Trial 2/ Trial of Skill: From what I can gather, this is a fun one. I say that honestly, because there seems to be no real sure-fire trick to beating this Guardian. Basically, it¡¯s a statue swinging an ¡°iron plank¡±, and the only way out of the room is to defeat it.

    Some accounts say this means either pinning or disarming it. If that¡¯s the case I¡¯d personally recommend the former. Safer.

    Of course, a few other translations replace ¡®or¡¯ with ¡®and¡¯. So I¡¯d just hedge my bets if I were you.

    Yeah, I know, easy for me to say. Being dead and all.

    The only solid advice I can offer is this: Don¡¯t use any of the weapons in the chamber.

    The one thing every source I¡¯ve seen agrees on in this Trial of Skill, is the pronounced emphasis on self-reliance. Which I can only take to mean that you have to beat the Guardian with only your own two hands, your wits and your guts.

    Now that I read that I realize I probably could have phrased it better. But you get the idea regardless.

    ¡°Great!¡± Amelia fumed. Then she clapped a useless hand over her mouth.

    She passed a cursory glance over the piles of strewn archaic weaponry. Swords, axes, shields, spears, maces and clubs. Whose presence she had only just now registered, ironically right after learning that they were of no use, and ergo of no significance, to her whatsoever.

    But, in retrospect, this wasn¡¯t the kind of handicap of would have been in her case. She wasn¡¯t big or strong enough to even lift most of these weapons, much less use them. And even if she were they were rusted long past the point of use.

    Besides, she¡¯d never had any weapons training. After all, she had only been at school for two days before being abducted by ghosts.

    A frigid glacier of panic crawled over and through her. Her instinct was to hide and wait for the enemy to find another target. Preferably one slightly bigger and better armed.

    But she seriously doubted that whoever went to all the trouble of arming and animating a three-story golem would then go on to hobble it with petty things like reason or mercy.

    ¡®Snap out of it, damn you! Think!¡¯ she accosted herself. ¡®No one¡¯s coming to save you. It¡¯s do or die! Kill or be killed!¡¯

    Without warning, seemingly without reason, she found herself thinking, ¡®what would Drake do?¡¯ Which was odd only because she would have expected Avlon to be her standard model. Or perhaps even Silver.

    Of course, any fool with a sideways knowledge of biology could have inferenced which side of her evolutionary matrix had pushed that particular button.

    Being a standard, upstanding model of a beast, albeit one with a prejudicial disposition towards learning that bordered on the obsessive, she shook off this outmoded raiment. Just like she shook off the image it drew of Drake in a suit of gleaming knightly armor, holding aloft a mighty silver sword with the breeze christening him, the blazing suns anointing him ¡­

    She pounded a fist against her chest. ¡®Stop! It!¡¯

    She wasn¡¯t that kind of simpleminded, towheaded, arrogant, impotent windsock of a damsel whose only power was that which her body proportions gave her over the average male mind.

    And even if she were that stereotypical ornament, which she was NOT, that pheromonal power would be useless here, alone in the penumbra of death¡¯s shadowy valley haunt.

    No one was going to save her. Even if the vision Iradyl had shown her had been accurate, those canny brave hearts up top had no means of physically entering the Labyrinth or Sanctum.

    She needed to trust in her own hands and mind, for they were the only help she was going to get.

    Good. Now what?

    Now ¡­ she needed a plan! Yes, that was it. Ideally one involving an extremely large cannon. Or ten.

    But if dreams were bread there would be no such thing as hunger. And seeing as how her present arsenal consisted of little more than harsh language, she decided to opt for a simpler, if not necessarily saner, approach.

    ¡®Right,¡¯ Amelia heard the back of her own head say without her permission.

    Then her father¡¯s words regarding combat, which at the time had involved a rubber ball, popped up in her mental space like a snowlogged dandelion.

    ¡°Any one you walk away from is one you win.¡±

    As silently as she could manage with the clanky bundle weighing on her slight frame, she gingerly poked her head up over her sheltering rubble.

    A seemingly arbitrary skeletal array of sandstone walls, derelict pillars and desolate archways sat amidst the sparkling bronze. In her untrained summation this was the corpse of an ancient ravaged citadel.

    Its sole occupant, a golem, possibly a onetime piece of stately garden d¨¦cor, now charged with safeguarding its lonely bastion from further desecration.

    She looked around for any escape and to her complete nonsurprise saw none. The portal through which she¡¯d entered had been swallowed up by the amber void. And, putting aside the academic unwisdom of making assumptions based on a single data point, if she¡¯d correctly inferred the pattern she would need to demonstrate whatever standard the Trial was meant to measure before the exit would reveal itself.

    In this case, that apparently meant battling a ten ton statue with her bare hands.

    As if this wasn¡¯t problematic enough, only about one percent of the ground here was solid enough for her to capitalize on her lone ancillary advantage.

    ¡®Perfect,¡¯ she thought. ¡®Well, at least this place comes with complimentary burial.¡¯

    Now that her brain wasn''t completely flooded by adrenaline, she intuitively recognized the pattern and flavor of the concentric sigil etched in golden wire font on the back of the golem¡¯s head.

    ¡°I wonder ¡­¡± her mouth said before her brain could veto it.

    She hadn¡¯t the time to waste on laments, self-cursing or wishes for chronomantic powers. Her wisest course was to plot and execute an escape course. Quickly.

    By the time she¡¯d informed herself of this the colossus had already whirled on her hiding place, hefted its titanic weapon and began its next leaping offensive.

    Old Iron Hide would have probably described Amelia¡¯s impulsive reaction as ¡°dodging a boulder by jumping off a cliff¡± had he been there to witness. It being punctuated by her whole library stockpile of profanity notwithstanding, or perhaps actually padding the score some.

    Avlon would perhaps have called it ¡°unintentionally brilliant¡±.

    Pretty much any other Pyrate would have derided it as a foolhardy gamble based on the current of rushing adrenaline. Though perhaps they would have used crasser terms.

    Any casual armchair observer would have simply called it some variation of stupid and left it there.

    Which, if what was meant was simply that the move was uninformed by her conscious intellect, would technically be accurate. Although any intellectually honest discussion could not be called permeative unless it acknowledged the healthy, albeit chaotic, dispensation of fortune into the equation.

    Her action was swift, of course, and deft as anything seen in any circus across Aevon. Such was the overriding power of need. As anything else would have resulted in her instant and messy demise when, a quarter of a second later, the giant¡¯s blade eviscerated her ersatz sanctuary.

    This move was also fortunate in equal measure both because her rolling aerobatic evasion blinded her to the true extent of the damage the unreal sword wrought and because it landed her in a pristine tactical position to turn the tables.

    Although it would take time for her to appreciate either fact, she was not blind to how narrow her escape had yet again been.

    ¡®Interesting¡¯, her unbidden backseat Captain mused from its secret lair. ¡®How well the gods make dumb luck look like the work of genius.¡¯

    Amelia wisely elected to ignore the comment. As well to keep the unwieldy metal-stuffed satchel where it was in favor of committing the precious seconds it would take to remove and securely stash it for the much more urgent task of puzzling out her next move.

    She couldn¡¯t keep dodging forever. Already her leg muscles were starting to feel the burn of unaccustomed strain. Where death was concerned, exhaustion was as great an enemy as fear.

    This was probably why immortals were barred from entering the Sanctum. It would have been far too easy for Silver to cheese his way through these Trials, even notwithstanding his ability to just walk straight through the walls.

    A spark lit a pilot flame somewhere in her unconscious. An incandescent moment from when she had been airborne that touched off a polymeric chain of reactive thoughts which grew and transmogrified into a conclusionary seed. An idea of safety, of victory. A light at the end of this proverbial tunnel.

    This smoldering fetal nugget found in the starving dark mass of her memories a ready and eager egg to nestle in. And with comparable speed and foresight to which regularly transmissible legacy accidents are carried into being, the vague, infantile form of a plan was thus conceived.

    Then came the surge. The rush of endorphins filling her with primal will and causal purpose. She would fight. She would win. She would live.

    Like a phantom she tore off through the maze of dead civilization. Her torch thus newly lit, she wound with impressive speed and agility betwixt the mangled ruins and wind-strewn debris. Bolting with singular intent like a log down a mountain stream towards her target locale which could be most summarily described as a thoroughly defeated bastion.

    In point of fact, it didn¡¯t take much imagination to think that whatever had once sat atop these pillars must have been a spectacular monument to their makers¡¯ unorthodox powers of engineering.

    But now they sat as another one among many aggrieved monuments to the entropic nature of time and, to the classically educated, as a cautionary tale about the evident dangers of erecting such impressive and precarious structures on such a fickle and reactionary foundation.

    The Guardian, unencumbered by such lofty abstractions, rampaged through and demolished these forsaken relics like as many mounds of dry dung.

    It pursued her relentlessly with its behemoth weapon held high, bellowing a hollow war cry, in what might have been interpreted as a tragic rage.

    The golem¡¯s singular drive was an unforeseen advantage in Amelia¡¯s nascent strategy. One that would prove decisive in their duel, as even modestly more seasoned warriors than her would have staked their lives and entire hereditary estates on. Whichever one sunk furthest on the happy side of a merchant¡¯s scale.

    A few yards behind her lay the jagged stump of a dilapidated dome.

    The standing ring of fluted columns, now bereft of their nesting canopy, aimed upward in a peculiar beveled slant. Possible years or decades of desert abrasion had cut them into the jagged teeth of some ginormous sand monster.

    Their tops, though hardly regular by any stretch of a reasonable imagination, formed a rough semicircular set of what might, in the highest abstract sense of the term, be thought of as a spiral staircase. Almost like the decapitated pavilion had been felled by a cleaving blade.

    With a solid vault Amelia tossed herself into the arena¡¯s pupil atop a fallen roof slab. There she turned and waited for her opponent.

    The splintered point of the highest pillar stabbed inward just aside the partially preserved entrance arch like the reared point of an armed javelin ready for flight.

    Using the few seconds it took for the giant to recalibrate and approach she calculated the minimum steps necessary for this barnwork plan of hers work.

    Eight. Eight steps to succeed and live. Eight chances to screw up and die. One chance at victory. One chance to prove herself worthy. She had to make it count.

    With savage intensity she ripped the satchel from her back, took out Dolsenec and tossed the rest blindly aside where it landed on the nonnewtonian dunes with a melancholic THOOMP.

    In theory, the close constraints of her chosen battlefield restricted the giant¡¯s offensive options to either straight linear or straight over. Either an overhead strike or a lunge. The height and frequency of the towers ensuring that any other course would result in the Guardian burying itself beneath several tons of stone.

    This may not be enough to destroy it, she acknowledged, but if Silver was right about the Trial¡¯s win condition she need only deprive it of its weapon. That meant merely overcoming its grip. Which she felt fairly confident a forest avalanche could accomplish.

    Of course, this all hinged on the assumption that whatever algorithms ordered the giant¡¯s combat style would also recognize this and draw the same conclusion. And, come to think on it, she¡¯d also presumed that the giant had any concern whatsoever for its own wellbeing or indeed the Trial. It may have been simply engineered to just kill anything that invades its space whatever the risk, whatever the collateral cost.

    The more time Amelia dedicated to thought, the more responsible and rational the voice in the back of her head shouting ¡®RUN! RUN! RUN!¡¯ sounded.

    A flash of incoming electroactive alloy snapped her adrenal throttle open to full.

    Time slowed to a crawl. The twenty yard tall goliath entered the deadly theatre like water crashing through a crack in a dam. Its shoulders budging the twin posts, knocking free a deluge of dislodged sand and crumbling cement.

    In the split instant before the Guardian¡¯s blade started pivoting into its trajectorial arc, a voice that her ears swore they hadn¡¯t heard but that her memory lists nonetheless pegged as belonging to her father said, ¡°nothing like a little danger to make you really appreciate your roots eh Daisha?¡±

    A decimal fraction of an eyelash flutter later, the giant¡¯s cleaving downward strike broke into her mind, which caused her body to break into a dead lefthand bolt. The force of her acceleration cracking the slab beneath her boots like a stone impacting a mirror pane, with a similar sonic exclamation to boot.

    Her gamble had paid off. But there was no time for celebration.

    One step down. Seven to go.

    The sword¡¯s relativistic momentum carried the golem staggering forward, and the malicious blade disintegrated the recently vacated platform.

    Tucking and rolling at the last instant, a move that would have left her bloody and skinless if done on anything other than sand, Amelia catapulted into another nimbler leap that landed her on the lowest stump of a pillar.

    Step two.

    She hopped from one slashed stump to the next faster than sense or caution would normally have permitted. Then she did it again and again and again.

    Step three.

    Four.

    Five.

    Upon reaching the lancing shaft she scampered up and along it with innate ease founded on a race much smaller and less socially developed.

    Step six done. Two left.

    Now came the true test. She tucked the Dragon Key inside her coat as it was too big and awkward to be clenched between her teeth.

    By this time, the Guardian had recovered and was poised to attack again. Except, not having an actual target, it swung at her last known location instead. Only to once more have the laws of motion prove its undoing.

    Again the craning momentum of its wild swing drove the alien metal sledge around, through the first domino tower in the line and lodging it into the second.

    The stone bubbled and frothed about the edge as though stewing in a pod of acid. Amelia knew she ought to be still moving. Every cell in her body screamed for her brain to kick on the accelerator. But chilling images of potential pasts narrowly avoided had her frozen as if trapped by indelible shackles.

    Luckily for her, the first pillar intervened. Following through on its death blow, the first pillar toppled directly onto the giant''s head and shoulders, driving the Titanic Anima to a knee.

    Seeing this as her moment to act, Amelia sprang from her perch like a raptor swooping after an escaping meal. Drawing on her intuitive understanding of physics to calculate the vector and power.

    Per an array of holdover prey circuits courtesy of her primeval forebears her body automatically twisted and flailed midair to land over the engraved spellwork sigil at the base of the giant¡¯s skull.

    Like a dragon hunter drawing her sword she withdrew the Dragon Key, thrust the key end into the patterned lock target in the Guardian¡¯s cranium and twisted it like a cruel knife wound.

    She genuinely didn¡¯t know whether the clicks and snaps that resulted were from some integral cogs being wrenched into line or her own connective tissues giving way. Nor was she in any mood to care. Her entire weight of focus was on one concentrated point: the result. Or rather, the lack thereof.

    For minutes that felt like half again her number of accrued life years, she and the Guardian just sat there together. Locked in a moment of galvanic stasis.

    The dragon and its slayer. The predator and its prey. The keeper and the taker.

    Then, suddenly, like a balance spring losing its last bit of tension, the giant¡¯s arms slumped to its sides, and its impermeable weapon fell to its final rest with a THUMP.

    Its utility spent. Its incarnate powers depleted. Its mystical aura vanished. It lay there cold and silent in the dust. Just another dark mark upon the field of dead old relics.

    Amelia drew in a deep, shaky breath and held it. Closing its life-giving prima within herself, she shut her eyes and willed her clattering heartbeat to normalize.

    Time slowed. Color turned to shades of gray as her eyes lost continence with the division of light and dark.

    She exhaled. Her vision returned to normal as time resumed its accustomed stalwart crawl.

    That was the most epic thing she''d ever done. That any beast had done since ¡­ well, since the last one to make it this far in the Trials. Whoever that was.

    ¡®Probably whoever wrote it in Silver¡¯s books.¡¯

    Well, now she was in that same book. Not that anyone would ever believe it, of course.

    She supposed, if nothing else it would make an interesting story to beguile her children and grandchildren with one day. Assuming she lived that long.

    After recovering and reuniting the key and her satchel, she heard the familiar swish of a door retreating circa the area just beyond where the giant had first materialized.

    The meaning of this was all too clear. In a word: freedom. In another: salvation.

    Suddenly brimming with hope and bolstered by an unhealthy amount of serotonin she shoved the items into the sling satchel and ran off to meet her next challenge.

    Halfway down the next tunnel, however, tiny but incessant tugs on her sleeves and collar caused her to slow to a walk and then to a complete stop.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    She looked from behind her back to the front, then down at the crowd of tiny phantom insects at her wrists.

    She marveled through her dominant haze for a second about how any of them could have managed to survive this far. But, recalling that these weren¡¯t normal creatures, the moment quickly subsumed into the next. Which was saturated further with a breakthrough insurgent thought wielding a blazing red banner.

    Actually, to be more strictly on point with the metaphor, it was more of an Arthurian resurgent. A monarch come back from the dead with a new harbinger sword to reclaim its rightful throne from the true usurpers. Those conspiring false pontiffs and robber barons who, by the lenses of pure conceit and arrogance, justified their feckless greed by imagining themselves in fact most worthy to wield the crown.

    She had almost died. Lest she forget. Amelia forced herself to dwell on this pivotal point. Trials were tests. Tests were meant to teach. The lesson of the warrior was that it was that charging ahead without forethought was a precarious gamble at best.

    She pulled out her road map when she neared the next chamber¡¯s light pool.

    According to Silver, next in line was the Trial of Truth.

    If his summary account of it was accurate, which, given his thus far unbroken track record, she saw no reason to doubt, then all she had to do was answer either truthfully or accurately depending on how you read it whatever question was asked of her and she would be allowed to pass.

    Amelia had to read that line several times before she was convinced she wasn¡¯t in the next test already.

    ¡®True or accurate ¡­¡¯ The more tertiary corners of her mind tilted over the concept like it were some amorphous teeter totter. Balancing, teetering, on the edge of a question that wouldn¡¯t quite clear the topsoil.

    Finally, her waking mind ran out of patience and stepped in to pick up the slack. ¡®There¡¯s a difference?¡¯

    Having already met the strictly reenforced ceiling the cosmos set on information spontaneously generating, Amelia pocketed her tools and walked on thoroughly, though some may argue appropriately, chastened.

    She was smart enough as those of her age bracket went. She could read and write competently in half a dozen languages and was fluent in the obscure art of iconography. Famously described by the Arachean poet Stalsis as, ¡°the place where the flower of rhetoric meets the soil of reality¡±.

    She just hoped that this wouldn¡¯t be a test of her academic credentials.

    If school were a ship, she could have been said to have spent her youth bouncing between the yards and the lifeboat.

    She could never quite get a foothold in math. History, to her, was just a more laborious form of lobotomy. And while her command over abstracts like philosophy, absolutes like science or variables like alchemy and mysticism was respectable, they mainly manifested as a keen, albeit almost entirely subliminal, awareness of the gods¡¯ or, depending on the moment, the universe''s nigh infinite capacity for irony and cruelty.

    Perhaps most impressively was that she was wise enough to know she had much to learn. The simplest and most relevant elusive point was that the ambiguity in Silver¡¯s last Trial description was not at all as trivial as common sense surmised.

    Accuracy was a state of being. Like what solid and liquid were to material science, accuracy was to knowledge. When a rare bit of thinking aligned unerringly with material reality it became a unit positive. A yard marker for common understanding.

    When not ¡­ well, then they tended to either be discarded, misread or used as unitarian propaganda depending on the idea, the weather and the climate of the times.

    Truth, on the other hand, was a regimen adhered to like paper to glass, in that it was usually strongest in the rain. If accuracy was an objective state of knowledge, truth was a subjective statement about how well one coped with the realities of life.

    An unfortunate constant throughout the story of creation is that what the Body Egregious tends to revere as authoritatively correct is whatever aligns with their own goals and interests at a given moment.

    And since what¡¯s true of the wheat is so of the chaff, history¡¯s most pervasive and perfunctory notes and chords were played and sung loudest in and around churches, libraries and palaces. Thus ensuring that their tithe bowls, tax coffers and pulpit seats were always eagerly filled and that the shepherd, clerks and constable sorts were never at any time hard done in for employment.

    In short, if accuracy were a cup that is either filled or empty, truth was a compass whose aim varied by the eye and standing of the beholder.

    In keeping with the gods¡¯ standards for humor, and with most of the salient world¡¯s compulsive desire for safety and menial tranquility, most of this would have come as startling news to many domestic folks. Something akin to learning that the sky was really a painted mural canvas and the moons were actually wheels of cottage cheese.

    The results would be, and very often were, calamitous. The abrasive friction between reality forcibly disintegrating from a former fantasy had crippled and felled many kingdoms, states and empires, as many a text could tell. Consequently, since life begins at the conception of the idea of itself, not at the mere physical conjoining of two cells, and since what is true of the peasant is true of the king, it thus wouldn¡¯t take long for rulers to regard the institutionalized manifolding of ideas to be the foremost key to their power.

    To demarcate their success, for tens of centuries these intrinsic aspects of home-locked life were a deepest mystery to the average beast.

    However, they had long been understood by sailors. Hence why their ships had been given a port and starboard shoulder rather than a right and left angle. As well as why her bowsprit was afore, not forward, and onboards backwards was astern. This parallel vernacular smoothed the geometric disparities that could otherwise easily arise between her officers and crew. The relation between the personal and the popular momentum made clear and objectively tangible to all. Which thus made the executions of one¡¯s duties not a mere chore, but a virtue.

    There were no gods onboard ships. They were all subject to the whims of the infernal Abyss. There was no room for weakness or excuses. No allowance could or would be made for failing to meet expectations, however petty, cruel or demanding they were.

    All sailors, and by near extension all pirates, lived by and for themselves, or they would all die together.

    Amelia had always detested sailing. Not for any profound or metaphysical reason, of course. She just always had a weak stomach for heights. And also depths that had to be worked out with a flow chart generally gave her insides curdles. As did any form of learning with the word requisite attached to it.

    Though this last point was more typical of her age and had thus been anticipated by her parents. Specifically her father. Who had primly requisitioned a line of mentors and tutors for his children. Two of whom took to the fast and easy approach to learning. The one, however, still remained resiliently defiant.

    Not by her own choice. Not her conscious choice in any case. She had simply been more inclined towards a naturalistic form of learning. ¡°The artist¡¯s prerogative,¡± as one broader minded tutor had remarked. ¡°She takes what she needs and dispels what counts.¡±

    This, Amelia had reflected, was both true and accurate. What information she found useful or interesting she simply picked up and incorporated tangentially, in her own course, via intuitive osmosis or through basic trial and error.

    Thus enlightened, her parents, albeit with some resonant dejection and after much fierce debate and argument, mostly on the part of her mother, ultimately chose to leave their middle daughter to the winds of whatever strange fate she chose for herself.

    When she stepped cautiously into the next chamber, she was greeted by yet another faceless modron. Not quite normal size, but about a fifth the size of its contemporaries.

    It sat cross-legged in the center of the barren chamber behind a cruciform pattern sword.

    Where the last Guardian¡¯s weapon had been a heavy, umbral sledge, this one¡¯s Calibern blade was sleek and nimble. Where the last had been an unworldly chimeric blend of Nigredo aura and necrotic metallurgy, this deadly implement was the beautiful stately child of art and alchemy.

    Where its sickly brother had marred and perverted all that came into its alliant field, this one radiated soothing calm. The tranquil pool to the other¡¯s acidic fire.

    Gold and silver dragons whose fangs cradled sapphire starstones and whose tails swirled down the length of the brown leather hilt to cup an incendiary orange gemstone pommel coiled around the glistening, star-metal blade.

    Unlike its forebears, when the giant angled its head to make the space where eyes would have been meet her, a piercing cold, like the tip of a freshly sharpened spadroon, bit into Amelia¡¯s flesh, syphoning her very life and spirit away through her stolen breath.

    Then, in one unnaturally smooth motion, it grasped its sword by the handle and stood itself up to its full height. Standing at ready position, with its heels together and its blade down and off to the side, it fixed her with its vacant face and spoke in a metallic voice that reminded her of Steve if the Skull lived in a clay urn and in the habit of gargling nails.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± it asked in a rich, resonant monotone.

    ¡°Amelia Roberts,¡± she said confidently.

    The statue shook its head. A motion like a boulder teetering in a windstorm. ¡°No. Who are you?¡±

    She paused thoughtfully. Then replied honestly, ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°Good,¡± said the Guardian. ¡°Why are you here?¡±

    Again she paused. She was here for the White Wand. She needed it to ¡­ to free herself ¡­ ? To free Silver? To defeat Saedel? Why was she here? Why was she really here? Why did she press on? Even if she made it out with the Wand, she didn¡¯t know how to use it. What business had she thinking she could defeat an arch necromancer in single combat? She would probably just end up like Silver. Or worse.

    So why was she really here?

    ¡°Because I¡¯d rather fight than rot,¡± she said. Not entirely certain where she¡¯d gotten the words from.

    The statue nodded again. ¡°Very wise,¡± it said.

    ¡®Ok,¡¯ she thought. ¡®This is easier than expected.¡¯

    Have you learned nothing about hubris? A voice like a set of tiny wind chimes sang from somewhere between her ear and her brain.

    ¡°What do you fear most?¡± asked the Guardian.

    It probably would be easier to list the things she wasn¡¯t afraid of. She didn¡¯t like heights, or gore, or water she couldn¡¯t see the bottom of.

    Each of these things had, at one point or another, cost her many an hour of sleep. But upon more serious reflection, these weren¡¯t so much her own personal tormentors as they were just her basic survival predications vindicating themselves.

    ¡®I fear the cold, empty void of space,¡¯ a hollow voice from the edge of nowhere said directly into her brain.

    She severely doubted that this test would accept ¡°I''m scared of the dark¡± as a valid answer. The Guardian had asked for her greatest fear, not the ones her primordial ancestors had passed along to her.

    She needed something a bit less primal.

    So she dug deeper within herself. She sought something unique, something personal, something less to do with simple biology and more in keeping with her own outlook and weaknesses. Using this criteria as a filter, she meditated on the subject for what felt like hours.

    The words ¡®I fear for the ones I love¡¯ strayed across her mind more than once. But each and every time a smaller voice, a trace of an echo, trailing behind called this a noble lie. So she brushed it off.

    ¡®Okay¡¯, her inner personal governess scolded her. ¡®Of all the Trials to stumble over. I know my own mind. I know what I¡¯m saarding afraid of.¡¯

    She knew these words were her own. She knew she earnestly meant every syllable. She also knew, though would never admit, that the conviction behind them was only partially true.

    Did she really know herself?

    Given enough years she could probably compile a comprehensive list of things she was scared of, ruling out the ones stemming from pure primitive mechanics along the way, then sort through all the remaining negative pieces of her evolved psyche for a common denominator.

    But she didn¡¯t have that luxury. She was burning the fumes of her piddling fat stores as it was.

    Under the duress of time, taking another page from her primordial ancestors¡¯ book, she trod down the path of least resistance. Blurting out on blind faith or instinct, whichever best padded the ego, ¡°I fear losing¡±.

    That was it?     Losing what? Her friends? Her life?

    ¡®Weakness,¡¯ she thought with, she felt, an unfair amount of shame. ¡®I fear being weak and helpless.¡¯

    ¡®Losing control,¡¯ the little prodding voice added. ¡®You fear being at the mercy of something you know has none. But at the same time you also fear to gain power because you dread the subsequent fall.¡¯

    Amelia massaged her temple with a thumb. Where the saard was that voice coming from anyway?

    She checked her wrist.

    ¡®You?¡¯ she wondered in the louder portion of her head.

    Then she turned back to the statue and submitted her final answer.

    Her mind was in too many tatters to consider the lethal consequences. She just spoke her mind and decided that the gods, or whoever was in charge of this damnable pit, would judge her as they may, regardless.

    When the Guardian rose, flourishing its lethal scepter before her, therein happened a moment in which Amelia reflected on how miserably she¡¯d failed in her quest to become a renowned Pyrate.

    It was good her father was dead so he would not have to live with her disgrace hanging over him.

    But then there came the familiar soft swish of the next chamber door opening, followed by an uplifting SWOOSH from afar as the Guardian returned its weapon to its restful spot.

    ¡°You may pass,¡± it said, seating itself and gesticulating towards the revealed exit door.

    Amelia saw no reason to argue. Though a weight had settled on her like a loaded cast iron water pole she set off down the next passageway on watery legs. Soon coming to the light near yet another open chamber where she stopped to consult her parchment oracle.

    ¡®Four of seven,¡¯ she thought. Then wondered whether she¡¯d expected this to be of any comfort. And if so, wherefrom such a comical miscarriage of reason could have spawned.

    By what was rapidly becoming engrained habit, she pulled out Silver''s note again and read the next section.

    Trial 4: Trial of Courage: This one¡¯s exactly as simple as it sounds. Basically, when you enter you''ll see a small golden disk with the Mayngan sigil for strength carved into it. Simply stand on it to begin the Trial. When you do, no matter what happens, remember:

    DO NOT SAARDING MOVE!

    ¡®Well, since you put it that way,¡¯ Amelia thought dryly. Adding to her list of failed distinctions the difference between simple and easy.

    But all was not lost on her. The one lesson this whole misadventure had succeeded in nailing into her mind was that the process of concocting and executing a plan were to each other what the laws of motion were to those of thermodynamics. In that their causal coordination started and stopped at the theoretical level.

    Taking her newly gotten lessons to heart, she took in the new chamber from the safety of the entrance shadows before entering. Like the first two it was massive. But unlike those it was tubular, the bulk of its concave scape spanned perpendicularly leeward of the entrance into a deep sea of black farther than her eyes could physically process.

    The seams of the blackened bricks beneath her boots bloomed with borealis coronas. The light coursing and rippling around the boot and belt layers of the carved canyon like capillaries of yellow fire.

    Right in the middle of the concave floor she spied the token flat spot Silver had mentioned. On and into which were inscribed an eclectic range of symbols and styles, all of which were as nonexistent in Amelia¡¯s memory banks like a pauper¡¯s bank records.

    Smooth fire tongues of scriptural text enclosed a bladelike sigil that any neophyte alchemist or arcanist would have recognized instantly as the Regina Primus. An elementary ward, or ¡°conversion matrix¡± in alchemic numen, overlaying the ten primary numeral shapes in a fashion meant to maximize efficient energy diffusion.

    At the end of each straight line was a circle ensconced with a tiny jeweled prism about the size of a tadpole¡¯s eye. Jasmine, sapphire and ruby corundum blinked in the lantern¡¯s aetheric spectrum. Their lodging hues slitted and sliced into the gold of their host, granting the arcane platform tile an almost spectral aurora.

    After a few seconds¡¯ prudent study, Amelia laid a warry toe into the runic circle. When nothing dangerous happened, she set more and more weight onto that foot, then followed with the other until she herself was fully encapsulated in the occultic endogram.

    There was a dull series of mechanical SHUNKs and CLANKs as the disk sunk into the floor like a beatdown farmhand into a cozy recliner.

    Suddenly, there came a deep rumbling sound from the far end of the corridor. Amelia couldn''t see what it was, but kinesthetic intuition said that it was coming closer.

    ¡®Oh saard,¡¯ Amelia''s internal lookout squawked just after the last second.

    She spun around wildly looking for a place to flee or hide. There were none. After just ten gatling-rate heartbeats, the rumbling had escalated into a dull roar like an oncoming tram car.

    Her mind flew in manic circles. Her heart and lungs both tried to beat their own escape paths out through the constraining bars of her ribcage. But there was nowhere to go.

    She was trapped. Doomed!

    Then she remembered Silver¡¯s jotted advice. And for reasons she couldn¡¯t divine her clamorous panic symptoms stagnated and started deflating.

    Courage, as she understood it, meant cordoning one¡¯s fear. Not controlling it, but acknowledging it while also keeping it at bay.

    But there had yet to be a dictionary printed that specified a material for the fence. Nor a method for keeping the black monster¡¯s claws from tearing through the mesh.

    So, for the first time in her entire existence as a sentient being, Amelia threw both reason and truth out the window and put her faith in Silver¡¯s thus far inerrant wisdom.

    She clenched her teeth and fists and squeezed her eyes shut for good measure. Blind trust, she decided, would be her fateful lifeline this time.

    As the stone around her began to tremble and quake, she became conscious of the air seemingly growing heavier. Or rather, denser.

    A pressure wave. That meant something big was coming and was moving at speeds sufficient to press fit the air that couldn¡¯t get out of the way fast enough.

    Then, as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling stopped. All went silent and the air went flaccid again.

    The only disturbance came from the golden plate. It grunted a small mechanical clunk as its hidden working strata thrust it back up to its initial posture.

    With all the reluctant delicacy of one investigating an unexploded bomb, Amelia pried her eyes open just in time to see a large semicircular section of the floor spring cleanly and silently back into place a few yards in front of her.

    It didn''t take much rumination on her part to piece together what had just happened.

    ¡®Oh, very clever!¡¯ she fumed inwardly. Courage meant standing still when every sane, natural metric said it was best to run.

    The golden table must have been some kind of trigger release that allowed the floor hatch ahead to open when some weight was on it. And from the sounds of it alone there could be no doubt that if she had strayed so much as a hair from the arcanographic island she would have become a distasteful smudge on the floor.

    It was an elegantly simple and effective test, Amelia conceded. Most beasts who didn¡¯t already know the answer would likely have wasted their last moments trying to claw their way back through the adamantine terra forma.

    ¡®I swear,¡¯ she huffed, not oblivious to just how much like her mother the tone of her thoughts sounded. ¡®If the gods spent as much time actually doing good in the world as they did designing saarding Labyrinths, then maybe they wouldn''t need all this convoluted security.¡¯

    These were dangerous thoughts and she knew it. Heresy, some would say. Especially considering where she stood. But she was far too steamed at the moment to really care.

    On that vinegar note, following the prescribed path she inevitably came to the expected open doorway at the end of the room.

    A sunset platinum hemisphere about the size of the Royal Rover¡¯s quarter deck emblazed in jade and hammered gold with the Coati¡¯ Ilyan symbol for the Lunar Primus, Savion, framed the bottom with a directly inverse halfmoon counterpart displaying in Lapis and copper the sigil for his brother, the Lunar Prius, Erandis, in the ceiling overhead.

    The consistently legally distinct discrepancies between the testing chambers stirred within Amelia¡¯s breast a combustible conflict over how to find her hosts'' abundant creativity.

    This aperture was more elliptical than the ones before, and the inside of its frame emanated a watery shade of violet, giving it the appearance of a magickal gateway.

    As was becoming her habit, Amelia took out Silver''s note and, by the radiant light of the chamber, she read about what was to come.

    Trial 5: Trial of Honor: This is arguably the most cryptic puzzle of all. Well, maybe except for the next one. Here you will see a statue of a knight crouching on a short pedestal. In case you don¡¯t know, the Knight is a giant chess piece.

    Well, there was a completely random shot out of the past. One of Roberts¡¯ Warlord, or ¡°Barron¡± if he was in the room, contacts had once shown her and Evie his Equestrian chess set and even tried to teach them how to play. But Amelia had only really listened up till the naming of the various pieces and Evie had spent the afternoon in a separate afterthought realm altogether.

    However, the concept had never left Amelia¡¯s mind completely. The clearly defined hierarchic structure, like the regularly defined units of an army, bore an intangible allure. Something between sultry hunger and the nascent vacuum tug of a sneeze.

    More, the core dynamic between the seemingly arbitrarily invaluable king and his superordinately more powerful, and thus eminently more useful, and yet somehow still ultimately expendable, queen had held her in postcranial limbo for days afterwards.

    The way you pass this one is simple.

    ¡®I¡¯ve heard that one before,¡¯ Amelia¡¯s less direly thoughtful substrate remarked in a resigned drawl.

    Take a sword. Yes, it must be a sword. Though it doesn''t matter which.

    Well, I suppose it actually does. You¡¯ll understand presently.

    Directly between the knight¡¯s eyes, you should find a tiny slot, about the width of an Imperial Doubloon. Stick the blade as far as you can into that slot and the door should open.

    It¡¯s bizarre. I know. But I guess it¡¯s supposed to be symbolic or something. Don¡¯t ask me of what. I¡¯ve never had a head for metaphysics. I prefer things I can see.

    But if I had to put money on it I¡¯d wager it had something to do with honor. Genius, I know. Chivalric code and all that. The greatest honor for a knight is to die in service to his lord¡¯s cause.

    ¡®Glad I''m not a knight¡¯, Amelia thought.

    As she returned the letter to its place and prepared to get underway, she reflected again on her current circumstances.

    ¡®Odd,¡¯ she thought. She¡¯d expected to feel the draining weight of dread¡¯s black cloak or the venomous sting of fear¡¯s pale fangs.

    But whether by some freak quirk of hers, magickal intercession or some as yet undiscovered safeguard function of neural biology, all she felt was numb.

    ¡®Marvelous.¡¯

    The word glided out of her subconscious like cigar smoke, but was as clear and crisp as if she¡¯d said it aloud. ¡®Where was this feature several days ago?¡¯

    Steeling herself once more against the unknown, she pressed nobly on with her one-track quest.

    Just as Silver had prophesized, a slightly abstract rendition of an armored Equestrian Knight built from white marble sat in a jousting crouch on a pristine hexagonal base slab about the height of Amelia¡¯s knee.

    Its broad shoulders and collar were encased in molded steel, while its conical head and thick neck sported an articulate, layered shell of what 4<sup>th</sup> Era armorers¡¯ guilds had once christened Adamantium, but which modern material alchemists and masons knew to be a variable alloy of gold and titanium.

    ¡°Venator Regis¡±, some called it now.

    Whatever its name or material composition, the planetary sheets shivered like lakes of frozen sun and moonlight trapped together in a Gaian tango inside panes of translucent glass.

    Piercing galactic opal irises glared with radiant menace out from the shadow of the helmet¡¯s T-shaped visor brow. Their vantablack pupils, like the supermassive hearts of the mega cosmic clusters, stole the outward glow from their irradiated outer bodies. Creating an unsettlingly sharp contrast between the heavenly jewels and their vacuous setting.

    Its right arm reared a dagger-tipped lance the height and girth of a trimast¡¯s bowsprit. Its left hand held an elongated teardrop shield. A sword and dagger hung on brass-studded baldrics from its richly tanned leather belt.

    What most set it apart from its forebears was that the totality of its militant kit, including its flowing raiment and mane, down to its many leather accoutrements, steel armor and weapons, right down to the gold in its surcoat filagree and silver-shocks in its obsidian mane, were actually wood, leather, fabric and hair.

    And what stone there was flowed, bulged and receded with the smooth ease of true organic muscle and skin. Even the black glass of its mane rippled and writhed and pulsed with incessant lifeforce.

    Much like its real medieval muse, this ¡­ thing ¡­ this creature? This, whatever this was, it was as splendid as it was terrifying to behold.

    It carried in the majestic sway of its aerodynamic curves a certain regal elegance that the preceding Guardians wholly lacked.

    The chamber was shaped like a tapered cannon barrel. With a ceiling that seemed to reach around to oblivion¡¯s back gate. Surrounding her, packed into every nonexistent corner, were racks upon racks of every kind and variant of weapon one could find referenced in the historical section of any of the grandest libraries on Aevon or evidenced in the archeology departments of the most prestigious museums and universities across the world.

    There were all the basics: swords, axes, polearms, hammers, clubs, maces, etc. Then there were the familiar eccentricities like the flail, the Goedendag and what was simultaneously called a Crow¡¯s Beak, Crow¡¯s Bane and Crow¡¯s Pecker by the various parallel divisions and dimensions of modern societies were also in conspicuous attendance. As were some even fainter obscurities like a hilted poleaxe, fan bladed spear and a three way chimeric lovechild of a tomahawk, war scythe and spade.

    But there were also shelves full of what Amelia could only describe as the hardened mercurial diarrhea of a hawthorn tree.

    Flattened steel and bronze with branched points, hooks, sawbacks and swooping curves splayed out from the dongle hilts in seemingly random directions, with no prior arrangement or configuration in mind.

    It surprised her greatly that none of these relics seemed to have corroded at all in the two or three millennia since their creation.

    But then, she thought, if this whole island had been magickked out of conjugational storm of will and thought, wouldn¡¯t a stack of pointy sticks be a fairly simple order by comparison?

    Or maybe she was just overthinking things. Again.

    She scanned the arsenal shelves for some time before finally settling on an item she thought most appropriate for a beast of her build and stature.

    What happened next really shouldn¡¯t have surprised her at this point. Or at least not as much as it did.

    No sooner had she taken the tapered bastard sword, which on her was a miniaturized war sword, into her possession than the lordly statue lunged at her from off its pedestal.

    Amelia dodged death for the third time in as many hours by less than the hilt-straddling breadth of her new blade.

    The sailing knight¡¯s shield crashed into the wall behind her like a loose backfiring cannon.

    The entire chamber shook and howled like the unceremonious stirring of a slumbering bell. The immediate force of the blast hurled an array of mangled steel and shattered wood in all directions. Its second and third reverberant shockwaves tossed many more loose arms from their bars and hangers.

    Deadly hail rained down and sideways from all quarters. Amelia¡¯s heart lurched as though trying to escape the fracas by its own means.

    Turning her dive into a roll, she sprung nimbly back to her feet.

    She''d read plenty of stories about how the Holy used to duel and joust with one another to win the hand of a fair maiden.

    Regrettably, as the letter Y did not appear anywhere on her genetic bingo card she lacked the basic credentials to relate to these stories the same way many of her male contemporaries could.

    She lacked the upper body strength and minimum pain tolerance to step into their mock battles, though she¡¯d be the last one to describe herself as fair or a maiden.

    She certainly didn''t hold with the idea of beasts fighting to the death purely for her approval, much less for her amusement.

    Amelia clutched her chosen weapon, an acutely-tapered arming sword, and was getting ready to pounce, when the knight statue whirled and charged at her again.

    This time she was facing its patently deadly wand. She barely had time to register its motion when her legs instinctively contracted and flung her out of harm¡¯s way.

    Away from becoming a tasteless rotisserie at any rate.

    Owing to her beleaguered and bedraggled state, her muscles and reflexes weren¡¯t quite oiled enough to fully spare her the potentially scarring wrath of the freshly hurled deluge of armaments.

    However, in accordance with the cosmic quota on asymmetric wit, her anatomy did come to her rescue once again. Albeit from the side entrance.

    Her densely padded jacket and the bracketing silver shield on her back ensured not just that the worst of the damage inflicted on her body was superficial but also that she retained her chosen weapon.

    Now was her turn to strike. To inflict. And the best part was she didn¡¯t even need to waste time or energy wondering how, for in the way of hands remembering how to shuffle cards, with the conviction of a raindrop discovering the concept of down, she understood in a flash that she had played this game in parts before and won.

    By that same rush of instinct she knew she couldn''t risk waiting for it to charge again. If for no other reason than it might get lucky. But mainly because these Guardians were proven reckless to the point of certifiable. This one already had demonstrated a wholesale disregard for itself and the integrity of its surroundings. Another taken hook might just bring the wall, or at least an uncomfortably large portion of, down on both their heads.

    Amelia fought down her impulse to strike when her opponent¡¯s back was turned. Stone didn¡¯t fear steel. Didn¡¯t flinch at pain. No matter how lifelike it seemed to the naked eye.

    Instead, like a desert-toughened predator she waited for it to turn around. Waiting. Watching for a chance at its known weak point. That singular target spot right below the helmeted brow.

    She balanced her sword in a lancing posture. Her breathing and heart rate dropped to a walking gait.

    Had she been a mammal she would have been drenched and possibly arrhythmic by now.

    A fraction of a moment passed in which Amelia acquired a true appreciation for Silver¡¯s attitude towards death. His already being a squall league beyond the vale notwithstanding.

    When, by the time a stone could have explored the nadir of a bottomless well, the knight finally rounded on her Amelia didn¡¯t hesitate.

    Her limbs turned to rubber, and her mind to wet putty as she threw herself behind the sword straight at the rearing Guardian like a living cannon ball.

