68. Of arrivals, realisation and a little bit of Pete

Cassandra Pendragon

“I… I don’t… Give me a moment,” Erya said, talking more to herself than us. The image started to shift, rotating through multiple viewpoint fast enough to make the scenes hazy. It finally settled on a perspective that showed the crater and its surroundings to the north. The damned pirates had retreated, their ships were quite a distance away from the volcano and I could barely discern the movements of the crew on board. What I could see quite clearly was an intimidating warrior, clad in black scale armour that stood at the helm of the larger ship, a throng of people surrounded him in a respectful distance. Just looking at him again made my heart beat rise and I had to suppress the urge to run, to fly. Galathon had arrived.

“What are they doing?” I whispered.

“More importantly, can you blast them out of the sky?” Barzuk asked Erya pragmatically. She shook her head and her flowing hair danced across her back.

“No, they are too far away. They might appear close but I’d say they are more than 10 kilometres away from us. I can’t even listen in, we are quite lucky we can even see them.” She moved her fingers in a complicated series of gestures and a faint reddish line streaked across the image, somewhere in the middle between the volcano and the ships. “That’s the limit of most of the enchantments,” Erya explained. “As soon as they cross over I can start messing with them but if they remain out of reach… they don’t seem to be in a hurry, we should have some time.” She turned away from the curtain of magma but didn’t cancel her spell. “Maybe it’d be for the best if you could tell me what’s going on with a little more detail than: we are hunted by a big bad dragon and en evil wizard.” Again Viyara’s consciousness brushed against mine and linked us together. Her musical voice together with Erya’s presence, which felt like a part of nature, soothed the anxiety that Galathon’s sight had instilled in me. Even the indiscernible grumbling from Barzuk made me feel a little better. This time around I wouldn’t have to face him alone.

“You already know my family has been slaughtered by a Black, the one you see on the ship.” Viyara’s head jerked towards the curtain of magma. “Or do you? My father didn’t use you, now that I come to think of it. Did he speak to you before the end?”

“No, that’s one of the reasons I decided to help you. During the festivities my magic was working just fine and suddenly I lost contact with everything. My prison sealed before I felt the death of my slaver. Didn’t you realise the enchantments had ceased to work?”

“They hadn’t. Everything was just as always until… How is it even possible? Who could seal you other than my father? And kept the spells running on top of it without your help?”

“I fear you’re underestimating the emperor’s power,” I said, worrying if I had made the same mistake. From what Erya had said, he had been involved in her family’s death from the beginning, preventing the fey from helping the dragons and probably also hiding Galathon from her and the others until it had been too late. The more I heard, the more I came to realise he had already sunk his claws deep into the southern parts of our continent, subjugating pirates and dealing with dragons. How? When? My tails curled up when I asked myself a simple question: How had we come to believe that Mordred had been the only or even the first one to set foot on the cursed island? Had there been more? And if so, how many? By the Great Fox, what if his plans on Boseiju had only been a small part of what he was trying to accomplish? Curse his name, I had been so naive! Divide et impere, it goes both ways, you never put all your eggs in one basket.

“Maybe I should start with telling Erya how we came to meet on an airship in the middle of nowhere…” I quickly went over my story, emphasising the feats of magic I had seen the emperor accomplish and his connection to the local pirates. “… considering what you just told us I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume the emperor helped Galathon in his attack. I assume he provided the dragon with artefacts to seal you off and keep the spells running as to not alarm your family, Viyara. In exchange he was promised the hoard, or, more accurately, you, Erya. I’d wager one of my tails that the ruby I’m sitting on is the most enchanted artefact around and it stands to reason he’s after it. Don’t ask me why he wants it, maybe it’s just greed, maybe he can use you and your realm to construct another pathway to his citadel or maybe it’s for an entirely different reason but it doesn’t matter right now anyways.” Viyara and Erya were silent, incoherent thoughts filled with worry brushed against my mind and an acidic smell, like lemons, overlaid Erya’s presence.

“Damn straight, what matters is how we can blast them before they can accomplish whatever they’re trying to do and for that we need to know what they’re planning.” If he hadn’t been such a sourpuss I would have really liked Barzuk. As it was he was just a little too … orcish with his broody stretches of silence. He gestured towards the image.

