#theme: peacemaker

~•~•~•~

As it turned out, having the security pass of the commanding officer of the entire base opened a lot of doors, of both the literal and the metaphorical variety; and Alithea's seconds, though shadowing the pair closely with guns pointed and ready, were oddly reluctant to give the order to fire when their commander was held hostage with a gun beneath her jaw.

The tricky part was getting into the ship and then sealing it before the soldiers who had suddenly rushed them made it up the ramp, but there again, the swiped pass came in useful. Dareth bobbed it at her demonstratively before tucking it into the cuffed sleeve of his prisoner's jumpsuit. "Will you help me fly this thing?"

"Of course not," Alithea answered immediately.

Dareth nodded, not really expecting any other answer, and shortly had her wrists bound kindly but securely in front of her with a length of spare cabling, the rest of the cord wound around and around her chest to secure her to the co-pilot's seat. Ensconcing himself in the pilot's chair, he began flipping switches and warming up activation sequences and, briefly, activating shields, suddenly stopping the sounds of hammering and prying at the hatch. Alithea glared at him, which he serenely ignored.

"Control, this is Shuttle 9113, requesting permission for takeoff," he said jauntily.

"Don't give it to him!" Alithea shouted in his ear, and he had to admire her acting ability. "Shoot him down!"

"Permission denied," came the flat metallic tones of Flight Control.

"Control, this is Shuttle 9113, reminding you that any aggressive action towards this ship will result in aggressive action towards your commander," he chipped in cheerfully. "I will be taking off, with or without permission, and shooting me down will also kill your commanding officer, which is probably a higher count of treason than merely letting one measly prisoner escape."

While they debated the merits of this, Dareth engaged the engines and lifted off. The bay doors had begun to grind closed, but the massive sheets of metal - larger, if laid down flat, than some neighborhoods from Before - were not quick, and the agile little shuttle scooted between them with hundreds of yards to spare.

"In fine time-honored tradition, aren't you supposed to shove me back at the people whose cooperation you have been leveraging now?" Alithea asked, more sarcastically than grammatically.

He shot her a swift grin over his shoulder as they lifted towards the thinning blue. "In a tradition even older than that, I'm taking you as spoils of war," he retorted. Stars, she was lovely when she was on the fight. "Stars, you're lovely."

Alithea lifted her chin, small and pointed and obstinate. "Flattery will get you nowhere."

"We'll see about that," Dareth muttered, facing forward again and pressing buttons. The blue of the atmosphere around them was thinning and darkening, pinpricks of light becoming visible beyond. The back of the ship hummed as the photon engines came to life.

Sensors screamed red, jet fighters approaching their tail rapidly. Dareth glanced at the readouts and swore and twisted into a corkscrew that made the metal of their ship groan in a protest against competing gravity. Alithea clutched the front of the seat, the only thing she could reach with her bound hands. "Were you a fighter pilot on Lora?" she yelled.

"Barely passed the obligatory tests!" he tossed back, and wrestled the yoke into a loop-the-loop. The more agile fighters stuck to him like roaches on a glue trap, but the photon engines were ready now, and he had been preparing for this day for years. His fingers danced across the coordinates, and he flipped the ignition for the engines. "Let's go bring peace to our little corner of the galaxy!"

And yet Gavin found his gaze straying to the head of the enormous green dragon. He could see one eye, half-open and staring blankly at nothing. Just minutes ago, those eyes had been flung wide open, filled with fear. Desperate terror. Furious rage. It wasn't all that different from the eyes of cornered animals on the hunt...and yet....

“So how do you feel, Sir Gavin?” A hearty voice and a hand clapped loudly on his shoulder broke Gavin out of his thoughts. Looking up, he saw Sir Renwick examining him with a shrewd eye and a sympathetic smile. “You are now a dragon slayer!”

Gavin swallowed, finding himself unable to look his captain in the eye. “I didn't...my sword barely touched the dragon.”

“Ah, true.” Sir Renwick put his hands on his hips, surveying the dead dragon with satisfaction like it was a field they'd just tilled with their own hands. “But your distractions with its tail were vital to our success. Sir Sigmund and I could never have driven home the killing blows if we'd had to worry about being clobbered with that.” He pointed at the cluster of deadly spikes at the end of the dragon's tail lying a few feet away. One had scraped across Gavin's breastplate and left a gouge in it that he doubted any amount of buffing would get rid of.

Looking back at Gavin's face, Sir Renwick's expression sobered. “You showed true bravery today, Sir Gavin.” He put a hand on the younger man's shoulder again, shaking him slightly. “I assigned you to the position I did, not because I didn't think you could handle the greater responsibility, but because I knew you would not let me down. And you have not. You should be proud of what you've done this day.”

Gavin nodded. He tried to smile, but his muscles didn't seem to want to obey him.

“Also,” Sir Renwick added in an undertone, glancing around to be sure no one was eavesdropping, “there is no shame in feeling a bit unsteady after your first dragon. I keeled over in a dead faint after mine. But if you want to get sick in privacy, I might suggest the cave.” He nodded to the den from which the dragon had emerged. “The men will be a while collecting trophies anyway.”

With another bracing clap on the shoulder, Sir Renwick turned and headed over to where a couple of the other knights seemed to be trying to remove the dragon's huge head. Several others were sawing away at talons or scraping off the enormous green scales. Sir Jarold seemed to be trying to catch some of the blood still dripping from the dragon's wounds in a flask. Dragon blood was worth twice its weight in gold at an apothecary.

It was the same as when they felled a boar or hunted down a pack of wolves. They would skin the animal, eat its meat, and sell its pelt. So why did his fellow knights' actions suddenly feel like a violation?

Gavin followed Sir Renwick's advice and trudged into the cave, though he didn't exactly feel sick or faint. He just couldn't stop trembling. And he couldn't get the sight of that mighty beast out of his mind—rearing up on hind legs, wings stretching out to either side, roaring and snarling with eyes so full of fear....

He sighed, shaking his head as he wandered farther into the cave, trailing a hand on the rough wall. What was wrong with him? It must just be the nerves. Never mind that he had been in danger countless times, even killed a man when they'd surprised a camp of brigands who'd been waylaying travelers. But he supposed it made sense that a dragon would be on a completely different level.

Gavin suddenly realized he'd turned a bend in the passage and could no longer see the cave mouth. He halted, intending to turn back...but then he realized the cave wasn't completely dark as it should have been around the bend of a rock wall. Farther in, a dim shaft of light filtered down from some opening high above, gently illuminating the inmost chamber.

Something glittered on the cave floor, casting prismatic reflections on the walls. There were all those tales of dragons sleeping upon a bed of treasure, hoarding it for years until an intrepid adventurer stumbled upon it and made his fortune. Never mind that Sir Renwick had laughed and told him that no dragon he'd ever faced possessed so much as a single golden coin—for what use could such riches be to a senseless brute?

Nevertheless, Gavin continued into the inmost chamber to investigate. Several bones lay in the corner, a testament to the dragon's meals, but much fewer than Gavin would have expected from the den of a ferocious predator. And the stench of death and decay was absent from the cave, as if the dragon routinely cleaned its living area. A pile of dead leaves and branches lay against the far wall, with a depression in the middle like an enormous nest.

And there, safely ensconced within the space where the dragon must have lain to sleep, sat an enormous egg. Almost as big as Gavin's head, it lay in a puddle of light from the hole in the ceiling. And this egg wasn't white or brown like any egg Gavin had ever seen, nor was it blue like a robin's egg. This egg glimmered a vibrant purple, like a single enormous amethyst.

Sinking to his knees in the nest of soft leaves, Gavin pulled off one of his gauntlets and reached out a trembling hand. His fingers brushed the smooth shell, warm to the touch in the sunlight. Upon closer inspection, he saw faint pinkish striations in the purple shell, almost like veins in a stone.

Then, as his palm caressed the smooth curve of the egg, something moved inside.

Gavin froze. There it came again, a gentle nudge on the other side of the thick shell.

Suddenly everything made sense. The fear in the dragon's eyes, the ferocity of its battle against them even though the nearby villagers said it would only raid their flocks under cover of night, and fled immediately as soon as it saw them. It—she—hadn't merely been fighting for her life. She had been protecting her child.