    She didn¡¯t feel the impact as she plunged her blade deep into the slot between the Horse¡¯s smothered mineral eyes.

    Nor did she immediately recognize the significance of the deactivated statue having only just now lowered its spear.

    Instead, she tenderly released her shaking grip on her weapon and looked around for the exit. Only to be left confused and frightened when none appeared.

    Every chamber thus far had opened an exit door for her after she''d completed the Trial.

    She paced around the room, pressing on all the walls and rattling all the racks and shelves. The ones that weren¡¯t already smashed to their constituent ingredients.

    She even tried hitting the stones with a mace she had picked up, but this achieved nothing other than taking a small chip out of the masonry.

    What had she done?

    Had Silver been wrong?

    Had she done something wrong?

    What had even happened?

    Well, that last one was fairly obvious. Nothing. Nothing at all had happened. Nothing she¡¯d expected. Which, on the one hand, included no more summoned danger.

    That was good.

    But on the other it also meant she had no tangible means of escape. This was a problem.

    A more philosophic inquirer could potentially have pulled out of this situation a lengthy essay on how it encapsulated the contradictive supercondition of life and the backwards logic of nature itself.

    Though the fact that ambiguous stillness somehow scared her more than the hard reality of a thing actively trying to slay her did give Amelia pause, she hadn¡¯t the means to cavort with any higher complexities than what step to take next.

    If she¡¯d somehow failed the Trial she was as good as dead.

    Knowing this, and thus figuring that her only actionable options were that she had misread Silver¡¯s note or was just missing something, she carefully approached the inanimate statue and took hold of the protruding hilt once more.

    ¡®Maybe I didn''t go in far enough¡¯, she thought as she gave the polished steel pommel a slight push. ¡®Maybe there¡¯s a latch or something I need to hit.¡¯

    Like a key.

    The words weren¡¯t hers, she was fairly sure. But the thought itself was. How she knew this she couldn¡¯t begin to so much as speculate.

    She was bracing herself for the worst when she twisted the blade in the prepared wound.

    What she wasn¡¯t ready for was the soft, painful moan that issued from inside the vanquished Guardian.

    Several chambers ago her reaction might have landed somewhere between the valley of fear and cresting bewilderment.

    But after having been nearly eaten, crushed, stomped, skewered, deconstructed and disintegrated more times than a Cat has lives, she conducted herself calmly and with prudence.

    She pressed her ear to the stone carapace. ¡°Hello!¡± she called. ¡°Hello!? Can any beast hear me!?¡±

    ¡°Yesss,¡± a small, raspy voice answered a heart stopping moment later. ¡°Yes¡­ I ... I ... hear.¡±

    Amelia nodded urgently, forgetting that there was an impenetrable layer of stone between her and the voice¡¯s true owner.

    ¡°How do I get to you?¡± she asked.

    The weak voice came back, even fainter and more stressed ... as if that were possible.

    ¡°Use ... sssword,¡± it croaked. The last word was so faint that it met her ear as more of a living breath than pronounced syllables.

    ¡°Alright! Hang on!¡± Amelia cried. The hems of her stoic veneer were tearing apart faster than a shotgun marriage and with nearly as much passionate intensity.

    She withdrew the sword from the knight statue¡¯s forehead, as per an old tale of a young squire foal who became a king. Within moments, the Guardian¡¯s stone husk ruptured into chasmal cracks and started to fall away in large chunks.

    Many of the fragments were held in place only by the statue¡¯s metal scales. Which were easily removed thanks to a set of craftily concealed belt toggles and turnstile hex key bolts.

    Whether motivated by petty revenge or true utility, Amelia gave the statue a hard crack across the muzzle with the sword¡¯s steel pommel.

    This had the partially soul-cleansing effect of sending its few recognizable features crumbling away into white powder.

    Revealed amidst the broken pile was a limp, scrawny, pallid figure the size of a child''s doll that faintly resembled a naked kitten, provided the beholder thought Cats were an offshoot relative of pygmy Foxes.

    The sword''s reverberating clank as it met the hard-stone floor was lost to Amelia as she knelt by the dying creature''s side.

    She knew even before she touched him that he wasn¡¯t long for this world.

    He, for something inexplicable about his countenance designated him as male to Amelia¡¯s mind, was a sorry thing. Haggard, tired, almost translucently pale. And bloody.

    He was even smaller than she was, with a squat little torso and elongated everything else. His reedy arms and legs were nearly twice the length of his torso. He had an oblong head with a greasy rope of black hair sprouting from between his outsized, leaflike ears.

    Unlike the Goddess and her bloodless Guardians that Amelia had contended with thus far, this creature sported a striking, fully adorned face.

    A pair of gray oblong eyes tapered to acute ends sat over a button nose and wide mouth. All set and proportioned to make him look like a newborn kitten.

    And likewise his teeth were sharp and jagged, as white as his prison¡¯s stone, with a pair of needle-thin fangs that just reached over his bottom lip.

    ¡°Thank ... you,¡± he rasped. His words came as sharp hisses in between pained gasps.

    ¡°You ¡­ not¡­ know ...¡±

    It was evident by the deliberateness of his enunciation that his command of Adamic was around the sophisticated end of basic.

    ¡°You ¡­ honor ...¡±

    It was then that the true meaning behind this Trial struck home to Amelia. Before she could say what she wanted, her attention was caught by the purple liquid oozing from the inch-wide cut in the center of the creature¡¯s thin chest. Something deep inside her own heart shattered.

    ¡°I ¡­ ¡± she croaked, vainly fighting for words against the displacing mass of emotion. ¡°I¡¯m not ¡­ I just ... I didn¡¯t ...¡±

    She wanted to thrash and destroy. She wanted to tear into this torturous sanctuary like no Guardian had the strength to do. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry,¡± she said, mostly to herself.

    The creature smiled weakly.

    Amelia pleaded with the gods to take her instead, or only to grant her strength enough to extract her bleeding heart so that she might put her unwitting misdeed right.

    But no such mercy was granted. Even her tears abandoned her.

    In lieu of them and with vital rage as her only source of comfort, she drove her fists into the floor until her knuckles bled.

    She screamed internally every curse she knew in order to drown out the wretched voice in her head chanting ¡®murderer. Murderer. Murderer.¡¯

    The creature tried to reach out for her arm. Whether for help or to comfort would forever remain a mystery, as it went limp after rising only a few inches.

    Not more than a few more heartbeats passed before the final vestiges of light had completely drained from his charcoal eyes. He sank into oblivion with what she desperately hoped was relief on his pinstripe lips.

    Amelia sat there wallowing in the cold, cradling the body whose animus fire she had unknowingly extinguished.

    Her thoughts suddenly took on an unprecedented drastic edge. ¡®Damn you Iradyl! Drachyn take you and all your saarding tests!¡¯

    In a callous moment she dropped the lifeless cadaver onto the refuse pile of the statue that had once been his prison. A withering void had taken root in the place where her heart ought to have been. Its infernal vacuum scalded her blood to sand and wrought strands of iron for her sinews.

    In her perpetual eye what lay in a darkening puddle at her feet was no longer a hapless innocent involuntarily slain so as to balance a cosmic equation. It was simply what it was. A lifeless husk. No more, no less. A pile of meat and bones. Soon to be the nursery for a sprawling microbiome.

    This was simply the way of things. She knew this. She had always known. Only now she could finally see.

    This was life at its most primitive, its most fundamental, its most pure. With all arbitrary burdens stripped away.

    ¡°In order for some to live, others must die,¡± Avlon had explained. ¡°That¡¯s the law of the jungle Daisha. It¡¯s not pretty, but its why any of our species are still around today.¡±

    There then came a familiar SWISH as the next portal revealed itself behind where the statue had crumbled.

    The Trial was over. The Knight¡¯s purpose was ended. Its oath fulfilled. Its honor satisfied. Amelia picked up her sword. There was nothing more to be gained in here.

    Well, actually, come to think on it there was one final thing she could use.

    After slicing a long portion of the errant statue¡¯s blood-red tunic and lashing it tightly around her middle for a belt and loosely then again as a baldric, she continued on her exhausting pilgrimage without thought, without feeling, without regret.

    After another long stint of traversing endless dark tunnels she came upon a tall, oblong doorway.

    Working purely on mechanical routine her hands fished out Silver''s third and final note and only then realized that the plurality of her moth compatriots had apparently abandoned her as well.

    Mentally, she shrugged. Bodily, she squinted and read:

    Trial 6: Trial of Wisdom: Almost there. Two more to go and you''ll have done what no beast has in over 20,000 years!

    Somehow, despite all her rational constraints telling her she was being crazy, she couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that this achievement seemed a lot more impressive on parchment than it felt in real life.

    She sighed, then read the last little bit.

    Anyway, this Trial is about as simple as they come. Just solve the puzzle and you''ll be on your way. From what I understand it¡¯s not exactly Verbraltaer Alchemy.

    ¡®Silver, so help me, if I ever see you again we¡¯re going to have a serious discussion about the definition of simple.¡¯

    She paused, anticipating a pang of ¡­ something, that didn¡¯t come.

    With mechanical initiative she replaced the parchment and stepped through the next gate.

    On the other side a black stone cube into which two pairs of gold-inlaid, jade buttons were set amidst a clover pattern of jewel-accented cursive silver filigree.

    Tattooed onto each jade leaf¡¯s convex surface in fine golden filaments was an impossibly intricate archetypal icon of what the common histories referred to collectively as Elder Beasts. Those primordial, presentient precursors to the modern day Anagentsia.

    Each pattern was so true to life it could have been a real specimen but for its size and location, or a fossil but for the apparent depth and color.

    Each picture had been inlaid with contrasting gold wire. In clockwise arrangement starting from the top left quadrant, they were named as follows:

    Lepophag, Godfather of the Canids.

    Blythea, the Pantheran Allmother.

    Lyelli, Arch Matron of Reptiles, particularly Serpents.

    Glire, Allfather to Rodent Kin.

    Across from this artistic marvel, a similarly decorated square slab of midnight granite about six feet on a side adorned the adjacent wall.

    To her newly uncluttered mind the space behind it obviously concealed the next exit portal.

    On it were five lines of swirling, jagged script. These, she assumed, were the test question. Which meant the pictorial stones must somehow logically correlate to an answer.

    It didn¡¯t look very complicated, aside from being composed of a Rosetta melting pot of Siamdrin, Hydlaeic, Dynogarian, Folkyst and at least a dozen eclectic samplings from the many dialects and offshoot branches of the nomadic Mentan Rune Script.

    It didn¡¯t escape her by more than a flicker of a moment that the clover leaf border at her fingertips bore a striking resemblance.

    Mildly longer in coming was the addendum that where the horizontal display was accented with streaks of multicolored light from its spectrographic prism markers, the vertical version had specks of copper. And where the answer board was inlaid with silver, the riddle tablet was written in what looked to be polished ivory.

    The trouble was that the closest discernable ingredient in this lexicological cauldron hadn¡¯t been spoken aloud in nearly two and a half millennia.

    Leaving her alone with little choice but to tap the buttons in random order. Trusting blindly in the good will of the gods or the cosmos or whoever to guide her hand.

    Which, considering how much favor those fickle powers had dealt her so far, didn¡¯t strike her as an altogether wise idea.

    As she dwelled hopelessly on this, the alien symbols on the wall tablet began to slide and contort.

    At first she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. And while she still couldn¡¯t completely rule it out, when blinking and double-takes didn¡¯t resolve the matter, she realized that the symbols were not just moving, they were rearranging. Flowing across the solid face like leaves carried along a swooning river.

    They swirled and spiraled, twisted and scattered, only to then disintegrate completely and recompose themselves into recognizable forms of letters.

    In the time it took her to wonder and then decide not to dwell on whether this was Iradyl subtly rebuking her earlier blasphemies, the incomprehensible jungle of markings completely transmogrified into a perfectly legible, if somewhat gaudy, modern Adamic script.

    It said this:

    First fears all.

    Second fears none.

    Third takes what it can. Particularly number one.

    Fourth fears the Second. But only when alone.

    All must go in order if you wish to go home.

    She had to give it up to Silver. He was right twice again in one passage. She¡¯d seen higher cerebral tax rates on some river crossings.

    And no instant death traps either. What, had the builders blown all their budget on the giant magick swords?

    ¡®I thought these were supposed to be tests.¡¯

    Something didn¡¯t feel right. Every chamber up until now had been a near death experience. With the stakes always being either do or die. Why the sudden drop off in standards so near the finish? It made no sense.

    Was there a secret hidden here somewhere she¡¯d missed?

    Was it meant to lull her into a false sense of security?

    Perhaps it a just warning about the dangers of getting cocky or resting on laurels.

    Or maybe the point wasn¡¯t so much to teach or single out a sage as to simply weed out any knuckle dragging bruisers that might have somehow managed to bumble their way in this far.

    She labored on this for a time. As was her way. Weighing each option as carefully as an alchemist making medicine. Pacing back and forth as her mind checked and double checked its measurements.

    ¡®I suppose the standards for wisdom have come up quite a bit since the Mega Era.¡¯

    Still, they could have chosen a more fitting title. Of course, the Trial of Who¡¯s Smarter Than a Fungus didn¡¯t have quite the same auric resonance.

    Eventually, she shrugged at the air and, one by one, set about inputting the obvious answer.

    First the Rabbit.

    Next the Lion.

    Then the Snake.

    And last the Wolf.

    The almost infantile banality of the whole deal notwithstanding, at the resulting SWISH of the testing board revealing the exit a sliver of satisfaction stole its way into Amelia¡¯s expression.

    Thrice proved, once dismayed.

    Solving puzzles, even basic ones, yielded its own special kind of reward, she decided.

    She was about to leave the room, when it dawned on her that this next Trial was to be the seventh. And if Silver''s reckoning was to be believed, it would be the last of the White Wand Trials.

    It was an irony of a sort, one which did not escape her, that she should catch herself thinking, ¡®just when I was starting to get into the groove. How typical.¡¯

    It also occurred to her that, if any of her immediate family had witnessed her actions this day, they probably would not have believed that this Anuran was their Amelia.

    Compounding the oddity of the moment, she discovered as she neared the open portal, that the next chamber was directly attached to the previous one, rather than being separated by an excessive length of tedious empty hallways.

    She pulled out Silver''s note for what she believed was to be the last time, and read, what was unequivocally the last and the muddiest, passage.

    It said this:

    Trial 7: Trial of Spirit: Some sources write it as the ¡°Trial of Soul¡±. Personally, I don¡¯t really see the difference. Also, if you¡¯ve made it this far Daisha, you¡¯re tenfold the Pyrate your father was.

    ¡®Father? Pyrate?¡¯

    Why was it every time either of those words appeared in Silver¡¯s proximity it felt like the universe was playing a condescending game of peekaboo with her?

    She would definitely be having serious words with Avlon and her mother when this was all over, provided she and Silver weren¡¯t forcibly reunited in the afterlife first.

    Anyway, I''ve heard tell that the last Trial is supposed to be the hardest and most devastating of them all. Every account I find says something wildly different.

    It¡¯s almost like someone, or something, doesn¡¯t want people to be able cheat on this one.

    But don¡¯t totally despair. The one common denominator I could find is that it will ¡°tax you past your mortal bounds¡±.

    Sounds like a lot of mystical fluff-speak if you ask me. Or at least it would if I wasn¡¯t a walking, talking ring of that bell right at this very moment.

    Still, you seem smart enough and reasonably well read. Plus, if you¡¯ve lived long enough to read this I suspect you know your way around a booby trap or two by now. Unless you¡¯ve skipped ahead. In which case you¡¯re exactly like your mother. Never could wait to get to the good part of the story.

    Amelia projected a silent ¡®thank you¡¯ out into the cosmic exosphere for the fact that at least one beast in this whole derelict, filthy, upside down and backwards rucksack of a world she¡¯d wandered into appreciated the worth of a good book.

    Of course a stronger sword arm wouldn¡¯t have done her any disservice either. But a house built out of hopes and dreams didn¡¯t keep much of the weather out.

    She was just about to fold up the withered itinerary again when she noticed a faintly legible addendum squished into the very bottommost corner of the page.

    She held up the magnifier once more and squinted harder than she¡¯d ever done before. As though reading her mind, or the future, or both, a trio of moths defected from one of their bracelet formations to latch onto the seeing rose¡¯s glassy petals.

    By their enlightening lumens she read:

    Oh, I did just remember one bit. The spyglass is a diversion, so don''t bother with it. I suppose it¡¯s meant to be symbolic or something. Of what exactly, I don''t know, so don''t ask me. Either way, one solid fact is that you exit this room the same way you come in.

    Oh, and there¡¯s something about a mirror.

    Anyway, good luck to you Daisha. And, for lack of a better sendoff, Godspeed.

    Slowly, carefully, reverently, Amelia tucked the final portion of her map away and drew in a slow, deep breath.

    This was it. The final Trial. Although it would be far from her final test.

    ¡®Well, here¡¯s to us dad,¡¯ she thought and stepped through the portal before she could think again.

 Chapter 18: The Aptly-Named Tower

    ¡°Hold here,¡± Drake said. At which point both Hemlock and Bon Bon collapsed where they stood.

    Their years of harsh training and ruthlessly demanding courses may have readied them for the bulk of what the Pyrate¡¯s life promised. But no amount of physical exercise or mundane mercenary work could have ever prepared them for the sorts of trials installed on Naarfynder.

    Drake used this moment¡¯s respite to take an objective stock of their situation. It was at moments like these that he most sincerely hated being Captain. Whichever way he turned it they were in a bad place. And every moment they stayed here actively worsened their standing.

    He swore he''d seen this hallway already. But then again he''d thought that about nearly every other room, chamber and corridor they''d seen so far.

    Every facet and dimension of this desolate spire, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, was the same ultimate kind of sheer abysmal black.

    There were no waypoints, no landmarks, no beacons or signs of any shape or variety on which to ground their telemetry.

    Adding to the disquiet, every door, every aperture, every niche, nook, block and parcel shone like irradiated charcoal, bending and refracting nonexistent light back upon its superliminal source.

    Even their torches, far from revealing anything useful or substantive, instead washed the limbic castle in macabre camera auroral projections that no normal material composite could have produced.

    This made the prospect of discerning one direction from another all but impossible, even with the light from their torches.

    Drake had sent Crow to scout ahead, to see if they were going in circles. He had been gone for more than an hour now, and Drake¡¯s governing instinct was charging its influx coils.

    He told himself this was irrational. That if any beast could handle being stranded alone in a haunted castle on a nightmare island living beyond the junction of no and where, it was Crow.

    Besides, even if this were that one time in a billion that the Black Wolf actually needed their help, their all being in the same boat, so to speak, meant there was a whole great deal of nothing they could offer.

    Ok, so they were in a bad spot. But this was nothing new, he said to himself. They were Pyrates. Trouble was most of the job description. But he knew better.

    This was all part of his father¡¯s grand scheme to keep those ¡°inconvenient pestilences¡± out of his deeper sanctuary. Away from his dearest works.

    The alarm had been rung. Naarfynder¡¯s defenses were awake. The island knew its master like no other and so knew as well the unwary minds and errant footfalls of delectable intruders.

    Drake had known all this would happen. Just like he knew that Sir Francis hadn¡¯t been the one to issue Drohmsviire its brand as the ¡°Dark Tower¡±.

    He knew this was all going according to his father¡¯s wicked plan. That no beast had managed to infiltrate the Mad Wizard¡¯s inner sanctum in almost fifty years, though several armies had tried.

    He had gambled everything on the assumption that between his outdated experience and their collective willpower they could override the castle¡¯s untended guardian motors.

    He was losing that bet.

    He hadn¡¯t counted on losing Ellie. In hindsight he couldn¡¯t help feeling that had been a precisely calculated attack. Though calculated by whom he was at a loss to figure without more intel.

    It was as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Waiting. Watching. As soulless and hungry as the basement fires of the Abyss. As patient and tireless as its maker.

    The Godfather of Chaos, Oboros, or Abraxas as the alchemists knew him, had forged a symbiotic pact with the sanctuary abyss of Drohmsviire. And he would not easily suffer the messy indecency of life treading upon the calm sanctity of his perfectly still realm.

    Drake knew they had only seen Stage One.

    Like spectators in an underground circus, the shadows were still and patient and hungry. The legion of cruel monsters that hid and festered in the foulest depths of this pit salivated. Tempted by the arrival of fresh succulents.

    Predatory eyes glinted behind the veil. Their writhing bellies groaned. Vacuous spirits lusted after their imminent meal as their wretched hearts crackled with infernal thunder.

    This was the start of Stage Two.

    A wicked frost had surrounded them, crushing them in its iron grasp. It was siphoning their very spirits to appease its own avaricious appetite and attempting to strangle their wills.

    The malevolent rime seemed to give rise to all their most fervent nightmares. The sinister visions were clawing at the backs of their skulls, leaving the crew vulnerable to whatever wicked forces lay within the consuming void.

    The flickering glow from their torches gave little comfort. For in this dark and brooding place, Death was the Matriarch, and her mandate was suffering.

    At least that''s what the sailors at the Old Scabs'' Pub in Menta used to tell them. On occasions too numerous to count, the young Drakes had been subjected to hours of the merchants¡¯ and sailors¡¯ drunken lectures about the infinite library of sinister ways their father was perverting and destroying everything that was good and decent about the world.

    The younger sibling had never argued these accusations. Not for pacifism¡¯s sake or because he hadn¡¯t na?vely believed in his parent¡¯s intrinsic virtue, but merely because he¡¯d never seen the sense in trying to beat reason into a head that was too sodden with booze to remember the lesson if and when they woke up.

    More than once the brothers¡¯ fists had been tempered on the skulls and jugulars of particularly incensed or zealous patrons who¡¯d taken it to mind that the pups were actually daemons or ghouls conjured up by their father in one of his nebulous experiments.

    ¡°If there¡¯s one thing I know to be absolutely and unequivocally true about all minds across the infinite span of space and time it is that they fear what they don¡¯t understand and hate what they can¡¯t control.¡±

    To this day Drake maintained those had been the wisest words he had ever heard his father speak. And in his day, he¡¯d reflected, Sir Francis was perhaps wiser than most gave him credit for.

    But all that was in the past.

    Drake was no longer the innocent runt he¡¯d been when he and his lost twin could still brawl together back to back. He could no longer afford to be. Too much depended on his clarity of vision.

    It could, and had been, argued that he¡¯d grown in more than just physical proportions.

    Ellie had told him once several years ago that he had learned what his brother could not accept. That he¡¯d seen the light where his brother had been too utterly taken by Sir Francis¡¯s poisonous spell.

    She hadn¡¯t used that exact phrasing, but her sentiment had struck most of the same chords. Even if he hadn¡¯t wholly believed them. And indeed he knew she wouldn¡¯t have either if he¡¯d truly opened his mind and heart to her as he¡¯d professed to have done.

    He had seen his father¡¯s true colors in the end. That was true enough as facts go. He had also witnessed the abysmal horrors of their works. He¡¯d seen the brutal, unrepentant carnage wrought by Naarfynder¡¯s infernal engines. The mass throngs of innocent souls led to the undeserved grave and then on to the rending teeth of nocturnal fiends.

    He had stood there. And watched. He had just stood by. And then he¡¯d gone on to defend the saarding depraved mind responsible!

    Why?! What ghastly, evil force could have possessed him to think of such monstrous aberrations as anything other than the malignant pus of a truly diseased spirit?

    He knew and hated the answer to that too.

    Love. The pure, simple love of a child. That blind, foolish, singular admiration for the one who¡¯d given him life but would not think to hesitate to take it again if doing so would serve his demented ends.

    If ever there was a situation to make any Captain long for the soul console of his mate, this was that.

    How he ached for Ellie¡¯s girdle of warmth in this purgatorial well.

    True, there were many charming adjectives he could use to describe Ellie. But soulful, angelic and nightingale were not on that list. She had the vocal range of a taxidermized Vulture and could carry a tune about as well as she could an actual concert hall.

    He closed his eyes, and he could see her. He could hear her singing to him through the shadows. He heard her angelic voice sing his name. Softly, sweetly her voice carried his mind away. Her nightingale chords lulled his weary spirit to its earned rest ¡­

    A hand smacked him across the muzzle. Causing him to snap upright to attention faster than if his tail had gotten caught in a vice trap.

    ¡®Ow!¡¯ his brain blurted.

    ¡°What? Where?¡± dribbled from his mouth. He spit then looked around, expecting to meet Hemlock¡¯s sternly judgmental countenance.

    Adrian¡¯s sun-golden face instead stared back at him with a tightly layered assemblage of curiosity and concern.

    He¡¯d been slumping into what Nikodontus had termed the ¡°dream carapace¡±.

    In the hours since their incursion into Drohmsviire¡¯s black roots, simple fatigue had eclipsed all thoughts of mortal dread. Along with the debilitating languor came the engulfing fear, spawned by the dread of such fathomless apocryphal nightmares that words didn''t exist to describe them.

    Even to those who could only suspect the nature of the endemic envelope they were ensnared in, it came as little shock that Bon Bon had been the first to succumb to its degenerative toxins.

    Drake in particular had guessed it would be so. Her unstable emotional bonds had made prime attack vectors for the Nihil web¡¯s insidiously efficient spinsters. Paired with her, at best, tenuous relationship with reason, it had only been a matter of minutes before her mental and spiritual faculties had been quickly and mercilessly hacked to splinters by the Castle¡¯s craven powers.

    The only word coherent in her delusional ramblings being ¡°Tom¡±, her wild mania had precipitously blossomed into wholesale lunacy. Manifesting first in bone-chilling howls. Eventually devolving into her trying to slay her former swain¡¯s invisible phantom with a sword that her real hand hadn¡¯t quite gotten the message wasn¡¯t actually its to hold.

    Adrian had first tried and, mainly to his own shock, failed to so much as reach, let alone settle her. Her perceptions having already been too thoroughly warped. The Nihil veil too tightly wrapped around her mind for even his unalienable aura to penetrate.

    ¡®All part of the plan.¡¯

    Though he¡¯d masked it well, Drake had been the only one wiser. Far stronger wills than hers had been laid low by Drohmsviire¡¯s dragon skin arcane shielding.

    But then something utterly unexpected had happened. Hemlock had disarmed the screeching young she Fox, clasped her in a locking embrace and taken them both to ground. There she¡¯d sat humming some discordant lullaby and stroking the Vixen¡¯s berry-blued mane all during the latter half of the pocket torch¡¯s lifespan.

    In the end, all was still and quiet again. Bon Bon no longer flailed or fought with the images of nowhere. She just lay and rested, barely breathing, her eyes half closed, half shrouded with delirious haze. Every so often the slightest gasp of a sob or a mumbled word

    Drake stared into the waning fire. Heaping his enduring will upon it, but for naught. The light would soon die, as three others had already.

    Temporal sands ran at a more frantic pace here. It was as though time itself fled in fright from what the next moment might bring.

    But the one law consistent within all sides, realms, dimensions and permutations of creation is that time always, inevitably, runs out.

    Drake knew there was no point thinking about retreat. They needed to find a drift to catch, to break free of this paratonic prison. Otherwise becoming a gibbering basket case would be the nicest thing their futures held in store.

    This was Stage Three of the island¡¯s castlelike defense stratagem. The ¡°Master Stroke,¡± in Sir Francis¡¯s words.

    ¡°Apriori gridlock,¡± in Nik¡¯s words. An erratic, staccato assault on the invaders¡¯ mental and spiritual fortitude. Followed by a prodigious flood of artificially incited emotional stimuli.

    ¡°A Wolfpack blitzkrieg,¡± according to Noah, whose brainchild this whole process majoritively was.

    Drake had to hand it to his evil twin. Vile and black though the now eldest Drake¡¯s heart and blood may have been, what the Sire Drake had wanted for in wit and cunning his first son made up for a hundred fold. As if nature itself had stepped in to even out the scales. Though it might have ever so slightly overcorrected. The same way inadvisably placed calk turns a relatively benign gas leak into a firebomb.

    Never had the term ¡®evil genius¡¯ before so neatly applied to any beast not born of ink and thought.

    Noah had a gift for planning that would have set Nikodontus¡¯s teeth on edge if he¡¯d had any. A trait the infamous pirate, Sinbad, now carried in their father¡¯s dreadful wake.

    His tactics were bold. His strategies without flaw. His command over logistics peerless.

    As elegant in their simplicity as they were vicious in their efficacy.

    Aided and actively asserted via a destructive negative feedback loop in the metaphysical dynamic. Targeting the range of basic fault lines common in all sentient psyches. Any and all repressed memories or urges, no matter how miniscule, would be simultaneously excited and exploited by the layered Nihil nexus.

    The ultimate aim of which being to lock the enemy in an internal arena where they would battle the worst and most feverish fantasy contusions of their primal centers.

    There the hapless prey would languish in their self-constructed prisons as their bodies gradually succumbed to the effects of dehydration and starvation. All while the Tower¡¯s parasitic Miasma methodically picked and ate away at their charging animus fields.

    This would all be the Fourth Stage. The ¡°Apex Terminus¡±, according to Nikodontus.

    Thence would begin the Fifth and Final Stage. The ¡°Destiny Stage¡± as Drake¡¯s misbegotten twin had coined it.

    When the broken spirits of the deceased finally came untethered from their vessels, rather than being allowed to drift and dissipate peacefully back into the ether, that essence would instead be forcibly extracted, harvested, mutated and capsulized for whatever later use the island¡¯s parent Necromancer saw fit.

    Suddenly, as though in answer to a tacit prayer, a lone bright spot akin to the first star at dusk or the last at daybreak, appeared in his mind, breaking through the Miasma¡¯s coddling mire. If just for a moment.

    In the waking world this epistemological crowbar took the shape of a timely resurgent and abnormally animated Crow.

    The Wolf whistled and gestured frantically back the way he¡¯d just come, which chased off Drake¡¯s rapturing delirium mask like a bomb blast displacing smoke.

    The Captain could count on one hand the times he¡¯d seen Crow act frantically. He willed himself back to rights to issue a concise general command.

    ¡°This way, let¡¯s go,¡± he said. Being sure to make his voice stern and loud while also being careful to keep it below a shout.

    Not that it mattered. Neither of the females so much as altered their gaze. Not a hair on an ear twitched. Like the miscarried dead they sat, as though waiting for a ship that would never come. Their eyes vacant and distant. Exemplifying the opining fog settling within.

    Though he remained more cognizant, even Adrian only just managed to acknowledge his Captain¡¯s mandate with a slight tilt of his head.

    But Drake was resolute. His heart sported a fire that made the Empire¡¯s great beacons look like rushlights. He had not led his herd all this way, through hell and high winds, only to see them fall to their own traitorous constitutional agents.

    Silently, without prior accord, he and Crow each hefted one of their mortified comrades over their shoulders and took off at a dead run. With Drake following his spotter¡¯s spirited lead and Adrian chasing his Captain¡¯s tail.

    With numb minds and aching shoulders they flew through the blackness. Abandoning their spluttering light source in favor of making faster steps.

    Their strident chase ended before a black iron door bearing a wooden plank with the words Tarde Arnan Grymvartuur painted on it in blotted streaks of faded scarlet.

    Drake knew them to mean ¡®No Living Soul May Pass¡¯ only because he had helped his brother translate and paint them there when they were both still too young and stupid to comprehend the deeper significance.

    For the first time in nearly a decade boots pounded the abyssal tract. Every step, every movement brought on the abrasive ire of a predator robbed of an easy meal.

    Their heads were pounding. Their eyes shed droplets of gray glass as comprehension of impending salvation spread through their cranial cells like flames through an arid library.

    All three males together managed to shoulder the onerous barrier aside and all five bodies tumbled through into another umbral abyss. Albeit one slightly cheered by the yellow-tinted glitter of a thousand million points of steel light that swathed the vast cavern in a thin film of celestial haze only just bright enough to see by and the striking absence of the Miasma prison field.

    Were he stripped of his memory of the past several days and then told this was the bleeding edge of the sky itself Drake would hardly have given a thought to questioning it.

    Having been granted no such mercy, he knew perfectly that, in truth, here afore lay the bottomless necrose well that was the heart and soul of the Necromancer¡¯s infernal fortress.

    The sky-bursting silo¡¯s inner wall reached upwards beyond the range of what their natural lens perspective could glean. Tapering to an impassable singularity several leagues over their heads.

    To the uninitiated it would have been a dazzling spectacle. The tower¡¯s long black glass face coursing with ribbons of pale celestial colors made cheap the cosmos¡¯s afterhours bonanza.

    From the enlightened eye, however, could not escape the rivers of shed scarlet and the shimmering Sisyphean lanes of unpardoned souls trapped in pulsating veins just beneath the tower¡¯s tenebrous skin.

    Drake was first to rise. Such was his duty both as Captain and as their netherworld guide at the precipice of a stone ledge overlooking the cavernous expanse. A narrow corkscrew ledge spiraled clockwise around the nefarious trunk¡¯s inner circumference.

    Both it and the platform ledge on which they stood were hewn directly from the walls and both were festooned top and bottom with the pulsating lights so that the portside ramp appeared to vanish after just a dozen yards.

    Drake¡¯s eyes fell upon a single stone planted in the vertical face of the rounding plane and found himself inexplicably possessed by an intractable sense of profound purpose.

    As an anchor drawn back to a ship by a line and winch, he approached the edge as though its cavernous deep harbored a slumbering dragon, which he knew it didn¡¯t,

    He knew the spire wasn¡¯t actually bottomless. But knowing also that even in his father¡¯s personal playpen gravity didn¡¯t play favorites, he opted to respect the Pyrate¡¯s Eighth and most widely applicable mantra: never gamble with what you can¡¯t stand to lose.

    Abiding his own and his predecessors¡¯ amalgamated wisdom, Drake reached just as far over and into the saccharin abyss as was required to retrieve his target relic. Taking it in his fingers he popped the unusually enticing stone from its cradle with trapezial ease, then held it up for all to examine.

    Like all things of true significance or worth, it seemed unremarkable at first. A bulbous auric gemstone about the size of a large nut or berry. It exuded a soothing summer aura that seemed to wax and wane in tune with his heartbeat.

    In fact it bore a striking resemblance to a nexel. Except that where the volatile crystals had either a dark magenta or violet hue and were warm to the touch, this bluebell heart of a gem was the color of blushing gold and sang in an elegiac lyre timbre.

    Unlike the king metal, it didn¡¯t so much steal heat as trade for it a feeling of profound satiation which lay in the heart like a feast bought by the well-earned spoils of a successful war would in the belly.

    And unlike any instrument made by living hands its song was of a kind discernable only to its bearer.

    Drake stood there, staring into its labial facets. His mind and spirit hopelessly transfixed, though on what not even he could say with any surety.

    At one point Hemlock made to physically break the spell¡¯s bondage, but Crow barred her way with an arm.

    No explanation was given for this, and one look from the Wolf¡¯s dire candle eye stamped out all prospects of protest.

    The four whist-fallen beasts watched on in fear and wonder as their Captain mused on matters which only outer minds of superior eldritch caliber could begin to parse in any true or accurate detail. Whatever Crow saw in that mysterious rite was a lock for which he would carry the only key.

    All the rest of them could do was wait and hope. A fact which was not lost and which sired its own Mongol share of indignant, useless emotions in each and every witness. For once, Crow being no exception.

    As the minutes ticked by, regular life slowly reclaimed the Captain¡¯s derelict body. As his hands remembered their purpose, they turned the stone over. The sickly isosceles barbs which had grown in and permeated his heart¡¯s every cell and had begun boring through to his mind were receding. Melting under the stone¡¯s lustrous aether.

    ¡®Tim will have a lot to say about this I¡¯m sure,¡¯ a part of him reckoned sagely. At which another, less astute, part improperly speculated, ¡®maybe Ellie can use it in one of her necklace patterns ¡­¡¯

    Castrated though it was, the thought struck Drake¡¯s insides like a spiked club. To whose grievous aftermath the stone seemed to almost speak. Chasing away the ice and fire of premature grief with a chordate whispered melody.

    Drake hadn''t survived his life¡¯s seminal crucible by trusting in fate to carry him, and he saw no reason to break a successful trend.

    He and Crow settled Bon Bon¡¯s weakly apologetic frame onto Hemlock¡¯s slumping back. Draping her limp arms over her comrade¡¯s shoulders like cagey backpack straps and lashing her knees to the Doe¡¯s waistline by the same rope that had saved them from the clutches of the Naarfynder host.

    Their minds settled, their bodies rested and their direction as abundantly clear as one can be under such circumstances, the trio and a half waited on their Captain¡¯s signal to move out.

    The moment before giving the order, however, another minor bout of inspiration took over Drake. This time causing him to press the profound crystal into Bon Bon¡¯s clammy fingers.

    He shrugged off his crew¡¯s inquisitive looks. It was only a hunch. One he couldn¡¯t have explained even if he¡¯d tried. He simply suspected they were going to need all the available hands very shortly. And if what was true of the heart and mind was so of the body, then by the Ninth line in the unofficial Pyrate Codex, ¡°waste a moment now, waste many a tear later¡±, he would see that they didn¡¯t need luck where they were going.

    He nodded to Crow, who, in his clinically obtuse way, drew his pistol and took the lead. Drake did likewise and brought up the rear. Between them they herded the invalid and her barely-managing crutch.

    Their progress was slow, but consistent. Carefully they tested each footstep and warily they studied every bump, flake and groove of the chimerical tract. All the while they kept their bodies pressed against the wall, just as they had been trained.

    Thankfully, they hadn¡¯t gone far before Drake¡¯s intuitive inspiration was vindicated.

    Sure enough, before their very eyes the stone¡¯s ineffable magick didn¡¯t just taxidermize Bon Bon¡¯s flesh and spirit, but wholly mended and even reconstructed anew those bits lost to the dire abyss seemingly out of the wishful aether.

    And not just hers either.

    Hemlock¡¯s vitality and constitution seemed to restore faster with each step and breath, as opposed to the reverse that one might be forgiven for anticipating given the circumstances.

    As soon as the Vixen was fit enough to walk on her own Drake promptly reclaimed and stuffed the miracle elixir stone into his most secret and secure pocket.

    ¡®Definitely gotta put this under Tim¡¯s scope,¡¯ he thought as he issued the gesticular order to move out.

    Two by two the group proceeded up the transverse rampart at a far more marketable pace. It didn¡¯t escape anyone¡¯s notice, save for Bon Bon¡¯s obviously, that she was sidling along inordinately close to her pair partner.

    No one said anything. Having her attention fixed squarely on something at her left arm meant her mind couldn¡¯t happen across the subject of the midnight plunge off to her right.

    Adrian kept up a brisk, detached pace with her hectic wit and sidelong diatribes. His lackadaisical manner and sparkling humor evoking as much the ashen blue fire of choice combat as the regular lapping golden teeth of irritation.

    Images of Ellie¡¯s honeyed coat scorched Drake¡¯s internal eye. He reached into his cloak and felt there the firestone bleed its precious zeal back into him.

    Not long into their march Drake became subliminally aware they were being shadowed by something with a distinctly corporeal scent.

    Actually, thinking more on it, shadowed wasn¡¯t the right word.

    Surveyed? No. Too professional.

    Tracked? Too sleek.

    Stalked? No. No. Still too much connotative stealth lodged in it.

    Who or whatever was tailing them was either extraordinarily bad at sneaking or else it wanted them to know theirs was a known presence.

    Maybe it was just a witless creature curious to see what was trespassing in its lair.

    Perhaps this was some strange form of posturing known only to cave creatures and denizens of pseudo-imaginary islands.

    Or maybe it was sapient and just didn''t give a fart in the Abyss if any beast knew it was there or not.

    Either way it was unquantifiable and that made it a threat.

    Pyrates¡¯ Eleventh Rule: you don¡¯t have to see a problem for it to become yours.

    Drake turned his head just far enough to see into the haze behind him. In his peripheral vision, a small, slender form slinked in and out of the crags between the rocks.

    Ears pricked, sword arms flexed, but neither holster nor scabbard was disturbed.

    Pyrate Rule Number the Tenth: ¡°you don¡¯t need to lure trouble out. When the Gods are craving discord it¡¯ll find you all on its own, whether you want it or not.¡±

    Drake didn¡¯t need to ask or even check to see  whether his foremost mates were on his page or not. The Deer and the Wolf were two of the best trackers on the FPA roster. If their inept tail had stumbled into his sensory field, well, to quote the great author, historian and playwright C.G. Ro¨²gschild, ¡°if the meager cup can catch a mottle of rainwater, how much so the more can the ampler bucket keep and the grander trough abide.¡±

    Had Drake inherited even a modest quantity of his mother¡¯s artistic sensibilities he might have seen the poetry in this line coming from a beast as famous for never wasting good printing space on simple ideas as for never saying in just five words what could be said in fifty.

    But as such things were the provincial inheritance of his brother, the younger Drake was left to affect his intellect over the objective materium.

    He communicated his findings to Hemlock for no particular reason other than her being the closer, through the language of simple, subtle gestures and common noises no Pyrate or pirate was ever taught but which all invariably learn to over due course in the trade. Knowing he needn¡¯t tell her to say nothing to Bon Bon, or explain the reason as being their not needing a repeat of her earlier outbursts, he did anyway. If for no other reason than to check all their proverbial boxes, as he knew everyone would have expected.

    She answered just as he¡¯d expected. Bluntly and knowledgably. And they continued on in independent silent contemplation for some time without any sign of trouble. Their persistent tail for the time being notwithstanding.

    Adrian pulled in tighter to Bon Bon, ready to pull his wistful companion to the side should the need for battle jump out at them. Her utter fixation never relaxing, and in fact only bolstering the libra scale they all had a vested interest in keeping at as near to straight level as possible.

    They spent another half an hour glass¡¯s sand tracing the monotonous spiral upwards before meeting any variation in the mold.

    A deviance which, to the surprise of absolutely no beast, Crow was the first one to spot.

    In his factitious way he directed their attention to a collection of gray buildings scaffolded straight into the walls and jutting off the vertical face of the path like domicile teeth a few turns higher up.

    ¡°Great,¡± Drake exclaimed once they were close enough for him to tell what he was looking at. ¡°Maybe we¡¯ll find a clue up there.¡±

    ¡°Or some help,¡± Adrian added. ¡°Or some food,¡± Bon Bon chimed in.

    Drake bobbled a nod. His heart raced ahead of them. His vision of their future, of Ellie¡¯s beaming features, so close and crystal clear in his view he almost fatally forgot that the line his feet were walking was actually a circle.

    A more prodigious mind would have regarded their sanctity for the false light emitted by the improbable as the poisonous fruit that it was. And it was perhaps fitting that the one mind present who fit such description was also the only one not affixed to a sound box, and thus unable to verbally affect such council.

    Against all their training, his lifelong experience and his reason, he had begun to hope. A dangerous and faulty tripline so far from their proverbial X, going by the Twelfth axial Pyratical proverb.

    Drake¡¯s brain and his heart were at odds and the latter had the former in a vice lock. There was no turning back. Their only hope lay in the above settlement. One which grew dimmer and fainter the nearer they advanced on the outskirts of what they gradually understood to be a ramshackle quarter, the sort of which a den of orphaned youths might construct after only seeing a house once in a half burned sketch in a raggedy old book.

    All five beasts shared conversational glances. All agreeing collectively on the point that if this grovelheim nest was their salvation, then the gods weren¡¯t worth the clay and rock their idols were built from.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    Their atheistic convictions hardened every yard they closed with the bedraggled settlement¡¯s forlorn aperture.

    The town, or what crude iconic models passed for, at distant glance seemed to have been cobbled from a combination of daub, twigs and tooth plaster.