“Can you get us a little closer? I can lip read, if I see their mouths I might be able to figure out what’s going on.” Erya’s presence drew away while she shrugged: “I’ll see what I can do. Do you even know what language their are talking in?”

“The Trade Tongue,” Viyara replied, “at least that’s what they used when they caught me.” Most races and even kingdoms had their own languages, derived form what they had spoken before the cataclysm. Since air ships had made trade possible, a common tongue had developed that most people could speak at least to a certain degree. We had been conversing in the same language, when we weren’t talking mind to mind, as I neither spoke orc nor draconian and had no idea what the native tongue of the fey could possibly be. I spoke the language of the kitsune, elvish and the Trade Tongue fluently and I had picked up some chunks of dwarvish here and there. My abstract knowledge helped a lot but I simply hadn’t had the need nor the time to learn more.

“So they’re probably from different islands,” Barzuk mused. “Interesting, I wonder if some of them might have been pressed into service. Lady Viyara, could your telepathy reach one of them?”

Lucky Pete

Right now I hated my life. Fly with us, they had said, you’ll see the world, they had said. Riches, women, freedom, just sign on the dotted line, they had said. By all the gods, I had been an idiot.

At first the life of a pirate had been a dream come true, especially for a hopeless street rat in the gutters of Free Land. As much food as I wanted and a place to sleep were more than I had thought possible. Sure the occasional killing and pillaging had been unpleasant but I had had to knife another child at the tender age of 5, fighting over bread crumbs so I hadn’t minded overly much. Do or die was the motto I lived by. But I hadn’t signed up for the weird shit that was going on now. The last two years had been one fucked up mess after the other. Ever since Captain Sinclair had returned from the last council, his pockets stuffed with gold and shimmering new artefacts around his wrists we had started kidnapping children, torching villages and carrying strange acolytes on board with pale skin and red markings all over their bodies. Well, it hadn’t been rosy but I would have managed but then we had sailed so far up shit creek that I hadn’t even known where to look for land. A couple of days ago the bosun had collected me from a well earned trip through the harbour pubs in Free Land, yammering on about an important run we had to undertake. I had already known how hard the dude could hit so I hadn’t dawdle and followed after him.

A few hours later we had been on our way to an island none of us had ever heard about. Nothing new there, the weird acolytes often guided us to strange places. We had arrived at a smoking volcano and I had nearly sullied my pants when I had seen the ravaged carcass of a huge golden dragon far below us. Cries of wonder had issued from the crew but the Captain had told us that it wasn’t any of our concern and had underlined his words with a straight jab into the face of the first one who had dared to speak up. We hurried on into the volcano’s crater where two other ships had already been waiting. The Queen Anne’s Revenge under Captain Teach was well known and feared, the atrocities committed by her crew legendary amongst the pirates. The other ship was a bit of a mystery but I had seen the blood red sails before, mostly when we had been about to do something particularly distasteful. Our Captain had even sometimes received orders from the peacock that commanded her.

A few message had been exchanged between our acolytes and those that had supposedly been on board of the other ships and all of them had gathered on the deck of the unnamed ship. I hadn’t had any ideas what they had been up to but whatever it had been, they had been rudely interrupted when another dragon, much smaller and of a different shape but with the same golden hue to its scales had neatly flown into the crater.

The next few minutes had been pure chaos while we struggled to follow a barrage of orders. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes of the spectacle when massive harpoons had been launched to capture the creature which had earned me quite a few sharp slaps from the bosun. Her cries, I had been pretty sure it had been a female, had made me shiver and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking: what the fuck have I gotten into now? She had been hauled on deck, some form of magic dancing along her body. I had truly felt sorry for her, captured above the corpse of what I had assumed must be a relative, but that’s life. When you’re down it’s going to punch you one more time for good measure. And it had struck again not minute later.