Gavin knew what he ought to do. What Sir Renwick would no doubt order, if he knew what was in here. They couldn't risk another dragon growing up to terrorize the countryside again. And leaving it to die alone on the mountainside would be cruel. It wasn't a fate they would deal out even if this were a wolf cub.

While his left hand fell to the hilt of his sword, Gavin's right hand still rested on the dragon egg, so warm he could almost believe it was living flesh. Within the safety of the eggshell, there was living flesh. A small version of the enormous beast they'd just slain, so small it could fit into his arms. Would it have scales as green as its mother? Or would they be the same lovely purple as this egg?

It would be so easy to put an end to this dragon. Crush the shell, let its contents bleed across the floor. Then he could truly call himself a dragon slayer. He would rid the world of another menace to humanity. Bring the days of peace closer, as Sir Renwick had said.

Slowly, he drew his hand back and pushed himself to his feet again. He stared down at the egg. So beautiful, so helpless. So full of life.

Gavin squeezed his eyes shut and let out a sigh, realizing he'd already chosen his path. Making the sign of the Eagle on his forehead, he muttered, “Great Eagle shade me.”

Then he gingerly took the egg in his hand and, after a moment's thought, placed it gently in his helmet that he still carried with him. Pulling off his other gauntlet, he carefully laid them over the top, hoping to hide the glimmer of the shell somewhat from prying eyes. Maybe the others would still be busy about the dragon's corpse, and he could wrap a blanket around the egg before anyone thought to look for him again.

Strange. When he'd been facing down the mother dragon, intending to take her life, he'd been shaking in his boots. Now that his mission was to preserve life, he found himself incredibly calm.

Maybe that meant this was the right thing to do.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Glaive trudged up the mountainside, carrying the basin of dishes he'd just washed in the river in one hand and a bucket of fresh water in the other. His feet followed the path they now knew by heart, which had probably first been beaten down by deer, or perhaps foxes.

Neither one came anywhere near anymore. Not when two members from the top of the food chain had taken up residence here.

When Glaive stepped over the moss-covered log he'd started to think of as the front gate, he caught sight of the deadly predator who'd scared off all but the smallest and swiftest of rodents.

Gyvael lay on her back, leathery wings sprawled to either side, long tail twitching, while she batted with her claws at a large orange butterfly. It didn't seem to mind, dipping and dodging between her claws as if they weren't there, then descending to perch delicately on the tip of Gyvael's snout.

Glaive paused for a moment, smiling fondly at the sight of his dragon going cross-eyed as she tried to keep the butterfly in view. Gyvael's scales glittered in the sunlight like a pile of amethysts, a treasure trove just lying in the grass as if someone had carelessly dropped it there.

With a trill of delight, Gyvael wriggled about on the ground. “It tickles!”

The butterfly fluttered away, and Gyvael tried to leap up and catch it again. Her wings flapped wildly, but she only rose a foot above the ground before she dropped back to earth again with a disappointed sigh. She watched the butterfly zip out of sight with a longing that Glaive had begun to notice more and more with every passing day. She wanted to take to the skies herself. It was where she was meant to be.

The smile slipped from Glaive's lips as he set down his burdens just inside the mouth of the cave they called home. She still had much growing to do before her wings would be strong enough to carry her weight...but she was growing so fast. Already, as she loped up to meet him at the fire pit, her head came up to his shoulder. Soon, she would be taller than him. Bigger than him. Soon, it would be easier for her to protect him than the other way around.

Gyvael greeted him in her usual fashion of butting her head under his hand so he could run it over her skull and down her neck like petting a cat, even though now she had to bend her long, sinuous neck much farther down than those early days when she was fresh out of her egg and could fit in the crook of his arm. She looked up at him with sharp amber eyes, her pupils mere slits in the bright sunlight.

Immediately, Gyvael stilled, resting her chin on Glaive's chest as she gazed into his eyes. “What is it? You look...sad.”

Glaive grunted, but couldn't keep a small smirk from the corner of his mouth. “Growing too perceptive, you are.” He tapped the tip of her snout. She crossed her eyes in response.

Stepping around one huge, leathery wing, Glaive strode over to the fire pit and sat down on his usual stump, staring into the pile of white ash from the morning's fire. Gyvael flumped down next to him, settling into the depression she'd made in the ground from many days and nights of sitting right here to eat her meals. Glaive had given up long ago on reminding her there was an entire other side of the fire she could fill, rather than sitting right next to him every time.

Gyvael rested her chin on his knee, looking up at him expectantly. “Are you going to tell me a story, Glaive? But it isn't bedtime.”

He reached up to pat her on the head, then thought better of it and let his hand fall again. Clearing his throat, he looked away—at the ashes, at the sky, at the boring rock wall, anywhere but at those big, adoring eyes. “Yes. I have a story to tell...but I'm afraid you won't like it.”

Gyvael shifted to a more comfortable position, resting her head on his foot instead. “It's true,” she said thoughtfully. “Some of your stories aren't very nice—like the one about the scorpion and the frog. But I always learn something from them.”

Glaive swallowed painfully. He wished she would never learn what she was about to. “This is a story I've known for a long time I needed to tell you,” he said, licking lips suddenly gone dry. “I told myself I would wait until you were old enough, until you were ready...but now I think you have been ready for a good long while, and really I've been waiting until I was ready. But I never will be. I can see that now, so I think I need to simply tell you.”

“You should, because you're not making much sense like this.” Her voice carried the dry humor he'd grown to love so much from her, but she just gazed at the fire pit, like she usually did after begging him for a story after dinner. He couldn't tell what she thought of his stumbling attempts at an introduction.

He drew a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then began. “I've told you how I found your egg in a cave, haven't I? How your mother was not there, and so I took you home, where I hoped to hatch you and raise you in safety.”

“Yes,” Gyvael murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.

Glaive clasped his hands together to keep them from trembling. “I...did not tell you the entire story of that day. I didn't simply stumble across the cave while wandering about. I was there...because of your mother.”

He told her everything, the ugly words spilling out like blood from a wound. She already knew he'd been a knight before he'd been forced to flee for both of their lives. She knew the knights would be called to protect the defenseless from those who wished them harm. But he'd never told her that one such cause of harm had been her mother.

He talked of the journey to Grenmoor, the frightened farmers who spoke of a great shadow in the night that sent their animals into a terrified frenzy. Sheep and cattle stolen from the fields. The terror clouding everyone in that village, wondering when the dragon would grow tired of mutton and eat one of their children instead.

Glaive told her everything of how the battle had unfolded. Though he spared her some of the more gruesome details, such as the head now mounted on Sir Renwick's wall, he didn't hold back anything of his own part, how he'd harried the dragon and distracted her just enough so the others could strike the killing blows. So they could cut her down where she stood, desperately defending her unhatched child.

Finally, he reached the part where he'd hidden her egg and carried it all the way back home to hatch in safety. Gyvael knew the rest, how Glaive had tried to keep her secret, until inevitably they were found out and had to flee for their lives. How long ago it all seemed, though they'd barely been in this rough home of theirs for a mere six months.

“I did not strike your mother down with my own hands,” Glaive finished heavily. “But without me, the man who did so may not have succeeded. Had I not been there...perhaps your mother would be alive today.”

He couldn't bear to look down at her. He didn't know which he dreaded to see more: anger at him for what he'd done, or the aching sadness of the mother she would never meet. Every now and again, she would mention her mother, wonder where she was, cautiously hope that one day their paths might cross and she could get some answers.

Now she had the answers. But what would she do with them?

Many long minutes passed, the air weighing heavier with each one. It seemed the birds had forgotten to sing and the insects to buzz, as if all nature waited with bated breath for the verdict.

Finally, Gyvael pushed herself to her feet. She moved slowly, as if with great effort. “I...would like to be alone,” she murmured. “Please don't follow me.”

She trudged off into the trees, head hanging low. Glaive watched her go. Even her scales looked dull in the sunlight, the purple of a bruise rather than an amethyst.

Glaive dropped his head into his hands. He remained sitting by the dead fire for a long time.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The night held no rest for him. Glaive lay on his blankets, staring out into the moonless night and listening to the crickets. The absence of a large, warm mass lying next to him and breathing loudly made it surprisingly impossible to sleep.