    Greater proximity, however, sutured these disparate fragments into a single cogent truth. That of the distinct, albeit broken, tapered shapes of yard arms, hull beams and waxed boards. The dull glint of steel butt caps, rivets, bolts, rings and fasteners accented many a ramshackle joist and fa?ade. Whose vertical side and glacis planes also shimmered like translucent metallic bubbles.

    There to greet them at the entrance stood a trio of small, albino creatures, each one about a foot tall. They were all dressed in rags. Their long jagged ears, dark Feline eyes and tight, fanged mouths gave Drake uncomfortably strong impressions of the goblins his mother had used to tell him lurked outside his window at night.

    Even notwithstanding his waking experience with this island and its body populace, simpler intuition inclined him to severely doubt that these curious albino moppets would be repelled by the ambiguous magicks of tucked covers and happy dreams.

    The head creature wore a crude wrap of copper around the base of its long faucet streak of jet-black hair.

    A badge of office, Drake automatically assumed. Perhaps a basic interpretation of a crown. The rest of its clothes, if one could go so far as to call them that, looked like they had been woven out of the shredded remnants of an ancient Toramuun tunic.

    Despite its cadaverous wardrobe it carried itself in the manner of one in possession of no meager amount of societal rank. Which, under normal circumstances, any Pyrate worthy of being addressed thus would have dismissed as a petty trifle. Their order had no use for kings or titles beyond the rank of Captain. And that mostly only for the sake of crew and resource cohesion during battle.

    Here stood a creature unafraid, or otherwise so committed to his duty as leader, that he would step out personally to meet with the squad of large, armed creatures that had just manifested from out of the dark abyss below.

    In Drake¡¯s book, this fact alone made him worthy of his crown. And under normal circumstances he might have considered commanding his crew to lower their arms as a token of friendship. But nothing about these circumstances met even the most approximal criteria for normalcy. So the Pyrates¡¯ hands stayed.

    The two creatures flanking him were slightly shorter and much more robust than their leader. They each wore shiny metal barrettes with fur and feathers inset seemingly at random and the one carried a miniature glaive while his partner wielded a halfling bardiche. Both of whose four foot shafts ended in long claws of curled crimson ahead of lashed sapphire and clear diamond starstones respectively.

    ¡®Bodyguards,¡¯ Drake mouthed to himself.

    Silent though it may have been, and despite Crow¡¯s back being to his Captain, this question somehow elicited from the silent Wolf a nigh imperceptible shrug.

    They all knew better than to dismiss any creature outright solely by its stature. But it strained the bounds of their experiential logic to think that these two tiny creatures armed with crude polearms could possibly pose a viable threat to any beast besides themselves.

    As their party drew nearer, the foremost creature motioned for its guards to stay and came forward alone to meet the strange aliens.

    Secure in the knowledge that their weapons had longer reach, Drake signaled for his band to station themselves likewise and proceeded alone.

    The two leaders met about twenty paces from the open gate. The creature nodded formally. Drake mirrored the gesture.

    Then the creature spoke. ¡°You ¡­ have ¡­ voice?¡±

    Its voice was course and ragged as if comprised of notes blown through dry reeds. It reminded Drake of a retired Oreamnos sailor he''d met in Horntooth about a year earlier. The old tartar-jaw had developed such a copious dependence on the native spice Ryogant, known colloquially as ¡°seeing grass¡±, in his silver and golden years that he''d been forced to use a converted intercom wired to a collar in place of his decayed organic vocal tract. Resulting in a voice like glass sand running through a rusty colander.

    ¡°Yes,¡± Drake answered carefully. ¡°We speak.¡±

    The creature paused a moment, studying them. Then it asked in broken Adamic, ¡°You ¡­ not ¡­ dead?¡±

    From the way it enunciated every first syllable, it sounded like the words were getting caught in its throat, almost as if it had trouble remembering what verbal speech sounded like or how to produce it. Drake wondered how a creature who used language so infrequently could have come to know it at all in the first place.

    Drake hesitated a moment before allowing himself liberty to speak. The sacrosanct-ness of this last statement had struck him as such a poignant reminder of their present situation, that he nearly choked on his answer as he tried to refrain from laughing at its absurdity.

    ¡°No,¡± he spurted. He coughed and recovered some more before starting again more definitively. ¡°No. We''re not ghosts.¡±

    The creature flashed a toothy grin. Whether it was in genuine pleasure or imitation of Drake''s own expression, may forever remain known only to him.

    ¡°Then ¡­ you ¡­ welcome,¡± it said, gesturing to the two bodyguards and waving them all inside with the same fluid gesture. ¡°My ¡­ name ¡­ Schlagalmuck. Pleasure.¡±

    From behind, Bon Bon tried to parse out the unfamiliar syllables that landed on her keen Canid ears like wet mud being scraped off a boot. ¡°Sklegal muck?¡± She screwed up her face as though the words tasted of peat. ¡°What kind of weird-ass name is that?¡±

    Having been gifted similar natural boons, Drake was not unaware of this. He just hoped Schlagalmuck wasn¡¯t similarly endowed.

    Without taking his eyes from the diminutive chief, he kept his voice and expression neutral when he said, ¡°I am called Drake.¡±

    Knowing Bon Bon¡¯s tongue would not lay still of its own accord, Hemlock moved to take up the duty, only to find her effort blocked by Adrian, who smiled and took gentle hold of the Vixen¡¯s arm.

    To Hemlock¡¯s annoyance and Crow¡¯s mild bemusement, this had the predicted effect of locking her voice safely and securely behind her teeth.

    Schlagalmuck smiled impishly. ¡°Your ¡­ friends ¡­ strange.¡±

    Drake let out a soft, knowing nasal breath.

    Crow and Adrian shared a look that said, in effectual essence, you don¡¯t know the half of it.

    The terrestrial delegate smiled with as much warmth as his alien countenance could convey. ¡°You ¡­ call ¡­ me ¡­ Schlag. Easier.¡±

    ¡°Schlag,¡± Drake repeated. As much feeling out the word as the moment. Feeling a smile blossom at its touch, deciding it right to dispense his tight political countenance, he nodded a bow and said, ¡°it¡¯s a pleasure to finally meet you.¡±

    His mind heard his words and like a wanted outlaw fired back instantly. ¡®No! No! No! Stupid! Stupid!¡¯

    Schlagalmuck said nothing. He mirrored Drake¡¯s gesture then motioned for their group to follow him.

    Drake didn¡¯t waste energy debating the past. What was done was done. What would be they would handle. As was the Pyrate way.

    He beckoned his crew on and Schlagalmuck led them all through the slipshod assortment of abject crates his people called home.

    ¡®If these are supposed to be houses, then we¡¯re houseplants¡¯, was the general sentiment shared amidst the Pyrates. Even if none of them articulated it such a way.

    Drake didn¡¯t need to look back to know that his mates were thinking similarly. But, because it felt expected, his head and neck went through the motion anyway all on their own.

    Meanwhile, his head was busy contending with a flash flood of questions. Their tides ebbing and swooning between the shores of this revelation¡¯s glaring spatial and temporal infractions.

    How long had these creatures been on Naarfynder? Why had he never seen or heard of them before?

    Of course his father had been a beast of many secrets. A good deal of which Drake had only first caught ear of from tavern whispers after becoming a Pyrate. So, he supposed, it wasn¡¯t inconceivable that the Barren Necromancer had also dabbled in a bit of sporting alchemy and Animancy in his wayward time.

    But that didn¡¯t explain how they had come to be living, if not free, at least unmolested, in the heart of the Black Dragon¡¯s own Castle.

    True, Sir Francis had tolerated things that would make most Boars spit up their stomachs. But nothing lived in or near his house that he didn¡¯t have a plan, or at least a use for.

    Squatters and failed experiments were both top rankers on his naughty list. Right above piratical raiding parties and righteous crusaders and just barely outbidding snoopy government agents.

    Nowhere in his second son¡¯s educational or developmental memory logs could he find any instances or references that so much as hinted at the unfettered existence of a tribe of hairless albino sentients in their cellar.

    Had they always been here? Had they dwelled in the depths of the catacombs invaded after the island¡¯s masters left? Or were they newly evolved?

    This last thought brought his cerebral expedition around to smack his abstract cortical lobes upside their posterior.

    He was no biologist, but he knew something of history. Ideas and thoughts could spawn and take root in a few generations, sure. But whole new species didn¡¯t just sprout out of the ground wholesale in time for the semester holiday.

    Schlagalmuck took them down the one de facto road that snaked through the auspicial dermal shell of a town proper. Often skirting the facial cliff, often finding themselves at clearly far shorter odds than had been initially rationed for by the builders.

    Parts where the stepping stone had been worn to odd angle or had fallen away completely had been roughly built over with amalgams of loose debris that again had evidently not been placed with bodies on their order of displacement in mind.

    The Pyrates had to pay extra mind to their footing on these precarious bridges. Their being built by and for creatures roughly a third the mass of the lightest surface beast present.

    ¡°This ¡­ Skalgag ¡­ home,¡± Schlagalmuck explained as they walked. ¡°Schlag ¡­ chief. Dead ¡­ not ¡­ our ¡­ friends.¡±

    Drake nodded sagely at Schlagalmuck¡¯s back. ¡°Nor ours.¡±

    He made passive note of the haunting vacuum in this supposedly occupied town.

    ¡°Skalgags ¡­ hide,¡± Schlagalmuck said as they approached what was presumably, from their makers¡¯ view, an ostentatiously wide flight of stairs. ¡°They ¡­ not ¡­ trust ¡­ strangers.¡±

    Drake said, ¡°I understand.¡±

    This was true.

    Which made it particularly peculiar when he then, for no readily apparent reason, followed it up with, ¡°that¡¯s why we¡¯re here.¡± Which was less true.

    ¡°Words aren¡¯t weapons. No matter what the priests say. If it advances your cause, lying is your greatest weapon.¡±

    Whether his second and last progeny liked to cede the credit point or not, Sir Francis had been right more often than not. Granted, it had been the cumulative stopping power of those rare latter occurrences that had made his life several decades shorter than he¡¯d intended. But that was beside the point.

    But why had he brandished his silver dagger here? Why now? What could he have possibly thought or hoped to gain from pointless, careless sideways talk?

    If his life was any indication, he¡¯d likely either never find out or the answer was about to literally jump out and bite him.

    The stairs ended in, appropriately enough, the end of the long spiraling road they¡¯d been on. At which a broad axe head of a cliff whose glassy gray surface was streaked red and violet overlooked a sheer drop into stark oblivion.

    Opposite the steps, teetering on the very precipice, was a grandiose wooden structure. It looked to be much better maintained, and paradoxically much older, than all the others.

    Still, to call it a mansion would be a gross miscarriage of language. Indeed, even thinking of it as a dwelling minded the boundaries of the term only by the meagerest of fractions.

    That being so, however, this sardonic structure still held in its threadbare composure a simulacrum of prestige and status despite the rotting boards and overall ware.

    Inside too, from the faded red of the roof and fraying welcome rug to the auburn stain of the wood and the phantasmic hints of inlaid gold and silver retained in the deepest crevices on the ablated buttressed columns and plaster busts that dotted the reception area.

    Furniture from a hundred lands of a dozen centuries in as many gradient states of ruination lay strewn about. Drake wondered if some hadn¡¯t been appropriated from the dungeon quarter. Or perhaps taken as a vandal trophy.

    Either way, he didn¡¯t begrudge them. Their need was undoubtedly greater than that of its previous owners.

    ¡°This ¡­ chief ¡­ home,¡± Schlagalmuck explained. ¡°Traditional. Built ¡­ by ¡­ first ¡­ Skalgags.¡±

    Drake rejected his brain¡¯s first three proposed follow-up questions in favor of their fourth running mate. Which he still didn¡¯t want to ask, but his body, compelled by an anomalous need to fill a perceived void, insisted that his mouth make noise now. And given that it was preferable to sounding like a traumatized pup, he asked like a neo pubescent working out what to say to his first crush, ¡°if you don''t mind my asking, how did your kind ¡­ or rather, your people ¡­ come to be ¡­ that is, in a place like this?¡±

    This entire scenario struck Drake harder than if his head had been an anvil. Had his father also conjured these morose creatures out of the same formless void as he had the undead and Naarfynders themselves?

    And if so, then for what purpose?

    ¡°Not ¡­ mind,¡± Schlagalmuck said without turning around. Had Drake seen their host¡¯s eyes, he would have instantly recognized them as those of a being lost in another space and time, the dimensions of which would remain forever hidden to all but himself.

    Schlagalmuck¡¯s daydreaming reticence plunged the group into a long heartbeat of deathly silence. Which was then broken by the chief¡¯s abrupt relapse into the conversation. ¡°Once ¡­, long ¡­ past ¡­, we ¡­ served ¡­ black ¡­ one.¡±

    The matter around the Pyrates suddenly seemed to tremble as what had been mere private suspicion as to their origins became a gravitationally binding fact.

    The lake of bones lining the cells below could only begin to testify to the sheer quantity of life spent in erecting this hideous effigy of civilization.

    Drake glanced back at his herd-mates. He could tell by their faces that at least sizable portions of his own revelations had occurred to them as well. Even Bon Bon, for all her admirable attempts to mask it, looked stricken.

    Drake moved to press Schlagalmuck on this point, but the Skalgag chief was already too busy giving orders to his guards to pay Drake any notice.

    At his command, the diminutive bodyguards dropped their spears and ran upstairs. A minute later, they returned with four others of like size dragging a quartet of comparably large stools.

    Drake wasn¡¯t stupid enough to ask why they had to get those particular items of furniture when they could have just had their pick of the pile.

    Bon Bon was another story. Fortunately for all, Hemlock this time stepped in. Making up for last time by snipping her caniform companions social grenade¡¯s fuse off by knocking her jawbones together with an underhand fist so hard it made her teeth rattle.

    While Adrian intervened to shoo off the impending storm cloud, Drake moved his attention back to their hosts. Who had since last viewing proceeded to set the hall for banquet. Wrapping the table with festive cloth, which is to say cloth that had played host to many a wild moth party, and beset the seats with cushions that were approximately three parts down and feathers to every one part enmeshing fabric. With any further growth in the disparity having been somewhat shoddily stemmed by randomly colored yarn and ribbons.

    All in all, notwithstanding the neighborhood, there was an almost whimsical charm about the whole setup. Like watching children play at setting house.

    Schlagalmuck walked over, bowed, and waved a spindly hand at the arrangement.

    ¡°You ¡­ sit.¡±

    Though his inflection and overall attitude implied a polite and genuine offer, the first and most fundamental rule of natural etiquette, and incidentally the Twelfth Rule in Misloff¡¯s unofficial ¡°Pyrate Primer¡± pamphlet, was ¡°never disobey, disrespect or disregard the will of another beast under his own roof unless you¡¯re prepared for war.¡±

    The second, or Thirteenth depending on the source, rule was that a host ¡°ought never to invite into his or her lair that which has not already proven itself a friend.¡±

    Of course, the point the incorrigible entrepreneur failed to visit upon his impressionable readership was the instance of said host being in company of a host of armed, and from their looks quite fatalistic, bodyguards.

    But then, rule three, or Fourteen in their world, was quite adamant that ¡°tools of inhospitable trades should be left quietly at the stoop unless either expressly dictated otherwise, or at least not expressly forbade, by one or both parties¡¯ codes of honor, social propriety or professional duty.¡±

    Keeping their weapons at hand, at side, thigh and hip, the Pyrate crew laid the bulk of their gear by the door and politely adjourned around the table.

    All, that is, except Bon Bon. Who flopped into her chosen seat as though it had always been hers by birthright.

    Luckily, if Schlagalmuck had been of a mind to take note of her flagrant impropriety, he took it well in his minute stride. Or at least didn¡¯t consider it worth the toil of bothering with.

    Instead he said with a cock of the ears that made him look like an aborted kitten, ¡°would ¡­ offer ¡­ beds. But ¡­ you ¡­ not ¡­ fit.¡±

    The laughter this relatively simple joke brought out of beasts and Skalgags alike was of a kind only truly comprehensible to the minds of war veterans, disaster survivors and new parents of recently lost and even more recently found young.

    The bodyguards retook their positions flanking their leader as the four smaller Skalgags hurriedly scuttled back and forth erecting a more proportional seat for him.

    They then conspired to produce with a plank and four dowels something vaguely resembling a miniature dining table at the far end on top of the original.

    Once their chief¡¯s place had been properly erected a pair of lighter, nimbler Skalgags, one of whom looked to perhaps be a female, hopped up and began setting out place cloths and what a generous guest would call utensils but that a scientific observer would note were just variables of crude obsidian spades.

    With the easy grace of an Anuran Schlagalmuck then leapt up onto the grander platform, and with his bodyguards in tow, took his own cobbled place on his cobbled throne.

    Meanwhile, as if on cue, the second pair returned, bearing, and evidently struggling with, large steel platters laden with enough food and drink to supply probably fifty Skalgags for a month.

    To a beast the Pyrates had an inkling to stand up and offer help, if only to help the food reach the table a bit faster. But this moment was quickly and superbly counteracted by its first progeny, wherein their eyes and minds saw and processed the contents of the accosting platters.

    Among their imminent bounty was a colorful assortment of nuts and berries, disparate fruits and exotic floral specimens, some of which were known to be harbor toxins that would humble an Anuran.

    Each platter also featured a stack of flat honeyed cakes as tall as the servants who carried them.

    ¡°Enjoy,¡± Schlagalmuck said as he cracked open a large nut using the blunt back of a medium obsidian wedge.

    Bon Bon didn¡¯t need telling. Hemlock and Crow looked sideways at each other, shrugged, and followed suit.

    Adrian and Drake held their appetites back. Though the younger beast quickly  caved, the Captain held fast to his feral guide post.

    To fiddle while the world burns. To feast while the wretched starved around him. That was just the sort of callous, loathsome, pathological, myopic villainy they had each and all come to expect from the world¡¯s aristocratic crust. Not from honest outlaws.

    But pretty soon Drake¡¯s own stomach curled over upon itself at the sight of the indulgent meal set out before them. Enough to feed five Pantheran kings. Surely just a small bite ¡­

    ¡®No!¡¯ his higher mind snapped at his belligerent belly. ¡®This isn¡¯t right. We aren¡¯t thieves. We fight and kill when we have to, yes. But we only take what is deserved  from those who deserve to lose it. That¡¯s our code. That¡¯s what sets a Pyrate apart from brigands like Conshorta¡¯s or the soulless tools in the Armada.¡¯

    ¡°Who gave you the power to dispose what is or isn¡¯t right?¡± Prokvert¡¯s stinging nettle voice rattled in Drake¡¯s third ear.

    ¡°I did,¡± came back Avlon¡¯s stern overheard reply. ¡°It is why I am Headmaster, and why you, little brother, are and have always been a simple stooge.¡±

    The Headmaster¡¯s words were angled like tilted lances in Drake¡¯s recollection. Daring his sibling to advance his cause by another step.

    Of course, Drake hadn¡¯t actually seen the exchange. He¡¯d just happened to overhear a heated fragment during his inaugural Quick Walk.

    That was then. This was a different beast altogether. It went far beyond the realms of simple social etiquette or stately hierarchy.

    This was personal. He felt unclean. To even think about eating while surrounded by the emaciated carcass of his father¡¯s unconscionable heritage. To his mind it was the definition of evil.

    ¡°Is it so wrong to step on another¡¯s back if he kneels and offers it of his own accord?¡± Sir Francis¡¯s serpentus drawl slithered through Drake¡¯s memorial lobes.

    Seeing, or perhaps sensing, his guest¡¯s moralistic dilemma, Schlagalmuck smiled kindly and added, ¡°is... tradition,¡± the Skalgag chief continued. ¡°Always ¡­ share ¡­ with ¡­ guests.¡±

    This little creature had more brains than should have been able to fit into his tiny skull.

    That, or he actually had telepathic powers.

    Honestly, considering the circumstances, if Drake were foolish enough to discount either option he would never have been worthy of his heralder rank, let alone his crew¡¯s loyalty and trust.

    ¡°You ¡­ need ¡­ it ¡­ more.¡± Schlagalmuck assured him. ¡°Skalgags ¡­ not ¡­ big ¡­ like ¡­ you. Not ¡­ fight.¡±

    He spoke like a father explaining the concept of death to a small child.

    Drake clenched his fists and sighed. Then he relented, bowed his head in apologetic thanks and yielded to his father¡¯s blasted wisdom once again.

    As per the way of most moral zygotes, at no point during his little caecilian disentanglement did Drake ever consider the three most obvious and relevant questions.

    First: it didn¡¯t take much brainpower to notice that Naarfynder wasn¡¯t exactly an Edenic paradise. So where had the Skalgags gotten this garden selection feast from in the first place?

    Second: why had they stuffed it all away in the chief¡¯s attic? Did the Skalgags not need to eat? If not, then why keep it at all?

    If so ¡­

    Third: why were they so willing, nay eager, to dole it out to the first bundle of strangers who happened across their threshold?

    ****

    ¡°Sir?¡± Drake asked upon clearing his first platter.

    ¡°Schlag ¡­ please,¡± Schlagalmuck corrected without looking up from his own meal.

    ¡°Schlag, I need to ask you something. Have any of you by chance seen a girl ¡­?¡±

    ¡°Seen ¡­ many,¡± Schlagalmuck answered flatly. ¡°But ¡­ none ¡­ your ¡­ type. Size.¡±

    Drake couldn''t tell whether this was meant to be a joke or an insult. In the interest of both time and not alienating the only ally they''d met on this gods-damned mission, he elected to take it on the chin and press on.

    ¡°She''s like me. That is, she¡¯s of my kind. But more like a campfire. Or the suns. That is ¡­ I mean ¡­ Ugh ¡­ I¡¯m sorry. Let me start again. She¡¯s about my height, golden coat, big pillowy ears, long golden plait down her back. Voice like a summer morning.¡±

    He paused for thought, then added, ¡°she¡¯d also have been armed, armored and probably very grumpy.¡±

    The other Pyrates grinned and smirked, though all signs hid behind hands or food or food in hands.

    Schlagalmuck stopped eating. He stared at Drake for a long moment, then stroked his hairless chin as if pondering on a riddle.

    A flash in his dark eye signaled the birth of a conclusion. He then snapped those same spindly fingers, which summoned one of the servants huddled patiently beneath the table up to his leader¡¯s side.

    The chief muttered something into his subordinate¡¯s ear in what Drake et co. were left to assume was their native tongue.

    The servant nodded, bowed, then bolted upstairs like he¡¯d smelled the acrid nascence of a fire. Reappearing moments later with a sandy brown something pinched delicately between his vampirine incisors.

    He hopped back up on the table and on bended knee held it out to Schlagalmuck like a headhunter presenting a war prize.

    The Skalgag chief pointed at Drake without looking at the package. The servant obediently stepped over and knelt instead in front of Drake¡¯s cleansed platter.

    The Pyrate Captain slowly unwrapped it as though it might turn out to be a finger.

    Schlagalmuck studied him over the burgundy spines of a fist-sized desert fruit. ¡°That ¡­ your ¡­ girl?¡± he asked in the tone of a judge about to levy a capital verdict.

    Drake picked open the canvas wrapping as though expecting it to lash out with viperous stingers.

    What the folds revealed was not and had never been alive. But it was hauntingly familiar.

    An ornament of jade, scarcely the size of an egg. Modest yet elegant. Pleasant yet deceptively deadly in the right circumstances.

    That was Ellie to a tee. Which, he had no doubt, one or more of her abductors had learned the hard way. Hence its unceremonious abandonment.

    At its touch a familiar stony dread quietly began calcifying his heartstrings, but was halted by a trickle of soothing flame from the stone tucked safely above his breast.

    ¡°Hey! That¡¯s ¡­ !¡±

    Bon Bon¡¯s shrill voice blasted into Drake¡¯s head like fire into a driving hammer piston. The force flew along his spine and into his legs, blasting him to his feet and rocketing the stool and cushion clear out onto the mansion¡¯s front deck.

    In the progenitive moment a train of mental images flickered past his inner eye like rolling camera slides as his brain caught present up with past. Then his eyes blinked, shuttering the precedential performance, as his mind reluctantly pivoted to the nearest future time slide.

    His crew were staring at him like he¡¯d just stepped out of his own coffin, while the Skalgags, minus Schlagalmuck, were watching him like bank tellers eyeing a drawn pistol.

    Drake pulled in a long breath and held it, praying to whatever gods or powers might hold any amount of sway here that his voice wouldn¡¯t shake.

    His eyes played with every patch and parcel of light as though some secret shred of clairvoyance may lay bound within their mosaic patterns.

    Meanwhile his tongue independently composed an answer to Schlagalmuck¡¯s question.

    Like as many whisps of desert sand, syllables assembled in loose formative semblance of the words ¡°that''s her¡± left his throat.

    Drake didn¡¯t hear them. Nor did he hear Schlagalmuck¡¯s reply. But the motif sounds still washed something pathetic and toxic, corrupt and wretched out with them. Freeing him of the encumbering miasma which had haunted his mental and emotional shadows since before landing on his old home front.

    However, the magick sunfire gem in his pocket could not substitute what had been lost, and so could do nothing to abate the oblique shades of night which grew in its place.

    He couldn''t allow himself to become emotional. Not in front of his herd and definitely not in front of allies.

    But without Ellie, without his Iradyl, his star duet, he felt that a crucial load-bearing hem in his core was, with growing momentum, coming unraveled.

    Schlagalmuck waited stoically for his guest¡¯s reality to properly coagulate. The underground chief made deliberately heavy tracks as he waded across the longitudinal table span.

    His gait and posture were those of a single body bearing the weight of many generations. Something only a beast far wiser than those present would have understood or recognized.

    He stood nearly at eye level with Drake and laid a fist to the young Captain''s heart.

    ¡°I ¡­ know.¡±

    He then hopped down and marched determinately past Drake. Beckoning them after he¡¯d reached the door, saying, ¡°you ¡­ come. I ¡­ show ¡­ where ¡­ find.¡±

    Drake followed in his host¡¯s wake like a foundling child, as did the bodyguards and servants. All of whom, in as many bounds as he took steps, overtook the young Pyrate and retook their place alongside Schlagalmuck.

    The other Pyrates looked crossways at each other, frowned, shrugged, gulped down the last of their allotted portions, grabbed some of what was left for later per old habits, and fell into train with their leader.

    Schlagalmuck took them around the side of his residence to look out from the overhanging ledge. He pointed down across the void at a barely visible spot of orange light on the other side of the abyssal rift.

    Roughly a hundred yards below on the opposite wall, was the faintly shimmering shape of what might have been construed as a ship, docked near an outcrop.

    Drake¡¯s heart leapt. He squinted hard for confirmation. But any further detail was impossible to discern from this distance.

    ¡°My eyes aren''t as good as yours,¡± he admitted.

    Schlagalmuck was silent. He snapped his fingers and a servant scampered forward with a weather-beaten wood and brass tube.

    His chief took it, inspected it, put it to his eye, then, apparently satisfied, handed it off to Drake. Who raised it gratefully to his own eye and trained it on the distant alcove.

    If he¡¯d expected to be handed a magick mirror, he was due a sore disappointment.

    Its once reliable frame was now pitted, cracked and dented. Its once polished lenses bore the scars of countless tumbles and one too many turn overs with the jagged end of a rock. Its focal alignment sections had been so well fused with aged grime that Drake dared not try to loosen them lest he risk breaking the thing clear in two.

    True, the thing  was old, abused and at least a good ten years ahead of its functional lifespan. But it was still good enough for this one last job.

    Drake aimed it by Schlagalmuck¡¯s errant pointer digit. What he saw there set a fire burning through his brain more powerful than any Abyssal gale ever registered and more rampant than any revolution ever fought.

    On the deck of a ship with no engines or sails, whose waist spanned nearly half the Iron Maiden¡¯s entire length, bound to the foot of the center mast by her wrists and ankles was a golden lass whose signature long braid was unmistakable even from this impure vantage.

    So close and yet so unbearably far.

    A lesson was hidden here somewhere. An obscure piece of fundamental truth. Buried as many steps away from common view as shades separated gold from fire.

    Drake¡¯s heart ignited. In that stupid moment he wanted nothing more than to throw himself over to her. All the contrarian physics and logic of such a move be damned to the lowest, most impregnable spheres of oblivion.

    Luckily for him his brain still held enough faculty cards to restrain his more dramatic locomotive drivers. But it couldn¡¯t slay every rogue dragon that his volcanic cauldron of a heart produced.

    One of these hegemonic daemons slithered up from the depths of its infernal prison into his throat, seized his vocal organs and wrung from them a forceful, desperate cry whose monosyllabic cord was spun of braided hope, relief and pleading.

    ¡°Ellie!¡±

    He didn¡¯t have to reprimand himself for his impulsive stupidity. That role this time was fulfilled by Schlagalmuck.

    ¡°Shhhh!¡± the chief hissed. His face was as stern as the black blood cliff, but the rest of him gave away his keen displeasure and aggravation, reined in only by his understanding of the circumstances.

    ¡°They ¡­ heard.¡±

    Before Drake could ask a foolish question, a streamer of clear noon sky caught his Pyratical attention by the periphery.

    A dense, hauntingly bizarro tide of armed specters were flying up from out of the untoward depths to meet them.

    Perhaps there could be a poetic metaphor buried here. Something about a roiling pillar of day sky rose out of a curtain of black instead of the accustomed reverse.

    A more artistic mind might have stopped to consider it. Drake¡¯s was not that mind. In that instant he was a not a lover, not a male, not even a beast. He was a Pyrate.

    More, he was their Captain.

    In that profound light he turned back to his herd and barked, ¡°Pyrates, ready arms!¡±

    From here there could be no uncertainty. Years and decades of training took over and purged their minds of everything but the job. Matters up to and including basic survival became as small and inconsequential as thoughts of their last meal.

    Here there was truth. Absolute, unassailable clarity.

    There was no fear, just the next step.

    There was no pain, just the next breath.

    There was no desire, just action.

    There was no ¡®if¡¯, there was just ¡®what¡¯, ¡®when¡¯ and ¡®how¡¯.

    Weapons and hands found each other in a moment. In the next Crow and Hemlock leapt into forward horn position, rifles at shoulders. Ready to funnel the enemy towards the grinding center and pick off any who got any creative ideas about their approach vectors.

    Adrian and Bon Bon crouched a few paces behind their Captain. Their parts as the coiled serpent¡¯s fangs set as plainly in their minds as the rules of a child¡¯s tarot or board game.

    Drake stood stalwartly alone in the role he and Ellie usually played together as the Lion¡¯s feral teeth and claws.

    To help compensate for their group¡¯s amputated numbers, Bon Bon selected a small, black and steel object from one of several sealed belt pouches.

    Like the beast herself, the device had an unmistakable twinge of intelligentsiac mischief about it. Though unlike the former, comparatively straightforward instrument, this device had the distinction of being the one tool in her arsenal having neither been directly conceived nor constructed nor modified in any way by its present owner.

    Like all the most dangerous quantities in nature, were it not for the novelty of its form factor it would be wholly unremarkable. Being the size and approximal shape of a saber or cutlass hilt with an unusually large pommel and a sharp phallic hook where conventional weapon design dictated a blade should be.

    This was her trusty ¡°baby snatcher¡±. The rationale behind its name was self-evident to her and could be readily inferred by anyone privy to her favored employment strategy. Whether by proxy or, more commonly, by wholly unwise provocation.

    Then one of her equally infamous spontaneous inspirational spurs drove her other hand into a neighboring pouch, from which was drawn and tossed Adrian¡¯s way a longer, ridged hilt with a flattened javelin head for a pommel.

    Under ordinary circumstances she would have reveled in watching him fight to reconcile what he knew this object was with what his imprudent adolescent eyes took it for. And while any professional swashbuckler would be hard pressed to think of a better occasion for a spot of juvenile humor than under the looming specter of battle, many of those same souls would probably have just as soon cut out and eaten their own tongues if it meant not having to stand barring the underworld¡¯s parted gates.

    He tapped the toggle switch and a flash of telescopic titanium shot out. At its head a thousand hairline piezoelectric spines lay embedded. Waiting for the moment they felt the press of an uncouth body to activate and gorge their Ouroboros parent circuits.

    Precisely what good these mechanical tricks would do against ghosts, she knew not. She suspected not very much. It was, after all, just a fancy stick when one got right down to it. Still, it was better than using her bare fists.

    Schlagalmuck turned and issued a set of commands to his posse, who nodded and ran off in different directions. The guards taking flight for the house while the servants made alary tracks into the town.

    Though the Skalgag¡¯s intent was masked beneath the scratchy alien notes, his overarching tone and compunction made clear his words were those of a general ordering his troops.

    Drake offered his host back the spyglass, but the Skalgag chief waved it away, saying, ¡°not ¡­ need. Junk.¡±

    Drake nodded and tossed the decrepit thing over the cliff. The abstract form of the word ¡®appropriate¡¯ flittered about in his mind like a trapped moth.

    Why was a matter he had neither the time nor the interest to pursue just then. Though, on further involuntary reflection, it struck him a strangely appropriate burial site for the dull golden instrument.

    Again the why he could not, nor would he have bothered under ordinary conditions,

    He afforded it the meager blunt courtesy of the thought ¡®strange¡¯  before returning to his preeminent occupation.

    Never realizing, at least consciously, the truth of the matter was that in a Pyrate¡¯s life, chaos was the natural order.

    Or, as Misloff put it, ¡°Rule Fourteen: the stranger the better. For it is those rare moments when things appear to be exactly as one supposes they ought to that the wisest and most experienced Pyrates know are the best times to worry.¡±

    Drake was not worried. Though he couldn¡¯t fathom why or how, save but for a strange fireside warmth rousing his indolent spirit like a drop of bootleg Ly¡¯ Loryanthi ¡°breach thorn¡± elixir.

    He looked to his herd. They were staring off at something with haunted eyes.

    He followed the trail of their collective gaze. There lay all of his answers. His fear and his doubt were his now. Not by the might of a mystical stone, but by the surety born of a mind that has found its own path through the impregnable night. Seen by a heart as the sole star of light in that midnight apocalypse realm.

    From a dull but venerable castlelike spark his emberal truth waged a fraught but subtle war of its own until the moment it had swallowed all his material self in a coalescing furnace and therein, like the iron fists of gravity crafting a new light for the pre-dawn firmament, fused them into a singular florid destiny ingot.

    Whereupon, to the great shock and horror of his herd and what number of Skalgags were there to witness, sheathed his sword and strode towards the cliff.

    There, looking down on the ascending Nihil army, for reasons he was wise enough to know he may never comprehend, he drew the stone blindly from its resting place and raised it high over the umbral well like a lighthouse lantern.

    In the words of the great 3<sup>rd</sup> Era Mephistolean prophet Zarathustros, ¡°verily in that house of horrors a new star is kindled. Betwixt the hours of death and dawn a third Sun rises. There in the dark heart¡¯s eldritch bosom the name of Lucifer shall be etched in dread and terror. To those whose nature is foul, whose deeds cruel, whose minds wicked and perverse, know ye all wretched Abyssal spawn that this hour belongs to the Lord of Thorns! The Black Eye of Zion! The Prince of the Nihil! The immortal pyre of night shall rue every moment it chose to seep its infernal tendrils o¡¯er the morning lip of the Abyss!¡±

    Lalitha opened like a lidless eye. Flames of a kind not wrought since the universe¡¯s founding flew across the astral bridge into the mortal world.

    The ghosts that were nearest took the brunt of the perditious energy. Their vaporous forms, bounded by knots of pure bridled chaos, erupted in showers of entropic fire and vanished back into the argil ether.

    Far below, onboard the Giant, Ellie could only conclude this was the work of the Mother Goddess herself. And, in a sense, she wasn¡¯t entirely wrong.

    But Saedel knew better.

    He knew what was meant by the capital noun Conduit as it pertained to magickal science. This one was the most powerful he''d encountered in three Eras.

    With a wave of his Hermetic scepter he conjured his remaining horde and in the fashion of all tyrants across time to eradicate its source.

    Their own thoughts on the matter were nothing. Their fears, their pain, meaningless.

    Ordinal shackles made his infernal will theirs, albeit by proxy. By his art they were bound and by his fell command they swarmed  to the attack with zealous fervor. Only to be consumed by the solar warrior¡¯s epic blaze like necrose floral droppings in a bonfire.

    Seeing his forces obliterated so utterly, Saedel didn¡¯t waste a moment conjure another host of spirits from the core of the paramount Abyss. Weaving with scepter, hand and voice the complex arcane trigrams and sigils like a demagogic reincarnated Wagner.

    All the while Ellie watched with her distending heart bellowing her deflated spirit.

    The moment the supernal wave¡¯s lashes from above touched her, the very instant its rays caressed her frigid flesh, she knew its heartful source had to be her beloved.

    Though the entire martialed might of all her sane and rational faculty legions couldn¡¯t construct a diction equal to the task of equating hope to reality.

    In blatant defiance of all her reason she dared to hope, as this was all she had left to bind her sanity.

    Meanwhile, when the crystal cooled, and its radiance settled down to its usual gentle smolder, Drake cautiously put the stone, back into his pocket, laboring momentarily under the fear that its residual heat might set his cloak on fire.

    Schlagalmuck waited a long count of three wracking moments before speaking.

    When, on the fourth temporal slice, he extended his thoughts, he did so with evident care and conviction.

    ¡°You ¡­ found ¡­ Heart ¡­ Stone.  Lalitha ¡­ named. Said ¡­ shine ¡­ only ¡­ for ¡­ one ¡­ knows ¡­ true ¡­ love.¡±

    Drake successfully repressed the impulse to deride this notion with a snort only because it didn¡¯t occur to him to do so.

    If there could be said to be any advantage to growing up in a land beyond normal sight and thought it would be that it offered insight and perspective on matters most ordinary beasts found so trivial as to scarcely be worth the time or energy to investigate.

    Love, for example.

    Attachment made sense in Drake¡¯s native world. Possession too. In fact it was a virtue, not just in the traditional pirate fashion, but in all forms of social order not hemmed by the frail thread of ideality, not excluding their present loathed though they were to admit it.

    But love was an anomaly. A figment of an atonal rhapsody parroted by common, mediocre minds too steeped in their primitive ways to so much as bother considering the real nature of the world they but inhabited. Or so Sir Francis had taken to believing.

    And, in all fairness, he wasn¡¯t entirely wrong. Objectively speaking. The base walks of bestial kind only sometimes had the wherewithal to think past their immediate carnal prospects. Those few savvy souls whose learning and cognitive prowess could potentially allow for deeper, more profound exploration of their own destinies tended to run screaming, bleating or mewing for the prenatal safety of their favored parental doctrine¡¯s loincloths at the very prospect.

    ¡°Most fear to understand,¡± quoth the great Allseer to his young apprentices. ¡°For to know is to unravel. In the shadow of mystery lies dream. And in dream there hides sanctuary. To look upon and grieve or to cut out one¡¯s eyes and live as prey. That is the choice I offer you both.¡±

    To accurately assess and to wisely address the myriad fractal layers of the hyperplanar, operatic symphony of the cosmos was, by the Sire Drake¡¯s own estimation, ¡°a mission of too vital import to be left to simpletons. It is, after all, the natural Destiny of dragons to rule over everything their eyes fall upon.¡±

    Drake retroflected on how many of his earliest lessons were actually councils on the importance of breeding, of stature, of elementary disposition. That positioning of oneself ahead of their natural inferiors was not only the definition of right, but was the truest expression of the natural order.

    He wondered now if Nikodontus and Flint had ever met and swapped thoughts.

    Emotions many could understand if taught with simple language and guided with patient hand. But transcendental experiences, the term, never mind the subject, were so far beyond the grasp of the arterial masses that to even imagine the two things in proportion was tantamount to picturing a Mouse maid wearing an Ursine bridal train.

    But whether through magickal or divine persuasion or intervention, or perhaps a bit of all the above, Drake¡¯s tarnished heart and mind felt like polished mirrors.

    Not spotless. But guileless. Clear enough to serve for what mundane eyes and ears failed to provide.

    Which they did presently.

    The short, simple truth as Drake understood it was this: all the deep magicks involved, their prescient mission, their dwindling sands, the very exigent threat that there would still be battle, all the worry and strife that knowledge entailed, and all the metaphysical convolutions of this whole saarding ordeal notwithstanding, his unprecedented actions just now and the transformative resonance they had on all bearing witnesses still paled in the light of the sublime reality that once more love had come to his rescue.

    That unassailable fact was as true here and now in this unhappy mansion as it had been those years back whence he¡¯d first landed onto his new life¡¯s shore.

    And for once it was lost on precisely nobody.

    Adrian beamed up at his Captain the way a child does upon learning they are to have a sibling.

    Hemlock gave a nod in salute, as did Crow.

    ¡°So when''s the wedding?¡± Bon Bon chirped, positively giddy at the thought of the splash this little gossip stone was going to make.

    This all coaxed from Drake an abashed smile.

    Drake let his eyes fall onto his hands, where he was surprised to see he was holding, nay caressing, Lalitha the way a newborn suckles up to its mother¡¯s breast.

    He didn¡¯t know why he was surprised at this. But that was quickly out shown by the appreciation of the object¡¯s newly discovered worth.

    Schlagalmuck cackled, interrupting Drake''s reverie.

    ¡°Come ¡­ friends,¡± he said, sidling back towards the dwelling. ¡°Time ¡­ is ¡­ short. We ¡­ must ¡­ prepare.¡±

    Drake and Crow swapped a grievous grimace.

    Bon Bon and Hemlock did likewise.

    ¡°For what?¡± Adrian asked for the sake of hitting that mark.

    Schlagalmuck stopped in his tracks and stared out at the artificial starlight for a protracted moment.

    Then a masque of grim resolution set itself over his already morose frame. For the first time since their arrival it occurred to them all in their ways to wonder just how old this creature was.

    Without turning around, the chief gave a chilling answer.

    ¡°For ¡­ war.¡±

 Chapter 19: Beware the Looking-Glass

    Trial 7: Trial of Spirit: Some sources write it as the ¡°Trial of Soul¡±. Personally, I don¡¯t really see the difference. Also, if you¡¯ve made it this far Daisha, you¡¯re tenfold the Pyrate your father was.

    Perhaps, Amelia thought, a more accurate title would be the ¡°Trial of Vision¡±. For that seemed far more to be what was being put to the test here.

    She¡¯d read and reread every jot and parcel of Silver¡¯s brief notation regarding the final Trial more times than she had teeth.

    At last, on the final reading she¡¯d been forced to confront the possibility that she¡¯d supped on the last drop of wisdom her guide had left to give.

    She was on her own now. Officially. Completely.

    Through no want of trying, she could find neither hide nor hair of anything even the most confused imaginations could have construed as a spyglass.

    However, between Silver¡¯s advisory of its irrelevance and this being by far and away the smallest Trial chamber to date she didn¡¯t feel particularly deprived.

    Nor did she terribly mind that the most perilous thing in this chamber was her own reflection.

    In her defense, several days of intermediately wandering, fighting and generally getting tossed around in decrepit ships, ancient ruins and catacombs without eating, drinking or bathing, she reasoned justly, was bound to create a less-than-flattering subject for any mirror, magickal, divine or otherwise.

    The problem was this one seemed to fit into the otherwise category. A silver face framed by wavy black iron locks, as tall and as broad as the FPA¡¯s castlelike gate. The ill effects of her journey stages were exemplified, and indeed in places far amplified, by this unnaturally perfect chromatic touchstone.

    By now she¡¯d come to more or less trust Silver like she did the bar of steel tucked in her waist strap. But that did nothing to curb the assailing fact that she hadn¡¯t the faintest semblance of a clue of what she was actually meant to be doing.