While greedy smiles had formed on my comrade’s faces in anticipation of the bounty, lightning had flashed underneath the blood red sails. A figure had appeared, I hadn’t been able to see her face across the distance but the torrents of silvery blue energy that played around her form and slithered across the ship had been more than remarkable. Combined with the halo of silvery tails I had thought a goddess had descended to punish us mortals for our transgression and when the dragon had broken loose from her chains the next moment and the glowing apparition had neatly beheaded the Captain and another one of the officers I had felt certain that judgement had arrived. I wasn’t the most religious guy, honestly, there were so many to chose form, how would you know which one was right? The one with greatest benefits? The one you were born in? But the display on the other ship had had me trembling in my boots. Dragons and winged creatures of energy, I had been so far out of my depth that I had almost tumbled over the railing when a thunderous explosion had torn the other ship apart.

Hot air had flown over us, pushing us back and small debris had peppered the deck, slicing our sails and hurting quite a few of the crew. Luckily I had come away unscathed, huddled against the railing as I had been. Half dazed I had seen a bright light appear over the crater’s edge and a musical voice laced with loathing and anger had reached me loud and clear: “Fly, you fools!” Then she had disappeared again.

Screams, curses and hectic activity had filled the next minutes. No one had even thought about trying to dive deeper into the volcano to look for survivors. There had simply been no way for anyone to live through a face dive into a crater and honestly, most of us hadn’t given two pence for the lives of those onboard. Good riddance, especially for the acolytes, as far as I had been concerned. We had put out the small fires that had started to eat away at our rigging and the Captains Teach and Sinclair had been shouting across the distance, the magical means of communications had probably been burned to ash with the acolytes. The golden dragon had long since been gone and I had started to hope that we’d just turn back with a bloody nose but otherwise intact when the quarter moon that had risen in the east suddenly turned dark.

A buzzing that had been heard even above the hisses of gas from below and the moaning of our ships had become louder and louder until a swarm of the ugliest bugs I had ever seen had come flying into the crater. A putrid stench had emanated form the cloud of whistling wings and squirming legs and the chill of death had crept across our bones. It had felt like a devil incarnate had come for us. Most of the crew had dropped to their knees, eyes rolling madly and Egbert and Drux had even taken the easy way out and had hurled themselves over board, their screams slowly fading into oblivion. A mad laughter had thundered through the volcano and the swarm had stilled, darkness engulfing the insects one by one. It had disappeared after a moment to reveal a nightmare.

Black scales, horns, a tail, wings and even his glowing weapon had paled in comparison to the hideous mask that had been staring down on us. A closed helmet formed like a dragon couldn’t hide the malice of the slitted eyes that glared down on us hungrily. In all it’s terrifying glory the warrior landed on our ship with a heavy thump and a cold, cruel voice rang out:

“I saw what happened and I have need of you again. Turn this ship around and leave the crater, we have much to do and only little time. Who is in charge of you pitiful lot?”

Now we were over 10 kilometres away from the island, the officers from both ships engaged in conversation with the newcomer while his aura of fear held the crew in its grip. I had overheard that he was a dragon as well by the name of Galathon and the one who had slain the Gold we had seen on the slope. He was asking for the acolytes and when Captain Sinclair told him what had happened to them he howled with rage. His clawed hand shot out, ripping the beating heart right out of the captain’s chest. He squeezed the blood from it while the captain’s body crumbled to the deck, wide eyed but still alive. “What a pity, than I guess I’ll need all of you to compensate for the loss. I need some volunteers. We have to contact the Pirate King. If he wants his ruby, he’ll have to shut down the cursed fey once again. I can already feel her eyes on us, the hatchling has activated some of daddy’s toys. Get me 5 of your people, preferably useless ones.”

It was just enough. Silently I crawled out of sight and hid myself between a mast and a stack of sail cloth. My legs trembled and tears flowed from my eyes. I was supposed to die for this monstrosity? Never! So help me, I knew I had been headed down a gruesome path but that was just too much. I wanted out, I wanted to leave behind all thoughts of dragons and my fear, I wanted to breathe freely again. But I was stuck on an airship in the middle of nowhere, what could I possible do?

A soft touch slithered across my mind and I heard a sweet voice whisper deep in my thoughts: “why do you cry?”