Up before the dawn, Glaive set about his usual routine of lighting a fire to ward off the chill of the mountain air. He'd had nothing to eat since breakfast the day before, but he still didn't think he could force anything down. He didn't even put his little kettle on the fire to make the herbal tea he'd developed a taste for, though Gyvael always wrinkled her nose and said it smelled like skunk.

As if the thought of her summoned her presence, the bushes rustled nearby, and out stepped Gyvael. Moving slowly with drooping head and wings, she looked as though the night had been just as rough for her as it had been for him. It wasn't as easy to find signs of tears on a dragon's face as it would have been on a human, but he'd seen her cry plenty of times before, and he could read the signs now.

She looked up at him, and he hastily dropped his gaze. He didn't think he could stand to see hatred or fear in her beautiful amber eyes. Or even worse...cold indifference.

On impulse, Glaive reached over and grabbed the sword he still kept by his side at all times out of habit, though it hadn't left its sheath in months. It still slid smoothly out for all that neglect, and glittered in the early morning light as Glaive thrust it point-first into the ground before him. The gesture was unnecessary, with Gyvael's sharp claws, but....

Glaive threw himself to hands and knees on the ground, bowing low before Gyvael with the back of his neck exposed. It was the same position he'd seen several times before in his lord's castle, when a murderer had confessed to his crimes or an official had been caught in some scandal.

“I have wronged you,” he said. “I have taken from you that which can never be restored. I do not ask your forgiveness, for I know there is none for one such as I. Therefore I submit to you, that you may do with me as you wish.”

Words he had heard so seldom before, and such a long time ago, now fell so easily from his lips. Even that seemed to confirm his guilt. He was a murderer just as surely as the man whose execution he had witnessed.

Gyvael stepped closer, her hot breath curling on the back of his neck. Glaive closed his eyes, waiting....

Her head slipped under his chin, nudging it upwards just as she always did with hi hand when she wanted him to pet her. For a wild moment, he wondered if he would feel her sharp teeth crush his throat...but all she did was push him upright, and then leave her head tucked under his chin.

Glaive opened his eyes and saw her wings raised over his head like a great purple tent. Then she began to purr.

Tears sprang to his eyes at the familiar vibrations reverberating through his whole body as she leaned up against him. “You should hate me,” he whispered. “You should...want me dead.”

“Then I would have no one.”

There was such an aching loneliness in her voice, Glaive reached up to lay a hand on her neck before he could think better of it. But she didn't seem to mind.

“Maybe...you are part of the reason my mother's dead,” Gyvael whispered. He could feel a hot, wet spot expanding on his shirt where her tears soaked through. “But you're also the only reason I'm alive. It would've been easier to kill me, but you didn't. I'm not going to kill you for that. What would that solve?”

Glaive drew a deep, shuddering breath, as if suddenly, his lungs could expand again. “I'm sorry,” he gasped out. He realized that was the first time he'd spoken those words since he'd begun his story the day before. Because if he let himself apologize, that would open the door for....

“I forgive you,” Gyvael said.

That soon was only a promise, not yet; now was the warm, worn-out hush of departing summer, and the world sighed with golden weariness, ready to be tucked up peacefully in a pumpkin spice blanket. 

She turned to go inside, joy brimming in her eyes and turning the corners of her mouth up. Summer was done, and she was glad it had been and glad it was going. Nothing could shake Mercy's contentment in that moment. 

She went inside, and left the light behind. The house hung heavy with shadows, the gloom of gathering evening. It was late, though light still clung to the outdoors world, and Mercy was sweetly tired; she moved quietly through the rooms, then cataloguing the tasks of the morrow as she had a glass of water in slow, lazy sips.

Luke entered the kitchen, and the first thing she noticed about her brother was that he was staggering a little, as if drunk or hurt. When he greeted her his words were slightly slurred.

“Are you all right?” she asked, more out of habit than anything else. It was pretty clear that he was not.

“Fine, fine,” said Luke, and laughed with a shade of hysteria. “Mercy, you don’t understand; you can’t understand, not yet.” He got a glass of water too, and drank it in three shaky gulps, as if there was some fear she could not perceive; some dread sitting secret and engorged in his ribcage. Then another, while she watched in increasing wonderment.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m just thirsty.” He grinned small and tight, teeth baring. “Probably worried about my maths test tomorrow.”

“I didn’t know you had one.” Was he even doing maths at uni? How had she missed that?

The grin turned to a grimace and he shook his head like a cat with a fly on its ear. “I don’t. I don’t know why I said that.” His expression twisted into fear, lips drawn down as if he would never smile again. “Mercy, I—I’m sorry, for everything, everything I’ve ever said or done that wasn’t Christlike, I—I’ll do better, if God spare my life. I’m sorry to scare you now—I can see it, you know, I can see you don’t know what’s going on and I swear I don’t know either.” Luke was once again the kid she remembered, two years older and not much wiser, and the fear of the unknown glittered on his beloved face.

She gazed at him. “I love you, and for what it’s worth I forgive you for everything. But Luke, Luke me dear, what are you saying?”

“I’m not—I mean I’m—” He fumbled for words, and every moment the fear in his face became more staring, more blank. “I don’t know who you are,” her brother said at last, and the words dropped like stones into the silence. That was the precise moment at which Mercy realised that the ripples from those stones would continue to wash through her life for a very long moment.

Also the moment at which she realised she had no idea what she ought to do next. She was still, waiting, like an animal afraid of the hunter.

To her relief Mother walked into the kitchen, steps tight with fear and face drawn with it, carrying a heaviness of some kind of communication Mercy both longed for and dreaded. “Mercy,” said her mother in a low, low voice, “you have to ring the police. We’ve got to—”

Luke’s face contorted into an inhuman expression and he lunged at Mercy, reaching for her as if she was prey. She turned and ran, and her mother’s cries rang in her ears as she slammed the door in Luke’s face, locking it with hands that shook so much she could scarcely command them to move. She had locked herself into the bathroom; the only escape route was out there, past Luke, who was screaming something she could not understand.

But she had heard enough to understand what was going on.

He was showing the same symptoms that had been seen in the animal population for years now; some kind of disease nobody had yet classified, which had originated apparently in cats (first seen in a lion at Melbourne Zoo) and had been slowly spreading to other animals.

Two years ago, those same symptoms had begun to be apparent in Nini, the family dog, just before she died of kidney failure. The vet had brushed it off, saying it was just end-stage kidney failure and not that disease, but at the time Mercy had been concerned, and she remembered a scratch Nini had given Luke. But as time passed and Luke showed no sign of any kind of infection, she’d stopped worrying, and eventually forgotten about it.

She heard the front door slam and only then remembered to scramble for her phone, dialing triple zero after about four attempts.

“My brother Luke,” she said, to the operator, “he needs care, I don’t know what sort of care but he needs it, he—he’s diseased, he’s going mad.”

The person on the other end of the call was silent for a moment, then said, “Can you explain his symptoms? What is going on right now?”

“A few minutes ago he was sounding perfectly fine.” Her voice quivered. “He started apologising and looking afraid and not acting like himself, then when Mother suggested calling the police he lunged at me—but you’ve got to understand it was more like—like an animal, not like a human being. Not like Luke. I think he has the disease that makes the animals act irrationally, you know.”

“That’s an animal disease and we have no reason to think it’s jumped across to humans,” was the operator’s response. “Calm down and explain what’s actually going on.”

She managed to, with some superhuman effort, explain what she had seen and heard. They said they’d send an ambulance, and for her to keep talking to him through the door, if she could; once there, they’d assess the situation.

“Luke,” she called, once she was sure the ambulance was on its way. “Luke!”

Crashes, as if he couldn’t quite stabilise himself and was falling into the wall at every step. “Mercy,” he said, but his voice was high and tense. “Mercy! Thank God you’re there. I need—I need you to pray very hard, Mercy. I think I’m going mad. I—” He broke off, then resumed in quite a different tone. “I’m so hungry. Why won’t anybody give me anything? And it’s getting dark. I don’t like the dark. I don’t like the dark. I don’t like the dark. I’m so fearfully hungry. Can’t someone come and give me a blanket? It’s so cold and dark. I’m at the bottom of a hole and I’m never going to get out and I’m scared. Can’t you see them, swinging nearer? I think they’ll fall on my head.” He screamed suddenly and Mercy started so violently she dropped her phone with a clatter.