    It also hadn¡¯t escaped her contemplative comprehension that if the spyglass was meant to be here and wasn¡¯t, the odds were then higher than she was comfortable calculating that the White Wand had been whisked off to the same mysterious patch of beyond. Which meant she was in a whole other world of trouble.

    She refused to yield any of her mental ground to this idea, however. Not solely because if that were true it meant that she was trapped in this cave with no hope of escape, that she would die here, doomed to slowly wither away and rot. But such thoughts also trafficked in with them a far darker notion that such an end was not only appropriate, but deserved. A fitting end for the bastard Runt of the Roberts fleet.

    An even worse prospect began to magnify her mounting despair. Even if she did manage to get out of this hole without the White Wand, she didn¡¯t stand a chance against Saedel and his crew.

    Amelia fought these trojan thoughts off too.

    In the immortalized words of Alastair Machiovolo, ¡°abstract constructs can do no ill. But nor can they do any proper good. Until ¡®what if¡¯ becomes ¡®and now¡¯ it¡¯s a diversion. Treat it as an academic exercise. Or a game if that¡¯s more to your liking. View it as an appendix to events. Categorize, catalogue or delete as appropriate, then pivot your efforts to more prescient, gainful matters until such time as their leverage can be best affected.¡±

    Her number of more gainful prospects being somewhere around the degree of the typical Erandian winter, she reached out a hand and laid its palm flat against the mirror¡¯s silver finish.

    She had no idea what she¡¯d expected to happen. But though whatever did was most certainly magickal, she had to admit it was a far less impressive display than she¡¯d come to expect from the inner sanctum of a major deity.

    Her image diffused into gray smoke only to reassemble itself a blink later into an idealized rendition of her older sister. Extraintelligently altered to be as many years older since the last time Amelia had seen her.

    Tall, lean and fit. As striking in her looks as in her mind. As formidable as she was admirable. Her entire being radiated such easy strength and natural beauty that she had once been described by a precipitately poetic suitor as ¡°a pristine natural wonder given anthro form¡±.

    Amelia let loose a pensive breath. While seeing her allegedly dead sister at her living age was a tad disconcerting, it was far from the most daunting exercise of this adventure.

    ¡®Hardest Trial yet huh? I guess Silver¡¯s not the only beast who needs to check a dictionary.¡¯

    The image in the glass clouded once more. This time, when it regained a familiar shape, it was distinctly the likeness of her father.

    He stood on the Royal Rover¡¯s castle deck, looking much younger than she remembered him. He cut a handsome figure in his lofty seaman''s hat and long, dark admiral¡¯s jacket with brass trim and buttons. His right hand resting proudly on the shoulder of his youngest scion. Her own lighter purple doublet flapping in the imaginary wind.

    This was no great surprise or revelation to Amelia. Evie had always been their father''s favorite, even if he¡¯d never have said so under torture this fact had never gone unnoticed by either of Evie¡¯s older siblings.

    Perhaps it was simply one of the perks that came with being the youngest. Or perhaps it was her privilege of being the only true blood prodigy of both Matilda and Bartholomew Roberts.

    In any event, like their father, Evie had seemingly been betrothed to the Abyss since the day she¡¯d hatched. She had been right there at his side on all but a select few of his many rigorous adventures.

    Consequently, she had known everything he did about keeping and running a good ship by the time she¡¯d learned to read and had every tidiest scrap of Roberts¡¯ bravery, determination and wit. Thusly, the crew had taken to and adored her every bit as much as their Commander.

    When, on her tenth birthday, she¡¯d been given the position of Quartermaster, they had given her the honorific ¡°Nashook¡±. An old shamanic title which meant ¡°she who walks on clouds¡±.

    As in all stories worth telling, however, for every great fortune earned in the Roberts family there came an equal and opposite dark streak of doom. The most prescient one being  in the form an odious stretch of sky at the Nadirmost corner of the map referred to by canny sailors as ¡°Daggerpoint''s Folly¡±.

    To cunning shamans and soldiers it was called ¡°the Final Depth¡±.

    By wise and superstitious landvarcs alike, ¡°Drachyn¡¯s Quarter¡±.

    And to all competent leaders, and consequently most official maps, it was marked simply as the ¡°Forbidden Zone¡±.

    This area was rightly forbidden to any decent folk by most of the major governments on Aevon, due to the presence of a band of infamous, ravaging cutthroats known to all Adamic speaking civilizations.

    The Black Death.

    The Enemy.

    The Terror of the Nine.

    Eviscean Raiders.

    Their origins were unknown. Their motivations: unknown. How many were there? Unknown. Where did they come from? Unknown. What did they do with the treasures they stole? Unknown.

    As many rumors abounded about their being an undead war fleet cursed to scour the Abyss for all eternity.

    Notorious for their phantasmic blitzkrieg attacks and a pension for not even leaving bodies behind and rightly feared for committing entire merchant convoys and even military flotillas to Drachyn¡¯s posthumous realm.

    Precisely where the alternately Commander, Lord Sir, Admiral, So¡¯O, Boss, Commissaire, Chief or Captain Roberts depending on the hour and company, along with his youngest offspring and his entire acclimated war posse had met their untimely fates.

    Even the Armada knew better than to extend its tentacles that far abroad.

    On those rare, dire, excursional occasions when fleets ventured down under they always went with the utmost extremes in caution and abundant concentration of force. And even then only sometimes returned intact, let alone with whatever prize or bounty they¡¯d been sent there to collect.

    The Eviscean fleet was said to be a force of ships so numerous, that their sails would darken the sky and the high density exhaust particles their alternate praetor-alchemic fuel created would violently react with and consequently ignite the coronal Abyss vapors.

    This effect, learned of and quickly dubbed ¡°the Vale¡± by the wider Abyss-faring populace left as its calling card a wake of writhing, smokeless fire that slathered the clouds above and below with streaks, dapples and arcs of irradiant lumens like a kaleidoscopic furnace that could mark a crime scene for hours or even days afterward.

    Such places were often branded Necropoli, or ¡°Dead Regions¡±

    Destroying one Raider ship would instantly summon a dozen more ethereal ships from the very desolate heart of the Abyss itself to claim their souls as penance.

    Though the stories varied as much in height and wit as the tellers, owing to their being comprised exclusively of compiled presumptions, relayed assumptions and wildly variable interpretations of whatever weeks-old evidentiary carrion scraps the Wild Hunt left adrift.

    Like many tragic heroes both before and since, Black Bart had made a fatal error when he had sailed his whole twenty eight strong force into the forbidden skies off the Zenaphelern tip of Daggerpoint in a foolhardy errand to bring the fight to and stomp out the abominable Scourge that had plagued the civilized world for at least as long as anyone had records.

    What, or whom, had compelled him to take on such a mythically preposterous task would forever be his and the eternal keeper¡¯s personally kept secret.

    After all was said and done, of all the ships and warriors that had followed their Commissaire¡¯s fatally misguided lead that day, naught but a single drifting longboat remained for future discovery.

    Itself wearing many scars of a losing struggle and empty save for a few bloody scraps and a single pair of soiled leather boots.

    But, as the Fifteenth Pyrate Rule concisely put it, ¡°scientists and historians have always made for the worst storytellers.¡±

    By the time any word of the tragedy had even reached the rest of the Roberts family, port tavern, barroom and brothel frequenting tongues across the lands already told grand stories of a long and epically ferocious battle in which Captain Roberts singlehandedly slew four dozen Raiders before falling to the bladed hand of their allegedly unkillable leader, Admiral Scythe.

    Known in some arterial sectors of the Depths as ¡°Molkoth, Satyamna or Ndjar¡¯ Tyr¡±. All of which meant essentially the same thing. ¡°Dark One.¡±

    Nashook, they said, had fared similarly. Dying before the Rover¡¯s mizen with sword and gun in hands and the words ¡°rashataan o¡¯ie laluuk!¡± or ¡°the old spirits (ancestors) are with me!¡± on her lips.

    Amelia had found several glaring logical loopholes in these accounts. Mostly centered around their basis in the number of cutlass nicks and blood stains on the aforementioned sole surviving bit of salvage.

    However, at the time that guttural phrase had been the subject many a horrific nightmare.

    But what had shaken her far more was her elder sister¡¯s reaction to the news of their kinds¡¯ fates.

    Talia hadn¡¯t said a word. Indeed, she hadn¡¯t seemed to hear at all. Through her own tears, Amelia had watched her sister just stare off at aethereal nothing as if being called by something near enough to hold and yet also infinitely distant.

    When their mother had tried to call her eldest back down to Aevon, she had snatched her arm away as though the other¡¯s pleading touch were a slashing nettle branch.

    That night she disappeared into the Amurzan Backlands, never to be seen or heard from again.

    This literal overnight shattering of Amelia¡¯s entire world had been the primary catalyst for her enrolling at the FPA. The cruel and callous dispatching of her family by marauders had served to harden Amelia''s resolve to never again be a victim to incalculable chaos.

    Eventually coming to the conclusion that if she couldn¡¯t stop the inevitable storm from striking, then she would become the immovable rock at its center.

    To that end, her every waking hour preceding her coming of age to enroll herself in the FPA was spent carousing with and nursing her nascent inner fire.

    For three long years that felt to her like so many days she had honed her body and mind as best she could on her own.

    However, being robbed of her father¡¯s personal guidance and with the plurality of Amurzan trainers being, for a variety of sociopolitical reasons, disinclined to teach the ways of battle to a female, she was left with little choice but to defer to the archival tributes of old dead combat masters.

    Thankfully, what with her home region being famed for its skilled warriors and her father being a prodigious master of the killing arts, that knowledge wasn¡¯t hard to come by.

    Thus she had dedicated her daylight hours to hardening her body through rigorous jungle excursions and had haunted her father¡¯s library during the long blink of the moons.

    Delving deeper into concrete subjects like math and science than her once fluttery attention span would have allocated the patience or energy for.

    Devouring dozens of lengthy treatises on any practical subject she could name. From lockpicking to metallurgy. Doctrines of advanced carpentry to masonry and blacksmithing like as many candy fruits.

    Scrolls on medicinal herbs and poisons, fighting manuscripts the size of temple stones and books on all the great and minor aspects of warfare in her father¡¯s personal library.

    When she¡¯d exhausted all nonfiction sources at her disposal she¡¯d then gone so far as to plumb the fiction section for any loose scraps of historical or practical wisdom that might lay buried in the layers of dramatic and poetic licenses.

    But it was never enough to satiate.

    ¡°You can never appease a wildfire. Feed it a twig and it will take a branch. Give it a stone, it will take your hand and arm before you can blink.¡±

    Was that Martvel Summons who¡¯d said that? Or was it Perci?

    Within two years she had completely exhausted her father¡¯s personal archival mass. And so she had turned her pet inferno¡¯s eye towards physical exercise.

    So consumed was she by her mission she¡¯d hardly noticed the passing of time until her thirteenth birthday. That momentous occasion had seen her consumptive heart raise her ahead of the Cresting sun and carry her down to the harbor to purchase her Academy Wayfare Token.

    And from there events, as the saying went, were history.

    A sour boa tendril writhed to foul life in Amelia¡¯s guts. The hungry venom of grief soiling its mass as it stretched out from her sallow depths to wrap around and constrict her aflame heart. Choking her lungs and stomach of their shares of vital plasma. Squeezing the fertile stream instead into her eyes and throat so that they swelled and burned..

    How cruel the cosmos¡¯ sense of irony was. That she should only think of her mother, alone and without anyone to console or comfort her and yet still fully supportive of her now only child¡¯s errand, while sitting at the bottom of what may very well be her own self-dug grave.

    There was a pull, a nudge, a friendly little jolt given by the inflexible stone which had become her resting place. It was a simple promise, one of everlasting peace and stillness. But it was one she felt sure the universe would actually deliver on.

    And just like that, she was home again.

    Of course, there was still the technical problem of actually physically getting out of this abysmal proving ground. But that was by far the more easily solvable issue, at least from where she stood at just this particular moment.

    She took stock. She was alive for the time being and still, as far as she could tell, lucid. She decided it would suffice.

    Her by then lukewarm blood had turned to sand before the Trial¡¯s mesospheric kaleidoscope had even fully retracted.

    When it did, her faux strength fled along with it, blowing out her pilot heart flame in its exit wake.

    Mirrors and soul searches were common enough devices in the plethora of old tales she¡¯d scoured through. Their one common element was that the hero was not allowed to turn away lest he forfeit the test.

    She stood fast as a mooring post. And just as stiff.

    The figure of her mother knelt tending a familiar hearth fire. She turned and gazed out at Amelia through the glass with familiar eyes and spoke in familiar tones.

    ¡°How could you leave me? You¡¯re all I have. I supported you, gave you everything you have, and you just cast me away like a saarding weed.¡±

    That voice was soft and wholesome. Like a cup of warm broth for the ear. But the beast Amelia knew as her mother had never used stones as punctuation marks or shaped her syntaxes of fresh forged caltrops and garrot wire. And she¡¯d certainly never swore or wielded guilt as a cudgel.

    ¡°You left me here. Alone. A wealthy widow in a land filled with craven bastards, vermin and scavengers.¡±

    Just as her father had often done, both intentionally and not, this voice sliced Amelia''s hitherto unwavering resolve to ribbons.

    ¡°How could you?¡± the vision repeated. A grain of dejection mixing with the corrosive ire to form a conjunctive toxin that put Amelia¡¯s natural defensive line to shame.

    ¡°I didn''t,¡± Amelia choked through clenched teeth. She dared not blink. Her vision became clouded by mists of unshed tears.

    ¡°I left so I could ¡­¡±

    ¡®So you could what?¡¯ a voice that wasn¡¯t really a voice snarled in tones that weren¡¯t really tones. ¡®What exactly was your plan?¡¯

    No answer came to her that didn¡¯t sound like an excuse.

    Avenge Evie and father? Find Talia? Save mother? Save the world? Father had already tried and died for that hopeless cause. As had legions before him. What had possessed her to think she would fare any better?

    The same thing that possesses all adventurous youths, naturally. That fledgling sense of invulnerability owing to an as yet unblemished record of success backed up by ignorance and inexperience.

    Of course, as the Equestrian Cardinal Fernandez Holtz observed when challenged to a martial rite by the Archduke D¨¦¡¯ Sirgulleion, ¡°every beast is a master who has only faced phantom opponents. For they are always supremely skilled and yet always easily defeated.¡±

    ¡®What would you do you little fool? Fight the whole saarding universe? You couldn¡¯t even figure your way out of this bloody dungeon without some dead Samaritan to literally spell out the way for you.¡¯

    Like an archer sensing the critical instant in which to loose her deadly shot, her mother¡¯s eyes narrowed into grim shutter slits. Their abnormally radiant irises changing from radial forests to compact sun disks literally in a blink.

    ¡°You left home because you are selfish,¡± the heartless image spat. Her voice had gone bitter and icy, but the words seared like hot nails.

    ¡°Too weak to save your family and too weak to accept that they would have died with or without you.¡±

    Her mother¡¯s ghastly image turned as if to walk back into whatever parallel arc it had slithered hence from. But its aspect stayed rigid. Its posture hard and regal. Just enough of her real matron shone through to wrench Amelia¡¯s heart valve a few painful degrees.

    ¡°To think that you could ever measure up to your father. The nerve. You¡¯re not a tenth the pirate or the beast he was. And you never will be.¡±

    There was venom in her words now. They stung like acid. Amelia became conscious that her face was stained by long wet streaks. Her heart wanted to erupt right out of her chest, but she knew she must hold strong.

    ¡°I''m here to avenge father!¡± she bleated in evident panic. ¡°And Evie!¡±

    She knew this was a bold lie. But she was compelled to speak, even if not quite enough to give voice to the real truth.

    Her mother¡¯s predatory visage whirled on her.

    ¡°You pathetic child!¡± she roared. ¡°How dare you speak of their lives as though they are mere pawns! I know why you¡¯re really here. I see into your black heart. You left because you wanted power. You¡¯re just as feeble and depraved as all the other festering cowards who run Amurza. But you lie. You lie to yourself and to your own mother!¡±

    Inspirational fury consumed Amelia. In its resurgent fire all her bleating wretchedness charred and blew away on incendiary winds.

    A reinforcement surge of primeval strength brought her upright. Her breath was fuel. Her will was raw Magnolsis bursting with auto nucleic voracity, plying every avenue in its reach for an exploitable flight vector.

    She gave it one.

    Locking eyes with the phantasmal distortion she said with the voice of a nascent storm¡¯s rumbling yawn, ¡°you are NOT my mother¡±.

    The insolent effigy balked. Its mouth moved in approximal gestures of words but no sounds dared commit themselves to the affront.

    Amelia took that chaotic moment to rally.

    Martialing her own will to this new fulgent banner, Amelia continued, ¡°I may not be a Pyrate yet, but I am my father¡¯s daughter. I have his blood to thank for my strength and I have his wisdom for guidance.¡±

    She rattled Silver¡¯s blood-stained parchments before the glass.

    These weren¡¯t her words. Not entirely. But they had the desired effect so she didn¡¯t pry too deeply into their origin.

    ¡°How dare you,¡± was the shade¡¯s toothless retort.

    Amelia snarled back. She¡¯d had enough stupid games for one lifetime. Her heart stirred itself to a wicked froth. No longer was she the weak, scared child who needed her ego nursed. She had faced and conquered warlike goliaths, murderous behemoths and deadly traps. She would not be bested now by her own uppity reflection.

    Stronger than she¡¯d ever been, she raised herself to her full height. Pride tempered steel flashed in her eyes when they fell on the offending dementor. Its very presence now offended her. She would take this fight to her enemy¡¯s house and she would drive this lowly imposter back to the despotic abyss that had expectorated it.

    This thing, this displaced doppelganger, was nothing but an abhorrent simulacrum made to test her will and resolve. In her mind she refused to suffer the continued indignity of its existence. In her heart she accepted it, and thus her body made it so.

    ¡°My father taught me strength,¡± she said. ¡°He showed me the light and now I¡¯ve taken his torch.¡±

    A moment¡¯s pause. A buffer of hesitation. A time key no longer than the faintest twitch of a buffeted flame whisker. Though she agreed with what she¡¯d just heard her mouth say, she hadn¡¯t the faintest idea where the thoughts had come from.

    Still, again they worked. So again she belayed her inner quest for the time being.

    The shade¡¯s imposing shadows softened. A glistening caste of honey swarmed over its now suddenly erudite porcelain features. Basting it in succulent warmth as a look of almost carnal satisfaction crawled onto its face.

    Which, with said masque still bearing all the essential markers of her semblant biological parent, gave Amelia shivers of a kind normally reserved for nontoxic organisms. Or at least ones not hardened against such reflexes by the corrosive plethora of the jungle.

    ¡°Good,¡± it cooed. ¡°Very good.¡±

    ¡°I ¡­¡± Amelia stammered, her will beginning to flicker.

    ¡°He ... I ... that is ¡­ I ¡­¡±

    The reflection frowned, then folded her arms and drew out a fluty sigh. ¡°So you merely suspect then,¡± she aired. ¡°Very well. It shall have to suffice.¡±

    ¡°Wh ¡­?¡± Amelia tried and failed to ask.

    Her mouth remained open as though she intended to speak again, but her thoughts refused to organize themselves into anything more coherent than the odd grumble or grunt. So she remained stupidly quiet.

    ¡°Congratulations my child.¡±

    How was it that the word child out of any mouth besides her real mother¡¯s sounded like a passive aggressive slur?

    Maybe because neither of her parents had ever called their own children that.

    In any case, her mother¡¯s lips and tongue formed around the words, but there was only one being Amelia could imagine having a voice so densely layered, so richly resonant.

    The avatar curtseyed. ¡°You¡¯ve completed my Trials. As promised, what you seek now lies directly ahead of you. But still always remember, beware the False God.¡±

    It was a surreal experience, watching her mother''s image dissolve into her own reflection. Akin to watching glass melt into water.

    An instinct module so far removed from her rational being it could have stabbed it from behind reached around and planted thought bubbles under her breast that sprang out of her throat in the form of an indolent cry.

    ¡°Wait! Mother! I ¡­ !¡±

    The likeness Amelia¡¯s deepest and most sporadically intelligent subsidiary lobes had tagged as her mother had dissipated before her higher functions caught onto and snuffed out the gag.

    In its place was left the ghostly visage of a girl garbed in the surprisingly durable remnants of a life that seemed now to have belonged to somebody else.

    A crude three point sling sack cobbled and lashed together from raiment scraps stolen off the bone-bare carcass of her posthumous paternal patron hung off her bony shoulder and was moored around her narrow waist.

    Her floral headdress was in pitiful ruins. Its bone anchors and purity silver chains ironically stained the colors of a dead fire pit.

    That said, in her book, the simple fact that it was still in its place and as recognizably intact as it was spoke more forcefully to the enduring quality of the craftwork than any antiquary or artisan¡¯s professional critique.

    Her face and hands were stained with the mineral recipes of half a dozen epochs, and blood.

    Was it red or purple? She couldn¡¯t tell. It was all just shades of black to her in this light.

    A callous wave of thought brushed over her amygdala. ¡®Probably the knight¡¯s.¡¯

    Echoes of the words daubed their encoded meanings onto her temporal and hippocampal officiaries as she tried to wipe her sable-streaked face with her blackened sleeve. Which succeeded only in trading one fashion set of stains for another.

    The mirror slid silently aside, revealing yet another open portal. Through which Amelia stepped blithely into a silo chamber about the same volume as Tim¡¯s lab. Though it felt far larger on account of being substantially less inhibitively packed.

    Like its forebretheren, this one was spartan save for its set of unique furnishings. In this case a pair of square white marble plinths about as wide, broad and about two thirds as tall as their visitor comprised the sum total.

    Affixed atop the lefthand station was a black lantern cage. In which was locked what looked to be a polished bone clarinet.

    Upon closer inspection, however, the idiosyncrasies of this alien device made quick and decisive work of any doubts

    That it was carved from a single bent rib was apparent enough. Though from what sort of creature the bone had been stolen Amelia couldn¡¯t pretend to guess at.

    Hypnotic floral patterns and sharp, thorny runes spiraled along its broader forehand section. Etched into the white at the fipple end and inlaid with golden lava rivers, they wove a concordant visual poem down the truncated instrument, driving pronouncedly through a black tarry carapace at its fore end.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    On the underside of which was slung a small brass cuboid device of some sort and pearly orb. Over them hung a black clamshell saucer, from whose basal nose protruded an elliptical cage of blood-tinged treacle vines.

    What sort of strange function any of these things served, if any, was to her about as clear as how a goddess could have congealed such a topsy contraption.

    ¡®Well ¡­ I¡¯m not sure what I was expecting, but that¡¯s not it.¡¯

    With well learned caution she approached the display box. Thinking blankly that unidimensional tone of her internal monologue seemed at displacing odds with both the momentous objective and emotional gravity of the moment.

    Later on she would give this also over to the effects of severe deprivation.

    For right now she hadn¡¯t the time or energy to spare on tangential inquisitions. She still had this secret eighth test to complete and an epic battle to wage and win soon thereafter.

    As carefully as she would inspect the trigger mechanism of a medieval trap she examined the entire setup before trying to remove its treasure.

    If something jumped out at her in here she wouldn¡¯t have space to maneuver. She would have to rely on her memory of hypo dimensional swordplay to defend herself. Not a play she was very eager to wager her one life token on.

    But after exhausting both her supplies of ingenuity and frustration and having made somewhere on the low end between one and zero units of progress, she decided she might as well put her dragon fire to proper use.

    She unsheathed her captured blade and was readying to test its metal against the guardian pen when she remembered the silver basin. Whose heft and balance had by now become as familiar as that of her own limbs.

    She traded her steel for silver.

    Upon examining the second pillar, she found that the expertly carved workings on its top perfectly matched the fittings on the bottom of the basin. She set the basin neatly onto its intended seat, and it snapped consummately into place.

    She couldn¡¯t remove it now even if she wanted to.

    The lack of a subsequent click or any sound was in itself enough to prod her towards concern. She didn''t need her eyes to tell her that the Wand¡¯s adamantine house was still tightly fastened, with its contents still held agonizingly just out of her reach.

    What had she done wrong? She''d come this far. She''d passed all the Trials. Or at least she¡¯d been allowed to pass. Hadn¡¯t Iradyl¡¯s avatar not just said a minute ago that the Wand was rightfully hers now?

    Why couldn''t she reach the saarding thing?

    ¡®What you seek lies directly ahead.¡¯

    ¡°The cruelest gift the gods could give to any mortal is hope.¡±

    Amelia poured over every solitary parcel of Silver''s notes, but they offered no useful instructions. She took out the Dragon Key and studied it all over with her magnifier. When this too proved fruitless, she turned her magnified eye to the silver basin, only to be met with yet another dead end.

    With her options this time truly depleted, Amelia plopped to the floor in defeat and leaned back against the cool stone pillar. What wasn''t she seeing?

    A small, cruel black flame started sniffing around the peripheral firewalls of her heart. Searching, listening, feeling for the tiniest loophole or crack to steal in through.

    Amelia¡¯s hands coiled into claws that then hardened into rage-hardened fists. She would not surrender. She would not be beaten now. She had come too far, endured too much to quit when her prize was all but literally within her reach.

    And she couldn¡¯t go back.

    She hoisted herself up and began methodically scrutinizing the room from top to bottom. Meticulously searching every square inch of stone with her magnifier. Looking for any hint of a whisper of a sign of a clue as to how to proceed.

    Nothing. Dead silence on all fronts.

    After her third pass over the same span of inscrutable stone and having discovered nothing except the anticipated bare rock and dust, Amelia was forced to confront the possibility that her predicament really was entirely hopeless.

    She pressed her head against the wall and allowed her welling emotions to spill out onto the material world in the form of molten tears.

    Her mother¡¯s shade was right. She was no Pyrate. Soon she would be nothing at all. Just dry bones and lost memories like her father.

    The more she dwelt on it, the more she was convinced she was going to die in this saarding pit. Alone and unremembered. Her time and efforts left in ashen waste. Her woe bitten ambition and potential squandered on some pointless, thoughtless quest.

    Just like her father.

    So resigned was she to this fate that the voice had to call her by name three times to break her of the despairing assumption that it was just a hallucination.

    Thankfully, whether by the fickle grace of the Mother Goddess or by sheer good fortune, this phantom turned out to be as real as she was and persistent.

    ¡°Have I come at a bad time miss?¡± it asked.

    She looked up. And when her heart leapt it carried the rest of her along across the room to the source of that beloved voice.

    She grabbed him around the middle and squeezed hard enough to make him grateful for the fact that he no longer had or needed lungs.

    The ¡®how¡¯ of the situation was overshadowed by the paralyzing ¡®what¡¯. How she could hug a being that could walk through twenty yards of solid rock was of little value compared with the sheer fact that he was here and in about as good a shape as a being of his corporeal state could be.

    The specter indulged her for far longer than any corporeal being could have. Patiently riding out her adolescent emotional tide.

    When her mind had reconnoitered the neural roads between her brain and her mouth, after several embarrassing false starts, she managed to squeak out the words, ¡°Silver. You¡¯re ¡­¡±

    She stopped herself short of saying ¡°alive¡±. But Silver knew what she meant, and in his paternal way reciprocated his adoptive cherub¡¯s delirious affections.

    They passed through one of the infinite moments commonly experienced by dislocated families before Silver took it to mind to ask as though they were old friends reminiscing over a pint, ¡°so what kind of mischief have you been getting into while I¡¯ve been gone?¡±

    His inflexion said I¡¯m genuinely curious.

    However, his tone said I already know, but I¡¯m going to respect your integrity and intelligence by asking anyway.

    Amelia looked into Silver''s hard face and soft eyes and could only smile.

    To a beast who did not know, or did not care enough to look, he would seem as stern and stoic as the cavern walls that held them captive.

    But behind his shimmering spectral eyes burned the kind of pure hearth light that not even the darkest or most depraved magicks could rob a hearty spirit of.

    She relaxed her grasp just far enough to allow him the freedom to answer her next shaky question. ¡°How long have you been ¡­? How much did you hear?¡±

    She saw his sapient spark flicker. A phenomenon that, in living eye, a momentary retreat into circumspective thought.

    Any beast not paying the strictest attention wouldn¡¯t have noticed, let alone recognized it for what it was. But Amelia had scant else to focus her attention on at that moment.

    Silver¡¯s next words, ¡°enough to lift some major weight,¡± carried sufficient force to give Amelia profound empathy for boards struck by cannon fire.

    ¡°Now,¡± Silver continued in an oddly chipper tone, ¡°what do you say we pop open that there stubborn trophy case and get you on your way?¡±

    Her own crushing weight, momentarily forgotten with the arrival of Silver, was once more upon her neck like a giant¡¯s axe. The black flame had her heart¡¯s castle surrounded. Its insidious spies offered dubious bribes to the guards. Over which many tyrannical bids were cast and many a fearsome battle was waged over the right to rule within.

    For one dreadful moment, in changing part of her soul for fragments of trespassing power, one nefarious faction won over temporary control of her motor and speech diodes. And therein implanted the device which shook her head and sent the phrase, ¡°I''ve tried. It won''t budge¡± to her mouth.

    Silver smiled. ¡°Well, let''s see if we can''t iron out that little wrinkle, shall we?¡± the old sailor quipped.

    In that moment, an unnaturally pure logical bolt shot and ricocheted through the depleted scaffolds of Amelia¡¯s deepest mental substrata.

    The construct it raised threatened to cast indelible light on her circumstances were she but to pry off its seals.

    It has been said in not so few words by many a scholar and high thinker throughout the ages that knowledge and happiness are inversely correlated.

    From the Mentan Hydrymyl; ¡°moderately wise should each mind be. Too much is to ply one¡¯s own heart with needless chains and to ply one¡¯s spirit with spears and axes.¡± To the Shilvanah Igba of Horntooth, ¡°wisdom is the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which must be kept in prudent attendance. For if any branch should grow too heavy, its bounty will sink to the soil and be soured by despair.¡±

    And then there was the unofficial, inbred credo of all despots and tyrants, be they king or emperor or managerial clerk, ¡°happiest is he who doesn¡¯t know a great many things.¡±

    ¡°Ignorance is bliss, yes. But a blithe spirit is scarcely living. And while a pirate knows none for his master, the mind is no safe haven. For though it can make a brimstone pit seem a bountiful brook, in all truth it is nothing more than another simple toy for the great cosmic tyrants.¡±

    That had been Flint paraphrasing the collected works of Spetz Nera, Leovoy Talen and Neochev Stallenkya. Three of the greatest minds the craggy lands named for the signature carnivoran weapons had ever produced.

    In that moment, all Amelia¡¯s reason and sense of caution was abandoned in favor of unmasking a truth that may otherwise forever remain disfigured, disguised and obscured by the long shadows of memory.

    ¡°Silver ¡­?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    She knew the line of questioning she was about to embark on could end in only one of two uncomfortable revelations, neither of which she fancied grappling with under present circumstances.

    ¡°Did ¡­ did you know my father? Or my mother?¡±

    A tantalizing pause as Silver¡¯s eyes went milky again. When he came back to himself, either the impending answer was no or he was an exceptional actor.

    As though he were reading from a menu he said, ¡°better than they may wish or admit.¡±

    Ranks of electric cavalry shot up Amelia¡¯s spinal column to drive white hot lances into her brain.

    ¡°What''s that supposed to mean?!¡± she spat with considerably more violence than intended.

    Silver waved it off. ¡°It''s not important,¡± he said. ¡°Just some old wounds never properly healed. Nothing you need to worry about.¡±

    He¡¯d said that. She¡¯d heard that. But she knew he might as well have said you don¡¯t need to know, so don¡¯t bother asking.

    If he thought she would be that easily dissuaded he had as much emotional or social sense as Prokvert.

    A wicked fire had been stoked, a slim shard of midnight implanted, of a kind that only the highest of scholarly magi or most despotic overlords could embody.

    She had tapped into an extraplanar artery, however unwittingly, and though she couldn¡¯t say with any certain degree how, she knew this as surely as she knew that she had two hands.

    Somehow, somewhere here at her fingertips lay a codicil conduit of cosmic nectar she¡¯d never been meant to uncover. And as the Sixteenth Pyrate Axion saith, ¡°wheresoever lieth gold will also invariably be found to harbor dragons.¡±

    ¡°But you did know them,¡± she pressed.

    Silver heaved a covering sigh. A melancholic smile bled along the edges of his voice as he said, ¡°you are just like him.¡±

    Amelia genuinely couldn''t tell whether this was a compliment or a roundabout insult. But it also didn¡¯t matter as she sensed his defenses faltering.

    If you really want answers, push him. Now. You won¡¯t get another chance. After everything you¡¯ve come through, least of all you deserve to have this.

    The notes hit her brain with the twinkling intonation of tiny bells, but with the tempestuous ferocity of a fully articulated brass ensemble.

    So mighty was their chorus that she didn¡¯t hear her own rational mental chamber counter with, ¡®answers to what?¡¯

    And so the erroneous orders were sent. The insidious banners on her tongue were raised, the indelible trumpet sounded.

    ¡°Who was he?¡±

    That was her voice. But it was not her question. At least not as far as she could tell. But then, what good were a mere mortal¡¯s perceptions in the heart of a goddess¡¯s personal trove?

    Still, what could have possessed her to ask something so ridiculous? She knew who her father was.

    And more to the point, what exactly was she aiming for here? What did she expect this little game of hers would accomplish?

    Something in here stank of magickal trickery.

    Regardless, for a moment her puxatonic shadow-puppet-fake-out strategy seemed to be getting results. Albeit not the sort liable to be noticed by someone not actively attuned to the nether side of psychological mechanics. Which Amelia was, but only vicariously through Silver.

    The ghost looked her over as though judging her weight in coins. Then he answered in a more severe tone than she had ever heard from him, and which she doubted his organic voice box would have been capable of producing.

    ¡°You don''t know.¡±

    He¡¯d phrased it as a question, but everything else about it said, ¡®and I¡¯d rather you¡¯d stop asking¡¯.

    Amelia opened her mouth only to have its control tower raise the intruder alarm and hurriedly slam the gates back down.

    What was this? Another Trial? A duel of wits?

    Was Silver about to pull a Prince Xaraxin on her? Was he about to peel back his face, reveal himself to have been a clandestine sphinx all along?

    As interesting and poetic as such a turnabout would undoubtedly be, Okuma¡¯s Razor made her release it from her cervicale service on sheer academic principle.

    She needed solid, stable information. Not storybook concoctions and childish fantasies.

    Until she could definitively prove otherwise, she had to work under the warming assumption that this was and had always been her John Silver. The beast she¡¯d come to know and admire in that strange way that leaves seem to idolize the ground even ahead of the very tree from whence they grew.

    Was he lying about knowing her parents?

    Well alright, he hadn¡¯t actually said that he did in those exact terms. But if insinuation were poison they¡¯d both have been drowned in a sea of black venom.

    Was she just inventing stories in her head again? Or was he actually just one of Saedel¡¯s pawns?

    No! She couldn¡¯t think that. She wouldn¡¯t. Real or not, plant or not she owed the old ghost her life.

    Or did she? After all, her life wouldn¡¯t even have been in danger at all were it not for ¡­

    ¡®Stop! It!¡¯

    She answered his question with a glum shake of her head. Silver looked back at the basin but said nothing.

    ¡°Why don''t you tell me?¡± Amelia prodded with mounting urgency.

    ¡°Because,¡± Silver said slowly, as though explaining a matter of adult complexity and import to a slow child, ¡°I swore to your mother on my life that I wouldn''t tell a soul.¡±

    For a single horrible moment Amelia¡¯s patience and tact left her. Through their retreating door a part of the dark, surreal wilds entered. And in its passing there spilled a stain of havoc.

    ¡°Well you don''t have a life anymore do you?!¡±

    The words burst out of her before she could think to stop them. As many parts stunned as abashed, she stared dumbly at her stoic companion, desperately wishing she could reach into his mind and take away his memory of them.

    Lacking such absolute powers, she waited for his answer like a convict at a firing range.

    Silver lowered his head and turned away.

    For a string of moments that felt like as many cuts from a cold dagger he stood as still and quiet as the grave, staring off into the unfathomable beyond. Leaving Amelia behind to stew in the inflammatory juices of self-pity and regret.

    By a stretch of the imagination too far to have been entirely of her own making, Amelia recognized something subtly inspiring in his ethereal shimmer that momentarily chased off her dark infiltrators.

    It was only for a moment. A flicker of a candle¡¯s pantomime shadow. But it was enough.

    Drawing on veteran nerves she knew she couldn¡¯t spare, she compelled her flailing heart and spirit to rally.

    Then, calling those faculty garrisons least bloodied on the days¡¯ emotional or physical battlegrounds to the front, she quickly assembled a defiant home front stratagem that would see every insidious, invasive and predatory notion she¡¯d had about herself and Silver put to the sword.

    Silver wasn¡¯t sulking. He was meditating. Nay, he was strategizing. Scouring his mental recesses for any tidbit of literary wisdom, be it folkloric or academic, that might help them mint a key to this proprietary riddle.

    A wave of hope lashed Amelia¡¯s heart. One that brought in a dark crusading fleet that she knew she ought to turn away.

    However, after vetting her other ideas as carefully as a sorcerer chooses an apprentice and finding them all, in their unique ways wanting, she banefully accepted the promises of the infernal horde.

    ¡°Truth is to a Pyrate what blood is to a hunter.¡±

    There was something buried here. A secret stolen away from view, just begging to be unsealed. But for all her certainty, she needed proof.

    Infusing her mental forge with the rich tapetal ingredients of the ancient sanctum air, she set an instinctive imitation of Bon Bon¡¯s neotenous petite trim upon her voice.

    ¡°I''m sorry,¡± she said. And to her mediocre credit, she meant it. ¡°It¡¯s just that I¡¯ve started to think there¡¯s something you¡¯re ¡­ that everyone isn¡¯t telling me. About you. About our family.¡±

    Unbeknownst to her, the emphasis she heard herself place on the word our was in fact strategic and, from what she could tell, effective. In the same way a nexii would be against a Holocene bunker wall.

    Given enough time and patience they might open up a breach, but Silver¡¯s castlelike fortitude was formidable. Under less contentious circumstances she might have even called it admirable.

    Feeling the threads of her mercenary resolve beginning to fray, she threw her whole reinforcement brigade of malfactory incubi into the fray.

    ¡°Silver ¡­ please. I need to know.¡±

    It sounded pathetic. She felt dirty, nay despicable, waging psychic war on the beast who had done nothing but try to help her. All at extreme, nigh unthinkable, risk to himself.

    She hated herself for resorting to such miserable methods, but she would not relent. Not when she was already at the gates.

    But when her first operation yielded no results, her pride. Planting herself firmly in the ghost¡¯s line of sight, in the most piteous tone she could muster she repeated, ¡°please ¡­¡±

    Silver stared longingly at the floor, then at the ceiling. His demeanor that of a caged Wyntyrdyr. Its soul starved for the smallest taste of freedom but its mind and body powerless to enable its craving.

    At last, he turned back to his ward, a forced smile signifying surrender stapled on his lips, when an ear-splitting explosion rocked the citadel stone layers above. Raining several significant chunks down on the spot where Amelia would have been standing were it not for Silver¡¯s preternatural speed and reflexes.

    A nanosecond later another blast scattered whatever thoughts the pair had allied on the first. Followed by a third. And then a fourth.

    Amelia¡¯s inexperience in the kinetic aspects of warfare notwithstanding, it didn¡¯t require nearly her amount of mental dexterity to figure the bombastic rhetoric for an angry cannon fire debate.

    From the imperative frequency of the shots, any listener could have been forgiven for concluding that some beast had started, and was fast losing, a battle with a sapient storm cloud.

    ¡°Sounds like your friends are hitting it off with the locals,¡± Silver answered her unspoken question.

    Amelia cocked an eyebrow. ¡°Locals?¡±

    Silver raised his own eyebrow. ¡°You''ve met them. Well, one I should say.¡±

    He was trying his best to look and sound academically passive. But the discernible core spark that gave him the facsimile of life betrayed his apprehension more than any words or actions could have.

    He jerked a thumb back towards the mirror entrance. ¡°Black eyes, big ears, pink skin, creepy smile. I never could understand what the old knacker saw in them. But then I suppose that¡¯s why I never really wanted children either.¡±

    A more resilient mind, or at least a better nourished one, would have captured that informative renegade and tortured every last morsel of meaning from it.

    As it was, a flash of harsh, unbidden memory threw itself across Amelia¡¯s interior vision. Blinding her to all but a familiar spur of anguish.

    It couldn''t have been more than a few hours since she''d killed that slavish creature in the jousting chamber. But her thoughts were so scrambled she had trouble perceiving it as part of her own lifetime, much less the same day.

    Then a delinquent thought in the form of a singular word, ¡®how¡¯, popped into her head like a directed mortar bomb.

    She whirled on Silver and asked in an indignant key signature, ¡°how did you get out of the Labyrinth?¡±

    The old ghost had an answer ready.

    ¡°Turns out that old faker up there isn''t quite as clever as he thinks,¡± Silver explained. His words sharpened by the unabashed slit of a smirk they shone through.

    ¡°He thought he''d bound me to his service ¡®until the end of time¡¯¡±.

    His exaggerated air quotes which had the intended effect of coaxing half a smile from his audience.

    ¡°He didn¡¯t know that Naarfynders don''t just consume the dead. They drain magickal essences. Which, yes, in most cases just means the souls of the recently axed. Luckily for me that mongrel had already lapped up a good quarter of our brig bunch. He chewed off my bonding sigil and just tossed the rest of me to the side for a later snack.¡±

    Amelia¡¯s guts convulsed at the thought. ¡°And you knew this would happen?¡± she asked.

    Silver nodded cagily. ¡°Naarfynders aren¡¯t the sharpest blades on the rack,¡± he admitted. ¡°That seal was the only thing keeping me from running through the walls. So, I suppose you could say I made a calculated gamble.¡±

    He flashed her an apologetic wink. ¡°It took a fair bit of wandering to find you. I guess Iradyl should have left the architectural work to her husband.¡±

    He laughed heartily at his own cynical wit.

    Amelia tried to force a lighthearted chuckle, but it came off as an infant¡¯s first attempt at multisyllabic speech.

    ¡°Never thought I''d see the day I¡¯d be happy to nearly have my insides turned outwards. But like Barty always said, ¡®if life wasn¡¯t a stupid catastrophe it¡¯d be miserable¡¯.¡±

    He should have kept his mouth shut. Amelia visibly choked on an insurgent rush of sick.

    And it was at this moment that Silver presented himself with a second critical ultimatum. A symmetric opponent of the one he¡¯d unwittingly pressed himself onto in life.

    This time he was determined to take the honorable course, even if it cost him everything.

    But as any modestly clever sage knows but would only ever extremely delicately and cautiously confer to their disciples, no singular act of moral duty or ruling of pious judgement, however significant, can truly overcome decades of antithetical instinct.

    And so, in his piratical understanding of the term ¡®help¡¯ he changed the subject to something about as near to the problematic site as could practically be construed as far from.

    ¡°It occurs to me ¡­¡± he started off in the manner of the arrogant scholar turned thirdhand brigand. Then he cleared his throat of nonexistent phlegm and started over.

    ¡°Come on Daisha,¡± he urged in the quiet, almost pasturing lull of the scared father.

    ¡°Let''s open that crate and get the saard out of here, shall we?¡± he finished in the tone of the reticent pirate. Habitually underscored with a layer of brash confidence.