“Who’s there?” he cried in a thin voice. “Who’s there? I can hear you. Don’t think I can’t hear you whispering and muttering. I think you’re all talking about me and you want me to live and I’m scared. I’m scared. I don’t like the dark. Mercy! Mercy!”

And she was suddenly sure he was not calling for her. As they waited, dusk crept into the house and all around her, like an embrace she could not shake off. Luke muttered, cried out, sobbed and yelled, sometimes aware of her presence and sometimes not. Once he worked his fingers under the door and said quite lucidly, “Mercy, can’t you just hold my hand? It’s so cold. Please.”

She did, and his skin was warm and human and her dear brother. But then he snatched it violently away and began yelling about nothing that made any sense and the world cracked a little more about her again.

If she had not ended up in the corner of the bathroom, arms wrapped around her knees and rocking back and forward with little awareness of her surroundings, Mercy might have seen Luke one last time. As it was, she saw and heard nothing as he was taken away to the emergency department for evaluation. Of course, days later when she might have seen him again, everything had already started to crumble.

“Passenger, too?”

That drew me up. I’d forgotten about him. “No,” I said. “He’s secure in his bunk, anyway.”

Magda’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t ask further questions.

I left her to it. In the back of my mind, I heard Itzal’s voice coolly informing me that I didn’t have the authority to make these decisions. Just the thought of her challenging me in that moment got my hackles up. I’d been flying, in some capacity or another, since I was thirteen. A person doesn’t stay sane for that long in space without developing a deep trust of his own instincts. Something was up, and I was reacting, because that’s how you stayed alive out in the black.

Adei and Itzal’s voices carried down from the cockpit, but as I hauled myself up the ladder, I thought it sounded more like a heated discussion than an outright argument. Still, it was loud enough to cover my approach, and so I got a good sweep of the situation before either noticed me.

My eyes were caught by the alert as soon as I clambered through the doorway. Itzal had thrown it up to hover over her console, but she and Adei had turned away from it and were bent noisily over a different display.

“I told you not to,” Itzal was saying.

Adei laughed mirthlessly. “I know. But I’m not in the habit of leaving people stranded.”

The answering silence from Itzal was so potent that it drew even my attention. Her heavy dark brows were drawn down over her nose and her lips were pale and thin. She held her brother in a vacuum-cold gaze.

Something passed between them quicker than I could read it, and Adei turned away, finally noticing me.

I felt like I’d just witnessed something I shouldn’t have. Clearing my throat, I gestured to the slowly-revolving posting. “This just come up?”

Adei folded his arms and grunted. “It almost doesn't look like him, does it?” he remarked with a rueful grin.

I scanned the details below the head-shot of our passenger. “A pirate,” I dumbly observed, trying and failing to sound casual about this revelation.

Itzal reached across to swipe at the holo, setting it running through a carousel of more wanted postings: a little mob of criminals, some of their portraits clearer than others, all with “read more” at the bottom of their particular list of offenses.

“Guess no one knows they’ve disbanded,” Adei said.

The carousel swung back around to our passenger and I reached out to halt it so I could properly read the contents. “Wonder what sort of falling out could make a pirate crew abandon their captain on a sabotaged ship.”

“Don’t care,” Itzal said flatly. “He’s on our ship now and I’d like him off.”

Adei swept a hand toward the screen they’d been consulting over. I could just see the edge of a message box. “Working on that. Right now I want to be sure the crew is safe.”

“They're secure.” I didn’t bother to hide the smug satisfaction in my voice. Score one for instincts. “Saw Magda downstairs and had her gather the others for a lockdown.” Which reminded me….

Reaching over the top of my copilot’s chair, I brought up a ship schematic, selected the passenger’s cabin, and locked the door. Not that I expected him to drag himself out and cause problems. Last I’d seen, he could barely stand on his own.

A pirate. We had a pirate on our ship. A wanted pirate with some…colorful charges on his record.

And a reward for his seizure.

Wordlessly I pointed to that part of the posting. Adei grunted again. “We have priority clearance once we dock.”

--------------------

B: You aren’t going to give me anything? No his name, his crew, the ship?

H: Can’t, sorry.

I: Point is, we had unwittingly captured a fugitive. A dangerous fugitive, something none of us knew how to deal with at that point. The fact that he was injured and incapable of actually being a threat was pure chance. That derelict could have been an ambush.

H: I swear, if you—

I: And this is why you can’t just charge blindly into a situation you know nothing about.

B: In fairness, that doesn’t seem like a situation most of us are likely to encounter.

I: It happened last month on a pleasure cruise between Ouros and Whitefall. A crew with poor judgment decided to accept a reroute order from an unverified source—

H: He gets it. Don’t be helpful or you could get killed. [pause] Or do be helpful but also carry a really big gun. That always worked for Rune.

B: [laughs awkwardly] One of these days I’ll have him on to hear that story. He’s pretty elusive, though.

I and H together: Good luck with that.

H: It’s probably all his time flying with us that made him so dodgy.

--------------------

Despite the fact that our passenger basically had to be carried off of the ship (by a med team under police escort), Rune made a show of keeping the rest of us clear of the man. He tried to recruit Ji-Hae and me for a sweep of the ship afterward.

“He didn’t plant any explosive devices,” I said for the third time.

Rune hefted his duffle over his shoulder with a doubtful noise. “You don’t know that. He was all over the corridor after we dragged him through. Or his ship could have—”

“That piece of junk?” Tressa protested. “It was barely keeping him alive. No way it left any presents for us.”

I took offense at her description of the derelict, but didn’t argue. At that point I just wanted off the ship and onto semi-solid ground. Hytel wasn’t the most picturesque of stations, but it wasn’t The Tadpole, and that was all that mattered.

We were all jumpy, in our own ways, after our near-miss with the pirate. Magda had left on the heels of our passenger’s police escort, before Adei could confirm a return time. He’d sent her details as he and Ji-Hae had set off after the authorities to give a statement and inquire about the substantial reward.

We hadn’t mentioned the reward to the others. Authorities the universe over had a way of conveniently weaseling out of payouts of any kind. Likely they would object to the condition of their prisoner and reason—rightly—that we hadn’t actually put in any effort to apprehend him, and thus didn’t deserve their monetary gesture of gratitude.

But that was Adei’s problem. Just then, all I wanted was a drink of anything besides recycled water with all of those additives Tressa insisted we needed so our skin didn’t fall off. Confirming our rendezvous with Rune and Tressa, I went in search of a decent hotel.

Adei tracked me down the next morning. “Itzal’s gone,” he said.

I hadn’t even had a chance to invite him to join me over the hotel’s rudimentary breakfast. Taking in his harried expression and the skewed buttons of his shirt, I hazarded, “When the option is bunking shipboard….”

“No, I mean she’s gone. Off the ship, off the crew, packed her things and left.” He made an impatient gesture, and a second later the message he’d flung at me blinked at the corner of my retina display.

I’d read job termination notices with more warmth in them. “She doesn’t say why.”

Adei threw himself into the seat opposite me with a growl. His knees knocked against the underside of the table and I hurriedly stilled my coffee mug. “No,” he snarled. “She never does. Just—” A wave of one hand served to punctuate this brief explanation of his sister’s habits.

“But she said she would stay on for at least a year, or until we went under.”

“And we aren’t going under.”

The next message he sent me was a summary from the local constabulary detailing the conditions of our reward payment.

“Paid in full?”

“Apparently they’ve been tracking him for a long time,” Adei said. “He’s been a problem ever since they announced the Iria line.”

“Bet they’re thrilled his crew is still running.”

Adei’s sour expression softened a little. “Word is this captain is more than happy to help the authorities track down his friends.” He jutted his chin toward me and the message he’d sent. “Meanwhile, that’ll keep us in O2 and fuel for a while. We can get those parts you wanted.”

“We just need a pilot,” I said.

Adei slouched further into his chair and his sulk. “We need Itzal. She’s the best pilot I’ve ever flown with.”

“When she’s not attacking the crew.” I was careful to keep my tone light. Even if I still wasn’t over the whole fork incident, I had to admit that out of all of us, I was the best person Itzal could have stabbed. I was more forgiving than Rune, for starters.

Adei’s lips twisted. “We were working on that.” He’d been fidgeting since he’d arrived, but now he finally met and held my gaze. “You don’t know the half of what she’s been through. More than me. And most of it’s her own fault, and God knows Mattin tried…. Point is, I was starting to think maybe she’d turned a corner.”

“She told me about Mattin,” I said before I could stop myself. “About him being your brother and trying to keep you guys together.”

If this bothered Adei, he didn’t show it. He only nodded wearily.

“It’s messed up, you know,” I added with more caution. “That stuff about you three being all you had.”

“Well, our mom died.”

I waved a hand. “Even so, a mindset like that would screw anyone up.”

Adei chewed over this while I finished my breakfast. He watched me pay the balance and collect my things, and I watched him to see what he planned to do. The way he was gnawing his lower lip to shreds told me he was planning something.

“I know where she is,” he began at last.

I groaned. “Please tell me you didn’t stick a tracker on your sister.”

“No. The range on those things is terrible. But I know her well enough to guess where she’ll go.”

He waited. I waited.

Finally I realized he was asking me to go with him. “She’s your sister,” I argued.

“Yeah, but she trusts you.”

A dozen reasons why this obviously wasn’t true flashed through my mind, chief among them the scars on my hand. I didn’t bring up any of them. Even if Adei and Itzal often acted like total strangers despite their shared parentage, Adei still knew her better than I did.

If he was right, it was kind of flattering.

“Fine. Where do you think she is?”

--------------------

H: We almost didn’t find you in time.

I: And that’s why we always left the crew recovery to Tressa after that.

B: How close were you? To not becoming the crew of The Firebird?

I: About ten minutes. They found me in the boarding queue for a transport heading back out toward Andromache-3. I didn’t want to go back, but it was familiar, so that made it the easiest choice.

--------------------

Seeing my brother pushing his way through a crowd of passengers to get to me was the closest I’d come to crying in years—if we didn’t count Hector pestering me about Mattin.

But at that point, anger still overrode everything else. I was angry about him ignoring my recommendation back with the derelict, angry about him bullying his way into my life and refusing to leave, angry about how much he reminded me of myself. For the better part of a year I’d been safe and life had been predictable, and that had scared me, and I had learned long ago to turn my fear into anger.

Hector ended up pulling us out of line while we were still yelling at each other, and this time he decided not to let us wear ourselves out.

“Would you both just shut up?”

Adei snapped his mouth shut and glared at his friend. I glared at Adei.

“Thank you.” Hector sounded surprised that his interjection had worked. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Now,” and he waved his hands at us as he backed away, “figure this out.”

Adei didn’t speak until we were relatively alone. I waited, arms crossed, watching him shift from foot to foot.

Finally he blurted, “Come back, Itzy.”

He hadn’t used my nickname since we were kids. I had to swallow before I found my voice. “Why?”

“Because you’re the best pilot I’ve ever met. And you’re my sister.”

“That hasn’t meant anything to you in years. Not until Mattin died. If it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t know a thing about me.” My eyes burned and my chest was tight, and all I wanted was to run.

“I know,” Adei said. “And I’m sorry. But you didn’t try, either.”

“And why should I?”

Neither of us had noticed Hector returning. “Because no other crew is going to let you stab them,” he said.

Adei and I both jumped.

Ignoring this, Hector told Adei, “They just posted about that pirate’s ship. They’re looking for a salvage crew.”

Adei glanced at me before answering. “We aren’t a salvage crew.”

“No, but we are looking for a better ship. Did you see the schematics Tressa pulled? If we pool just a percentage of the reward, we could buy it before it goes for auction.”

“What reward?” I asked.

Adei sent me a message, but I didn’t have time to read it before Hector said, “No, talk to her. Like a person. And we’re changing my title.” He waved a finger at me. “And no more stabbing.”

--------------------

I: It was rough going for a while longer, but that was where things really started. We sweet-talked the court into letting us have first dibs on the derelict—

H: [coughs]

I: Hector sweet-talked the court, and we spent most of our reward money fixing that ship up and turning her into The Firebird.

H: And then we spent the next few years omitting certain details from the official registration documents.

I: Allegedly. [sighs] Adei and I eventually sorted ourselves out, and in time it wasn’t just for Mattin’s sake that we both made an effort. In a little more time, I actually properly mourned Mattin, and myself, and the years I’d wasted on running.

H: A good crew is a great cure for grief.

I: [hums] And we were a really great crew.

[short silence]

B: Ok, but is it true that you once smuggled Mala Reome across the Neutral Zone during the Booker Conflict?

“Hurry up!” called Lindsey, the boy who had moved in across the street about two weeks earlier.  He was already standing in the shadows of the treeline beyond the tall grass, wearing clothes he clearly didn’t mind getting muddy.  He had straight black hair, braces, and a tall, stick-skinny tanned frame which stood in comical contrast to Sam, the shortest girl in the sixth grade with pale freckled skin, curly red hair, and blue-green glasses frames that almost matched her eyes.  Sam hadn’t been eager to meet the family that had moved into her former best friend’s former house, but after a week of school the two of them had discovered they shared a love of fantasy books, a disdain for their small school’s sports pep rallies, and complementary strengths (Lindsey’s in math, Sam’s in English class) that made their long bus rides home a very effective study hall.

Sam stepped carefully through the grass, past Lindsey, and began to lead the way toward the creek.  She knew the way by heart and liked to listen for bird calls as she walked.  Now that she was accompanied by someone a foot taller constantly swiping branches out of his way, there was no way she was going to hear anything else with all this noise.  Almost completely fed up, she turned to glare at her companion.  Getting as far as “Can you Possib-“, she spotted something glinting several yards off the path.

Lindsey bumped into her, began to apologize, and was similarly interrupted as the cloudy afternoon cleared just enough to make the glinting patch light up in the middle of the forest.  “What – is that?”

“I’ve never seen it before.  Wanna go check it out?”

Lindsey agreed, and this time Sam wound up making the excessive noise as she crushed the light-starved plants, taking two steps for every one of Lindsey’s graceful strides between patches of rock and dry soil.  The understory parted and the two found a single tree with a ladder up to a wide split in the trunk, a tire swing hanging from a branch, and several broken planks on the ground that looked like they might have once been a treehouse at the top of the ladder.

“Dibs on the tire swing!” yelled Lindsey, and before she could argue, Sam watched as he leapt over the broken boards and hoisted himself onto the tire swing.  As he began leaning back and forth to move the swing, Sam noticed something amiss.

“Umm, Lindsey, where are your legs?”

“Well, they’re right he— whaaaa?”

At the back of his arc, Lindsey had fallen through the tire swing and vanished into whatever was on the far side of it.  Sam sprinted toward the swing and caught it coming toward her.  Sticking her head through the tire swing, she saw Lindsey lying on what looked like a grassy bog.  Before she could see much else, though, she felt plastic slipping up the back of each ear and watched helplessly, arms pinned back in the real world, as her glasses vanished into the blur of somewhere completely unfamiliar.

“Lindsey!  Can you hear me?”

“I can!  I can see you too, or at least your face and shoulders.  You’re kinda floating up there!”

“Are you OK?”

“I … think so.  I might have cracked my watch when I landed.”

“Do you see my glasses anywhere?”  Sam closed her eyes, trying to keep the panic down.

“Ummm…”  A few seconds of silence followed.  “Found them!  They’re over here on the next patch of bog, but I think you have to come down here to get them back.”

Sam stood up, took a deep breath, and opened her eyes.  The leaves of the trees above might as well have been a Monet portrait done in spraypaint.  With one more deep breath, she hoisted herself onto the swing, and slithered through the tire into a freefall.  Four seconds later, she found herself waist-deep in a pontoon-sized pad of peat moss, her jeans getting slowly soaked by water as she climbed out of the hole she’d punched.   “Lindsey!  Where are you?”

“Right over here!”  With a leap, Lindsey landed on her pad, and she felt the landing push them adrift as he stumbled to a stop.  “I grabbed your glasses so you wouldn’t land on them.  They got a little muddy, sorry.”  He finished wiping off the glasses frames while Sam hoisted herself up to sit on their slowly drifting bog.  “How many of the Narnia books have you read?”

“All of them, but it's been a while.  I really haven't read any of them since I started Eragon last year.”

“OK, well, I think it's pretty obvious we just fell through a portal, so I'm gonna stick with Narnia to make sense here.  Did you look at your watch before it broke?”