    Amelia looked up at him, smiled with what could pass for sympathy on a face so young, and nodded. Then she gasped when he brandished a crackling silver blade from out of the endemic folds of the Ethereum.

    ¡°What''s that for?¡±

    Silver handled the weapon like a religious icon. In the somber frequency of the reluctant pirate beset by the burdens of life, death and the experiences there entangled, without looking her in the eye, Silver explained, ¡°remember how I said that only a living hand can take the Wand?¡±

    Amelia nodded.

    ¡°Well, that¡¯s why.¡± He pointed to the basin. ¡°The final ritual requires a sacrifice. I¡¯ve heard it called the Trial of Gifts. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve heard the story of the First Gift. How the Mother Goddess supposedly carved the Wand from the severed arm bone of Aerion.¡±

    Amelia nodded again.

    ¡°Well then I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll also know that no gift truly comes without a price tag. Not even a mother¡¯s love.¡±

    Amelia looked down at her boots and mumbled something Silver shouldn¡¯t have heard, and in the terrestrial sense had not, but was still nonetheless privy to on account of his superphysical ears being essentially a cross sectional nodule of all acoustic information in his proximity. Just as his eyes parlayed any and all visual information which entered his amorphous Schwarz-Nihil field.

    And just as he didn¡¯t need to physically see or hear her to know her words, he also didn¡¯t need a mortal¡¯s spotty sense of the abstract to clue him in on her feelings.

    ¡°We must offer something of equal worth. Something that, presumably, only a mortal beast would have to lose.¡±

    He said that as though he didn¡¯t quite believe it. Which couldn¡¯t help but cast a less than compelling shade over his offered hand.

    Not unwise to these things, in the way of the trusted confidante comforting his frustrated and imbittered oldest mate and mentor, Silver said, ¡°trust me Daisha, this will only hurt for a moment.¡±

    Had any other beast said those words to her in that voice, Amelia would have gone from immobile statue to warlike Guardian.

    But Silver had a way with conversation that was not unlike a harpsicord. Whispering into her head without using so many words that he hadn¡¯t misled her yet. That trusting him was, for her, by now, should be as easy and natural as nutrient-rich soil following a root back to its parent tree.

    And so it was that with the blind allegiance of a windborne seed she surrendered her pax fidem to the wily.

    Silver took it as delicately as a fresh flower petal and held it open to expose the palm to the silver receptacle.

    ¡°When I tell you,¡± he said in the tone of a parent teaching his child why she should fear the jungle floor. ¡°Clench your fist as tight as you can. Even if it feels like your skin might boil away. Otherwise you will bleed to death and I won¡¯t be able to stop it. Do you understand?¡±

    Amelia nodded. Every muscle as tight as guitar strings, making speech all but impossible. They also ground her teeth together as though attempting to sharpen them.

    Silver was not unsympathetic. Although his method of showing support was unusual, even by the day¡¯s standards. ¡°These Trials are meant to cull the chaff and weaken the crop. Only those who can endure sacrifice can be permitted to possess the ¡­¡±

    ¡°Just saarding do it already!¡± Amelia snapped. Her whole body ached from the forces of physical tension. The last thing she needed right now was a lecture.

    Now was Silver''s chance to turn to stone. He steadied his weapon against her flesh with the kind of surgical grace only a supernal decoupling of brain from body could imbue.

    For a snuffling moment the words this won¡¯t hurt a bit danced and spluttered out in the air like welding sparks. He studied her hardened expression with a form of pride befitting an aged artist or sage capping off his life¡¯s work.

    She would never know exactly what he saw there. Only that she would recognize something in him then that she had only ever seen before in grand portrait figures and in a dream she¡¯d had on the night that her father was murdered.

    Steeling himself for his task, Silver asked, ¡°ready?¡±

    In what only a being caste into the same dungeon mold could recognize as an answer, Amelia clamped her eyes shut and unconsciously sucked in a breath.

    She recorded only slivers of fragments of the moments immediately following her flesh¡¯s bifurcation at the end of the cursed quantum-flower blade.

    What fragments she retained, visions of dazzling star fields crackling in and out of existence, was hued in a microcosmic order of what was playing out over their heads.

    Were it that she had her normal mental agility at that moment she may have likened the experience to having an alchemical brew of molten iron oxide, sulfur and sodium distilled into a boiling acid broth poured into her veins.

    She might then have gone on to say its untidy path was punctuated by piercing cortical flashes which then self-propagated along incendiary plasma trains ripping through her skull and stabbing into her brain with the voracity of a thousand biting Hornets.

    As she stood, too numbed to think, too tired to feel, her world persisted in the form of two ethereal shades. One of soft misty blue, the other of cold, watered gray.

    From somewhere as far as the edge of the sky and yet as near as her own thoughts the word ¡°now!¡± flew down her conscious canals.

    This was proceeded by the innate knowledge of muscle tugging sinew, reshaping bone and a wholly novel sensation of the sky and the ground suddenly and passionately convulsing, merging and then consummating.

    In truth, her existential motor operation dammed the flow of her essential fluid only in so far as to keep her spirit from being forcibly expunged in tandem.

    Another titanic explosion rocked the cavern.

    ¡°Hurry!¡± Silver prodded, inwardly struggling against his age-old habit of punctuating orders with some vulgar or graphic insult.

    Were there a cannier witness present, the outward effect would have been like watching a dual-amputee Primate artisan try to relearn his lifelong craft with his toes.

    On this occasion, however, any measure of subjectivity outside of her own cranial corona remained utterly lost on Amelia.

    She felt an ephemeral wind roughly shaped like a pair of frigid hands and a Heisenscopic body softly urge her along like an ancient Abyssal trifan.

    She didn¡¯t need a mirror to tell her that she was perhaps a garrison¡¯s worth of heartbeats away from looking like Silver. And judging from her companion¡¯s chimeric expression, she¡¯d yet again only missed the last step into his quasi-immortal carriage by the space of a Beetle¡¯s breath.

    There came to her attention a sentence composed of sharp mechanical slides and clicks.

    She spun on the spot just far enough to see that the Wand¡¯s lantern cage had flung open its sides like a flower spanning its petals, exposing its nectar heart to the suns before gravity waged a surprise coupe against her brain, successfully annexing her legs and she sank to the floor.

    Silver was quick to snatch the artifact from its cradle, and he danced around with it on the air like a drunken fool on a bar table.

    ¡°We did it!¡± he shouted, bouncing and blinking around like a raindrop in a stone tumbler. Shaking the Wand at the abandoned sky like a sword. ¡°We saarding did it! Ha ha! I never thought I¡¯d live to see it! But I¡¯ve got it in my saarding hand! HA! Eat that you saarding devil! I hope it rots your saarding guts!¡±

    Amelia did not observe any of this. Even if she could, it¡¯s doubtful she would have cared.

    She tried to tear a scrap from her satchel to bandage her wound. But her strength was so thoroughly diminished that she could barely muster the neural forces to compel her arms to move.

    As any aspirant sorcerer knows, like the day succumbing to the imperious planetary axis motor, the mind rises and falls with the body.

    And just as the twin celestials comport each other¡¯s momenta throughout the day, the spirit waxes and wanes in complex accordance with the mind.

    Amelia¡¯s head reeled from the surge of infernal desert fire. Her heart fought to send reinforcements to her body¡¯s palatial Zenith. But no aspect of her experience or intellect could replicate her body¡¯s razed capital defenses.

    An impious ruin held her in its grip. Its dark messiah held her diminutive king fire at sword point atop the bated ledge of eternal oblivion.

    Her abject will was not strong enough to repel the encroaching tide of dark entropy.

    She would need a miracle to recapture her cardinal throne.

    Luckily for her, a stone-shaking bang from above snapped Silver out of his Midian jubilee and one more rallying moment brought him blinking to his young ward¡¯s side.

    He fashioned a long thin bandage out of the remnants of his old clothes and wrapped it tightly around her hand. Then he hefted her to her feet with superlative ease.

    Upon getting tangible proof that she could walk without assistance he led her, vague and aloof, through the unveiled exit.

    Before she¡¯d taken her tenth step, however, a whispered auto mechanical phrase alerted her to the basin¡¯s locking mechanism releasing its claim.

    What force compelled her to double back and recollect the artifact would likely sit right between the location of the ¡°Black Knight¡±, Dom Dynian¡¯s, phylactery and the riddle of the alchemical Animus on the scale of the great cosmic mysteries.

    But whatever its cause, she lingered just long enough to stuff the rich bowl, fluid and all, back into her satchel before bolting off to make up Silver¡¯s nearly forty yard lead.

    After a relatively short journey compared with those between previous Trial chambers, during which the neuromuscular revolt in her legs raged from a smoldering fire log into a runaway Magnolsis depot meltdown, it occurred to her she they must be near the surface.

    Like so many over-wound clock springs, her body¡¯s levers could only so much pressure before they snapped. It was just a matter of whether her body or her synapses broke first.

    Just when it seemed like her legs would be the first to blink, Silver snapped abruptly to a halt a few yards in front of her. He pored over the stone like a mortician bent on determining its moment and cause of death

    Amelia skidded to a standstill beside him and, pushing the mechanical limits of her wind equipment, asked, ¡°what¡¯s wrong?!¡±

    ¡°Door''s jammed!¡± Silver barked back. Apparently having forgotten that mortal ears could drown just as easily as mortal lungs.

    ¡°What!?¡± she yelled. Forgetting that supernatural ears could recognize the patter of every individual dropped hydroxide molecule in a rainstorm.

    ¡°I said the bloody door''s jammed!¡± he shouted, proving that, when it came to preternatural physiology, what was true of the eye and arm was absolutely as true for the throat. ¡°It was supposed to open by magick when we got close.¡±

    He grunted a curse under a non-breath that she may or may not have been meant to hear. ¡°One of those saarding goblins must have blocked it off.¡±

    Amelia opened her mouth to ask, but then swallowed the thought, telling herself there would be a better time and place for that sort of thinking. Deciding that a far more prudent question for this moment would be, ¡°what now?¡±

    ¡°Follow me!¡± he answered. Then popped straight through the solid wall.

    Even in her beleaguered state, Amelia could still spare enough blood mojo to be irritated.

    ¡®Great idea¡¯, She fumed, more frustrated with her own mundane material state than with Silver. ¡®I don¡¯t suppose you¡¯ve got a drill stowed somewhere up your ¡­ ?!¡¯

    She didn''t have to wait long for her answer. It came in the form of a yard-wide section of the wall, about twenty feet back down the tunnel, spontaneously crumbling into dust.

    A smiling blue head poked out through the resulting hole. ¡°I found a Skalgag tunnel,¡± Silver explained.

    ¡°A what tunnel?¡± Amelia asked, relieved to have a vacation way that didn¡¯t involve running.

    ¡°Skalgags. That¡¯s what the little gremlins call themselves.¡±

    Amelia noted distantly the incessant roar from outside seemed to grow fainter and more diffuse the further up they went.

    ¡°They''ve got loads of these tunnels leading all over the island. It''s how they get around the Sanctum without pilgrims seeing them. They helped little Franky build this place.¡±

    Franky? Did he mean Sir Francis? Just how vast was this beast¡¯s friendship net?

    Granted, if he¡¯d said he¡¯d bunked with Captain Flint himself it would hardly surprise her at this point.

    This prompted another long overdue revelation to unexpectedly spring to her mind.

    Was there really a chance that the calm, compassionate beast she¡¯d met at the Academy possibly be the Dark One¡¯s scion?

    It made sense logically, now that she put some thought into it. But the implications gave her such sickening anxiety to contemplate them, not helped in the least by her intolerable state of weakened health, so she dropped the subject.

    ¡°Did they show you how to get through the Labyrinth?¡± she asked instead.

    Silver nodded. ¡°They dug about eight tenths of it. Took me a while to convince them I wasn''t one of the ¡®bad ones¡¯.¡±

    Amelia frowned, and without thinking said, ¡°but you were still on Saedel¡¯s crew.¡±

    Then, after a moment of thought, she amended, ¡°weren¡¯t you?¡±

    Silver didn''t reply. Not out loud. Except to change the subject in a way that implicitly rendered a guilty verdict.

    ¡°Here,¡± he said out the side of his head. ¡°This is, I think, rightfully yours now.¡±

    He tossed her the Wand as casually he would have flicked a lighter to his mate.

    At the instrument¡¯s touch, a fresh fleet of vital ships rolled through her necrose flesh. Their golden sails flush with indomitable winds. Their hulls brimming with stellar legions, celestial cavalry and archon dragoons.

    Angcess Trialfa. Lapis Luminal. The Golden Tide. The Mother¡¯s Bounty. The Anguileic Requiem.

    The force which secured Amelia¡¯s tired arteries, fortified her ravaged neural infrastructure and routed the infectious forces of entropy from the muscular planes to the stomach¡¯s stygian coils had as many names as its aerator.

    She studied the chimeran instrument for what was, in truth, the first time but felt like the millionth.

    It was heavier than it looked, and felt as though it somehow belonged in her hand. Nay, belonged to her hand. As though it had always been there. As though it wanted to be there.

    Silver smiled a proud-fatherly smile. ¡°Congratulations Daisha.¡±

    Like a soldier caught dozing off on watch Amelia snapped to attention, finally remembering where she knew the word from. It had been one of her earliest memories.

    ¡°Thanks,¡± was the only suitable response she could come up with. Then she added, ¡°what are they like?¡±

    Silver snorted. ¡°If you fancy chatting with a broken keyboard they¡¯re quite charming.¡±

    Amelia grinned and quipped, ¡°I see you have some common ground.¡±

    This elicited a mocking frown from her elder. ¡°Meaning what?¡±

    Amelia had words ready to answer, but they were subsumed in a wash of irrepressible laughter.

    Silver rolled his eyes over an abashed smile.

    This, the old sailor knew, was more likely the result of the Wand¡¯s incipit Casuist Field than of her own lackluster humor.

    Nevertheless, the effect, in the way of such things, was contagious.

    The odd pair meandered through the dark alien hive, talking and laughing like fools at the slightest provocation for a solid twenty minutes before either remembered what they were on about. And then their quest seemed a shade less grim than it had even just a few turns back.

    While this all held its share of truth, it omitted the heart of the matter. The simple fact that Amelia again had a companion with whom she could comfortably laugh, his and their combined circumstances notwithstanding, was a light in the pervasive shades of darkness of Naarfynder.

    One only slightly dimmed by their coming to another fatal terminus in their way that Silver insisted was actually a perfectly disguised exit.

    Even if she could not hear the thunderous shouts of war being waged beyond, Amelia would not have had the resources to question him.

    Most of her viking thoughts had landed on a distant shore. One that held the monstrous realization that she had absolutely no idea how to use the device she had spent so much time and will and blood to acquire.

    She didn¡¯t get much time to dwell on this. When Silver turned back to face her again with a look that made her stomach and voice box trade places.

    ¡°Just so you know ¡­¡± he said with what started off sounding like confidence but which bled copious momentum on the grated edge of every syllable until it was a lowly dapple of the pounding parental river.

    Though her first digestive organ were still waged in a deadly civil conflict between her tonsils and uvula, Amelia assembled a force of will just mighty enough to punch a single word through.

    ¡°What?¡±

    Silver''s face knotted up to form the basest iteration of a scowl.

    ¡°Whatever happens ¡­ I need you to know that your father would ¡­¡± Again, his words fought a brave revolution only to die a traitor¡¯s death.

    A desperate Eciton swarm shrieking a longing battle cry charged her extraneous quadrant. She wanted to wrap him in her arms and say, ¡°I know.¡± But just this once the gatehouse defenses on her tongue held firm. Cinching the deviant abstract in its wriggling throws.

    Some of Amelia¡¯s evaporated tension, however, lingered.

    The undead pirate looked down at his boot then back up at her. He did this several more times before finally settling on the words, ¡°would be very proud to call you his daughter.¡±

    Amelia smiled a contented smile and nodded. Silver then heaved the heavy rock slab aside as though it were but a piece of crumpled parchment, revealing the battle beyond.

    In the heart of the abyssal spire a solar storm unfurled. Lances of particulate death sliced through a sheet of immaculately splayed anarchy. In which starlight shards flew, puncturing reems of bright shades and crystal white fountains spewed negentropic refuse into the cataclysmic aether upon their contact.

    If either beast or aberration had been asked in that instant to describe the ¡°Dinozelos¡±, alternately related as the ¡°Terrible War¡±, the ¡°Great War¡± or the ¡°War in Heaven¡± depending on both the speaker and the audience, they would have just pointed up and said, ¡°see for yourself¡±.

    The onlooking pair shared between them a soulful feast of voiceless words before taking the first irrevocable steps into chaos.

 Chapter 20: Wrath of the False God

    If any beast had described to Drake what was unfolding around him he would have said they were bleeding mad.

    Granted, all things considered, he supposed he couldn¡¯t completely rule the reason worms out of his own cranial library either at this point. But still.

    Also, granted, he¡¯d known this wasn''t going to be an easy or ordinary trip by any caste or level of analysis right from the offset. But this, what they were about to do, was its own special sphere of lunacy.

    His suspension of disbelief up so high its dial was in serious danger of popping loose.

    Far below on the obsidian silo¡¯s opposite bank, a solar swell was gathering. An ephemeral shimmer like a foggy pillow left anointing a dark pit long after its parent mist had been banished by the suns clung to the adjacent cliff. Its writhing prenatal mass composed of spiteful legions. Blasphemous, traitorous, lecherous murderers, butchers, slayers and assassins. A squall of vile, incandescent hate plucked from the root balls of the Abyss to do their wicked master¡¯s work.

    So dense was the clot of unholy wrath that from here Drake could only barely, at moments, distinguish some of their peripheral number. Those glimpses revealed an array of living armaments. Swords, spears, hammers, spikes and even a few guns. Though he noted these were rare exception.

    ¡®I guess if you haven¡¯t got nexels on the other side you might be trying to mop with the stick end,¡¯ he thought. And was pretty sure he¡¯d kept it securely in his head vault.

    He bared his teeth and muttered, ¡°I suppose one card in our deck¡¯s better than none.¡±

    Be that tiny point of consolation though it may, even forgoing the necromantic element, to all conventional senses the enemy seemed as every bit as dangerous as any other mercenary legion.

    Stunted range or no, any foe that couldn¡¯t be resisted by steel or stone would make all but the most foolhardy pirates of his father¡¯s age swear off drink and coin and convert to orthodox secularism.

    He continued to watch in a stately trance which the Iralithian blade master Talhoffer once coined as ¡°the soldier¡¯s poise¡± as body upon body, rank upon rank, squadron upon infernal squadron of pondlike shades were shaped from the tapestral foam of the Abyss.

    If Drake didn''t know better, he''d swear the summoner¡¯s head was on fire. Its eerie staff was floating by at motionless attention as its master made complex ritual gestures to summon even more spectral soldiers.

    To face down this onslaught he and Schlagalmuck had at their command the three other Pyrates and a whole battalion¡¯s worth each of spear, pike, javelin and sling wielding Skalgags.

    Males and females took part in roughly equal proportion all round. With principally adults comprising the former, spindly juveniles and twiggy youths composing the latter.

    Their ammo was the chamber¡¯s own homegrown lamp crystals, couched in long black leather sling pouches or fastened at the butts of knives or knapped into spearheads.

    Drake et all had watched at first with profound wonder, then slowly with professional appreciation the Skalgags ready their home ground for war.

    Baskets of micro sunstar flakes and splinters had been produced from homes and methodically sewn around the lanes and main arterial road then dusted over like a strange alien crop.

    The Pyrates had been casually informed that a similar process had been enacted while building their homes. Solid particulates of frozen light clandestinely populated every artificial edifice down and along the entire cliffside.

    It might not be a perfect ward against the ¡°siculfan¡±, or ¡°dream masters¡±, as the Skalgags had named their void-shape oppressors. But it was better than what Drake had expected to have to work with.

    If these crystals held anything even remotely comparable to a candle to their Nulls, Drake dared to harbor the suggestion that they might just have a stone¡¯s, as opposed to a leaf¡¯s, chance in a smelter of, if not winning, at least surviving this battle.

    Or if not either, another voice of dubious origin told him, then at least hold back their expiator sands long enough for some beast to hopefully pull a miracle out of their back pockets.

    Neither chief nor Captain was fool enough to think they had more stones than the underworld had souls to throw at this fight.

    The idea to dispatch Crow to fetch the Maiden had flittered into Drake¡¯s mental war room so many times he¡¯d given it an honorary seat at the table.

    His reasons for not enacting it were as numerous as they were individually flimsy. However, to his mind, muddied by stress and lack of sleep though it was, the risk incumbent on sending away their best fighter on the cusp of battle was marginally greater than the potentiality of them elapsing their rendezvous date and being left stranded.

    He watched their rising adversary with blind eyes. His real gaze lost in the rational and ethical debates that consumed his heady council and heartful court.

    ¡®Why are we really here?¡¯ one faction posed.

    ¡®We¡¯re a rescue party, not a liberation front¡¯ boomed another.

    ¡®When your home is invaded, whose door do you guard?¡¯ asked a third whose intoned cadence bore a distressing reminiscence of Nikodontus.

    No beast had asked, if any had even bothered to wonder, what had been done with any too young or feeble to fight. Figuring they would either find out eventually or else it would be a moot issue.

    With each moment Drake found it a harder stance to dispute.

    A tap at his elbow brought his mind back to the anterior now.

    The Skalgag Chief was there, bedecked in a cleverly layered suit of mossy bronze and scabby iron plates moored to each other with Gnarl vines atop a scarred river of maroon cloth, offering him a bowl of cobblestone sized crystals as though they were a new specimen of fruits.

    The whole image had an almost whimsical, childish charm about it. Its true nature and context notwithstanding.

    For half a stupid moment he contemplated trying one. But his sane reason was quick to assault and purge that blight spot of heretical nonsense.

    Interpreting whatever part of this internal exchange showed on his face, Schlagalmuck said, ¡°shadows ¡­ fear.¡±

    Drake took them graciously and distributed them to his lot. Who, in their own turns, lashed them to their respective weapons. Painting the gray steel and blood thorns in the auras of a young dawn.

    None could help being swayed by the effect. Including many of the Skalgags near enough to catch an eyeful.

    ¡°I have to ask,¡± Drake said as he finished lashing Lalitha to his cutlass guard. ¡°Exactly how effective are these? That is, do they ¡­¡±

    Schlagalmuck shook his head. ¡°No,¡± the tiny warrior admitted. ¡°They ¡­ only ¡­ dispel. Chase. Dead ¡­ always ¡­ return.¡±

    He tapped his golden brass battle helm with the knuckle of a forefinger and armed himself with an embroidered stone pouch and a crude, but still doubtlessly effective, ax with crowning pale sapphire whose elder wood haft would have suited a regular beast for a hatchet but served its current master as a walking staff.

    Drake processed a heavy breath. ¡°I see,¡± he said in a mechanical tone. Which was true. Partly.

    He spared a look back over the Skalgag village. Their strength and spirit of resistance under Naarfynder¡¯s manufactured midnight bore a distinctively piratical scent.

    Far from being weak and defenseless, the Skalgags had been biding their time. Planning and preparing for the day they might take justice by their own means.

    He found Schlagalmuck and asked, ¡°how long have these ghosts been a problem?¡±

    The Skalgag chief replied, ¡°long ¡­ past ¡­ they ¡­ drive... Skalgags ¡­ first ¡­ home.¡±

    He pointed down to where the undead army was massing. ¡°We ¡­ too ¡­ weak ¡­ fight.¡±

    He sent an optical excursion into his weapon¡¯s crowning icon. Whether probing for some lost clarity or banishing traitorous thoughts to its depths was unclear.

    ¡°Many ¡­ Skalgags ¡­ die. But ¡­ we ¡­ learn.¡±

    He raised his battle scepter so that the edge was aimed directly over the cliff towards the prospective onslaught. ¡°We ¡­ prepare. We ¡­ train. Now ¡­ we ¡­ ready. We ¡­ fight.¡±

    Drake nodded and turned his back to prevent Schlagalmuck from seeing his wry grin. He studied the Lalitha Stone and mused, ¡°and here I always thought these were just lights.¡±

    A sliver of an instant too late Drake caught himself in the act of driving a pilon stake into the heart of the conversation.

    Thankfully, from Schlagalmuck¡¯s underworld perspective it appeared as a budding shoot to be consoled and nourished rather than an impertinent insult to be condemned.

    The tiny chief cackled as only a beast who had lived his entire life in a cave could. ¡°We ¡­ not ¡­ need ¡­ light¡± he said, lofting and waving his war stone like a courtly scepter. ¡°Skalgags ¡­ need ¡­ weapons.¡±

    Not ten heartbeats after saying this, one of the Skalgag servants jaunted up and knelt before her chief bearing what Drake¡¯s mental catalogue pegged as a sling but which could have been a child¡¯s hammock and a leather pouch teeming with smooth harvested opals.

    Schlagalmuck waved the presents Drake¡¯s way. Saying, ¡°you ¡­ take ¡­ sling?¡±

    Drake genuinely considered the items but ultimately shook his head. ¡°Thank you. But it¡¯s not really my style.¡±

    With a courtly smile and a pat on his hip like a proud father congratulating a young son he added, ¡°we came prepared too.¡±

    Schlagalmuck shrugged and scuttled off, leaving the young Captain alone again with his warring thoughts. And also the sling and pouch. Which Drake wisely added to his arsenal.

    When the time came a few minutes later for him to gather his crew and issue their standing orders, an imperative decision had at last been decisively staked and by force of tumultuous will claimed by a slim but sound majority of his mental factions.

    For the first three turns it was routine. More ceremonial than informative.

    In not so few words he told them to hunker down and hold fast in such locations as their particular skills and loadouts could be the most tactically viable. Blending their individual methods and strategies with the Skalgags if and wherever viable.

    This they had all anticipated.

    Still, like the well-oiled machine their group was, one by one they waited attentively to receive their instructions and nodded in respectful obedience to their officer before setting about their personalized missions.

    This too was according to plan.

    When Drake got down the line to Crow, however, his order was as simple as unexpected. Like a clean surgical sample of what was thought a deadly cancer bulb that turned out to be an alien fungal blot.

    ¡°Get the ship.¡±

    This was unexpected. But not quite as shocking as Drake might have presumed.

    Like his fellows, Crow answered his Captain¡¯s command with a blunt nod before taking off like a trice of wind. In his own way this meant slipping back down the chasmic well as swiftly and easily as his own ghastly shadow.

    It had once been speculated several years earlier by Professor Shanter that the universe¡¯s appointed physical constants subcommittee had decided he just wasn¡¯t worth the hassle of trying to regulate. And to this day many a hot debate was had over whether or not the old Tortoise had meant it as a joke.

    Drake smiled. The look of an old friend accustomed but not fully acquainted with his companion¡¯s strange ways. Then he turned back towards the cliff and was greeted halfway up the shallow march there by the dumbstruck forms of Hemlock and Bon Bon.

    Though they were silent, he heard their words as though they were banged out on a morse trumpet.

    He knew their question as well as he knew that there was no point in lying. A lesser beast might have tried regardless. But Drake hadn¡¯t earned the title of ¡°Black Rock¡± among his peers by taking after Prokvert¡¯s slithery bureaucratic side of the Pyratic coin.

    ¡°I sent him for help,¡± he said as if he¡¯d read it in a book.

    The females passed a notated glance between them. The rarity of such an occasion alone spoke more profoundly and eloquently to its gravity than its actual subject.

    Drake sighed and drew out his sword. The gently thrumming Preform stone at his wrist bathed both hand and blade in an electric golden aura that shown like the morning suns and glistened like their dew-refracted faces.

    From afar he appeared as something out of a macabre art studio. A monster of dense black shadow wrapped in a sheet of pine flame lofting a dipolar rod of fulgur mercury and Magnolsis.

    Vicarious flashes of what Ellie might be seeing crept into Drake¡¯s subliminal arteries. Seeping dangerous poisons into his cardiac furnace which kicked his exponent fire up to a premature zenith.

    ¡®So close. So saarding close.¡¯

    A part of him wished he knew the spell for summoning the storm hammer Mthraknir so that he might ascend with it to Eisvalyhm.

    A part of him wished to sink to the lowest, most depredating depths of oblivion.

    Another part of him sought vainly to bind a pact with Drachyn, the Abyssal Serpent, to trade the entire form and structure of the civilization around him, including the lives of his own dearest party, for that one life which he treasured ad maximum.

    This moment came and went. And in its vile wake came one similar, though tortured with surgent shame and guilt that almost, but not quite, saw him fling his one and only defensive weapon over the adjacent edge as penitence.

    But he stood strong. He took hold of that foul fiend who cursed his heart and made it bow to him.

    He didn¡¯t let any of his pain or weakness or shame show.

    That was not the warrior¡¯s way.

    It wasn¡¯t the Pyrate way.

    It was not his way.

    His way saw him wave his defiant battle instrument high above. Both as a hopeful banner for Ellie to rest her spirits upon and a promise of draconic oblivion to any who would not willingly submit and exile to Lalitha¡¯s lingering shadow.

    ****

    A part of him would have been surprised to learn this performative display had actually partially achieved results.

    Although relief was perhaps as relevant to Ellie¡¯s feelings on the matter as manure to an agricultural supply.

    Helpful, yes. Certainly.

    Vital? Not quite. Not when one considers the order of evolutionary development. Floral greens having evolved long before there were creatures alive to defecate on them.

    Likewise in this way the emergence of her dashing hero posing resolutely beneath his epistemological war banner fed her soul a dose of valuable nutrients while still wearing the unmistakable mephitic perfume of its true birthplace.

    That didn¡¯t mean she didn¡¯t appreciate it. And like any crop suffering under an oppressive plaque of ice

    Being surrounded as she was by an unprecedented sea of undead, all armed and ready for battle. Their sole purpose in their new simulacrum of life being to kill those with whom she shared greater, more familial bonds than her actual blood relations.

    On Saedel¡¯s orders, Ellie had been relocated and lashed to the Giant¡¯s mizen pole. Or what was left thereof.

    From here her view of the cliff was almost completely obstructed by the ship¡¯s dilapidated branches.

    But her hopes had been kindled by that intense light and the faint cry that carried the softest traces of a name.

    Her name.

    Someone had called to her from within that stellar envelope. She had little doubt who that could be.

    She knew of no other beast who could so easily get himself into this much trouble this quickly and still manage to come out on top ...

    Well, except for maybe Avlon or Crow. But Crow was with Drake, so in her book it still counted.

    She smiled. Turning thoughts of her beloved into fuel for her weary muscles, she swore she would stand by his side before the end came.

    The problem was, she was too exhausted to realize it was not her own inner voice saying this. Nearly two full days of physical and psychological deprivation had her entire inner ecosystem under martial lockdown.

    Any complex thoughts or reactions were met with a merciless neurochemical bombardment.

    But it was of shallow consequence. Even a renegade spark of hope was worth a regiment of homebrew assurances.

    Whatever came of this day, she had all the confirmation she needed that she would see her Harold again. Whether in this life or the next.

    The single specter assigned to guard her seemed to sense the ineffable shift in her mood. He looked down on his helpless captive with what on a living face would have been disgust.

    But, for their lack of an immune system, to a shade it registered as the ultimate evolutionary form of contempt.

    ¡°Don¡¯t get your hopes up,¡± he growled. ¡°We¡¯re gonna turn everything up there into slivers.¡±

    From the grave spot in her annals where she¡¯d stored all the files pertaining to her pre Pyrate life, one of the few life lessons Ellie¡¯s father ever taught her came crawling out of the fetid soil. ¡°Some hearts are just born black, lass.¡±

    Under normal circumstances, this would have been the last thing this rodent ever said before picking his teeth up off the floor.

    As it was, she kept her expensive passion camouflaged and docile while continuing to fight against the binding cords ... an effort that coaxed a contentious chuckle from her captor.

    He left her to her struggling and got on with sharpening his ethereal blade. An effort which proved to Ellie the second of the three cardinal lessons of her youth.

    ¡°Evil is like a fungus. It finds its most fertile root in the small and underlit mind.¡±

    Ellie had to hand it to her father. Despicable though he was he was a metaphoric savant.

    A voice like a rolling bombardment shuddered the silence of the chasm. She couldn¡¯t make out its words, perhaps they weren¡¯t even Adamic, but intuitions older than the concept of sailing found in its tones the maleficent peaks and valleys of primeval hate.

    She trembled like a faun huddling under the deluge of its first thunderstorm. Only she had no warm maternal body to cling to for comfort. Just that celestial beacon that blazed overhead like a falling star.

    Under its distant gaze she felt ¡­ numb. But not dead. Numb to pain, to agony, to dread. Numb in the way of a body flush with new life and vigor. And adrenaline. A way that erased all possibility of death and allowed her muscles freedom to move, to struggle, to fight.

    But it made no difference. The ropes that bound her were perhaps the most solid parcels of matter on this blasted hulk of a ship. And they held before her onslaught like rings of iron.

    She watched with impotent rage and horror as the cyclonal tower of wrathful spirits took off in an instant.

    None of the spirits made so much as a whisper, but their hostility and restlessness at having been conjured from their eternity of slumber were palpable. Their sheer intensity made her nauseous, and though she let him think otherwise she had an even stronger stomach than Drake.

    Ellie watched the specters rise like a bizzarro pillar of shimmering sky against a dark backdrop.

    A flaming blister of pity welled on her heart for those who would be on the receiving end of their immortal wrath.

    A second embryonic scar flared there not long after for herself. Being within striking distance of their problem¡¯s crown and yet being utterly powerless to take it was her second worst nightmare.

    ****

    A hundred yards up and about ten minutes into the future, Drake became conscious of a phenomenon that he could only think to describe as d¨¦j¨¢ vu.

    Though he knew that wasn¡¯t entirely accurate.

    In truth it was more like he was having his own thoughts narrated back to him on a twenty second delay. Very peculiar. But of zero relevance in the face of what was occupying the greatest sum of his cognitive function just then.

    Already he alone had forced more ghosts back through the eternal mantilla during the past minute than had been seen by living eyes during any one Era.

    The problem was that for every vestigial spirit they banished, somewhere from ten to thirty more were hot off the summoning plate to replace it.

    At first the Pyrates had fought exactly as they had been trained to do against heavily superior numbers. Cautiously and intelligently. Like feral nomadic predators stalking a stampeding herd.

    Playing the role of hammer and nail to the Skalgag¡¯s anvil and tongs. Using their allies¡¯ tightly regimented lines as shields. Dashing and popping in and out of cover where applicable, taking shots and slashes at discorporate bodies where practical, then dodging back behind the walls of militarized sunstones to reload and regroup.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    Since the only tool they knew could reliably touch, if not definitively kill as such, the anthro-pond shades were Tim¡¯s Nulls, they initially tried to conserve their most valuable and finite assets by leaving the Lion¡¯s share of the ranged work to the Skalgags.

    But just as even the strongest arms cannot build an entire city, vis a vis the Pyrate Code¡¯s Seventeenth article, their arsenal was slowly but surely shorn down to its marrow and then bled further into the realm of figment and memory. Forcing them to inevitably fall back on their atavistic war kit.

    Which, to its deserved credit, performed well. At least as well as had been led to expect. Their admittedly clumsy slung shots causing as much panic and disarray within the necrotomic pact as actual destruction.

    On contact the specters bled, as much as such entities can, in so far as an icy mountain peak leaked when exposed to the summer solar glare.

    The complex, composite Logos field matrices which comported and animated them was disrupted. Or, if struck with sufficient force, collapsed altogether. Allowing their vital Pathos materia catalyst to leak back into the entropic wilds.

    Drake noted how this ectoplasmic vapor retreated from the glowing missiles as though physically persuaded thereto by invisible plows.

    This led him to conclude that their indirect volleys didn¡¯t so much harry the tangential phantoms as literally, magnetically repulse them.

    If what was true of the clock was true of the sundial, Tim may have just stumbled upon a secret older than the concept of record but which had only just now been bridled and hitched up to a chariot.

    Although it should also be said that for as comprehensive as the Academy¡¯s martial and weapon proficiency courses were, there were a few notable atlatl, scythe and jawbone shaped gaps in its coverage.

    Fortunately, their frantic preparations were not just cosmetic. Drake still had his reservations on just how far he was willing to trust these crystals. After all, his father had made them.

    However, he couldn¡¯t dispute that whatever layer of psychic or mystic protection they laid had their enemy¡¯s attack vectors limited to starboard, aka the right flank. Afore, or straight ahead. And overhead, or aetherd.

    That said, crashing against the same faceless, nigh formless tides over and over again was no way to win a war. For all their efforts the most they¡¯d managed to achieve was a grinding stalemate.

    If for no other reason than because, as hearty as they were, they were still all subjects to mortal timers. If the enemy didn¡¯t overtake them, hunger, thirst or exhaustion would. And no amount of chanting would be convincing their fallen to stand back up.

    To make matters worse, through sudden chaotic means they learned that being untethered to flesh gave a beast unfettered access to the aurora¡¯s aformal spectrum, nether to aether.

    In the phantasmic plane thought did not simply become, it was. What was willed and what was true were one and the same.

    Thankfully, with such powers, and indeed such beings themselves, being direct extrusions of the mind, and with the ensemble horde¡¯s profoundest swathe being composed of dull, pre or semiconscious brutes the majority experienced only the most meager complementary buffs from their supernatural ordeal.

    Although a few exceptional cases, the Pyrates each separately noted in their own time and way, must have been warlocks, druids or shamans in their original lives. This assumption being based not solely on their choice of dress and relative species.

    Middling though it was, the arcane knowledge and talents of these pseudo-liches,  not as much amplified as simply unshackled by their incorporeality, together with their multitudinous brethren lent them a considerable exponent of pressure to press on the allied defenders.

    ¡°One drop of water is invisible. Ten is a minor nuisance. A hundred is a refreshing drink. A thousand makes a puddle. A million makes a flood.¡± Pyrates¡¯ Eighteenth scaffolding motto.

    The numberless specters flew and crashed against their lines like fire over a furnace grate. Their iron will was power in itself. But it could not shield them from the sheer ungodly wrath being poured upon them.

    In under the time it took the average gun crew to ready and train their weapons, the entire Skalgag village had been overrun by a scouring wash of ethereal beings.

    Moving as a wholistic hive mass. Attacking with frightening speed, strength and coordination. Committed and commanded from afar by that unknowable entity the Skalgags had named ¡°Schakzathulu¡±.

    ¡®The unknowable dark of the depths¡¯ in Adamic.

    Every hand physically capable of grasping a weapon had been armed and was plying itself to the war effort in whatever ways best suited its strength and quality.

    Those whose bodies had not yet grown cold but were too badly damaged to fight on up close were helped or dragged to the back, or whatever best resembled thus, handed slings or atlatls and set upon sending ¡°express order deliverance¡± to any flanking foes.

    At one time Drake and Hemlock stood back to back outside the chief¡¯s capitol manner, fending off pervasive throngs from nearly every angle. The Lalitha Stone projecting a gentle but absolute warding bubble over the stalwart defenders which deflected the darkest of the preying magicks.

    It was almost appropriately ironic that no beast was presently of a mind to suspect, much less know, this.

    At that same moment, just out of sight beyond the curve of the center tunnel road, the other Pyrate pair formed the keystone diode of a battered and gradually dwindling semicircular phalanx in what might have loosely been considered the town center. Their charged objective being to hold back the perpetual rearward assailant tide.

    But having not their Captain¡¯s deus ex arx shield, they and theirs were suffering under the full weight of their foe¡¯s forcibly prescribed pounding. The pitiless tax whittling their strength and fervor as eons of charged winds eroding an Abyssal shoal.

    Bon Bon, meanwhile, seemed to be having the time of her life. Completely oblivious to the withering toil of battle and the grievousness of their cause she coursed a hypnotic frolic through the sundering chaos.

    To the awing spectacle of all, including many of the undead, her epicyclic weapon thrashed and slashed and carried upon its flail chain winds of raw light that swept away all foes who met it like the rock and soil tithes paid to a mighty cyclone in its passing.

    All the while intermittently humming, whistling and singing a distinctly tuneless hymn that went roughly this way:

    ¡°Gonna hip you, bop you, brain you, blop you! Hit and stomp! Bend and bomp! Spin them around and they all go whomp!¡±

    As her friends knew, and their allies were quickly learning, to expect, her words carried in their wingbeats only slightly more rhythm than sanity.

    But even so, Adrian had to admit her song had a strange sort of charm about it. A kind of sentimental resonance. The sort of fickle art that whispers of songs once sung, of things once seen, of deeds once done. Gently infiltrating the mind through the heart¡¯s secret gate like a chill draft with this band of nostalgic usurpers and stealing the soul¡¯s rightful throne. Seating in its stead an infinite dire hunger.

    This was a kind of magick seldom seen outside of hospital death wards and nurseries. Its harmony naturally bracketed death and as such was anathema to it.

    Which was perhaps the only reason any Pyrate lived long enough to think about toggling their strategy to phase four.

    Drake sat on the verge of calculating what exactly that ought to mean when a jab from behind alerted him to another incoming crest of dire reinforcements surmounting the precipice.

    Seeing that he and Hemlock were the only beasts in position to help, Drake rallied the nearby Skalgags with a scout¡¯s whistle and, with the depleted lines aligned stoically behind them, the Pyrates braced for the worst.

    Then a sound reminiscent of a diving raptor reflected off and through the star-studded silo, down the narrow street tunnel.

    They turned just in time to see Schlagalmuck leading a forty strong contingent of spears and war clubs in an all-out blitzschlag charge against the undead battalion.

    From beyond the village corona came a second call. More definitely sapient but not a bit less pure or strong.

    From within the decrepit forest soared another force whose spear point was a golden nexel comet with a fanning orange and violet tail.

    Drake gritted a smile. This was a warrior¡¯s party.

    Refreshed by their inflaming spirits, emboldened by their dire war cry, the Pyrates answered with the native roars and howls of their ancestral languages and lunged into the fray. The weary shadows of a proudly defiant race on their heels.

    The battle was tremendous. The entire infernal cavern resounded with its crashing swells and rippling torrents. The living side dealt their oppressors pain on a dozen to one scale.

    But for all their valiant efforts, still the entropic tide of war moved against them.

    If Crow didn¡¯t return with their miracle soon there wouldn¡¯t be anything of their rescue party left to rescue.

    ****

    From under the hood of the castle¡¯s safer wall, Ellie¡¯s fortunes were comparatively brighter. Although she would hardly describe them as such. Being forced to sit and wait while those she loved best fought to the death with a horde of unkillable monsters, all while the chief nightmare stood tauntingly within fang range and being able to do naught but watch and listen was driving her forbearing heart to an incepting level of madness. Just not quite so as to overcome the stocky bonds at her wrists, which only poured more fuel onto her intrinsic fire.

    Frustrated with his army¡¯s lack of progress, Saedel had cast the ship free from its roost and sentenced the harborless soul guarding her to the helm. Leaving her alone, by all methods of reason unsupervised, and therefore free to struggle against her restraints to her bitter heart¡¯s and sore wrists¡¯ content.

    She did this with, it must be said, infinitely greater zeal than progress until a small voice from behind her took a reclaimant dagger to the throat of the wrathful daemon seated upon her mental throne.

    But just as possession of a fancy hat and chair does not in itself equate to ownership of a kingdom, so too does the simple assassination of one inhospitable incubi alone not magickally right a listing spirit.

    Only when the rescuing sound reached a critical level of volume and persistence did it at last break through to her war-torn rational bastion that an entity separate her own manic conceit was addressing her.