Lindsey flipped his hand over out of habit, wishing he'd received an analog watch for his birthday.  “Well, the bus dropped us off at 4:00, and it's probably been 30 minutes since then, right?”  Sam nodded, and he continued, “Time hopefully moves differently here.  When do you have to be home?”

“My parents and my brothers will get home around 5:30.  What about you?”

“Mom will call me to set the table for dinner around the same time.  What else do we need to figure out?”

“Well, we should probably figure out if there's a war going on or any other trouble we might get into, but we gotta ask carefully.”

“OK.  And I don't even see the tire swing here, so we'll have to find another way back.”

Sam rolled her eyes at Lindsey's obvious statement, dunking her glasses into the bog to try to wipe off one last smudge on the lens and drying them with her right shirtsleeve.  Finally putting them on her face, she breathed a sigh of relief and took stock of the new landscape.  “So, which way to civilization?”

Chapter 2

“Well, I see one tall tree over yonder, and I think I saw something moving under it,” offered Lindsey hopefully.  “Shall we head that way?”

Sam shrugged, and asked him to lead on.  She began mumbling to herself, trying to figure out what questions she could ask without “turning partisan” and, thanks to the height difference, Lindsey barely heard any of it.

After about ten minutes of walking and jumping, and only one missed landing into the bog, Lindsey spotted the movement again.  “Hello there!  Excuse us!” he began, waiting for a response and hoping that whoever was bobbing around in the bog below could understand English.  Lindsey repeated his greeting.

First a hat surfaced, then a face, then shoulders of a gray-skinned elf emerged.  He began to speak, and seagull-like noises emerged from his mouth.  Lindsey offered one more time “Hello!  Can you help us?” before the elf pulled a large basket of black round berries out of the water, and fished around in it to find three large pill-bugs.  The elf delicately picked one out of his hand and set it in the end of his pointed ear, then proffered the other bugs to the children.  Skeptically, and with a healthy amount of disgust, each took a bug and the seagull noises began again.  Sam winced as the bug touched her ear –

“--this basket of inkberries for the festival, and you would be most honored guests if you came to our village.  Please stay, for tomorrow night is the full moon.  You,” he gestured to Lindsey, “do not need much of a trim, but you,” now he turned to Sam, “you could visit our barber either today or tomorrow.  It is an ill omen to show long hair in general, but especially so at the festival.”

Sam’s mind went blank - for all the subtle political questions she'd imagined, never had her shoulder-length hairstyle been a concern.  “Please, umm, – can I get your name?”

“Treppilo, at your service.”

“Mister Treppilo, can you please explain why long hair is a problem here?  In our home culture, I would get strange looks if I were to cut it short.”

“Of course, and I am sure we would make an exception for a traveller.  Our festival has two meanings, one for merriment and one for safety.  At midnight, the monks come and ring a gong 12 times, and if you hear all 12 tolls it means you are not compelled to revisit the past this time, and it is safe to go home and sleep.  But for those who are compelled to revisit the past, or for any who make the forbidden journey into the forest at the full moon, their hair will grow long, and this long hair is their only clue that they have awakened in the past.”

Lindsey interrupted, “How many villages observe this festival?  And are you at peace with all of them?”  Sam elbowed him.  “Uh, Mister Treppilo, I mean, is there any other faux pas a visitor might commit to break the peace?”

The elf pinched the bug out of his ear, dunked it in the water, and replaced it.  “You have such broad questions, and I will answer as best I can.  Our kind have settled in four villages on this coast.  We work the land and the sea for our food and our tools, and while some visitors come from beyond the mountains, we have never had any come from this way as you have, tell me where from again?”

“Coraville,” offered Sam hastily, eager to not derail the conversation with geographic trivia.

“Yes, you are the first from Coraville.  The mountains have two passes we know, one in the north, and one that also cuts through the center of the” [untranslated seagull noises] “forest.  Nobody comes through that forest, and I hope none of its magic disturbs you as you stay among us.  But for that magic we have been at peace for seven generations, since we settled here.”

Sam and Lindsey traded glances.  The mention of magic seemed to buoy their hope for getting home, and Sam dug in.  “Who can we meet to learn more about the magic?”

Treppilo turned to wade toward the shoreline and beckoned the children to follow.  “You might be able to ask the Monks of the Grotto.  They won't speak to any of us folk, and I hear their vow is to keep them from being compelled to revisit.  They keep a library, and they communicate by pointing to words and sentences within their scrolls.  Tomorrow, I can take you toward the grotto, but I will have to leave you at the edge of the forest.  I, like many of my clan, cannot breathe in the forest while the glassflowers are blooming, as they will until the next new moon.  Also, legend says the forest is home to wraiths who feast on the despair of anyone who seeks the” [untranslated seagull noises] “springs at the heart.”

This time Lindsey peeled off his bug, trying to re-wet it before they all climbed the coastal embankment away from the bog.  “Could you repeat the name of those springs?  And maybe tell me what words’ meanings are in the name?”

Treppilo sat down at the top and extended a hand to help the other two reach the top of the embankment.  “I said nothing about a metal spiral.  But you asked after the middle of the forest, so perhaps you were speaking of the bubbling waters and the pool.”  Lindsey nodded, so he went on, “Their name means to revisit and coat with water droplets.”

“Re-dew springs?” asked Sam hopefully.

"Two more days. Okay? I can handle two more days. We've been on this ship for a week, what's two more days, right? Two more days and then I shall embrace the sweet release from my torment. Two more, just two, it's not even that long..."

"I suppose so," Ruth said, replying to her sister's rhetorical mumblings, "but you do remember that the outcome where our mission succeeds and we spend another week traveling back to Dreed is the one that we want, right?" She rolled over and glanced at Emily, who was sprawled on her bunk with her face buried in the pillow. "And we can't in good conscience spend any more time planetside than absolutely necessary." There was a muffled scream. 

"Alternatively," she continued in a lighthearted tone, "maybe D'Amber will have us all thrown in prison, and us commoners will have our own cell."

"We can only hope," Emily groaned. She heaved one last, self-indulgent sigh, then swung herself off the bunk. "Come on. I need to stretch my legs and I don't want to face him alone."

"In the event of an altercation do you want me to prevent you from committing a crime, or help?"

"I'll think about it," she said darkly. 

"Okay!"

The sisters made their way towards the front of the ship. Panels of levers and buttons and dials, and a large, beautiful view of space filled the room. 

"Hello you two!" The man by the pilot's controls greeted them cheerfully. "Hang in there. I don't know about you, but despite the political precariousness of the situation at hand, I'm looking forward to landing."

"You and me both, Orion," Emily agreed. "Navigating the return of a hostage and preventing a war between trade empires sounds infinitely preferable to spending one more minute on this ship with that arrogant, infuriating, self-entitled horsefly!"

As if on cue, the hatch behind them flew open. Given he was the only other person on board, there was no doubt as to who it could be. Dressed all in black, except for his dark red gloves, he flicked an invisible speck off the shoulder of his cape. His dark hair was artfully arranged, and his green eyes were sharp and calculating. 

"How good of you all to gather here," he said in a smooth voice. "It saves me the trouble of summoning you. I believe we have some matters to discuss." He raised one perfect eyebrow. "Won't you sit down?" 

Emily scowled and opened her mouth to say something, but Ruth beat her to it.

"UGH! Can you please stop acting like Berhart died and left you in charge? You really can't go one single minute without swirling your cape around for dramatic effect and saying, and I quote, 'ooooooh, I'm Robret Verde, the greatest space wizard you puny commoners will ever meet!' end quote. Your fancy title and fancy eyebrows have no authority here!"

Emily couldn't resist a small smile. And she'd thought she'd been annoyed... 

"Wh - what's wrong with my eyebrows?" Robret spluttered, his seemingly cool composure completely shattered. 

"Nothing compared to what's wrong with your ego!" Ruth snapped.

"You're a child-sized hooligan, and frankly I have no idea why Berhart agreed to take you on as her apprentice, much less assign you to this mission," Robret fought back. "My father is chancellor to the king of Arishal and – "

"Status and stature aside," Orion interrupted, "I believe the need to discuss some final details is still relevant."

Glaring at each other, Ruth, Robret, and Emily sat down around the table, pushing aside charts, maps, and other bits of paper. After one more adjustment to the controls, Orion joined them. 

“Given the tense relations between D’Amber Interplanetary Shipping and the government of Arishal after the recent mercantile regulations were reviewed, I really think I should play the front man,” Orion said.

“We agreed that would be my job! I’m the only one here even remotely qualified, tense relations or no. The rest of you can’t talk diplomacy to save your life,” Robret said.

“We didn’t agree,” corrected Emily, “you appointed yourself, and after a week on this ship I’m inclined to contest that appointment! You certainly haven’t been terrifically diplomatic with me.”

“You are not the head of the second-largest trade empire in the system,” Robret said archly. “I assure you I can be perfectly diplomatic with people of status and class.”

“Then why do I have a distinct recollection of the Earl of Quirthins storming out of Dreed after the last Runemaster formal dinner with your name muttered as a curse upon his lips?”

“That was a complete and total misunderstanding on his part, and in any case he hardly qualifies as someone with class. Did you see the waistcoat he was wearing? It hasn’t been in fashion since the reign of the regent Jones the Fraudulent, which, considering his later history, I would say is in bad taste and wearing his political opinions of the current monarch a little too much on his sleeve, as it were.”

Orion was secretly impressed that Robret had managed to pick up on the Earl’s dissatisfaction with the king in so roundabout a manner (a fact he knew from other, shadier sources), but was unwilling to give him the opportunity to gloat. His personal pride was still smarting from Robret’s thoughtless comment regarding “the unnecessary addition of street rats raised above their station and trained to be a living weapon in this particular party” earlier in the week. He had spent so long working for his master Djirlen that his humble beginnings in the gutter were more of a dark impression than fully realized memories. But he still shuddered to think of them. It was funny, how he could take such offense at the first half of the barb and barely bat an eye at the second… Orion recalled himself to the ongoing argument. 

“ – do you mean I bungled the job at the Shrine of Samceriba? I was the only one even trying to keep a low profile!”

“Since when is landing a ship in the Lake of Arlista low profile?!”

“If you further recall, I –”

“Please!” 

Emily, Ruth, and Robret slowly and begrudgingly turned their attention to Orion. Emily and Robret wore almost matching stormy expressions, a fact they would hate to acknowledge, while Ruth seemed to be enjoying the argument. It was better to fight face to face, she reasoned, than stew in mounting resentment. And besides, Emily was clearly winning. 

“Please,” Orion repeated, less loudly, “we can discuss the past at leisure on our return trip, once we have Julius Cattlebog aboard. The safe return of the heir to the largest trade empire in the system should be our first and only priority at the moment.”

Emily sighed heavily and slumped forward. “I know. But if you ask me, resolving the hostage situation might not change anything. Catherine D’Amber and Octavius Cattlebog have been at each other’s throats for years, and they might start a war no matter what.”

“But we have to try, nevertheless,” said Orion. “I shudder to think what would happen if D’Amber had an excuse to gain an advantage.”

Ruth actually did shudder. “That enchantress is already powerful enough as it is. And here we are headed right for her home.”

After a moment of quiet, when each contemplated the wisdom of walking voluntarily into the lair of an evil power-hungry denizen of remote space, Robret cleared his throat.

“So if my extraordinary diplomatic talents and natural charm are not to be employed, what exactly do you propose I do instead?” 

“I think we can all agree that while open and honest third-party negotiations are nice, they’re not likely to impress D’Amber. Berhart’s instructions for us were, at best, vague, and quite open to interpretation. While I’m talking politics, you, Emily, and Ruth will be sneaking.”

Ruth clapped her hands and grinned. “Oh goody!”

Robret rolled his eyes and sighed. “Oh goody.”

********************

General Outline for the Rest of the Story:

Our intrepid heroes arrive at D’Amber’s space fortress.

Orion is very cool and pulls off the diplomat part pretty convincingly. Maybe D’Amber will release Julius after all!

Just kidding, she’s an evil space enchantress and wants a monopoly on the interplanetary trade empire.

Meanwhile, Emily, Ruth, and Robret are sneaking around looking for Julius. The plan is to break him out. If I were going to write a more detailed story it would probably involve explaining that D’Amber didn’t publicly kidnap him, so if he mysteriously disappears she doesn’t have an excuse to start a war, somehow.

Also need to explain that Berhart and her minions (our beloved heroes) are not representing any particular government (despite Robret’s family connections). She has her own agenda and a space trade war is not part of it. Her apprentices (Emily, Ruth, and Robret), plus the legendary swordsman Djirlen’s living weapon (Orion) are working for her alone.

I haven’t mentioned it yet but Robret and Emily are both fire wizards and Ruth is an air wizard.

This is important because later when they’re fighting a space battle outside the fortress Ruth will be able to move pockets of air from inside the fortress into the vacuum of space (if she concentrates hard enough) and provided everyone Works Together Emily and Robret can use those pockets as a way to shoot fireballs. I think this will be cool.

The key here is that our heroes are trying to bring about peace on a large scale, but in order to do that they have to first make peace among themselves.

There would be an abundance of entertaining dialogue, because that’s the most fun thing to write.

Julius will be saved, war will be averted (for now…?), everyone will eat a nice serving of humble pie (although some people will accept it more graciously than others), and live happily ever after.

They have to spend another week stuck on a spaceship together.

As for the rest of us? For starters, Magda couldn’t go two hours without complaining about the sad state of our company account.

“—and I don’t see how we already need to replace those lights!” Tirade concluded, Magda sat back in her seat so forcefully that she nearly upended it.

Across the table from her, Tressa leveled her fork. “We need those lights. Do you want your bones to turn to rubber?”

“They won’t turn to rubber,” Adei corrected without looking up from his pad. “They’ll go brittle.”

“Whatever.” Tressa speared a tomato and shoved it into her mouth. “And don’t complain about my last food order. I got us a deal on that.”

Ji-Hae hummed appreciatively over his coffee. For some reason, he always ended up at the head of the table, opposite Itzal, even though he was neither captain nor accountant. When it came right down to it, no one cared about his opinion unless it was about the proper way to stack crates.

Adei set down his pad and fixed his attention on his plate. Tressa had whipped up a miracle with our short supplies. In addition to the tomatoes—which came from her own plants, happily thriving under the solar lights Magda was so bent up about—there was quickbread and soup and a bit of grain salad with a homemade dressing. We usually only ate one proper meal a day and supplemented our diets with ready-to-eat meals as necessary.

Except for Itzal. I’d never seen her touch the flash-frozen, reconstituted dinners before. I was pretty sure the only reason she ate at all was because Adei insisted on everyone sitting at the table for our daily meal, and bringing a fork or spoon to her mouth was the kind of mechanical process Itzal excelled at. 

Ninety percent of her attention that afternoon (ship-time) was on a map. We were coasting along a trade line between stops, and Adei had asked her to find a more expedient route to Hytel Port.

Itzal had dragged her attention away from the map long enough to scowl at me when I sat down next to her. I’d insisted on claiming my right to a share in matters of navigation, seeing as how I was nominally her copilot. Outside of that scowl, she’d spent the entire meal ignoring me and everyone else.

But that wasn’t new.

“You know,” I said, setting down my spoon and reaching toward the chart, “we could probably—”

The next thing I knew, there was a fork sticking out of my hand.

I think I made some kind of noise, because the entire table went silent. That silence held for about three seconds.

Then everyone started shouting.

Ok, sure, it hurt, and there was a surprising amount of blood, but I don’t think it warranted quite the reaction it received. Rune invoked several entities I had never heard of; Magda threatened repeatedly to faint, as if this was a drama; Tressa, salad in hand, darted to the far side of the room; and Adei began laying into Itzal with more vehemence than I’d seen from him in years. It’s a sign of a weak crew that I, the victim, had to calm them all down.

And that’s why being friendly is important. Because people trust you, and that instinct can take over when people’s irrational minds want to obsess over little things like stabbings.

“I’ve had worse,” I assured Ji-Hae, who was the first to recover his senses.

“But you earned it those times,” he retorted.

That would have been the perfect opportunity to speculate about why, then, Itzal had decided to stab me, but the answer seemed connected to the sibling squabble now dominating the other side of the room, and neither of us was too eager to get ourselves involved in that. Even my mastery of the art of friendship wouldn’t help there. 