    ¡°Do you need a minute miss?¡± it said with barely restrained sarcasm. ¡°We can come back later.¡±

    Through a bit of creative contortion Ellie twisted around to search out the speaker.

    It took her brain a few seconds and more than a few repeat assurances to come to terms with the reports her eyes were sending it.

    The blackened image of a small Anuran female standing where should have, and indeed had been not a minute before, empty air. In whose hand was clutched an ivory wand bedecked in mechanical black and gold armor and crowned in a brass globe and black wire tulip cage.

    To Ellie¡¯s mind, this image proved beyond a shadow of a doubt her continued sanity and lucidity.

    Not even in the most feverish depths of alcoholic stupors could she have imagined so bizarrely spectacular a device.

    But then she noticed the second half of this picture. Or rather, he had allowed her to notice him per the blackened one¡¯s muttered request.

    The translucent beast shimmered into shape on top of the air an inch over the deck. His ethereal cutlass drawn and held at a lackadaisical angle by his side.

    ¡°Look out!¡± she cried on impulse. She tried leaping to her feet, only for her head to recall a tenth of a second after her body that her feet and hands were still moored to the mast by a caste of rope thick enough to render a ship three times the displacement of the Giant wholly inert.

    She cursed her body and gravity and the unyielding composition of granite until, Amelia hunched down and closely placed her face in her Ellie¡¯s line of vision.

    She pressed a thin finger to her lips. ¡°Shhh,¡± she whispered. ¡°It''s okay. He''s a friend.¡±

    Before Ellie could even start to digest these words, Silver¡¯s blade flashed between the captive hound¡¯s wrists and ankles. Slitting the ropes as though they were made of air and light.

    Ellie wrapped Amelia tightly in her arms like she was her own lost child.

    ¡°Are you alright? What is this place? What¡¯s this thing? Why is it following you? Did you charm it?¡±

    Silver laughed. Amelia ignored him and shook her head.

    ¡°No time,¡± she said brusquely, causing Ellie to question her perception. Was this really the same timid little Runt from the Academy?

    ¡°We have a plan,¡± Amelia said, cutting her elder¡¯s thought train off at the pass. ¡°Or I should say,¡± she said with a glance over at her spectral companion, ¡°we have an idea.¡±

    Ellie looked from Amelia to Silver then back again. Guessing correctly the source of her elder¡¯s confusion, Amelia flicked a thumb over towards the wheel.

    ¡°See that big guy up there with the horns?¡±

    Ellie''s jaw clenched, forbidding speech. So she nodded instead.

    ¡°He''s the one who brought us here.¡± She ran a finger around an invisible wine glass rim, indicating their trifecta. ¡°Iradyl called him a False God. I don¡¯t know what that means.¡±

    She presented the White Wand for Ellie to see, but the Quartermaster¡¯s thoughts were in another dimension entirely.

    ¡°Hold on,¡± she said when she had properly shaken herself back into lucidity. ¡°Iradyl? You¡¯ve ¡­ seen Iradyl? The Mother Goddess?¡±

    She opened and closed her mouth repeatedly. Almost as if in an effort to prove she was actually saying the words she was hearing come out in her own voice.

    ¡°Iradyl ¡­ ? The ¡­ Mother Goddess?¡±

    Reasoning correctly that simplicity was the better part of brevity, and that brevity, in this instance, was the better part of staying alive, Amelia hummed an affirmative.

    Ellie shot up straight like a loosed catapult arm. Though she thankfully remained seated, she spun her head around wildly as though she¡¯d just discovered there was an insect in her hair. ¡°Where is she? What¡¯s she like? Can she help us? Does she know where Drake and the others are?¡±

    Now was Silver''s turn to speak. ¡°If you''re referring to one Harold Drake,¡± he said, gesturing skyward. ¡°I believe he''s up there fighting half the population of the underworld.¡±

    ¡°What?!¡± Ellie screeched. She had thought so, but half of her had believed it to be a deluded fantasy of a girl slated to die a lonely Pyrate¡¯s death. Now she knew. And that knowledge ripped what sanity was left from her, replacing it with the adamantine cremating fire native to the damned and the religious.

    She whirled and launched herself for the helm. Only to be snatched midair and halted by Silver¡¯s preternatural advantage of speed and strength.

    ¡°Get off me!¡± she cried. Straining and clawing at his fleshless appendages.

    ¡®Wow. I¡¯m glad I¡¯ve never been in love,¡¯ Amelia thought. ¡®I probably wouldn¡¯t live to warn people about it.¡¯

    It has been a solvent feature in the collective pot of common wisdom for as long as beasts have had the capacity to love that its two main side effects are a certain immunity to otherwise self-evident logic and the cramming of one¡¯s mind and worldview into a singularly narrow tunnel.

    The consequence of both being the most outlandishly stupid ideas suddenly seeming divinely inspired, and indeed often divinely mandated.

    Such as the idea of charging bare-handed a being who commanded an army of reserve immortals and who one of the prime deities mentioned in tones befitting an eldritch fiend or primordial titan.

    Granted, Ellie hadn¡¯t heard Iradyl¡¯s avatar say that. And in all honesty, given her depredated state at the time Amelia couldn¡¯t rightly say she¡¯d heard true either.

    But that was beside the point.

    While Ellie''s logical sensibilities may have understood that what she was trying to do was the epitome of folly, that part of her mind apparently had an appointment on the other end of the universe.

    She fought against Silver¡¯s impervious hold with every ounce of fury the god slaying arrow afforded. But as in this place what was true of the mind was so of the soul, Silver¡¯s strength was no longer in his arms.

    Ellie wasn¡¯t going anywhere. Not without his acquiescence, which he was of no mind to give for reasons that he would outline presently.

    ¡°If I let you do what you¡¯re aiming to lass,¡± Silver advocated as though giving passing street directions, ¡°you''ll be waiting for your paramour in the Abyss.¡±

    He paused to allow his words to sink in. Then he followed up his nailing blow with a raining hammer that struck her with the continental shearing force of a Divide.

    ¡°Assuming, of course, our mutual friend over there doesn¡¯t pull you back to join his raiding party first.¡±

    She would not be dissuaded. ¡°I won¡¯t let that happen!¡± she screamed. But there was a notable fault line running down the back of her tone.

    ¡°Yes,¡± Silver agreed. ¡°And we will,¡± Amelia added. She didn¡¯t need Silver¡¯s powers to sense Ellie''s defiant will ebbing.

    Her resolve to fight and defend still raged within her like a locked boiler ready to burst. But that could very easily be put to use under prudently moderated ventilation.

    For this problem Silver again had an answer. Which he provided in the form of a smoldering yellow crystal handed to Amelia.

    ¡°Where did you ¡­ ?¡±

    ¡°A gift.¡± He flicked a suspicious eye towards Ellie. ¡°From your Captain.¡±

    Sure enough, at the implicit mention of Drake, the golden dame¡¯s eyes again shone with a deadly fire that rivaled the stone¡¯s.

    ¡°Hitch it to the Wand.¡± He pointed to the thing¡¯s black wire cage.

    Amelia looked at the Wand, then at the stone. She allowed herself the briefest moment to bask in its radiant aura, then held it close to the delicately woven womb basket.

    As though on the order of some unseen conductor, the elder mechanism parted before the stone¡¯s touch. No sooner were her fingers clear the cage wound itself shut snuggly around the beaming egg.

    Now the only hurdle left was the question of just what she was meant to do with the saarding thing.

    That was as far down that trail as she got before a surge of pyromantic energy ripped open the air between them. Leaving in its place the full nightmarish frame of a daemonic demigod.

    Faster than even an immortal ghost could react, a bolt of malign energy from the Necromancer¡¯s staff crashed into Silver, throwing him from the ship on a comet surge of Erandic fire.

    For the next half a second Ellie and Amelia wondered if they were hallucinating. But then a clawed, armored hand as hard and unmerciful as that of death itself snatched Amelia up by the arm, tearing the divine rod from her grasp and flinging her clean across to the bowsprit.

    Uncertain as to whether the punctuating cracks were her own bones or the mast she hit, Amelia chose to lie there with her eyes shut and pretend, just for a moment, that she was anywhere else. Factional thoughts and aspirant feelings gasped for life before sputtering into maleic oblivion.

    As though from a distant land the words ¡°Don¡¯t you dare touch her you saarding animal!¡± followed by a chorus of painfully familiar sounds floated across a minor desk in her neural administration.

    ¡®So much for nap time,¡¯ Amelia thought, still unable to muster enough will to force her aching body into motion. The Antimony field, also known as a ¡®BION¡¯, or a Believe It Or Not, field by those with less sorcerous proclivities, which had camouflaged their efforts from the False God¡¯s fragmented attention had been momentarily overwritten by the Wand¡¯s little sun-charge upgrade.

    With his ultimate prize now in his hand, Saedel returned to the helm as though nothing whatsoever had happened.

    Amelia looked to her right. A casual swipe of Saedel¡¯s gauntleted arm had sent Ellie careening into the foremast like an ungifted skater.

    She lay on the deck unmoving. Amelia heard the telltale ragged snores that usually signaled a few broken ribs.

    If this was a false god he put on a very convincing act.

    She looked to the helm and contemplated what an eternity of abject servitude would be like.

    She dropped the thought like a hot forging billet.

    Now that he had his prize what did he plan to do with it? Considering the abyssal depths of cruelty and malice he¡¯d demonstrated during her brief stint as part of his unwilling cohort, Amelia didn¡¯t dare let her imagination anywhere near this particular bone.

    Both girls were semiconscious when the False God apparated back to the helm. The ship continued its ominous ascent towards the swirling tropical storm of battle.

    All ears caught on the harrowing winds. Ellie looked up with a contorting mixture of dread and dismay that made Amelia¡¯s heart flinch.

    ¡°Drake,¡± she whimpered.

    Amelia looked from her to the ledge then up to the ecliptic event horizon far beyond.

    The sleeping giant had been awakened and was coming out to play. And without Silver or the White Wand she was powerless to fight back against the advancing scourge.

    A garden of hate grew inside her breast. Its many thorned tendril weeds choked the light from her heart¡¯s fire, and in its now umbral wrath her will languished and was hardened.

    ¡°First rule of war: if you meet your enemy¡¯s strength with strength you¡¯ll both lose.¡±

    ¡®Thanks dad,¡¯ Amelia thought in the way of a cultish disciple capping a prayer.

    If all she could do was watch and wait, then she would do precisely that. With a predatory scalpel she scanned the Giant¡¯s castlelike section.

    To overcome the might of the herd the lone Lion needed an equal and opposite proportion of patience and cunning.

    To dissect a mountain one must become the scarring river.

    To be impervious to fire one must become like the dead ash.

    Likewise, to step to a nascent god one would need equivalent powers of a sort the infernal foil lacked. And so she would wait. She would become the hunter.

    The dark shade of dawn. The lingering shadow at twilight.

    She would watch. She would wait. She would learn. And when her moment came she would seize it without fear, hesitation or mercy. Such was the way of the jungle.

    ****

    There were many prefixes in the Adamic lexicon that, when affixed to the word storm, would have adequately described the chaos unfolding in the Skalgag village. Most of them had crossed Drake''s mind at one point or another.

    Many of the Skalgags were either dead, dying or closely contending. They had almost no crystals left for their slings, and the ghostly hordes still poured over the rise like endless rolls of Abyssal fog.

    The Pyrates were holding out in the plaza outside the wreckage of Schlagalmuck''s ancestral home. Taking refuge inside were Schlagalmuck, his family including most of the servants and bodyguards, and what oeuvre who had managed to escape the carnage in the village proper.

    Those who still had ammunition as well as arms to use them were offering whatever assistance they could from what remained of the building¡¯s upper level.

    Theirs was not a hopeful zeitgeist. Their enemies¡¯ numbers seemed limitless. And perhaps they were. Their crystal and Null supplies had all been spent, and all were starting to feel the thorny, groping fingers of fatigue.

    Without the Lalitha Stone they had only their blades and their wits to keep them from getting shredded like so many pounds of fresh roast.

    Drake''s last words to Hemlock had been, ¡°if we die, we die on our feet.¡±

    To which Hemlock would have responded, ¡°I''d rather it be them if it¡¯s all the same to you,¡± but her better judgement and her stoic pride united in a successful blitzangriff to corral and decapitate her compulsive wit.

    They each cut through another half-dozen spirits before Hemlock voiced the question that Drake had been consciously suppressing since nearly the start of the battle.

    ¡°Where the saard is Crow?¡±

    Drake would have shrugged had his arms not been more desperately needed elsewhere.

    ¡°Your guess is as good as mine!¡±

    Then their ears pricked at the same time, but as Drake¡¯s attention was busy at the front, Hemlock sent her lieutenant gaze upwards instead. And in that moment, for the span of time that it took the thought to come and cede obeisantly to her ignominious throne seat, she smiled.

    ¡°Guess again.¡±

    Drake did. At first, all he saw was a tiny spot of black, riding another spot of black dropping towards them out of the blackness beyond the shrinking dome of battle. As the specks came closer, it became clear that the larger speck had multiple glowing curtains of orange plasma splayed out from its top side.

    As if further confirmation were needed as to the nature and origin of the new arrivals, the large speck grew into a massive deltoid blot, as it parked itself about a hundred feet directly above them. Then the smaller beige speck leaned out over the gunwale and started shouting.

    ¡°Ahoy Captain!¡± it called. ¡°We were just flying by and heard y¡¯all could use a hand!¡±

    ¡°I could use a drink!¡± Drake shouted back. He was too tired and relieved to come up with anything more original. ¡°Now less talk and more shooting if you please!¡±

    The Goat flashed twin thumbs up and gave a stout ¡°aye Captain!¡±

    He then rounded on the Twins who sat ready at their gunnery stations. With both thumbs aimed skyward, he shouted, ¡°let er rip lads!¡±

    The Blunder Twins reply was an expertly planted hail of incendiary plasma that scattered the undead mass before punching a surgical hole through the thick ebony walls. Exposing the tower material¡¯s inborn blood taint and bathing the battle plane in the opulent fire hues of the cleansing morn. Causing the remaining undead legion to scatter and flee into the sanctuary depths before the fell blaze.

    ¡°Yeah!¡± cheered the ground troops.

    ¡°Nice shooting mates!¡± Steve cheered.

    ¡°Stay sharp,¡± Tim ordered from his place at the wheel. ¡°And hand over those life lines.¡±

    Crow hauled the hefty spools over to the Maiden¡¯s gunwale while the Sailing Master hitched the carabine ends to the capstan. Then together they heaved the weighted armor-silk over the rail.

    On Drake¡¯s command Hemlock, Bon Bon and Adrian took hold of the ropes.

    But for reasons not readily apparent to any beast but himself Drake himself hesitated.

    Without a word he turned and disappeared into the house. Finding Schlagalmuck lying amidst the strew of mangled bodies on the floor in the main foyer, cradled in the arms of what Drake assumed was his mate and surrounded by what that same instinct identified as immediate family and a cadre of silently weeping bodyguards.

    The young Captain rushed to their side only to watch helplessly as life slowly faded from Schlagalmuck¡¯s ghostly features.

    ¡°No ¡­ worry,¡± the old Skalgag wheezed. ¡°I ¡­ rest ¡­ now.¡±

    ¡°What''ll happen to your village? Your people? Your family?¡± Drake asked. Though his effort was mostly academic. In truth it was the desperate effort of the drowning looking for a raft he knew wasn¡¯t there to find.

    Through some shear in the fabric of mundane logic he¡¯d heard Schlagalmuck¡¯s words before they¡¯d been physically spoken.

    The old war chief spat out a thick wad of magenta. He had no open wounds but the lower left quadrant of his chest had been caved in and the overlapping flesh was stained a distressing shade of purple.

    ¡°Nothing ¡­¡± he managed to choke. ¡°Our ¡­ purpose ¡­ spent.¡±

    He silenced the young Captain¡¯s rebuke and protest with a harsh, rattling breath. The sound of a suspect coin scratching a touchstone. ¡°We ¡­ go ¡­ proud. Happy.¡±

    Drake looked from one steadfast face to the other. While their leader seemed to be the only member of the village who spoke Adamic, more was said by their one shared moment than could have been captured in a thousand years¡¯ worth of writing.

    With that, the wise Skalgag closed his eyes for the final time, breathed a last gurgling farewell, and slipped away into the blissful felicity of the underworld.

    Drake lingered just long enough to offer a respectful salute before turning to leave. He didn¡¯t waste precious moments trying to convince the them to leave. Their fates were locked in and sealed by their own hands. Few could want for an end any greater.

    But the Skalgag population outside was another matter. Could the sparing of their lives cleanse his father¡¯s sins? Not even close. But as was frequently touted as the penultimate Pyrate Codex amendment, ¡°a war over power and honor is called a conquest. A war over pride and faith is called a crusade. A war over honor and principle is called life.¡±

    When Drake hauled himself aboard the Maiden, in a moment that came as a shock to every beast, Bon Bon laid a steady hand on his arm. ¡°I¡¯m ¡­ we¡¯re proud of you. And Ellie is too.¡±

    The words wherever she is caught and hung in the silent air for a few moments like an Odinfer eclipse.

    Drake didn¡¯t miss a beat. ¡°We¡¯re not done yet¡± he said, looking back across the village.

    ¡°Don¡¯t touch that line!¡± he barked at the Sailing Master, who was just about to haul in the last of the cables.

    Drake wasted but enough time for a glance over the rail. The ghost army had rallied from their cannon barrage and were rapidly reforming their clenching noose.

    Only a minute remained before they would be on the Skalgag homestead and razing it to the ground. Then from there the village and all its residents would surely fall.

    ¡®Not if I have anything to say about it¡¯ Drake¡¯s heart told the rest of him. A new fire

    He raced to the helm and took up the intercom.

    ¡°Put me on full blast,¡± he barked down at Tim, who saluted and ducked below. A few thuds and clicks later a bar of lights on the instrument panel turned yellow in rapid sequence, then a final one burned green.

    ¡°All yours Captain,¡± Tim¡¯s voice crackled through the brass palm grate.

    Drake cleared his throat once, twice, inhaled deep into himself the Castle¡¯s foul air, then spoke into the device calmly and plainly.

    ¡°Warriors,¡± he said. His voice resounding throughout the chasm, magnified through the Maiden¡¯s hailing tubes, further exalted by its own cavernous reflections. It was as though the tower itself spoke.

    ¡°If you can understand me, I offer you safe passage and refuge. We have a home far from here where all are welcome. I cannot take back the evils done to you. Nor can I regift your old lives or lost loved ones. But if you wish to start anew, if you wish to carry on, to spite our enemies by living to fight another day, you need only follow my voice.¡±

    An insurgent bolt of inspiration took mastery of him as he replaced the speaker. As though a banished spirit other than his own possessed his body.

    He raised a sword-clenching fist high over his head and shouted at his crew, ¡°for life! For love! Death to the Necromancer! Death to the False God!¡±

    The consolidate round of whoops and hearty cheers that followed was quickly overtaken by a rattling buzz from below like that of a stirring Apian hive.

    The Pyrates stood agape as from over the gunwales the Skalgags came swarmed up to land upon the Maiden¡¯s armored deck. Their ears gently pulsing a fluorescent saffron like lamian moth wings.

    The Pyrates traded looks that all said minor deviations on the following: ¡°did you know they could do that? No. Did you? No.¡±

    It was then that a section from a book he¡¯d read as a pup, possibly one of his father¡¯s many journals, flittered over his mind¡¯s coronal lens.

    Pirates are called criminals by The Powers That Be because they are free to choose life over duty, to pursue good or evil as they see fit and to engage in whatever calling suits them best. Their rejection, and individual usurpation, of centralized social direction makes them naturally anathema to any imposer of order. That any beast may do as they alone see fit is beyond the scope of acceptance for any tyrant. And indeed beyond the scope of calculation for many a mindless servitor.

    Perhaps it was just all the thrill of the moment. Or maybe it was his brain shifting to a lower gear to conserve power. But whatever the reason for his quarter turn of view, in that instant Drake decided to be the son his father had always envisioned.

    For this one hour of this one day, he would become a pirate in the truest sense.

    He flicked on the intercom setting and set both hands upon the wheel. ¡®I hope you know what you¡¯re doing Silver¡¯ he thought.

    Then he shouted, ¡°alright mates, all hands to your stations! We''ve got a day that still needs a bit of saving!¡±

    He watched with ensnaring pride and vigor as Bon Bon skittered below to her post, the Sailing Master took to the nav table, Crow and Hemlock flew to their respective roosts, and Adrian spun open the heart valves of the Maiden¡¯s amber sails.

    As sure as rain poured from a troubled sky the ship crackled and pulsed to life in a brewing storm of technological wizardry. It¡¯s honeyed veins beaming captured the day¡¯s lifeforce. Its main armaments thrumming like a plucked bass. Its guts purring like a satisfied Feline.

    They were ready for round two.

 Chapter 21: For Life and Love!

    The greatest weapon of all is his mind. But all thoughts of victory or defeat begin and end their journey in the heart.

    The final, vigintuplet entry in the unofficial Pyrate Codex was simultaneously proven and martyred by its two aspirants who¡¯d made it their business to challenge a chimeran demigod to a bout using naught but their natural scion gifts and athletic prowess.

    To their meager credit, their strategy was sound, if rather basic. With Ellie leveraging her Canid strength and willpower, Amelia her blitzing speed and Silver, recovered from his embarrassing earlier delay, his supernatural powers to steal the bulk of Saedel¡¯s godlike attention away so that his mortal companions could slip in and strike.

    Unpracticed though their efforts were, were they pitted against most ordinary opponents their combined assault might have actually stood a chance at netting them victory.

    As it was they may as well have been trying to steal light from the heart of a star.

    Time and time again they tried to wrestle the White Wand from Saedel¡¯s steel clutches. Silver leveraging his diasporic presence and Ellie rounding from above and behind to capture the brunt of the False God¡¯s affronted powers, while Amelia bolted into any made gap from below.

    But time and again the Necromancer swept them all off like dust from a monocle lens. Formidable and fearsome in their own ways though they all were, they had simply come unprepared for the False God¡¯s sheer demagogic might.

    After being hurled across the whole length of the ship for the third time in as many minutes, Amelia was starting to comprehend and appreciate the real, horrible depth of that error.

    Everything ached. And not just in their bodies. And this wasn¡¯t even them playing for keeps. This was a hound playing with its supper.

    ¡°He''s too damned strong,¡± Ellie cursed as she fought against her rioting nerves for control over her limps.

    ¡°And fast,¡± Silver¡¯s voice filtered up as though from inside an empty trunk.

    He lay prostrate on his back at the bottom of a him-shaped hole two decks below them. Stunned more by the fact that he could still be stunned in his hyper material stage than by the actual physical trauma.

    That said, if he¡¯d still had bones they could have been poured out into alchemy vials for use in medicinal broths.

    ¡°He¡¯s too powerful,¡± Amelia groaned, clutching her head in her hands in a feeble attempt to make the world around it stop spinning quite so fast. ¡°We need the bloody Wand.¡±

    Ellie looked between Amelia and the hole as if deciding whether or not to push her in. Whatever came out of her mouth was lost under a meteoric storm of flaming hail from above that tore gaping holes through the Giant¡¯s necrotic skin and rotten entrails.

    Gouts of blue and pink sparks spurted out of each wound entry. Everywhere the lightning balls touched bled orange and yellow fire.

    Had the ship possessed actual engines or sails before it would have been a crippled hulk after.

    As it stood, or flew as the case may be, the assailant gunners might as well have been plugging their shots into a sand mount for all the good they were doing.

    Like a creature out of an occult horror novella, the Giant swallowed the recurrent punishment and kept rising.

    No order given for the Giant¡¯s crew to take cover. Even if their officer cared none would have been necessary.

    Apparently one had to have been a part of the other side significantly longer than these modrons had in order to forget that being forcibly drop-fed a ball of elemental fury was on the same plane of unpleasantness as being struck by the hand of a lesser deity.

    Meanwhile, Saedel himself remained still. Silent and stoic as a mountain. Batting away any shots that came at him as though they were little more than annoying insects.

    It soon became clear that they were shooting at a fire-retardant golem. So Drake did the pirate thing. He changed the field to one of his own make.

    Under his guiding hand the Maiden slid smartly to starboard, narrowly missing the outer wall with her wounded troller fin.

    He then wheeled her sharply back to port, aiming to cut off the enemy ship¡¯s escape or, if all else should fail, physically ram it back into the Abyss.

    If this were an ordinary mission, and this an ordinary petty tyrant he sought to permanently gag, Drake would have ordered his crew et all to leave him to carry on the suicidal portion of this venture alone.

    Ellie would, naturally, he knew strongly protest this and he would have no choice but to let her stay or find an alternate solution. But she wasn¡¯t here. And this was no normal battle. Even notwithstanding its features that needn¡¯t be repeated, if what John Silver had told him about this False God, Saedel, and his maleficent scheme was even partially true, then there was no margin for error.

    The Necromancer could not be allowed to escape with the White Wand. Nothing short of the fate of the entire world hinged on that. And Drake was never one wont for dramatization when simple truth itself was penal fire enough to motivate.

    His crew were with him to the death. Be it theirs or their enemy¡¯s. This was how a pirate waged war. To the bitter end. No parley. No quarter. Only metered death.

    Whether by miracle or sheer great stroke of fortune, his torn-cuffed molotov of a plan worked exactly as he¡¯d designed.

    The Sleeping Giant slowed its onerous ascent. Then halted altogether less than ten feet below their rails. Just outside the depressive reach of their ventral cannons.

    Drake gave his first command of the day that didn¡¯t include the sentiment of ¡°retreat¡± or involve the excessive use of explosives.

    ¡°Fall lines! Attack!¡±

    The patter of tiny bare feet, though clawed, racing over the Maiden¡¯s deck was multiplied by ten score to equal the rumbling charge of the great Minotaurian juggernaut, Sleipnir. Though the hulking titan of old would have given five of his six mighty appendages to stand as the center jewel of this warring throng.

    This pulse of galvanic flesh, the scores of small but powerful warriors surged as one mass, one flight, one mind, one heart upon the air. Down their formless wings took them. Down into the very maw of the oblivion they had so rightly feared for so long.

    But now they were fearless. They were strong, and they were proud. The Skalgags would never bow supple to another master, nor cower before another monster. Never again would their lives be chartered by another. Not so long as their hearts and minds were theirs to command.

    Down they swooped. Down into the hungry void. Bringing with them each a mere candle for both attack and defense. A token of their supernal life. It was enough.

    Together they flew. A swarm of insolent judgement descended upon the sable barge of the Necromancer. Though they hadn¡¯t enough stones between them to use for shot, they made do with their spangled death fiend fang daggers and jawbone clubs.

    The shades of the Giant¡¯s former crew, emboldened though they were through proximity to their craven primarch, dissipated like dry grass before the clade of firebrand fey warriors.

    The Pyrates below made way for them.

    From here on this was Skalgag business. This was their war to finish. Their score to settle.

    As far as they saw who were of a mind to see such things, this was only right.

    Their unnaturally manufactured hands, crafted solely out of aetheric materia for the sole purpose of sculpting and reshaping the nihil basin of their parent realm, reduced the Sleeping Giant¡¯s carrion boards and blighted steel facets to elemental pulp as though they were as much wet parchment.

    The Skalgags swarmed over the Sleeping Giant like vengeful termites. A fire, a sparkling third sun of rage, lorded in and over them. Its tongues licking through their arms the dark chariot of their ultimate foe.

    Tearing, biting, clawing, destroying any and all they came across. Sparing only those of living flesh their wrath just so long as they didn¡¯t stray into the crusade¡¯s vindictive path.

    The first phase of Drake¡¯s cobbled plan was taking shape gloriously.

    True to their craft, as surgical as they were thorough, the Skalgags were dismantling their enemy¡¯s means of escape from the inside out. As well as keeping whatever retainment forces he may have held in reserve at bay. If not destroying them utterly.

    But for as brave and pure as the Skalgags were in their hearts, there still belied the fact that their bodies were less than well adapted for combat. And even less so for what the oldest of tongues called the Zyrkanytkrayt.

    Literally parsed into modern parlance as ¡®The Wizard¡¯s War¡¯. Described haughtily by Misloff in his seminal work as the ¡°I Megalyteri ¨®ra¡±. The Longest Hour.

    In older, wiser cultures it was known as the Apocalypse, Armageddon, Ragnar?k, Kalkin, the Holocaust, the Fifth Sun, and a hundred other names all lost to history. Though all meant quintessentially the same thing. The final battle.

    This would be that day for the Skalgags it seemed. For theirs was a hopeless errand, and all knew it whose eyes were truly theirs to see by.

    Though many tried, and though their efforts were valiant, worthy of aspiration under normal circumstance, the False God effortlessly crushed, slashed, pulverized and atomized any and every soul who came at him as any normal beast would fan away offending fumes.

    But such was their unconquerable will that where one fell there stood two or three more ready to avenge him.

    Also like insects, through their sheer force of numbers, eventually, one of their proverbial stingers found its mark.

    The bronze blade of a familiar war ax bit into the back of the chimeran malnumen¡¯s neck just above the line of his armored collar.

    The False God threw his assailant off with a roar whose terrible thunder was unlike anything ever heard on Aevon.

    Its unnatural resonance ripped through the very aether like a sundering explosion. Drilling into the minds and hearts of all who heard it. Mother and nether child alike.

    Its boom warped the nearby and shook tainted rivets from their housings. Even the unnatural material of the tower quivered as if in a fit of fright.

    In the moments caught in its phantasmic wake all other efforts temporarily ceased as beast, Skalgag and ghost alike all forgot their purpose in favor of blocking their ears from that wretched noise.

    With a twitch of his clawed finger Saedel blasted the doomed creature who¡¯d inflicted the blow, along with his heirloom, weapon into a patch of insubstantial black waste.

    But his attack had served his intended purpose.

    This cruel act inspired the warrior¡¯s companions to take up his fateful cause. Shaking them out of their miasmic stupor. Uniting them as one frame of force again. They charged and laid into the Necromancer like feral beasts. Their momentary lapse into the corona of the nether forgotten like the weather of the past day.

    Generations of hardship, spite, torment and rage all finally were given a chariot, a direction, and a cause. After so many years the forgotten race had found a new beacon to follow. And they reveled in its bastion glow.

    The joy of battle was their fuel. The euphoria of a promising new dawn a faunal blaze in their crippled hearts.

    Like the scions of a warrior dynasty they pitted themselves to the rite before them. Roaring like wyntyrdyrs. As terrible as gorgons, as mighty as dragons. Tearing open the False God¡¯s armored exoskin and into the black flesh, or whatever resembled, beneath. Their carnal fury flowed rife and raw, as though the Great Wolf himself had sunk pernicious teeth into their hearts.

    Thoroughly satisfied that their enemy¡¯s attention was elsewhere, and after ensuring everything else was in proper position, Drake gave the orders to launch grapples and set free their own anchors.

    With the renowned skill and practiced ease that had made the Flint Pyrate Academy students famous, Tim, Adrian and the Sailing Master each hefted one of the eighty-pound grapple launchers, dubbed the ¡°Rude Neighbors¡±, into position, lined up their shots and fired.

    Sparkling contrails of superheated ignition powder traced the javelin spikes¡¯ paths as their Dimitri-pattern ballista motor wheels hurled the six foot pilon shafts through the dark gaps between the ship and the cavern walls, plunging their sword-length barbs into Drohmsviire¡¯s anathematic rock, casting a crude but effective area denial net over the chasm through which no larger vessel than the Maiden herself could have traversed without being sawn into scrap.

    At the same time, the floored anchor heads, trailing tethers of specialty Charcyron sinew, crashed their magnetic monopolar weights through the Giant¡¯s deck, latching onto its iron superstructure with the strength of ten thousand bestial arms, the crank winches then pulling the alchemical ropes taught.

    Both ships were now intrinsically bound to one another. The one could go neither up nor down without the other¡¯s compliance. Nor could she veer port or starboard, for the Maiden¡¯s guns were poised and ready. Her automators¡¯ eyes trained and true. Their minds set. Their orders absolute.

    ¡°If that ship so much as twitches, blast her into orbit.¡±

    Drake unsheathed his fangs in a wicked grin. Phase two of his plan was spinning along as well as he¡¯d imagined. Better, if truth is to be put up plainly.

    He knew the Sleeping Giant had once been a classical Boudoir-style Brigantine. In the normal order of corsair arithmetic, equating her to the Maiden on any objective scale would have been like comparing a spool of anchor cable to a skein of cotton yarn.

    But this was no ordinary ship. Though her dry displacement alone eclipsed the Maiden¡¯s by a five to one margin, she currently lacked any of the critical components for battle outside of her Captain¡¯s singular animating will.

    That was a wizard¡¯s truest weakness.

    Animancy, as defined in Misloff¡¯s Moderated Spell Guide, Chapter 5 ¡®The Will on Tap¡¯: truth shaped by the intellect, manifested through strength of one¡¯s will. In essence, the art of making up true stories.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    No matter how powerful the beast, no matter how vast the mind or spirit, its attention could only be divided so many ways.

    Between coordinating his army still above, commanding his crew and fighting off his assailants below, the False God¡¯s formidable, though still finite, mind was thoroughly occupied.

    Though that wouldn¡¯t last. Drake knew this.

    ¡®Time for phase three¡¯ he told himself.

    Time to deal with this False God, was left at the portal to the known annals.

    ¡°Prepare to board!¡± he shouted aloud, drawing his cutlass.

    Without need of further instruction, the rest of his crew set about their prepared ways.

    Tim took Drake¡¯s place at the helm.

    Hemlock and the Sailing Master took sniping positions on the bow and quarterdeck.

    Bon Bon, Adrian and Crow threw down their respective lines and tucked in by the gunwale, freshly loaded and restocked arms at the ready, waiting only for their Captain¡¯s order to take the final plunge.

    When it came, they all flew over the precipice like broodlings flung from a nest. Only they all put their flight feather on long ago. And notwithstanding the abnormal rank of antimony about, these air currents were well known to them.

    The first pair of boots touched down on the ship within seconds of having left the first. However, what they found was disturbingly less exciting than what had been expected.

    Aside from what looked like a pile of albino Ants crawling over a heaving pile of melted metal and tar, all signs of life had almost completely erased themselves from the battle slate.

    ¡°Almost¡± because the Giant still housed three living occupants. The presence of the boarding party had not gone unnoticed by two of the three. One in particular caught Drake¡¯s ear.

    ¡°Drake!¡± came the call that made his heart at once beat like a volley turret and also stop dead in its pace.

    From within, their reunion lasted an infinitesimal increment of the shortest possible timeframe allotted in the ledger of causal reality.

    But to those observing from without, it seemed to stretch even longer than their actual separation.

    When at last they became two bodies again, all the agony of the night¡¯s endurance run came flooding back into Drake like a river bursting through a shivering reservoir cap. Its force rang out on each and every one of his bones like a strike from a power hammer.

    He sucked in a breath as though to call for reinforcements from the air itself. But there was no reprise there waiting. The Lalitha Stone was in another¡¯s hand. Without its sustaining fire his limbs forgot their strength. The power of his hand to even maintain its grasp on his sword hilt fled, as a prey beast flies in sight of a predator.

    His eyes and head sagged and his whole frame drooped as though his personal gravity had been dialed up tenfold, threatening to collapse in a heap right there on the deck.

    But he was not alone. Not abandoned. A hand, one warm in spirit though ice in flesh, clutched his failing fingers and held them so tightly he felt the sinews stretch. But he didn¡¯t care. A new fire awoke inside him. One actually old, in fact, but newly just forgotten. Misplaced. Undernourished. But now alive and hungry. Oh so very, very hungry.

    It reached out a tender spectral limb to its sister dipole. Warm light stretched down the length of his arm, raising it to brush a finger over her elektron cheek.

    ¡°Do you remember,¡± he said in a husky tone as though he¡¯d just arose from a deep sleep, ¡°what I told you that first morning?¡±

    Ellie smiled the kind of smile only a beast so truly in love that her heart no longer fully belonged to her could. ¡°You said we were like a magick coin. Two heads, one body ¡­¡±

    The bit of her heart that was still her own tried to broach an escape, resulting in a fit of uncontrollable bout of intermittent giggly bubbles in between her words.

    ¡°But not enough ¡­ not enough tail between us ¡­ to be worth a mention.¡±

    They all laughed, though more for the spirit of the moment than amusement at the actual joke.

    When Drake was back to his rights, in blatant disregard of ¡°proper¡± Pyrate ¡°etiquette¡± Ellie pulled him in and kissed him.

    Official Pyrate Code, Section 3, Article 7, Paragraph 2: A legally recognized Pyrate Captain or Designated Senior Officer shall maintain an even, professional demeaner at all times when in any professional company.

    On this day, for this merry moment, they all collectively forgot that they were Pyrates.

    When, on its own due occasion, passion ceded the crown back to sense and reason, Drake undid the second bandolier he¡¯d been wearing and handed it to Ellie.

    Obeying one of her premonitions, she had packed away her spare at the last minute, complete with weapon haft, row of interchangeable heads, a spare pistol and Null pouch. Only telling Drake of it the first morning after their departure, although refusing to say why.

    Perhaps this was to make sure he¡¯d remember. With her he honestly wouldn¡¯t have been surprised.

    ¡°I would have brought flowers,¡± he said, reclaiming his normal composure along with his cutlass. ¡°But I figured you''d like these better.¡±

    Adrian tapped Amelia on the shoulder. ¡°I see you¡¯ve taken up arms too ,¡± he said, indicating her dangling short sword.

    She shrugged and admitted in earnestness, ¡°it¡¯s not really my style. But it serves.¡± She forced herself to maintain eye contact and thanked Iradyl that she wasn¡¯t a mammal.

    ¡°I hate to interrupt,¡± Hemlock interrupted, shoving a thumb back towards the heaving quarterdeck. ¡°But that big guy still looks really mad and he¡¯s quickly running out of things to hit.¡±

    It was then that Silver made himself known. Having managed to reconstitute himself enough to make his getting involved in a fight of any practical benefit, he now had his own two fennings to throw in.

    ¡°Sorry I''m late miss,¡± he said, addressing Amelia. ¡°Apparently the underworld has been having some problems with gate crashers recently and won¡¯t let me back in.¡±

    Drake turned to the intruder, weapons inserted into hand, but he kept his manner and tone professional. ¡°Nice timing.¡±

    ¡°Morning, Captain.¡± The old ghost smiled and greeted the one he addressed respectfully with a tip of his badly blemished tricorn. But there was a strange but unmistakable sardonic glimmer about the way he¡¯d turned out the word Captain. ¡°I see our hosts are keeping you all very well entertained.¡±

    The Pyrates all looked to Drake, who gave what could almost pass for a cavalier shrug to those who didn¡¯t know him well.

    Adrian looked between the shimmering newcomer and his Captain as though waiting for instructions. When he didn¡¯t get any, he asked of no beast in particular, ¡°wait, this one¡¯s with you?¡±

    If his hope had been that if he left enough bait and slack in his tone some beast would take it, he was right.

    Drake answered calmly and simply, ¡°yes¡±. At which every beast¡¯s jaw save Amelia¡¯s popped off a hinge.

    ¡°And ... he''s ¡­ a ghost.¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    Adrian cocked his head. ¡°Sooo, what? Do I need to say his name five times in a row or ¡­?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be silly,¡± Ellie scolded. ¡°That¡¯s an old wives¡¯ tale.¡±

    Her eyes flittered over to Drake at the word wife. He didn¡¯t notice.

    ¡°Besides, he¡¯s already bloody here ya barny twit,¡± Steve reminded them.

    ¡°I¡¯m also not deaf, lad,¡± the old pirate concorded with a glint that in any other eye would herald an imminent murder. But for a pirate of the old grain it was equivalent to saying, ¡°let¡¯s drink and make up an occasion for it if we can¡¯t find one in our pockets¡±.

    Steve did a midair summersault and nearly laughed himself into the Maiden¡¯s hanging keel. Amelia groaned into her palm while her comrades traded unspoken thoughts. Silver may have been the most erudite pirate she¡¯d ever met or heard of, but he still wore the trappings of his old life like a military ribbon bar.

    Not a weapon stirred. Thank the gods. But if thoughts were sounds the air would have been thick with the rattles of keys and cage bars.

    Adrian shrank back like a struck cub. The sight equivalent to watching a flower wither under a cruelly magnified solar iris. ¡°Whoa there old timer,¡± he said, feigning dispassion but his voice pitching up an octave along the way to dispel any misgiving. ¡°Didn''t mean anything odd by it. Just trying to make sure we¡¯re all up to speed is all.¡±

    ¡°Speaking of speed ¡­¡± Ellie said, speaking to Adrian while holding her eyes on Saedel.

    The False God by then had clawed and smashed through all but a few vestigial scraps of his dogpile, and would soon switch his baleful ire to the main event.

    Drake kept his eyes locked on his Quartermaster as though worried she might up and vanish on him a second time.

    In truth, it was the opposite idea that concerned him.

    She had a mad glint in her eye which reminded him clearly of the second reason he had made her his second-in-command.

    ¡°See the white stick that guy¡¯s holding,¡± she said, pairing the brackish vernacular of a Pyrate with the sharp tone and cadence of an Imperial officer. ¡°We need it. Think you can arrange that if we give him something else to look at?¡±

    At this Adrian perked up. His fear and trepidation a departed memory. Towing and stashing sails was fine work and kept him reasonably fit, but in the run was where his heart truly lived. It was said the reason why his kind were the color of the suns was that a Cheetah once chased the stars into the Celestial Couple¡¯s bed chamber, hence forcing them to rise for the morning. That same legend concluded they¡¯d all been chasing each other around the heavens ever since. A thought which never failed to get a chuckle out of the Dream Kidd.

    He started bouncing from foot to foot, as per his way. Ostensibly he did this to warm up his leg muscles, but in truth it served to partially exorcise his own impatience.

    ¡°Just say the word missus big boss ma''am,¡± he said with a jubilant salute like a child trying to imitate his soldier father.

    ¡°If it''s speed you need, then I''m your Kidd.¡±

    ¡°Alright lads,¡± Drake said in a low but still commanding voice. ¡°Here''s the deal: that stick is the White Wand. Yes, the White Wand. That thing is called Saedel. The False God. Not sure why. But he¡¯s a powerful necromancer and he¡¯s as mean as he is ugly.¡±

    The rest nodded. Even Bon Bon.

    ¡°Crow, get Hem down here and take sniping positions at the fore. Take out anything that tries to stop us. Ghosts or ¡­ ¡± he trailed off.

    The Skalgag crusade had become a feeding frenzy. Could they be trusted now to discern friend from foe? They couldn¡¯t take the risk.

    Crow nodded and sailed off.

    Pointing next to Ellie and Bon Bon, Drake ordered, ¡°you two, help me keep Saedel on his back foot¡­ er, claw.¡±

    More nods.

    ¡°Got it.¡±

    ¡°Righty.¡±

    Drake turned to Steve. ¡°You¡¯re our scuttle rat.¡± He flicked a wave towards the returning hunter pair. ¡°Tell them up there whatever those two need to keep shooting they¡¯re to have. Pronto.¡±

    Steve made an acrobatic salute. ¡°By your order sir,¡± he said in sincere earnestness and took off.

    ¡°And as for you,¡± Drake said, turning now to regard Silver fully for what he vaguely realized was the first time. ¡°Watch over our Runt will you. This¡¯ll be her first battle.¡±

    Silver smiled and placed a knowing hand on Amelia¡¯s stiffened shoulder. ¡°With my life,¡± he said openly. Then to her ear he privately added, ¡°or thereabouts¡±.

    Lastly, Drake turned to Adrian. ¡°Once his guard¡¯s down, get the Wand and give it to Amelia. Don¡¯t ask me why. We¡¯ll sort that out later.¡±

    Adrian nodded. Then he winked at Amelia. ¡°Good to see you¡¯re still kicking by the way.¡±

    Amelia smiled and waggled her head like a patted puppy.

    Silver broke into the conversation again to execute on the point he was going to bring up before. ¡°With respect Captain, might I suggest that our best option is to simply take the Wand and leave?¡±

    Drake locked eyes with Silver and shook his head. ¡°Naarfynder is a weapon too. We¡¯ve seen how easily he can conjure a legion. Now imagine what that would be like in the hands of every high bidder on Aevon.¡±

    Silver swallowed his reply and slowly nodded. ¡°Eka mahana yud¡¯dah. Antima yud¡¯dha.¡±

    The language was Orxytocin. Like the psychological chemical with which it is conversationally mistaken, the words implanted their meaning into each and every psyche despite him not actually saying them in the strictest material sense.

    ¡°A Great War,¡± he¡¯d called it. ¡°A Final War.¡±

    ¡°Antihyuma yaga,¡± Amelia threw in in her Amurzan home dialect. She may not have had Silver¡¯s aetheric stamp on her tongue, but her meaning could not have been more evident if she¡¯d stated it in plain Adamic.

    ¡°The day the world ends.¡±

    ¡°Besides,¡± Drake continued, this time for the company at large. ¡°If we run away now, the Skalgags will have lost everything, sacrificed everything they could have had for nothing. I won¡¯t let that be on my hands.¡±

    He looked around. Catching and holding each eye in their turn as though issuing a martial challenge.

    ¡°What say you?¡±

    His eye was hard enough to cut stone. His tone was that of a High Court Marshal delivering a sentence verdict.

    Half a dozen heads made grunts or snorts, the sorts of sounds most animals recognize as the acceptance of a thrown gauntlet.

    This was the noble Captain Drake rarely seen outside of his more private circles. A younger Ellie had even once referred to him as her ¡°Strident Knight¡±.

    She¡¯d had the fortuitous wisdom enough even then to keep it locked away in her tallest mental tower.

    Their optical foreplay lasted long enough that Steve felt it prudent to interject. ¡°Sorry to butt in lads and lasses, but mayhap you¡¯ll want to get your thumbs outta yer eyes about now.¡±

    He directed their attentions up towards the ledge that had once been the Skalgag homestead.

    ¡°Oh no ¡­¡± Ellie, Amelia and Adrian all whispered in tune with Silver¡¯s inadvertently projected thought bubble.

    ¡°Oh scrag me with a rake,¡± Drake cursed.

    Under normal circumstances such a crass outburst would have earned him a fierce cuffing look from Ellie and a stern lecture after back in their quarters about the import of Captain¡¯s maintaining professional portrait character in front of their crews.

    This time her own remark was so caustic it almost made the rest forget what was coming.

    Almost.

    Falling through the bejeweled fields of the Zenith spire, a nebula of lapis daemons with cursed oblivion burning in them like electric veins.

    Tim didn¡¯t need to give orders to open fire. The Blunder Twins were rightly notorious for never needing an excuse for some explosive enterprising. Now, it seemed, they would have all the sport they could stomach and then some.

    Less than three seconds after Drake first thought about reacting the Maiden¡¯s entire dorsal arsenal ignited. Lighting up the black sky with volley after volley of directed lethal sunbursts.

    From where the rest stood it was like being on the delivery end of a meteor shower. Jets of purple and gold superheated gas that set alight anything even remotely flammable that got caught near their flight paths.

    Several of the approaching specters deliberately dropped out of the air in attempts to avoid the oncoming hail. Meanwhile, some of their comrades burst into plumes of volcanic vapor and vanished. Still others tried escaping through the tower walls. Only to be bounced back by the ensconced crystals¡¯ collective ordo field.

    The downside to this retreat was that it didn¡¯t work. They could no longer see their enemy or where they were going. As a result, when they predictably re-emerged either too early or too late, they were easy prey for the Maiden¡¯s dozen RoylT Co. Racket 71 model volley and Torturu Ind. Artemis III pattern rake turrets.

    Before long the horde regained its bearings and was pressing ahead as if nothing had happened. Being exoterically compelled as they were to carry out their infernal master¡¯s commands. Even if it meant literally staring down the barrels of a hundred burning exorcisms.

    Still the soulless throng persisted.

    The newly anointed Skalgag chief, the lone surviving son of Schlagalmuck, Sklagloomo, with a force of the dozen finest warriors he could find at his back, took in the sight of impending doom with the same cool countenance as his predecessor, but a mind utterly bereft of the stubborn complacency with arbitrary traditions that had led to him becoming an orphan and only child.

    With a ringing clarity akin to Silver¡¯s transcendental vocals and power that seemed to stretch out from his very soul, he gave a simple command to his troops in gruff Adamic.

    ¡°Skalgags! Fly!¡±

    His command of the common tongue was noticeably less elegant than that of his predecessor. But it sufficed.

    And though it was primarily meant for the Pyrates¡¯ benefit, all at once, every fey fighter not otherwise engaged dipped into their quintessential pool and began chanting something that sounded to the Pyrates¡¯ ears like a sort of tragic nursery rhyme. Albeit minus any attempt at actual rhyming.

    Their ears began to glow the same electric shade as their crystals. On pounds of alien magick they propelled themselves up to meet their immortal foes.

    Amelia looked at Silver.

    Silver looked back. Their expressions were mirrors, though the minds beholden were inverse.

    ¡°Did you know they could do that?¡± she asked.

    Silver gave her no answer. Only two points for thought.

    An absent shrug for one. Then he stared longingly up at the processing battle and said under what counted for breath, ¡°you always did love your little tricks didn¡¯t you Franky.¡±

    Then, in the regency of his most secure and private domain, he added, ¡®pity¡¯.

    Amelia mimicked her elder in body, and in mind soon also concurred. Their dubious origins notwithstanding, there was no denying that the Skalgags were the raw diamonds of Naarfynder. Rough but durable, whose imminent extinction was all but guaranteed.

    In that moment, though only for that moment, a few millimeters of the forge scale shell that had encrusted her heart flaked off. Setting free her guilt and despair and grief in a blinding well of tears. A seismic shiver of lament chased heralds of doubt and pain through all her physical, mental and existential steppes.

    It was a tacit testament to how far she¡¯d come on her Pyratical pilgrimage that only a few renegade traces of this pandaemonic strife broke over her surface countenance.

    Not that she needed worry. All the surrounding minds were too embroiled in their own localized chaotic upturnings to so much as pretend to be concerned with anyone else¡¯s.

    The cruel irony of this imperious fate, as well as his own hypocritical role in it, was also not lost on Drake. And in his own way he too rightly mourned their doom, privately, within the confines of his soul¡¯s sanctum chamber.

    This still left him with the much more daunting problem of having to face down an enraged demigod with only half his crew, their stodgily crafted arcanotech melee weapons and a few shared handfuls of Nulls as backup.

    ¡®Well, it could be worse.¡¯

    Sure, and the gods might take pity on them and send an army of archofae like in the old ballads. But he wasn¡¯t exactly holding his breath on their account.

    No. The fact was that without the Skalgag clan¡¯s collective mass to bolster their diversion, their chances of slipping past the Necromancer¡¯s faultless guard dropped into the single digits.

    Even as the young Captain¡¯s mind raced to concoct an alternate strategy, Saedel had already dispatched the last of his attackers.

    ¡®Saarding A,¡¯ Drake¡¯s sailor mind thundered.

    This was not part of the plan.

    Spheres of radiant crystal malice now blazed under the lids of Saedel¡¯s formerly black eye sockets and his crowning fire had ascended the spectrum from the golden armistice region to the antichretic lilac and sapphire gate of total war.

    The Giant¡¯s master was awake. And he was mad. Very mad.

    ¡°Pathetic worms,¡± the monster growled, aiming his daemonic staff at them as though it were a loaded cannon. ¡°Did you really think my own spawn stood a chance against their omnipotent father?¡±

    An emotional and rational shockwave broke over the more knowledgeable Pyrates¡¯ esoteric walls as a terrible truth, decades in its conception and gestation, was finally on the docket to be born.

    Blocks of formerly trivial facts, snared by once seemingly disparate implications were suddenly ramrodded together along revolutory fault lines in a rolling thunder pang of narrative labor.

    All of them knew better than to let any of this show of course. And all but one of them were experienced enough in the spiritual ways of their craft to put that stratagem to work.

    Hemlock snorted and spat out a sniping commentary, ¡°I can see the family resemblance,¡± through her teeth. But otherwise all was silent.

    It has been said, and many a tribal ballad or war story has been spun about the point, that the world dares not encroach on a warrior¡¯s mind during battle.

    The raging tempest above faded from thought as the Pyrates¡¯ perceptual horizon collapsed around a singular line of purpose.

    The War for the White Wand was now well and truly on.

 Chapter 22: Death to the False God!

    This had always been the real war. The true and ultimate cause of all of this. This was not merely a fight for survival, or a test of martial or spiritual prowess. This was a war for the very future of their world.

    And contrary to what a majority of its participants thought, it would not truly be waged or won with steel or sorcery.

    Though that didn¡¯t mean that none of either would be featured. That just wouldn¡¯t fit the Pyrate setting. Though it would all be but pantomime. A front for the true war. A war fought over far more than mere kingdoms and empires.

    During the octane theatre session, however, two colossal mistakes were made in as many minutes. The first of which, as should be expected, was Bon Bon''s.

    Never having been one to shirk a challenge, and also never one to think too hard before rushing in at full force, it was to no beast¡¯s surprise that she did exactly that.

    The first piece to charge onto the board, using her impressive speed and angelic grace, she lashed bounded up the quarter steps and lashed out at the Necromancer with her trusty staff.

    Spinning its serrated carbide points before her in a balletic whirlwind, punctuated by precise stabs at the gaps and chinks in the False God¡¯s pectoral and abdominal armor sheets created by the Skalgags.

    She called this her ¡°Blunder Cane¡±. As any flaw, or blunder, in an opponent¡¯s defense would mean their swift and painful end.

    To any ordinary eye she appeared to be wielding four weapons at once. But to the False God, her prodigious output amounted to no more than a dancing beat. To be brushed off as casually as rain water.

    Even when she ramped up her chaotic blitzangriff to five strikes per second, not one blow so much as grazed the deceptively agile titan.

    The rest of the herd, save for Crow and Hemlock, whose outward composites were as expressive as the tower stone, looked on in awe. Saedel¡¯s defense was minimalist and effective while his own retaliatory offense was as devastating as it was utterly merciless.

    Bon Bon had just enough time and presence of mind to inelegantly pirouette to one side, narrowly avoiding a savage overhand strike from Saedel''s scepter that easily sliced through the deck boards like sheets of wet parchment.

    Drake pushed through the whirl of conflicting thoughts and impulses that had come upon him. Electing to act on the more wrathful parts of that mixture he barked a gruff order for ¡°Silver¡± to ¡°protect Amelia¡± before directing Adrian to swing around the right quarter stairs and waving himself and Ellie forwards up the left with his sword.

    In the interest of giving all fair and due credit, it must be acknowledged that in this arena the Pyrates fared marginally better than the Skalgags. But only in the fact that none of them got their heads stomped in or their organs tenderized.

    In what seemed to be becoming the running gag for the day, the Pyrates shot and slashed and stabbed and battered with metal and muscle as best they knew how. Only to meet the full brunt of the demigod¡¯s unrelenting strength.

    A swift and inclusive swipe of his staff caught Drake in the small of the back, splaying him out momentarily like as many pounds of limp rope and hurling Bon Bon backwards with such force that she cracked the stern quarter rail upon collision. Very nearly losing herself to Drohmsviire¡¯s yawning umbra.

    Having an uncommon affinity for learning from her mistakes even by Pyratical standards, Ellie narrowly managed to escape further punishment by ducking and rolling backwards at the last instant.

    Which, though far from being the most elegant move she¡¯d ever made, gave her the special freedom while Saedel was locked up with Adrian to come up when and how she chose. Doing so inches away from cracking her head on the wheel hub and reengaging in near that same instant, with the fallen pair doing likewise in short order.

    ¡°If I teach you pancaking lot anything, it¡¯s how to fall and how to stand up. Usually in that order.¡± Thus had been the teaching motto of Old Iron Hide.

    Well, in actual point of fact his method had always been ¡°do as I say, not as I do¡±. But that was neither here nor there.

    The Pyrates repeated this Wolf pack gambit two, three, four times. Learning and adapting their tactics with each run. Molding their patterns as much around one another¡¯s as the False God¡¯s.

    All the while the Hunter and Huntress took quiet, expert aim from afore. Firing if and when opportunity allowed. Which, under such conditions, for most normal beasts would have realistically meant hearing one or two reports every other minute. But for them, every fifth beat of a slumbering heart were punctuated by the crackling retorts of informally, but still carefully coordinated pairs of rifle shots that nearly always sounded as one mightier cannon blast. Their hits landing like tiny meteorites. At least when they weren¡¯t either astutely dodged or purposely deflected either by reactive wards or intelligently angled plates.

    More than once Saedel very nearly tricked one of his embattling assailants into stepping into one of their allies¡¯ lines of fire. Nearly.

    But, as slow and ponderous as Heipfynger¡¯s eve day, the Pyrates gained the bead on their ultimate opponent. And so did the tide of battle gradually, oh so gradually, shift in their favor.

    One would almost be tempted to think the False God was merely toying with them. Like a Wolf having a bit of lively sport with a hunt before it kills and feasts. But this would be a lie. For in truth, for all his posturing the False God had been named so for good reason.

    He was not omniscient. Nor was he omnipotent as he himself pretended. He was powerful, yes. By any conventional standard he could lay low whole armies on a whim if he¡¯d but spare a thought to.

    But he could weaken. He could tire. And unlike a true aspect of divinity, his form and his faculties were still inextricably bridged through his corporeal frame. Although his tether was astronomically more robust than any normal creature.

    He could die. And for all his touting and bluster, he knew it and was holding back for sake of whatever sliver of mortal frailty still lay within.

    ¡°Death doesn¡¯t care about what or where or how. Its only concern is when. One oversight, one weakness, one mistake, one crack in your fortress wall and he¡¯ll slip in like a draft and take you while you still think you¡¯re safe.¡±

    A shot fired from Crow¡¯s artisan binocular rifle lanced into the yin sector of the Necromancer¡¯s dichotic mask. Splitting the bone grotesque down to the marrow and driving an equivalently unsightly wedge into the encased mind¡¯s infernal concentration.

    This evanescent lapse in his posture granted Adrian just the portal space he needed through which to leverage his greatest talent.

    They had all seen Adrian run before. But this was not running. This was lightning in a bottle, if bottles were shaped like an endangered species of teenager.

    From where Amelia stood his feet all but seemed to expound onto another plane of reality. Unbound by pesky universal constants like gravity, air resistance or inertia.

    Even Silver intoned an appreciative whistle.

    A passing specter of wonder about how those swooning females back at the Academy would react if they were here langured in the lower districts of Amelia¡¯s consciousness.

    Owing to the prize value of their males¡¯ pelts and the living bodies of their females on the various planal steps of the black market, Cheetahs had been skirting the bank of systematic extinction for several centuries.

    But for the life of her Amelia couldn¡¯t imagine how that could be possible if one who¡¯d scarcely begun to tap the root of his physical potential could move like an anthropomorphic cannon slug.

    He launched himself at the False God¡¯s back at the speed of heat. His long legs closing the distance in as little as three bounds.

    From her vantage concealed within Silver¡¯s BION field behind the main mast, Amelia looked on in awe. Only, per her norm modem, not for the reason one might be given to assume.

    According to her homespun education, if Anurans were cannon shot, Cheetahs were supposed to be rockets. While their maximum speed potentials were at least on par, their acceleration rates were worlds apart.

    Put simply, she was the vaulter, he was supposed to be the sprinter. He should have needed time and space to reach his maximum potential. Both of which, by all measures of conventional reason, the confined space of the quarter deck simply should not have offered.

    How then, she wondered, was he able to reach his terminal velocity in such a short span?

    ¡®Magick.¡¯

    It had to be. It was the only answer she could find that seemed to make even the barest hint of sense.

    Which, all else being what it was, made it the most credible and, by that same token, most sane idea she had come across since figuratively getting her Pyratical boots wet.

    Just then a spattering of ghosts broke over the Maiden¡¯s holding line and Silver¡¯s sword again slashed into being and he rose on a current of thought saying, ¡°be right back¡±.

    It occurred to her as she watched him soar off that, despite all the danger they¡¯d been through, she had never actually seen him fight.

    Now she would. And she would not be disappointed.

    She didn¡¯t know what his prowess with a blade had been in life, but in the hereafter he was the reaper incarnate.

    What his living allies, and even he himself, didn¡¯t truly know was that he had two things, to vital elements, his undead counterparts lacked which gave him an edge in more than just battle.

    Hope and karma.

    Karma, as defined by Misloff in Chapter 12 of Misloff¡¯s Moderated Spell Guide, ¡®The Ways of the Monk and Sword¡¯: ¡°essentially, the vocabulary of the universe. Temporal, special, spiritual and cosmic memory embedded into semblance, just as words are impressed upon ideas to form a language.¡±

    Everything that exists has memory. Memory is simply the retention of information. Just so, form is a composite of information, and ergo all things that have form contain information. Thus all things have karma.

    This much has been well known and accounted by mystics and wise beasts for as long as it has been their power to know things and to propagate understanding.

    What was less understood and never documented until beasts started prying into the conventions of the alchemical mysteries is that, like matter, karma and energy are one and the same.

    And just as the mass induction of heat into matter transforms some of its mass into incorporeal radiant energy, so too does suffuse karma eventually reach critical mass. Only instead of dissolving back into the entropic void, becoming null, or nihil as the sourcebooks say, karma transplants. Transforms. Becoming alive, it transcends, becoming ideas, thought, religion, philosophy. These then beget art and science, war and hideous scandal.

    And just as the mind and body are one, so too are the abstract and material aspects of karma wholly unionized like faces eternally bound in the depth of a mirror.

    It has been said by the wise that all beasts die twice. Once when their heart beats its last, and again after the last time their name is remembered.

    Silver¡¯s karma was that of a lowly candle. Of a name chanted over and over again in the dark. Of a will marshaled against the veil of consuming oblivion. Of a soul writhing against the talons of the dark, screaming, ¡°no! I must live!¡±

    And so he had.

    Now that fire was the white hot jet of a welding torch. One that burned through metal and stone with ease and which no amount of water or sand could ever hope to snuff out.

    With this incorruptible will backing his blade, Silver tore through the ranks of the ghosts that sought to harm his little Daisha. He would not let them have her. He would not let her suffer as he had. As he had made her do already.

    If there was meaning to be had in anything, then he prayed it be this: by whatever light may harbor in this gloomy prison sanctum, his ward would see the light of a new day and stand taller in it than her father ever had.

    Of that he knew he could be proud. In that he knew he could find peace. And so that would be his cause now. His dream. His will. And he would make it so, even if he had to take on Saedel single-handed. He owed her at least that much.

    Unfortunately, it was this exact moment Adrian took to showcase his age in the worst way possible.

    Faith, as scathingly defined by Johan Misloff in his lone commercial flop, ¡®The Maledictem of Sainthood¡¯ and further expounded upon in his lone critical failure ¡®The Dry Baptism¡¯; to quote: ¡°the act of walking with your eyes shut. The wholehearted acceptance of one¡¯s own fate, whatever that happens to be, or the ultimate expression of defeat. A dipolar metric in which there can be no alternative or compromise. How appropriate for the subject. Almost poetic.¡±

    An artist knows that a good technique is the one that works.

    The skilled fighter knows that the best move is the one that nets him the greatest result for the least effort.

    A wise warrior knows that battles always start and end in the mind. And the cunning hunter understands that patience is the epitome of strength. That knowing when to move and when to stand still is the mark of a master and thus represents the pinnacle of skill and virtue.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    What is often neglected by all categories, especially by the young and foolish, who believe themselves supreme without a scrap of prerequisite evidence, is that while the mind and body may run in similar packs, they are two wholly different animals. What one can digest is often poisonous to the other.

    There was a reason why Acinonyx were on the losing end of the evolutionary arms spectrum.

    A wiser beast would have gone for the unorthodox. Charging at a brick wall only leaves you battered, bloody and toothless, even if you break through. So saith the common mantra.

    But Adrian, true to his form, supine in the belief that his natural affinity for directed chaos could not be overmatched, charged straight for the most obvious gap in Saedel¡¯s defensive screen.

    He should have been a magickian. A Pyrate¡¯s life is no place for idle tricks. Mind games rarely avail one outside of a theater, and reality doesn¡¯t fall for sleight of hand.

    And this was an empty trick. One of Saedel¡¯s own devising in point of fact.

    The brash young athlete was about to receive a good old fashioned piratical education. Specifically, he learned that the False God¡¯s spined tail was not just an ornamental feature.

    Faster than any living serpent could have dreamed, Saedel¡¯s cruel metal tail struck Adrian flat across the chest. Hurling the golden jock clean out of the battle arena, crashing against the main mast with enough force to finally topple the abused trunk.

    Amelia grabbed Adrian and with greater effort than she knew herself capable of exerting hurled both of them to one side as the towering timber toppled aftward.

    From where it landed, and how, one might be forgiven for thinking this was Saedel¡¯s devising as well. It crashed down between the harrowing combatants, reducing the wheel hub to a moldy hedgehog pile on impact and carving a three foot trench into the raised quarter.

    As unanticipated as this turn was, it was as easily mapped and compensated for by the keen Pyratical minds.

    But the False God had miscalculated. He hadn¡¯t seen the full scope of the battle. As is typical with tyrants who¡¯ve had their pride thoroughly whipped and castrated, he had fixated so absolutely on the enemy at his gates that he¡¯d utterly failed to detect the Bird for the forest.

    The Bird in this case being of that signatory ominous variety. The kind whose uncanny intellect, color scheme and diet had them primordially intwined with death.

    Him having relocated to his surnamed nest after reasoning quite sensibly that the Giant¡¯s dearth of obscurant sails and rigging made this, his bastion spot, a unique and tactically prudent angle of attack.

    When the Giant¡¯s great tree fell, it brought their shinobi Corvian down into the fray along with it.

    Thankfully, him being himself, he came away from the harrowing ordeal more embarrassed than hurt.

    The same could not be said for the Dream Kidd. Having just barely escaped being turned into plains colored jelly, the blow had driven the Lion¡¯s share of the animus from his light and limber frame. Making of him, to all practical purposes, an inert corpse.

    Amelia stroked his fur around the impact site and came away with her palms slick with viscous red. A quick check of his vitals revealed him to be in a stable, albeit uncommunicative, condition.

    The mast¡¯s angle also obstructed Hemlock¡¯s fire. Forcing her to abandon her safe position in favor of one much closer to the skirmish than she would have liked.

    What was more, the momentary diversion combined with their forced relocations wasted precious seconds. Seconds that were not spent keeping the Necromancer under distracting pressure.

    With an easy swipe of his staff he scattered the three off-balanced fighters. He then moved to decapitate two but was interrupted when the third unwisely made a bounding lunge over the fallen mast.

    While this move momentarily stayed Mistress Death¡¯s hand for her herd mates, left the Vixen herself completely exposed.

    Fortunately for all, Crow and Hemlock hadn¡¯t bought their reputations for accuracy with favors and social clout.

    Five shots between them rang like bells against Saedel''s armored chest plate and gorget.

    While the plates shunted off every potentially mortal wound without so much as a scratch, the attack did break into his momentum, giving the other fighters a chance to break off and regroup.

    Drake panted and surveyed the field, as it were, with some middle shelf option between frustration and despair.

    This wasn¡¯t going to plan. They needed an angle. A trick. An idea. Something to help break the push and pull stalemate. Something even a demigod with an open contract with death wouldn¡¯t see coming.

    But Saedel had many more tricks of his own.

    He charged at Hemlock. That is he hurled a galvanized spear of charged plasma, most commonly known as a lightning bolt, into where the Doe been standing ten milliseconds earlier.

    The concussive blast vaporized the wooden structure around her and nearly sent her toppling into oblivion.

    Only the flimsiest strand of luck, in the form of her bandolier strap snagging on a jutting fang of sheered rail, spared her the indignity of barreling unannounced into her ancestors¡¯ posthumous dining room at least five decades ahead of schedule.

    Although it did not spare her shoulder a deep, nasty, and most probably septic bite.

    If Tim hadn¡¯t been within arms'' reach and possessed well-above-average reaction speed, Hemlock¡¯s short but eventful career would have come to an unpleasant end.

    However, this attack priority was a miscalculation. One which would have been decidedly fatal one for any normal beast.

    While the False God¡¯s mind and weapons were busy elsewhere, Crow was already on top of him. His lethal half-moon blades in hand.

    But this was not some hulking brigand. Crow was fast and strong, but if a panphysical specter could not outmatch the demigod, his hopes lay within reach of a snowflake in a bonfire.

    In a move too fast for any but Silver to see, Saedel rounded a kick on Crow. Catching the mortal Wolf midair by the neck, then spinning and slamming him down through the decrepit deck. An attack that should, by all mortal rights, have left him a piteous heap of broken carrion. But which, owing to whatever supreme hands held down his adamantine animus, left him merely stunned in a molded crater.

    Before the others had even had a chance to register the outcome, a blinding slash from his saw chord of a tail dealt a similar dose of hateful retribution onto Bon Bon.

    Were it not for the unusually generous hand of fate, or to be quite frank, her own hand and arm, acting on random impulse to raise her staff and catch the sharp end of the blow, there would have been far more of her to go around.

    Saedel paused to savor his victory. In that moment he let out a hollow laugh. A sound that anyone who hadn''t been a direct witness would have proclaimed to be a semiactive Continental vent, terrestrially known as a volcano, getting ready to unleash its own godly flavors of hell.

    The False God then raised his clawed hand. A crackling astral bolt the colors of a woodland blaze appeared. Dry greens and glossy reds battled furiously for eminence within the narrow, pulsating confines. Arcing javelin streaks of blue and gold flashed between warring segments and prickly errant spines staged coups at irregular segments. Each one waging a thousand tiny internal battles of its own.

    The chaos weapon¡¯s glow dwarfed the burgeoning light of Myltier filtering through the storm raging just out of sight above.

    Filling out the shadow below while throwing the Maiden¡¯s sternum into stark silhouette. Making her appear almost ghostly, hung precariously between the conflicting dawns.

    The False God gazed up through the dappling beams at something he alone could see.

    ¡°At last,¡± the Necromancer gnarred. A many forked tongue of fire snaking out from under the curled beak.

    He looked back down at his hopeless prey. If he had a face under that mask, they could not imagine the depths of the malice that must have lurked there.

    ¡°Pathetic,¡± the False God proclaimed under the menace of a conjured thunder spear. ¡°You vermin were hardly worth my notice.¡±

    His crown of fire had gone the shades of a main sequence star, and glowed with the intensity of a super nova.

    The herd all squeezed their eyes shut and prepared to feel the icy cloak of the Neverveil envelope them.

    ¡°Now ¡­ die.¡±

    ¡°Not in this life grumpy.¡±

    The voice was meek, feminine. But resounded as if aired from a war horn.

    Saedel looked askance and saw in the far corner of their arena a small, unassuming figure smattered in black standing at easy attention. Mottled blue and orange shone through the encrusting filth.

    Between her hands was the ¡­

    NO! Impossible!

    The Necromancer¡¯s hand flew to his belt. But in that terrible moment he learned the truth to late. He had been outplayed.

    The False God threw back his head and howled. In a blind fury he threw himself at her, bringing his electric spear down with speed and power akin to a natural aureoleic hammer.

    She didn¡¯t know what possessed her to do it. Maybe it was Silver borrowing a host. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time.

    Irrespective of why, Amelia touched the White Wand to her lips and in a voice that wasn¡¯t actually a voice yet still carried her will, with words that weren¡¯t really words yet still wore their weight in karma, she breathed into the instrument a single absolute statement.

    ¡°Stop.¡±

    The False God stopped. Midair. Hanging as if suspended by invisible chains.

    The sound, if that word was even in any way adequate to describe it produced when her breath passed through the alien mechanism, brought everything and everyone in the spire to a complete and utter halt.

    The Maiden¡¯s guns fell silent. Their shots frozen in midflight.

    The rage of the battle above instantly ceased. Their temporal karma seized. Bound.

    All their fear, all their pain, all their rage silenced in an instant. Every shouted order, triumphant call and dying cry frozen in a single macabre tapestry of incompressible space.

    The orchestra was ready, the instruments tuned, the theatre set and still. All she needed to begin the performance was the right music.

    Amelia tipped the Wand¡¯s jeweled end up in what arcanist circles since time immemorial knew as the ¡°conductor¡¯s salute¡± and spake.

    ¡°The Mother¡¯s Lullaby.¡±

    ¡°The Song of Songs.¡±

    ¡°The Corpus Regis.¡±

    Like all things new and yet ancient, there were names aplenty for the practice of Scholomancy. As defined by Albert Misloff, sire of Johan Misloff of popular renown: ¡°the art of unification. The meat and bones of chaos and the progenitor of Alchemy¡¯s defining philosophic maxim; as above, so below.¡±

    Her notes sank, wound and carved through the eldritch barriers. Cutting, scraping, digging and breaking through to the raw sinew fibers of the cosmos.

    Exoteric and esoteric existence became one. Reality was no longer the law. Her will, her truth, was all that counted here.

    When the Wand called, all things paid heed. Atoms aligned, molecules assembled, matter moved and energy convalesced in accordance with her singular driving purpose.

    An elemental symphony of microcosmic magnificence unfolded beneath her wieldy fingers.

    The very air itself became her wind and brass sections. Flying flutes, stroming bassoons, torrential trumpets and slurning trombones all spread their aetheric wings for her operatic backdrop.

    Now for the main section.

    Water. Water gathered on every flat surface per her order. Thrumming on mass to mete a thunderous bass ensemble.

    Boulders drummed. Fire strummed strings. Ions and crystals clashed symbols.

    Light and shadows flickered and danced to the indescribable rhythm of her layered ethereal harmonies.

    She was the center of all things. All of creation flowed into and out through her mind¡¯s eye. Every step of the journey filtering more through the lenses of emotion and will. And from her emberal fountain emerged a gossamer form of magick as old as being itself.

    The fundamental currents of nature, corporeal and non, material and aethereal, flowed and ebbed according to her supernal design.

    This was the act of sublime storytelling at its most primal. Its most pure and volatile. For the first time in over twenty millennia, the voices of the Gods rang through the mortal plane.

    In that little sector of time and space, Amelia was the whole universe. Everything she perceived was her plaything. The Divine Couple themselves spoke to and through her via Lalitha¡¯s spectacular light. And their words regarding this profound necropolis were far from kind or merciful.

    At several points the karmic deluge threatened to consume her mortal faculties as she sought to bring its incalculable might to heel.

    Her crescendos brought forth wailing maelstroms, and her decrescendos produced crashing thunderclaps. Stone and metal became her servants. They forged weapons of adamantine strength out of her pure force of will and executed her vengeance upon her hapless foe.

    Saedel tore through the onrush but was struck by a new force of nature. Dazzling blue bolts of liquid energy ripped gaping wounds in the sky as they tore through the False God¡¯s mystic defenses.

    These holes snapped shut with such explosive ferocity that they sundered the resonance fields of all the specters unfortunate enough to get caught in their blast radii.

    Her finale brought the glittering spire heavens crashing down around and on top of the monster and his diabolical horde.

    Crystal stars and karmic shades alike crashed and exploded. Their fields clashing and collapsing in violent exoteric conflagrations.

    Galactonic fireworks erupted from each amaterial body, raining down Drohmsviire¡¯s cavernous maw in a Ragnar?k tumult of second death and numinous carnage.

    In the same breath, from the black pit below there spewed a deluge of true Abyssal fire. Which threatened to swallow both ships and their crews.

    It was then that the ghost army, advancing from high above, inexplicably found themselves released from their evil bonds.

    They then did what any self-respecting undead beast would do after being released from a prospective eternity of involuntary servitude.

    They turned as one force, one mind, one heart and descended upon their infernal former master. Clamoring over and even tearing straight through one another to get the first strike in on their hated taskmaster.

    Through this all Amelia played on. Oblivious to the seismic cataclysm her deus opus was gestating.

    And all the while the False God cried bloody curses in the vein of, ¡°stop! I command you! Obey me or suffer! Obey!¡±

    No one heard. Or if they did they showed no sign of abating their stake on punitive karma.

    Those who could not reach Saedel directly took to tearing apart anything else they could get their hands on just to slake their bloodthirst.

    Unfortunately for the Pyrates, that included most of the ship not already bludgeoned to wreckage by the Skalgags.

    A popular supposition amongst those most readily knowledgeable about which underside taverns serve the best drops for the fewest fennings, that the only way to permanently destroy a ghost ship was to reacquaint her captain with the underworld.

    In all the stories that didn¡¯t either end in tragedy or where the gods didn¡¯t directly intervene, this was typically done either by the protagonist inciting mutiny or else tricking the often brazen or quite literally braindead chief specter into stepping back over the veil himself.

    Whether he was a demigod, a mythical monster or something else unheard of, it made no difference. Even Saedel proved no match for the scathing wrath of ten thousand Abyssal denizens.

    Amelia only faintly felt the ship lurch beneath her as thousands upon thousands of undead hands pushed the Giant further and further downward into the eternally greedy clutches of the Abyss.

    She barely registered the resolute voice of Sklagloomo barking commands to his remaining cohort above the chaos. His final order ringing in her skull as though he¡¯d shouted it directly into her ear.

    ¡°Skalgags! Fly down! Help friends! Go!¡±

    Only much later would she realize he¡¯d been speaking in his native tongue.

    The ten or so Skalgags resting above lit up their ears once more with renewed purpose and vigor. With the speed and grace of a falling brick pile, they swooped down to pluck up the wounded FPA survivors and carried them to the relative safety of the Maiden¡¯s waiting deck.

    If Drake thought he had  the strength of the Skalgags before, he had his imaginings blown clean into high orbit.

    After three Skalgags delivered Drake and Ellie to safety, that left only Amelia and Silver on the rapidly sinking Giant.

    A trio of Skalgags flew down to retrieve her, but Silver waved them all off, saying, ¡°sorry fellas. This little one¡¯s mine.¡±

    Amelia maintained her transcendental solo while he swept her up in his arms, the cumbersome satchel and its reliquary contents never for one single moment hindering his selective form.

    On their upward journey she wound down her enchantment¡¯s final movement. Finally trailing off on a windswept note that stung of a cheery hello and an all too familiar and sudden goodbye.

    Drake watched as Silver set Amelia down. Then he nearly ¡°jumped up to the crow¡¯s nest¡± in his exhilaration.

    ¡°Helmsbeast!¡± he called with barely restrained triumph, ¡°get us the saard out of here!¡±

    The Sailing Master gave the thumbs up and heartly shouted back, ¡°you got it Captain!¡±

    In an orchestrated ballet of magick and technology, the Iron Maiden climbed back up through the smoldering innards of the black tower. Spreading her golden wings wide to the warm kiss of the suns.

    As soon as they¡¯d cleared the open upper rim of the Drohmsviire, Tim opened their clam burners to full and laid out a straight course for ¡°anywhere¡±.

    The White Wand¡¯s song trailed off as Amelia drifted into what would be a days-long recuperative slumber.

    Or a ¡°healing trance¡± as their newly retrieved resident nurse told. ¡°I¡¯ve seen Amurzan shamans use it in regions where they don¡¯t have ready access to medicine,¡± she¡¯d explained.

    ¡°Though I can¡¯t say I recall ever seeing a beast use it on themselves before. But I guess the gods and their toys work in mysterious ways.¡±

    Once all was well and mostly settled, as much as things could be, out of seemingly nowhere Drake confronted the Sailing Master during the latter¡¯s run through his routine nominal system checks.

    The Goat saluted but Drake waved it off. ¡°I just realized something beast,¡± the Captain said with all the swing and gravity of the gallows. ¡°I still don¡¯t know just what the saard your name is.¡±

    The Goat paused. He studied his old friend¡¯s features for a moment as if trying to decide just what to make of his question. For he knew it was in fact a ribbingly phrased question.

    Jacob Rackham, who¡¯d spent his whole life being ignored and passed over for no inherent fault of his own, answered with the first word to pop into his mind.

    ¡°Jim.¡±

    Without stopping to think about what he¡¯d just said he stretched out a hand as if for the first time. He¡¯d learned long ago the value of expectancy and roleplaying. So he played his part. The part they all expected their new crewmember to play.

    ¡°Jim Hawkins.¡±

    Drake accepted the offered hand and shook it.

    ¡°I admit, I¡¯m still not sure how you came to be aboard, Jim, but I think I speak for all when I say we¡¯re glad to have you along.¡±

    He jabbed a thumb back towards the fading black needle. ¡°Nice flying by the way.¡±

    Jim smiled. For reasons known only to his ancestors, he felt his own personal sunrise might just be dawning.

    Drake chanced one long last look back, deliberately ignoring the specter hanging just short of his peripheral view for now.

    The last any living beast would see of the Sleeping Giant, its damnable crew or its captain was an imperceptibly small grain plunging into absolute darkness.

 Chapter 23: A Sore Day and a Good Night

    ¡°Worms?¡± Prokvert raised a quizzical eyebrow at the dark-furred captain over the chewed top rim of his wax tablet¡¯s wooden frame.

    ¡°Pathetic worms,¡± Ellie corrected with an affectionate.

    ¡°Yes, well,¡± Prokvert lifted his spectacles with his pen and scribbled something extra on his parchment. ¡°This Saedel character sounds like something out of a child¡¯s adventure story. How do we know you haven¡¯t simply invented him?¡±

    Avlon silenced his brother with a cough that was actually a guttural grunt.

    Prokvert obeisantly slid off to the side as the Headmaster studied the three other beasts before his desk over his long steepled fingers.

    After a few moments¡¯ contemplative silence he asked of the assembly at large, ¡°and what of Long John Silver?¡±

    Drake and Amelia both blinked. Nobody had mentioned Silver¡¯s piratical surname yet in this briefing. Did he and Avlon know each other?

    Drake and Ellie turned sympathetic eyes on Amelia.

    Amelia stared down at her lap. Her fingers clenched her knees as though trying to hang onto something seen through the great granite barrier of memory.

    ¡°Like I said,¡± she recanted miserably, ¡°I remember Silver handing me the Wand ¡­¡±

    At the mention of his name a hard lump that she had to work to swallow before she could speak again. ¡°And when I woke up ¡­ he was ¡­¡±

    Headmaster Avlon leaned back in his chair. Though in truth it may have been more accurate to call it a throne.

    Drake reckoned some minor Mentan Barons sat on less cushioned seats.

    They had been crammed into Avlon¡¯s office at the top of the Academy clock tower for nearly three hours, at the insistence of Prokvert.

    While the Head Secretary had interrogated the three about their recent exploits, the Headmaster had sat patiently studying them by the light coming through the two high-arched stained-glass windows bookending his chair and the tall padlocked bookcase behind him.

    The light had since grown too faint to see by. Whereupon the Headmaster had fiddled with something beneath his desk, and a dozen tiny crystal bulbs, in the sconces that dotted the walls, came blinking into existence.

    Amelia noted in passing how uncannily their light resembled that of the Labyrinth and Sanctum.

    Drake, Ellie and Amelia had taken the seats directly across from Avlon at his desk. It was a wide, semi-circular, dark oak affair, cluttered in the same fascinatingly haphazard manner as the rest of his office.

    Amelia had to half-crouch on the chair just to see Avlon over the piles of unorganized books, unread or unimportant parchments, scads of pens, an astrolabe, a globe, star charts and innumerable jars filled with bits of things that none of them could identify. In truth, his office resembled the personal laboratory of a mad genius more than an administrative official.

    They had each given a full account of their adventures, right down to the very last detail. All the while, Head Secretary Prokvert stood over them, diligently taking notes on everything that was said.

    ¡°Avlon ¡­ er, Headmaster,¡± he pleaded when he had finished his last bit of furious scribbling.

    ¡°I implore you to pursue some form of punishment. These students are in clear violation of...¡±

    Avlon cut him off with a gesture. ¡°I''m well aware of the rules brother. Please don''t bore me with the details.¡±

    He raised an open palm to Drake. ¡°I sent our young Captain here on an errand to retrieve something of great value to me which had been stolen.¡±

    He passed his open gesture over to Amelia.

    ¡°And as you can see, he has performed exactly as I should expect for an officer of his standing.¡±

    Prokvert guffawed and scowled sulkily into his binder.

    Drake shook his head as though trying to remove a stubborn burr. He knew the Headmaster¡¯s words were chosen for their effect upon his technocratic sibling. But even so, an odd note about his cadence had tripped an alert wire somewhere in his peripheral garrison.

    If there is one thing a Pyrate knows above all else, it is that good instincts are as versatile as any tool kit, as deadly as any weapon, and as valuable as any amount of gold.

    ¡°Sir ¡­¡±

    ¡°Hmmm,¡± the Headmaster purred.

    ¡°I ¡­ that is ¡­ When you say Captain ¡­¡±

    ¡°Aye,¡± said the Collie with a wink at Ellie. ¡°From what your mates tell me lad, as far as I¡¯m concerned you''ve more than earned the rights to that title.¡±

    Drake¡¯s mind went numb as though he¡¯d stuck his head in a bucket of ice water. He couldn''t remember how to speak, so he just sat there agape until Ellie gave him a nudge.

    ¡°Thank you, sir,¡± was all he managed to say.

    ¡°You know¡±, Ellie said, a mischievous glint in her eye, ¡°a Pyrate can¡¯t be considered a true, official Captain unless he¡¯s got a ship on the rolls.¡±

    She looked at Avlon, not quite daring to eye her real target. ¡°Isn¡¯t that right Headmaster?¡±

    Quick on the draw as always, Avlon¡¯s brow said more than his tongue or even his carefully controlled smile. But for the sake of record he answered out loud anyway. ¡°Indeed.¡±

    He fished a fresh sheet of parchment out of the landslide of materials on his desk and handed it to Prokvert.

    The Head Secretary took it reluctantly, folded it and added it to the bottom of his banded pile.

    ¡°So, Captain Drake ¡­¡± Avlon prodded. ¡°What name would you have your faithful vessel be known by?¡±

    Drake looked between the Headmaster and his Quartermaster. Neither face told more than what he already knew.

    ¡°I don''t ¡­ ¡± he started. Then a dam broke.

    Avlon steepled his fingers again. A sure sign of mischief and trouble, in Prokvert¡¯s unidimensional worldview.

    ¡°But you do,¡± the old Collie said. While his expression remained inscrutable, his tone was characteristically coy, and his eyes were their own constellation. ¡°And she¡¯s served you well, yes.¡±

    All the Pyrates nodded as one.

    ¡°Wouldn''t you say, brother?¡±

    Prokvert¡¯s scowl deepened and he started irritably tapping his tablet with the stylus.

    Drake needed no further encouragement. He considered his decision as though he were naming his firstborn child. He could always opt to belay the selection, keep her mantled as she was. It would mean less paperwork. One less thing for Prokvert to get on his case about from now until Lothberru.

    Still, the ¡®Iron Maiden¡¯ just didn''t seem to fit her anymore. It felt ¡­ off key.

    It seemed he was not the only one to have formed this opinion. Even when he said, ¡°if it''s alright Headmaster, I''d like to appoint a proxy,¡± not even Prokvert so much as raised an eyebrow.