While our captain and pilot yelled themselves hoarse, Ji-Hae and I started cleaning up. Tressa set down her salad and went to find the first aid kit. Some coaxing convinced Magda, who was the best with a needle, to put a couple of stitches in the deepest of my new gashes.

And still Adei and Itzal didn’t let up. Magda and Tressa brought the half-empty dishes to the sink. Ji-Hae poked thoughtfully at the charts Itzal had been studying. Rune, inexplicably, had fallen asleep.

I was just bracing myself to intervene and bring the noise down to a reasonable level when Adei snapped something that drew Itzal up short. In the sudden silence, we finally heard the proximity alarm.

We all stared around at one another—except for Rune—but no one moved.

“Fine,” I said at last. “I’ll go.” I waved my bandaged hand to emphasize how this was definitely not my responsibility. No one stopped me.

And since no one stopped me, I helped myself to Itzal’s fancy swivel chair in the cockpit. The proximity alarm had evidently been sounding for so long that it had triggered an emergency protocol and shut the engines. I switched off the alarm and shivered in the eerie silence that followed. I didn’t like sleeping ships. It felt too much like drowning. Even the life support systems were quiet up here.

Some fiddling with Itzal’s controls, which she hadn’t let me touch from the moment she’d officially signed on to the crew, brought up a forward searchlight. I panned it toward the obstacle the readout told me was out there in the black.

I was still staring when Itzal arrived. She stopped behind my chair—her chair—and sucked in a breath.

“It’s been scuttled,” I told her.

A dead ship hung in the beam of our headlamp. At this distance, I couldn’t tell if the faint red sheen it gave off was from the light or some quality of the metal that made up its hull. The ship had been a beauty, spacious and sleek all at once, until someone had ripped out its core and dismantled the aft nacelles.

Itzal shifted closer to scan the readout in front of me. “Still running life support,” she observed.

“One lifesign,” I confirmed, and reached for the radio.

Itzal’s hand lashed out to catch my wrist, upsetting the bandage Madga had so carefully wrapped.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“The shuttles are gone, meaning the crew scuttled this thing and intentionally left one soul behind. That means trouble.”

“Or a mutiny.” I shook her hand free and flipped the switch.

There was no answer to my hail, not even static. I cycled through frequencies for a minute before giving up. Maybe whoever was over there was injured and couldn't answer the hail. Or maybe they weren’t even receiving, with the ship on minimal power.

A glance through the local traffic register we’d downloaded at our last stop didn't turn up any results, either. I wasn't even positive what make the ship was. It had been heavily modified.

Heaving a sigh, Itzal leaned around me to tap the comm. Literally, just tapping the mic in a sequence I had come to recognize as her way of calling Adei up to the cockpit. She hung for a moment over my shoulder.

Finally I decided for the amiability I’d made my rule and hopped across to my copilot’s seat. I propped a boot on my own control panel; Itzal never let me actually use those controls.

“Why take the shuttles and leave the ship?” I mused.

“Preemptive sabotage?”

“Mmm.” I held up my bandaged hand. “Like this?”

Itzal ignored me, pretending to adjust settings despite the fact that we were stationary.

“You know,” I persisted, “I don’t mind being stabbed, provided there’s grounds for it.” I turned my hand back and forth, wiggled my fingers. The bandage was red where a bit of blood had soaked through. “I should have Rune reclassify the forks as weapons.”

Itzal was quiet for a long minute. “You startled me,” she finally said.

“I guessed that much.”

“I reacted.”

“And what does that mean?”

Footsteps on the ladder prevented Itzal from answering. Adei ducked into the tiny space and drew up at the sight of the dead ship. He scanned the readouts in front of Itzal.

“Wreck?” he asked me.

I glanced at Itzal before answering. “Maroon, looks like. No reply to a hail.”

“There’s no beacon,” Adei said. “It’s pure chance we stumbled across her.”

Itzal tapped idly at her workstation. “Could be quarantine.”

Adei’s tone went hard. “Again: no beacon.” Reaching around Itzal, he triggered a yellow alert to the crew and told Rune and Ji-Hae to suit up.

Itzal swiveled her chair around to face her brother. “You aren’t going over there.”

“No, I’m sending my— our security crew.”

“You can’t—”

“I’m the captain!” He all but wagged a finger in front of her nose. “We agreed.”

--------------------

I: And that is why you shouldn’t have two related officers on the same ship. Doesn’t matter how small the crew is.

H: Also, neutral parties should get a vote before they’re put on babysitting duty.

I: He made you stay behind because of your hand.

H: [scoffs] He absolutely did not. But he was in one of his stubborn moods, and it’s easier just to go along when that happens.

B: Did you really give Adei full command?

I: [sighs] Yes. He’s very persuasive, you know? And at the time, I didn’t feel capable of making any major decisions. It had been enough just to fly the ship and mind my own business.

B: So what happened? Why was the ship abandoned?

H: That was the question. Unfortunately, the sole occupant was half-started and wholly delusional—

I: Half-crazed, you mean.

H: I hate biters. Anyway, none of the others could get anything out of him. And I wasn’t allowed to try, even though I was the best thing we had toward public relations, because Adei thought I was more useful keeping Itzal contained. Really, I think he was hoping I’d smooth things over with her so he didn’t have to.

--------------------

While Ji-Hae got our new passenger settled in the spare bunk, Tressa and Rune went back to the derelict to…salvage what they could. I listened in envy to their descriptions of the scuttled ship and begged Ji-Hae to draw up a layout for me.

Then Adei sent up a brief order to plot the quickest route back to Hytel, effectively squashing my enthusiasm.

In a crew that small, everyone pulled double or triple duty, but we’d overlooked a primary medical person. Adei had reasoned that injuries and illnesses would either be minor enough that anyone could treat them; or extreme enough that the afflicted individual would die before we managed to reach a port with a proper medical facility. By the sounds of it, our passenger’s condition was beyond any of our skill.

A few hours later, we left the derelict behind and shot off toward Hytel.

I could have left the cockpit at that point, but Itzal had been less prickly since the stabbing and I took advantage of her magnanimity to actually do my job for once. While she checked the ship systems and drew up a requisition request for Magda, I studied a star chart.

“Who’s Mattin?” I asked after an hour or so of silence.

Itzal’s boot, which she’d braced against the floor so she could twist her chair back and forth, squeaked as she stiffened. “What?” she snapped.

“Mattin. I heard Adei mention him during your…disagreement.”

Itzal threw a scowl at me. Irritation was about the only emotion of hers that I could ever read clearly, so the abject sorrow underlying it now startled the breath out of me.

“Our brother.” She swallowed hard and turned away. “He was our brother.”

I hadn’t expected her to answer me. For a minute, I just gaped like an idiot. “Adei never said,” I finally managed.

Itzal only shrugged.

“Because it’s what Mattin wanted.” That had been the phrase that had ended their argument in the galley. Itzal had been saying something about how she wished she’d never signed on with Adei, demanding to know why Adei had pushed her to do it, and that had been Adei’s answer.

I rubbed at my wounded hand and studied the woman beside me. The light from the panels around her made her look gaunt and pale. The hair framing her face had gone frizzy in the long hours since that morning. I realized that she looked tired; and worse, that this was the only way I had ever known her.

I wondered what she was really like, under the weight that left her sharp and skittish as a caged animal. Why had Adei’s appeal to their brother—their dead brother?—managed to stop her in her tracks when nothing else would?

“Is that why you’re here?” I asked.

Itzal’s bright eyes cut across to me. Already she was pulling her mask back into place. “What, Mattin?” At least she didn’t pretend to misunderstand me.

“Right. Was it, like, his last wish, or…?”

With a sigh through her nose, Itzal closed out her list and sat back in her seat. She brought one booted foot up and tucked it under the opposite knee. “Mattin did his best to hold us together. Adei and I…. Mattin would have wanted us to try to— He wanted us to remember that we’re all we’ve got.” She shook her head. “But I don’t think it’s working.”

She crossed her arms, dropped her head onto the back of her chair, and closed her eyes. I’d seen it enough times to know she was probably watching a show or reading something. Like her eating habits, I was never sure that she ever actually slept.

Ruefully, I started shutting down my own work. “I forgive you, by the way.”

Itzal opened one eye. “What?”

“For stabbing me. I forgive you.”

“I didn’t ask—”