    Avlon spared a moment to hover a quick glance over all three students and then replied, ¡°I don''t see why not.¡±

    He motioned to the Head Secretary, who proceeded to scribble some rapid notes on the parchment.

    Drake turned formally to Amelia. ¡°I formally appoint Amelia Roberts as my proxy.¡±

    He gave her a warm smile that made her feel anything but. She stared dumbly between the elder Canines, searching desperately for some rung of meaning to latch onto. But none surfaced.

    Drake, sensing her uncertainty, bought her a few precious moments to recover her wits by speaking.

    ¡°If it weren¡¯t for you we wouldn''t have a ship. You¡¯re a worthier beast than I to christen her.¡±

    ¡°Well put,¡± Avlon said. Ellie whistled in accord. This was why Drake was Captain.

    Amelia looked to Avlon. The Headmaster winked.

    ¡°Choose wisely,¡± he said. ¡°There are no do overs in my Academy.¡±

    Prokvert harrumphed. He was about to say that it would also go against the Vyykar Vessel Registry and so would be illegal under Iradylic law anyway.

    But he knew Avlon knew that. After all, the Headmaster had been in the room with Flint when Emperor Vyykar II had first signed and sealed the more recently renamed ¡°Templar Accord¡± two generations ago.

    As she tried to come up with a fitting name for the ship that had saved her life, Amelia¡¯s face contorted into what an alcoholic Tortoise might see in the mirror the morning after a night of reckless overindulgence.

    A strange feeling kept turning over again and again in her mind like a burning spit roast. Only to vanish like smoke through a grate the second she tried to grasp it.

    But then a memory slashed across her consciousness. For days she had fought to suppress that memory with stalemate success.

    It was the image of her mother. Specifically, that terrible mirage from Iradyl''s Trial mirror.

    It was she whose venomous words had tarnished her nights, and infested her waking moments, and who appeared again in her mind''s eye now.

    ¡°Headmaster Avlon,¡± she stated in her best this-is-an-official-decree voice. ¡°I would like to propose the name ¡­¡± she paused for dramatic effect, ¡°the Silver Syren.¡±

    Drake and Ellie nodded and smiled together in the manner of beasts about to welcome their first of many heirs into the world.

    Whatever Amelia¡¯s reasoning or thought process, that name sung well and brightly with their minds and hearts.

    And judging by his twinkling expression, Avlon concurred.

    He motioned to Prokvert, who quickly scribbled down the name before handing over the parchment for Avlon to sign.

    He did. He then took a small brass seal and jar of wax from his desk drawer and stamped the document with Flint¡¯s famous ¡°Abraxas¡± seal.

    With that petty trifle done and out of the way, the ¡®Silver Syren¡¯ had officially become a legally licensed vessel of Pyracy.

    ¡°Quite a paradox ain¡¯t it,¡± Captain Flint had once remarked to his then young acolyte, ¡°a Pyrate filing forms. Seems almost unnatural.¡±

    A cynical part of Avlon showed a sardonic smile to itself.

    Publicly, the Headmaster folded the parchment in envelope format and stamped it with his own Antimony seal personal seal before handing it to Drake.

    The freshly minted Captain stuffed it reverently into his deepest cloak pocket. He knew his next port of call would be the Iradyl Court of Intercontinental Affairs. That meant another days¡¯ long go-around with those nosey Ironclad busybodies.

    Drake stifled a grimace. A side glance Ellie¡¯s way revealed a tightened aura that betrayed similar consternations.

    Avlon leaned back and rested his arms on the wide, gilded armrests of his chair. He twirled his beard absently around his one unornamented ring finger.

    ¡°Remember,¡± he said after a hefty silence. ¡°a beast can only ever be onboard one ship at any given time. Therefore, as long as he remains a Pyrate, he can only ever advance as far as Captain.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s why you will never see a Pyrate Lord or Admiral or King,¡± Prokvert finished, drumming his pen impatiently against his temple.

    Drake nodded. Ellie took his hand in hers. Avlon then heaved a heavy sigh and closed his eyes as though the weight of the entire universe had just been hoisted upon him.

    Without opening his eyes he spoke to the world at large. Trusting some element to deliver a response. ¡°What do you suppose his scheme was about?¡±

    Amelia looked at Drake, who looked at Ellie, who shrugged with her ears.

    Drake looked back at the Headmaster. ¡°Sir?¡±

    ¡°Saedel,¡± Avlon clarified, his eyes still closed, gray chin angled up at the vaulted ceiling. ¡°What was his aim in all this, do you suppose?¡±

    ¡°To get the Wand,¡± Amelia blurted as though he¡¯d just recklessly spewn a toxic slur against her family¡¯s honor.

    She regretted this immediately of course. But what kind of silly question was that? Coming from Avlon of all beasts, she¡¯d come to expect a bit higher rank of smarts than that of His Excellency¡¯s imperious border junkies.

    ¡°Aye,¡± sighed the old pirate, slowly rebuilding his optical bridges with the world. ¡°But to what end? That seems an awful lot of trouble to go to for a fancy torch stick.¡±

    The three other Pyrates shared looks, then shook their heads and shrugged in silent noncommittal accord.

    ¡°We don¡¯t know,¡± Drake confessed. ¡°But I don¡¯t think Amelia was the first beast he snared.¡±

    They all knew or had suspected the same. But still all eyes fell on the freshly anointed Captain with dark expectancy.

    ¡°I¡¯m about ninety nine percent sure he was trying to lure Bon Bon out that first night.¡±

    ¡°With Tom¡¯s ghost,¡± Ellie clarified.

    ¡°Mm hm,¡± Drake affirmed. ¡°If that even was him and not just some wholesale illusion.¡±

    ¡°I guess he hadn¡¯t reckoned with her, erm ... creativity,¡± Ellie said with a rueful smirk.

    ¡°Not many an actual god could,¡± quipped the Headmaster, and they all shared a community chuckle at Bon Bon¡¯s expense.

    ¡°The question is why?¡± Drake¡¯s head and tongue mused in their own separate capacities.

    All were silent and contemplative. Then Avlon unexpectedly leaned forward and bared down on Amelia as though she were an alien specimen in a laboratory. ¡°What about you Daisha?¡±

    ¡°What about me?¡± she asked.

    ¡°What beguiled you to his call? Not the promise of a rekindled romantic spark I take it.¡±

    Amelia shook her head, then stared blindly down on her boots. She had dreaded this question since they''d returned to the FPA early that morning.

    She looked up at her godfather imploringly. His kindly, almost whimsical eyes, strangely not out of place in his graying head, swam with the ancient deep jungle colors.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    There was wisdom shallowly buried there.

    And strength.

    A cold flame of a kind borne only by the most veteran of trees and mountains. And compassion as well.

    A warm candle light rarely shared with another beast.

    All three he gave to her now willingly and freely. As he always had done.

    She took in a breath, held it for a moment, then released it with the tacked on words, ¡°not that I know of.¡±

    Her answer was childishly transparent, and she knew it. But from a certain perspective, it was somewhat true. She just hoped Avlon would see that and not press any further.

    His shallow nod and subsequent interweaving of setting hands any veteran schoolchild knows as the signal for .

    But as the present company were not wanting for adult experience, his gesture told them all they needed to know.

    ¡°My mother ¡­¡± Amelia added softly.

    Drake and Ellie perked up defensively. Avlon remained inscrutable, and Prokvert pounced on this.

    ¡°Explain,¡± he said, readying his stylus like an executioner¡¯s glaive.

    Everyone, including Avlon, jumped, turned and stared at him as though he¡¯d just fired off a cannon.

    The Headmaster came back to himself first and hissed at his younger sibling. ¡°Prokky! Speak only when spoken to. Clear?¡±

    The Head Secretary chased down a defiant snort with a supplicant nod.

    Despite their training, two of the three students barked in accord.

    The Headmaster had a deserved reputation for fairness. In his own words, ¡°pain is useful only in so far as it can teach. The only thing you learn by my chopping your arm off is that I¡¯m a really lousy surgeon.¡±

    No beast could say in good faith that he didn¡¯t go out of his way to apply this standard. And he had never been at all shy about his contempt for those who in any way incited, promoted or initiated needless conflict.

    It should also be said that he would avidly defend his brother¡¯s integrity. Saying something derivative of, ¡°evil? No. Clueless, perhaps. Callous, oh yes. Obstinate whenever possible. Willfully dense at times too. His heart and soul belong to the law. He doesn¡¯t like anything that can¡¯t be solved by arithmetic.¡±

    But no beast, Pyrate or otherwise, had ever heard him call his brother by that name before.

    This was because no beast of their generation had ever seen the pair as overtly square off before. Not even Flint. And no beast ever would again if Prokvert had anything to do with it.

    Which he did not. And Avlon wasn¡¯t about to let him forget that.

    ¡°She will answer in her own time,¡± he said, keeping his expression neutral and eyes firmly upon his goddaughter. ¡°If you¡¯ve someplace better to be don¡¯t let us hold you up.¡±

    Ellie and Drake were silenced. Each in their ways reveling in Prokvert¡¯s most recent defeat.

    Amelia didn¡¯t hear. She was wrestling with an old puzzle courtesy of Misloff¡¯s razor.

    So spaketh thusly the Great Sage of Mount Refurbishment: ¡°the basic principles of logic are two and are thus: 1.) Nothing can be arbitrary. Every effect must have a cause. 2.) There can be no contradictions. If X is A and Y is B then X cannot be Y.¡±

    That same source would go on to point out that ¡°if we assume that the universe is, by its nature, intrinsically logical, then by no means can it contain arbitrary elements or contradictions. And by that metric, whensoever a phenomenon arises in our narrow pinhole viewport that should appear paradoxical or have no place on our mental map yet clearly have objective form, its logical quintessence must therefore be outside our present understanding, not the confines of objective reality.¡±

    Long, cumbersome invective short, the universe cannot, and therefore does not play dice. Everything that exists and happens therein does so on merit of logical reason. Ergo if that reason does not make sense, it is the fault of the observer not having enough sense to fill that particular cup, not the universe having too small a cup to fit their grandiose ideas.

    Amelia¡¯s mind finally managed to drudge itself out of this philosophical swampy mire by a line of thought woven out of dissolute word vines that together comprised what could pass for a cohesive sentence.

    ¡°Something I don''t understand,¡± she said slowly, addressing the two senior Pyrates.

    ¡°Where did that codex thing you guys had the first night come from?¡±

    Drake and Ellie both turned as stiff and still as a cowering Faun.

    Amelia read in that instant of forgotten reserve that either she wasn¡¯t supposed to know about that or Avlon wasn¡¯t supposed to know they had it.

    Avlon¡¯s face didn¡¯t change. The Headmaster opened a hand, seemingly to confirm the former. ¡°Go on. It¡¯s a bit late for secrets now.¡±

    Drake took a long breath. Then he explained, ¡°A few weeks before the start of semester, Crow, Tim and I took a private contract out in Draconia. Something about a local harvest Schooner going missing. We figured it was probably just Nagas, so we signed out a ship and went to take a look.¡±

    Ellie nodded.

    Drake¡¯s expression distilled from dour to anger. Mostly at himself for not putting the pieces together when first he¡¯d had them. But they needn¡¯t know that.

    ¡°When we arrived all we found was a strange hulk floating out in the open Depths. No beasts aboard. Dead silent. Bare poles.¡±

    He looked at Ellie. As expected her eyes were wide and the rest of her face was blanched of emotion.

    ¡°So you went in,¡± she stated. Her tone and expression spelling out as well as any words that this part of the story was news to her.

    Drake bowed in a nod. ¡°We scoured that blasted wreck from stem to stern, but she looked about as bad as the next time we saw her. All we found was an old crate in the Captain¡¯s quarters. Or what I assume was the Captain¡¯s quarters. You saw the state of her.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s where the parchment and codex came from?¡± Ellie pressed. The tension in her voice gnawed at Amelia¡¯s spine the way such unseemly omens always did.

    Drake nodded again.

    Ellie¡¯s features darkened. Her eyes narrowed. Her fingers curled into wicked talons.

    Amelia''s chest and gut clenched in expectation of a blow that never came.

    ¡°I don''t know who put them there or why,¡± Drake hurriedly continued. ¡°I¡¯d wager Saedel probably found the ship not two days after we¡¯d left her sitting there.¡±

    ¡°Why didn''t you tell me?¡± Ellie asked.

    Knowing the most readily invokable lines of ¡°it didn¡¯t seem important¡± or ¡°I didn¡¯t want to worry you¡± weren¡¯t going to cut this particular cake, Avlon raise his hands and offered one instead.

    ¡°I told him to keep it a secret until I could have the codex examined by an expert.¡±

    An invisible Magnol pocket burst over the convention. Rinsing them in a shower of crystallized celestial aura.

    They all knew that by ¡°an expert¡± the Headmaster meant Tim. Even Amelia. Her mind ran the calculations and came back with only one viable solution.

    Who else could better fill that term than the beast who¡¯d invented a way to kill ghosts?

    His brow scrunched into an exaggerated frown. ¡°I think that may be the first time you¡¯ve ever consciously ignored my orders.¡±

    Finally, she set a conceding hand on his arm and in a fuzzy voice said very slowly, as though laying down a brick row, ¡°I suppose ¡­ any one you walk away from right?¡±

    He locked eyes with her. Then he smiled and took her hand between his. ¡°Today¡¯s a nice day for a walk.¡±

    Her eyes softened. She leaned forward and ruffled his scruff with her muzzle. He then bopped her nose lightly with a finger.

    This was all their way of nursing such wounds.

    Avlon leaned back and clapped a round of once for a ring of the solidarity gong. ¡°Very good,¡± he said. Then, with an impish glint he said at Drake, ¡°we might just make a real pirate out of you yet boy.¡±

    Amelia chose this moment to walk over and do what she thought was the bravest thing she had done to date. In front of Ellie and Avlon, she put her arms around her Captain¡¯s middle and squeezed him.

    ¡°For what it¡¯s worth,¡± she said into his fraying cloak. ¡°I¡¯m glad you did what you did.¡±

    Drake patted her shoulder and Ellie joined in the huddle.

    Avlon waited until the three managed to separate before speaking the last of what had weighed most on his calling their meeting so early upon arrival.

    ¡°It''s a worthwhile trait of any beast, Pyrate or no, who has the sense and will to not act blindly. But it¡¯s an invaluable skill and makes a true leader.¡±

    His smile broadened as his eyes drifted to the corded pouch around Drake¡¯s neck. ¡°I confess, don¡¯t quite know what to do with all the voodoo you all have tracked back home with you.¡±

    He pointed at Drake¡¯s glowing necklace. ¡°But I do know you¡¯re the right beast to carry that.¡±

    Avlon then slapped the generous padding of his armrests and stood. Instantly commanding the full attention of the whole office.

    ¡°And it is I therefore formerly name you Captain Drake of the Silver Syren and her valiant herd beasts your official crew.¡±

    He waved his billowing robed arm in a consecrational gesture. ¡°What say you?¡±

    Ellie and Amelia beamed as Drake stood tall and proudly proclaimed to all, ¡°I don¡¯t presume to speak for others, but I accept the position gladly Headmaster.¡±

    Avlon grinned like a patient hunter lording over a clean kill. ¡°Well spoken.¡±

    He then rounded the desk. Diligently Herding Prokvert nearer the door as he did so.

    ¡°I think that''s enough fun for us all for one day,¡± he said. ¡°You two had best go and get yourselves some food and a night''s rest. We''ll finalize all the details once you¡¯ve had time to recuperate.¡±

    They got up from their chairs, bowed slightly to Avlon, and then to Prokvert. As they left together, Drake and Ellie remained fixedly conjoined at the wrists. Like a pair of trees that had grown together over many seasons, they were now permanently intertwined.

    Amelia envied them immensely, while she remained uncomfortably seated.

    Once they were safely out of earshot, Avlon then turned to Prokvert. ¡°I think your talents will be better served elsewhere, brother,¡± he said, ¡°I will handle this particular matter myself if you don''t mind.¡±

    Prokvert was about to protest, but self-preservation made him think better of it. His brother''s mind was made up. And there wasn''t a force in this universe that was going to budge him once he¡¯d chosen to march down a particular road.

    The Head Secretary folded up his travel easel and strode out with as much dignity as his years under Flint¡¯s left wing appointed.

    On the way he offered a few choice words to an approaching figure as they met and passed.

    ¡°Good luck with your new Oraculum, Professor,¡± the Head Secretary hissed. Then he stomped off downstairs.

    The Old Wanderer opened the door a crack and peered inside. An expression inhabiting the niche between disquiet and contempt creasing his face even more than usual. Which was an achievement for the records in itself.

    He saw Avlon heave a long year of a sigh and sink back into his chair. ¡°I don¡¯t know how ¡­¡± he heard the Headmaster mutter into his hand.

    ¡°Am I interrupting,¡± the old Sage asked, moving the door aside without touching it. Startling both adoptive kin out of their respective meditations.

    ¡°Not at all,¡± Avlon said, suddenly reanimated. ¡°In fact your timing could not be more on the mark.¡±

    He¡¯d gotten halfway up to offer the aged reptile a hand, but the wizened Magus tutted his old student back down and nodded at his knobbly, scarred, lovingly bandaged and totem-laden walking staff.

    ¡°A rock cannot run,¡± he said with a twinkle of elderly glamour, ¡°but it will outlast even the biggest and brightest of flames.¡±

    Amelia leapt at the sound of that familiar rolling cadence.

    ¡°Shanter!¡± she cried, leaping up automatically to offer him her seat per both her own habit and hospitality custom.

    He waved a pallid green hand and a lower, wider, more Tortoise-friendly chair appeared out of thin air beside hers.

    Amelia and Avlon both boggled at it for a moment, and then at the conjurer.

    ¡°A simple trick,¡± the old Magus said, lowering himself onto the concave stool, ¡°and an old one. But very handy.¡±

    The ancient Master took a moment to settle himself, then leaned forward to study his most eager disciple.

    ¡°I¡¯ve heard what Naarfynder has put you through shibulba. All of your crew. But you yourself in particular.¡±

    Shrewd and forthright. Just like Amelia remembered from all those passing sessions in her tailing years. With the exception of Avlon, he had always been the one whose scarce visits she most dearly looked forward to.

    It helped too that the Tortoise¡¯s beak added a tickling bite to his curled Zenithir Amurzan accent. Accenting his consonants with sensory meridian clicks and clacks like gravel stones toppling down a rocky incline. Sounds that Amelia had always found intoxicatingly satisfying.

    His golden rune hemmed shamanic robe was tattered and worn and stained with the mud and grime of a thousand lands and a hundred times that many parfeet.

    His neck and hands were bedecked in a dozen different styles of ritual iconograph jewelry. Jeweled pendants, glyphic medallions, rings made of old coins.

    His staff bore a pack crossbeam, over which were slung provisions for a small military unit. All about the hooked knob and serpentine shaft were slung varietals of slung gourds, hooked flasks, belted pouches and homemade talismans.

    Each and every item signified a notch in the Red Roamer¡¯s metaphorical belt. And another reason why the Roberts batch had loved him so.

    ¡°Your actions are commendable,¡± the Professor stated, tapping his staff on the stone floor like a gavel. ¡°Especially for one so young. The White Wand Trials were designed to strictly punish those unwise and unfit. To test every aspect of the mind, will and character. Even the most veteran warriors and advanced Magi have struggled to pass. If the records are to be taken at face value, which I would naturally caution against, they have proven fatal to far more powerful champions than your meager self. You will of course note my meaning no offense.¡±

    Amelia nodded. Even as her chin and eyes fell as her eyes were drawn into another dimension. It was rare for Shanter to offer such unabashed praise. To be given it was a mark of high honor, even if only by her own standards.

    The old Tortoise raised her face, and with it her mind, towards his with a delicate, surgical finger.

    ¡°Hold yourself up high shibulba,¡± he proclaimed. ¡°For you have done what no beast in a thousand generations could. And likely none will for a thousand more to come after.¡±

    Amelia wriggled out a sheepish smile. ¡°Well ¡­ I had a little help.¡±

    ¡°So you did,¡± nodded the Professor. ¡°More than Prokvert¡¯s account report suggests I think. Not just any beast could have walked into Iradyl¡¯s Sanctum ¡­ without help.¡±

    He angled his pointed chin in place of the actual question.

    Amelia wished beasts wouldn¡¯t do that. She prepared reluctantly to elaborate, but Avlon stopped her. ¡°If the Mother Goddess had meant her words for other ears I¡¯m certain she would have said so.¡±

    Amelia sagged under the intense relief of burdensome reopening of jars she would rather remained sealed. At least until she¡¯d had a chance to properly sleep on them.

    Shanter slowly nodded. His disappointment read as clearly upon his features as words across a page.

    ¡°Professor.¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°About the Trials ¡­ Why did Saedel need me to get the Wand for him? I mean, I understand why he couldn''t just send a ghost. They don¡¯t have blood. But why couldn''t he have just done it himself? I mean ¡­ Iradyl called him a False God. But I don¡¯t know. He seemed pretty godly to me.¡±

    The ancient Master frowned and shook his wizened head. Then he shrugged his large drooping shoulders and admitted, ¡°I could not say. Perhaps she meant it that he was simply unworthy.¡±

    This prompted in Amelia another thought. Several actually. She should have had them earlier, and now she berated herself internally for her cognitive deficit.

    ¡°Mast ¡­ er ¡­ Professor?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡±

    ¡°The island ¡­ Naarfynder ¡­ It was created by Sir Francis right?¡±

    Shanter nodded. ¡°The Necromancer,¡± he spat. ¡°Indeed. Via the use of some of the most intricate and complex magickal formulae ever devised. How or where or from whom he could have learned such things, I can only begin guess.¡±

    ¡°But Iradyl¡¯s Sanctum is said to be from the Before Times. How did ¡­?¡±

    Her voice carried off along with her embryonic thoughts. Lost on a migratory stream of fanciful neverland speculation.

    The Professor stroked his long, pointed beard. A knowing frown furrowing his wrinkled brow. ¡°And you¡¯d like to know how the two could be this way conjoined when one precedes the other by such a vast margin.¡±

    She nodded.

    The old Tortoise sat back in his seat stroking his long white finger of a beard.

    ¡°Very astute. And troubling. I would need more time to ponder a detailed hypothesis. For now I should think our esteemed pirate somehow found and constructed his island pattern around the Sanctum to conceal it. Possibly so that he may try to force his own way inside in a time frame best suited to him.¡±

    It was then that a pair of bells tolled in Amelia¡¯s ears. A pair of torches winked into starburst life behind her eyes.

    The old Sage knew faces like an old sailor knows signal flags. From many a trying lesson back in Amurza he recognized this one as being the signal for a battle nearly over and won.

    ¡°Sir Francis ¡­¡± She muttered. Her eyes darting as though tracing the final patterns to a large invisible puzzle. ¡°The Necromancer ¡­¡±

    She looked back at the Sorcerer. A mad glow of triumph about her xerodermic skin. ¡°It all fits,¡± she declared. The impact of her words fracturing her delirious zeal, allowing space for the black gel of revelatory horror to seep in.

    ¡°This would explain how he was able to accomplish such an impressive feat,¡± Shanter mused, seemingly unaware.

    ¡°Though this brings us to our old problem through the back way. Where in the Seven Spheres did he dig up the single oldest, most powerful and, by logical extrusion, most adamantine construct in the known universe?¡±

    Avlon stroked his chin. Though his face held professionally passive, Shanter knew his old pupil like the suns know the horizon.

    Amelia nodded, as it was suddenly all she had the energy for.

    Like the solvent folds of a river current wearing on every granular deformity of a river stone, she was finally starting to feel the true monumental tax her adventure had levied of her mind, body and spirit.

    But she had one final question. One she so feared sleep might let escape from her that she willed her mind and mouth to work against her body¡¯s own accord.

    ¡°How did I do it?¡± she asked. ¡°I didn¡¯t pass the Trials on my own.¡± She looked down at her hands as though expecting to see a mote of blood still on them. ¡°I mean ¡­ I practically had an itinerary.¡±

    Both Masters looked at each other. Avlon laid his chin on webbed fingers. ¡°Spoken like a true academic,¡± he said.

    Shanter pulled his robe in around his rocky shell and sucked in a long, ponderous breath.

    He nearly knocked his spectacles loose as he leaned forward. He fingered the air as though rifling through an invisible book.

    ¡°Who deserves what or does not is irrelevant. In a way, you might say the Wand has a mind of its own. Another way is to see it as a metaphysical lock. One whose tumblers turn only for those whose key karmic resonance speaks in harmony with its own. Like how a key fits into only one particular lock.¡±

    A sudden bolt of livid intensity shot through his aged face at that fleeting moment. For one jitter of a phantasmic moth¡¯s wingbeat, it turned his deep cyan eyes into a pair of molten sun disks.

    But a perfectly ill-timed yawn causing Amelia¡¯s eyes to shut at the exact instant blinded her to it.

    ¡°I doubt Saedel could have used the Wand even if he¡¯d come by it on his own,¡± the Tortoise concluded somberly.

    As he got up to leave, he waved his hand once again, and his chair vanished into the same innocuous void from which he¡¯d pulled it.

    He then removed Dolsenec from whatever pocket of discorporate reality he¡¯d been hiding it in and gave it to her.

    It purred gently at her touch as a kitten to its mother.

    Apparently expecting as much, Shanter leaned heavily on his staff and said in a wistful candor as though he were passing down an esteemed heirloom, ¡°it seems to favor your hand over mine.¡±

    Amelia tucked it into her jacket. Then she yawned longer and more deeply than she had in over ten twists of the lunar dial.

    ¡°I look forward to our studying together formally, young hero,¡± the Sorcerer said, hoisting his posture up an inch as though raising a declaratory banner. ¡°It should prove a most valuable experience for us both I think.¡±

    As she was moving to leave, for some reason the Sorcerer wondered aloud, ¡°do you by chance know what became of old Long John?¡±

    Amelia stopped and her hands automatically weaponized themselves. Clutching the air betwixt balls of extent fury hard enough to make her knuckles crack. Without turning back around, she stood there motionless except to shake her head at the pitiless stone.

    ¡°He ... I ... I think he was still bound ¡­ to the ship ¡­ The Sleeping Giant ¡­ Or maybe Saedel. Somehow. I don¡¯t ... I couldn''t save him. I ¡­¡±

    She choked on a lump, then covered her mouth so her mentors wouldn¡¯t hear her cry.

    ¡°I''m sorry,¡± she croaked to the wall, trying to wipe her grief away into her cuff. ¡°I¡¯m so ...¡±

    Whatever might have come next was strangled by a cold iron dagger treacherously rammed through the back of her mental throne.

    Thin trickles of tears escaped down the walls of her face as her whole body shook from the insurgent onslaught of rage and grief.

    Avlon stole over and laid a consoling arm around her quaking shoulders.

    He took a spare bit of clean cloth from his pocket and offered it to her. With a leaking heart and a trembling hand she accepted it and wiped her embarrassingly sodden eyes and nose.

    A moment later Shanter appeared next to Avlon. Had she the wherewithal just then to ask how he¡¯d moved so fast she likely wouldn¡¯t have needed his actual line. Which was coming up presently.

    In the softest mode she¡¯d ever heard from him, the old Tortoise said, ¡°I think you''d best get some rest now.¡±

    Amelia started towards the door. Then she stopped halfway out and turned back. She had her mouth open to form a question but Avlon stopped her mid-breath with a gesture of formal command.

    ¡°Go on now. Off with you,¡± the old pirate urged in a familiar tone, warm but stern. ¡°You''ve had a long and arduous adventure Daisha. And a much longer road¡¯s ahead of you. Pyrate¡¯s first rule: the day is money, but the night is golden.¡±

    She nodded. Very sure he just made that up. But with a dreamy utterance of ¡°good night¡± she turned and left anyway.

    She trudged down the tower stairs, through the Light Walk and up to the girls¡¯ dorm tower. All while only vaguely aware that she had moved at all. Her only thought being that of a long bath and a warm bunk.

    If she¡¯d been listening, she might have overheard the Headmaster ask Shanter how a ghost might pull a living body through the solid boards of a ship.

    But she was solely focused on her ambition to sleep until the next Era. Or until she got kidnapped or the Blunder Twins blew something up again. Whatever came last.

 Epilogue

    By the time she was out of the bath and into her night clothes.

    She entered the room that she shared with Ellie and Bon Bon, finding both of their spots empty. Probably, she figured, on account of there still being a good two hours left until Mythtier.

    But this was of no immediate concern. The only bunk that interested her right now was her own. And some beast had already hitched and laid it out for her.

    Probably Ellie.

    Before she could let its comfy mesh devour her however, she faintly registered the sight of a brown wrapped bundle with a miniscule note stuck to the top lying by the foot.

    She slid the neatly folded parchment carefully out from underneath the twine, fished out Iradyl¡¯s magnifier and read it.

    Daisha,

    If you''re reading this then I''m not there. And this time I don''t have an easy explanation for you. Balance of probability is I''m dead. The permanent kind this time if I¡¯ve so much the right.

    I just wanted you to know that I''m proud of you for passing those Trials, with or without my help. You found the White Wand. You defeated Saedel. Something not any other beast alive could have done.

    And about what I said at the end of that tunnel, I meant it. Your father would be very proud if he were there right now. I¡¯ll give him your regards when next I see him.

    Oh, and one more thing, consider this a farewell gift. A little something to remember me by. That is, if you¡¯re so inclined. I would fully understand if you¡¯re not. It¡¯s up to you. I leave it in your hands. So to speak.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

    And if you ever need me again, just break the seal. I know it¡¯s vague, but come on. Most of the fun in life is figuring it out. That¡¯s what Flint always liked to say. And for once I actually agree with him.

    You may have noticed I''m not so good at the whole mushy sentimental farewell deal. So let me just leave you by saying that if the whole Pyratical circus doesn''t work out for you, you¡¯d have a sparkling career prospect as a musician.

    Just a thought.

    Silver

    Amelia read and re-read the letter. Committing every word, every sentence, every parlance and phrase to memory.

    When she had it immortalized she undid the package twine and wrap to find a plain wooden cigar box sealed with an aftermarket brass lock and banded latch.

    She did not recognize the elegantly relieved runes scratched around the lid and on the head of the key. But through her mind jaunted the phrase, ¡°life through the climb. Honor through the fall¡±.

    ¡®Great. More puzzles,¡¯ she thought.

    Inside the box, on a folded cushion of blue satin, a cylindrical silver vial with a dainty silver chain and crimson wax seal over the cap lie in wait for her.

    Gingerly, as she would handle a fragile newborn, she lifted the thing from its cradle and studied it. Impressing its every finitude of detail to into her mental annals.

    Like a babe, it cooed beneath her tender caress as though it were happy to see her.

    She laid both it and the letter back in the box, locked it and clasped it tightly to her chest as she fell into her hammock. Neglecting, just this once, to set her alarm chimer.

    Within moments her eyes grew heavy, and her mind started to drift slowly along to that wonderful land of neither the living nor the dead. In the last breaths before the final sopor took its gentle sway, she gazed out at the stars through the slit in the half-opened window.

    A warm etheric breeze husbanding the soft blanket of sleep landed upon her. She hugged the incumbent thoughts of home and hearth like a plush toy and quietly slipped a pair of heavy words into the empty air before letting them envelope her completely.

    ¡°Thank you.¡±

    She would later pass it off as the lucid side effects of her natural sleeping drought, but just as she was on the brink of unconsciousness a voice as ethereal as the night itself whispered delicately into her ear, ¡°sleep well Daisha.¡±

    She fell into a deep and tranquil sleep from which no beast, not even the old grouch Prokvert, so much as entertained the specter of the notion of trying to wake her until well into the next afternoon.

    <h4>The End (fer now)</h4>

 Appendix

    System Name: Calimere

    Main System Bodies:

    Suns(Type): Aerion (Class F Main Sequence), Iradyl (Class G Main Sequence)

    Planets(Type): Aevon(N/A), Saedel(GG), Kaedel(GG), Iralith(Terrestrial)

    Satellites:

    Aevon: Savion,  Erandis

    Saedel: Kruko, Bora

    Average Solar Orbits: Iradyl ¨C 0.64 BC (8,784,363.68 Lg) / Aerion ¨C 0.91BC  (12,493,317.23 Lg)

    Ave. Aevon Orbit: 5.34 BC

    Aevon Gravitational Acceleration : 8 yd/sec. (32.15) ft/sec.

    Aevon Layers:

    Helenosphere = Topmost layer of the atmosphere.

    Boreosphere = The highest level any ship has ever successfully traversed.

    Icarus Zone = The typical altitude range for ships. From the Abyssal corona to about 500 feet (125 yd)

    Crust (Aureole) = Topmost layer of the Abyss. Comprising all known landmasses.

    Harvest Lands = Richly dense pockets of concentrated Sundust below the Abyssal surface.

    Depths = The unexplored reaches of the Abyss.

    Core = Believed to be a solid ball of crystal Magnolsis. Though all attempts at study or excavation have met with absolute, unmitigated failure.

    Aevon Time Scales:

    1 Year (Solar) = The span between Aerion¡¯s Conjunctions. (14 Months / 56 Weeks / 616 Days)

    1 Season (Solar) = The period between Conjunctions. (Approx. 4-5 Weeks)

    1 Year (Lunar) = Saviem Equinox ¡ú Saviem Equinox

    1 Season (Lunar) = The space between one Equinox and another.

    1 Month = 4 Weeks (44 Days)

    1 Week = 11 Days

    1 Day = 25 hrs. (Crest {1<sup>st</sup>}Dawn ¡ú Cardinal {2<sup>nd</sup>}Dusk)

    1 Hour = 60 min.

    1 Min. = 60 sec.

    Times of Day:

    Myltier = Crest ¡ú Cardinal Dawn

    Midtier = Crest ¡ú Cardinal Noon

    Mythtier = Crest ¡ú Cardinal Dusk

    Days of the Week: Muundan, Tilvaan, Abahos, Kuulfa, Shulva, Saliik, Narsiic, Fyrlast, Hursek, Darsyrn

    Points of the Year:

    Aerion Conjunction = The day when Aerion covers Iradyl.

    Saviem = First part of the year when both suns are visible in the sky.

    Saviem Equinox = The first yearly conjunction of the solar spheres. (Believed to be the divine conception / reincarnation of Savion.)

    Eraniem = Second part of the calendar year wherein both suns are visible. (Held as the initial conception / reincarnation of Erandis.)

    Eraniem Equinox = The second yearly solar conjunction. (Believed to have conceived Erandis.)

    Iradylian Conjunction = The day when Iradyl eclipses Aerion.

    Major Cosmological Events:

    Odinfer eclipse = an event where 1 of the moons covers 1 of the suns (occurs approx. every 5,482 years)

    Heimdalfer eclipse = an event where the suns and moons eclipse separately (occurs approx. every 14,034 years)

    Savienth = The day when Savion eclipses Erandis. (Occurs approx. every 3.5 solar years.)

    Erandieth = The day when Erandis eclipses Savion. (Occurs approx. every 3.6 solar years.)

    Aeriolus = an event where both suns are covered by one moon (occurs approx. every 33,211 years)

    Iralious = an event where all four celestial bodies align (occurs approx. every 152,001 years)

    Aphelion Solstice = the day when solar Iradyl overtakes AerionThe narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    Perihelion Solstice = the day when solar Aerion first overtakes Iradyl

    Major Holidays:

    Heipfynger¡¯s Day: ¡°The Day of the First Hunt.¡± A carnal celebration of all that it is to be a carnivore. (specifically, historically, a Canine) Traditionally celebrated on the Perihelion Solstice, although can be celebrated on either of the two Solar Unions. A night of fasting (which in modern practice means eating nothing but grains, berries and honey) and meditation. Followed by up to a week of nonstop feasting, drinking and fighting.

    Lothberru: ¡°The Day of Black Skies.¡± The first sign/inciting incident of Ragnar?k.

    Lalitha¡¯s Day: Essentially Heipfynger¡¯s, but with less violence (ideally) and more fornication.

    Seasons:

    Spring/ Enoch, Mensyiic, Simpatu, Sepulca

    Aphelion Solstice

    Summer/ Sepulca, Laluluumbri, Lumanastan, Lumbasta

    Perihelion Solstice

    Autumn/ Silvest, Survana, Syrannya, Sirekest

    Winter/ Sirekest, Valalyyk, Valahost, Viramont

    Distance/Length (Sailing Form):

    1BC (Barycenter Coefficient) = Distance of Solar Separation ¨C 13,711,043.83 Leagues (54,844,175.32 Pryd)

    1 League (Leg) = 4 Pryd

    1 Parayard (Canter) = 425 yd (1,760 ft)

    1 Foot (Step) = 10 inches

    1 Inch (Stub) = 100 Parfeet (0.1 Foot)

    1 Parfoot (Nail) = 100 Gnots (0.01 Inch)

    1 Gnot (Note) = 100 Thou (0.01 Nail)

    1 Thou (Teeth) = 100 Microns (0.0000000001 Foot)

    1 Micron (Mic) = 100 Planks

    1 Plank = Smallest Practical Unit of Measure (0.000000000001 Feet)

    Cardinal Directions:

    Zenith(ir) (Top)

    Nadir(n) (Bottom)

    Apheler(n) (Right)

    Penir(n) (Left)

    Eras / Ages:

    Before Times = Prehistoric/Preform Era: Mystic Age/ Age of Mist/Mystery (Pre First Divide) (?<20 mil PSA (Pre Standard Age))

    1<sup>st</sup> ¡°Great Divide¡± (Divides 1-2) Goliath Era: Age of Rebirth (?20 mil¨C?40k PSA)

    2<sup>nd</sup> (Divides 2-3) Paleo Era: Age of Ancients (?40k¨C?30k PSA)

    3<sup>rd</sup> (Divides 3-4) Equestrian Era: The Age of Valor (?30k-?22k PSA)

    4<sup>th</sup> (Divides 4-5) Felenist Era: Age of Discovery (?22k - ?16k PSA)

    5<sup>th</sup> (Divides 5-6) Reticent Era: Age of Enlightenment (?16k-7,065 PSA)

    6<sup>th</sup> (Divides 6-7) Academic Era: Age of Expression (7,066-2,425 PSA)

    7<sup>th</sup> (Divide 7-Post) Industrial Era: Age of Progress (2,424-1775 SA)

    The Gods (Divines):

    Iradyl: ¡°Mother of All.¡± Goddess of fertility and regeneration.

    Aerion: ¡°Father Justice.¡± God of creation and dissemination. Lord of law and karma.

    Iralith: ¡°Mistress Death.¡± Goddess of night and hunters.

    Savion: ¡°Demiurge¡± God of chaos, anarchy, tyranny, cruelty and destructive change.

    Erandis: ¡°The Good Son¡± God of mercy, forgiveness, order and fruition.

    Angels / Daemons:

    Aevon(Abaddon): ¡°Antonsym¡± God of fate, learning and harmony.

    Kaedel: ¡°Tristan¡± God of morality and spirit.

    Saedel: ¡°Light Bringer¡± God of wisdom, knowledge and progress.

    Kruko: ¡°The Great Scourge¡± God of strife and pestilence.

    Bora: ¡°The Black Master¡± God of calamity and war.

    Dolsenec(Dracul): ¡°Dinonaga¡± God of strength, courage and logic.

    Lalitha: ¡°Princess of Roses¡± Goddess of love, romance, fortune and will.

    Materials:

    Magnolsis (Sundust): Crystalized ore found in pockets under certain landmasses known as the Harvest Lands.

    Magnol: High density Abyssal clouds containing abnormally high concentrations of dissolved Sundust particles. Typically found in terrestrial pockets underneath Continents. Believed to be responsible for the creation of many an inland mountain and gorge.

    Heavy Water (Quicksilver): Main waste biproduct of Magnolsis processing and reaction. Aka the ¡°primal seed bed¡±. The basis of most alchemical processes and the primary ingredient in nearly all magickal elixirs, potions and rituals.

    Nexel Pellets(Nexii): Alchemically processed nexels (usually bonded with crystal Magnolsis) used most commonly as small-arm ammunition, larger cannon shots are known to use fused clusters as incendiary explosives or a shaped nexel blasting cap for armor penetration.

    Necrovier: Crystalized Oronic shards. Found only in esoteric realms. Siphons of the will. Known to be anathematic to foreign elements of the psyche. Used to power magickal artifacts, enhance certain spell effects and stabilize more complex rituals.

    Orons: The fundamental particles of magick.

    Creatures(Non/Semi-Sapient):

    Nexels: Silicon based mollusks native to the Abyssal undercurrents of Erandis. For their first half of life the creatures are in a nomadic state. Wherein their memories are chemosynthetically codified in shards of magenta or rarely lapis crystals. Which are then harvested by specialty mining guilds during the creatures¡¯ senior ¡°resting¡± stage. During which they breed and finally nest during their waning years in the near absolute zero wastes of the Erandian subaureole.

    Wyntyrdyr: ¡°The Great Prince of the Wild¡±

    Major World Governments (Currencies):

    Iradylic Empire (Dyner): A patriarchal, xenophile system ruled by a lone male Lion Emperor and his 16 Vassal Court (8 under the E. himself, 8 Under the Lord Chamberlain) known as the Arbistys. Their primary export is guns and currency.

    Iralith (Fenni): A Feline clan system ordered under a hereditary Tiger monarchy, with the 9 other Pantheran Houses(Pillars) ordered by rank according to occupational status. (Fleet Masters, Guild Masters, Ecclesiarchy, etc.) Their claim to power is a delicately balanced system of rotating mercenary companies who go off, fight in foreign wars, then return and impart their skills and wisdom to a new generation of homeborn troops.

    Menta (Dyner): On parchment a constitutional republic. In practice a technocratic oligarchy owned and run by ruthless slave-driving cartels of rich moguls, tycoons, banks, merchants, guilds, etc. Their main export is fuel, on account of their sitting on top of one of the largest and deepest Harvest Spots on the planet.

    Amurza (Gold/Silver/Slaves): See Menta, but with more guns, religion and less pomp.

    Famous Symbols:

    Ouroboros: ¡°The Last God¡± The great serpent devouring itself. A symbol almost as ancient as the concepts of birth and death themselves. In a vision supposedly granted the ¡°Allseer¡± Nikodontus more than ten generations before he met Sir Francis, a great serpent, a Dragon, indeed a god by any other title, so consumed by lust and greed and envy that it ate the entire planet in a single day. Then, not satisfied, it began devouring its own tail as well.

    Wyntyrdyr: ¡°Skullosaurus¡± The roaring horned skull of the formidable Wyntyrdyr. Most commonly associated with the Black Flag, and with good reason.  Flouted by Pyrates, pirates, revolutionaries and a host of other freelance enterprises throughout recent Ages as a symbol of their potent discontent for the status quo.

    Antimony: Sometimes called the ¡°Wolf¡¯s Head¡±, the ¡°Wolf¡¯s Hook¡± or the ¡°Gray Wolf¡±. Though no beast knows for certain why. An ancient alchemical symbol for change and a magickal rune symbolizing great mystery. Also familiar to sagistic cults (such as the Masons, Templars and Myltierians) as the eternal symbol for abstraction and the fickle nature of all being.

    The Twin Fires: ¡°The Great Eyes¡± At the peak of the Imperial Capital, a pair of spectacular lighthouses bearing eternal torches whose flames are the size of barges burn in eternal vigil. Meant as a visual shorthand for the Emperor¡¯s all sight, it has come also under reverence as the absolute symbol of Imperial dominion over both the social order and supremacy over natural limitations.