Party of Five - A game of Po

  * * *

  The Elevator came to a stop. The dimmed, darkened glass pane opened sideways, like a hatch. Directly in front of them, down three small steps, stood the Ygg representatives, staring at Tej with cold, machinating, blue-on-blue eyes. Winceham was already plying his trade, unseen.

  “Enginseer,” said the Ygg in unison; their combined voices sounded like a nest of insects through a metal reed.

  Tej did not return the greeting. He simply walked outside the Elevator slowly, calmly. He did not return the Yggs’ stares. The others followed close behind. Lernea grabbed Theo by one hand, and shoved him forward suddenly, treating him like one would a captive or a prisoner. Theo exclaimed:

  “Watch it with that! It’s a long drop and from what I’ve been though you never know where you might end up.”

  “Shut it,” Lernea said with vehemence and twisted Theo’s arm just hard enough for him to remain locked in an awkward, sideways position. By the look on his face, he wasn’t sure whether it was something he’d said that had gotten Lernea so mad or if this was just part of some sort of plan he vaguely remembered agreeing to non-verbally.

  “Him?” said one of the Ygg and pointed vaguely at Theo with one webbed, clawed hand. Tej simply nodded with an austere look of barely contained anger on his face. One of the other Ygg shot an icy stare at Lernea.

  “What of her?” the Ygg asked.

  “The elf is mine to sell,” said Lernea with a cold-hearted grin. “Our mutual furry friend over here has a soft spot it seems for the fluffy thing you keep locked up somewhere,” she added, playing her part convincingly.

  “The Ygg have no friends. Isn’t that right Enginseer?” said another Ygg and let out a dry cackle.

  “It is,” said Tejwel with a crisp, embittered voice. But his stare was still hard as stone, set on the Ygg like a hound after its prey.

  “What need do we have of this puny elf?” asked the Ygg who hadn’t spoken yet with a measure of impatience.

  “That crystal in your possession; it is merely a trinket compared to what it is capable of. This elf is the key. Or so I’m told,” said Lernea and shot a meaningful look at Tej.

  “Everything is transpiring according to the Grand Design. Nothing will be allowed to stand in our way.”

  “Except this whole damnable thing is missing its primer,” said Tej with a grim face. The Ygg looked at each other momentarily. Lernea held Theo down who looked puzzled, trying to ascertain if he was indeed on sale and for what price.

  “To put things in perspective, you have the wrong guy. It’s not the bunny you were really after; it’s this guy.”

  “That’s impossible! The thaumaturgic readings on that mammal were off the scale!” blared one of the Ygg. Theo’s eyes darted to and fro the monsters. There was little with which to distinguish them visually.

  “That’s great, if you think this hellish apparatus runs purely on thauma.”

  “You designed it, Enginseer!”

  “I was tricked into designing it and damned be that day!”

  “Most of our brethren would frown upon this meeting. But us four have a mind for a good offer, no matter its bearer. Isn’t that so?”

  The rest of the Ygg nodded imperceptibly. Except for one.

  “There is a human saying that comes to mind,” he said and the tentacles around his maw writhed as if a sudden breeze had touched them.

  “Care to enlighten us?” growled Tej. Lernea tried to look the part handling Theo like a slave, but her eyes were already scanning the horizon for a sign that Winceham had done his part already. She felt like she was coming down with a peculiar nausea.

  “Beware of Tej bearing gifts.”

  “That’s not how the saying goes.”

  “But that is what it means,” he said and another ring platform appeared from below and locked into place behind their own. Two Ygg were standing on it, slightly bigger and uglier in appearance however impossible it seemed. One of them had Winceham tied on a rope; he was completely paralyzed, stiff as a piece of wood. His eyes were stuck wide open in terror.

  “Theo, this is going to get really ugly, really soon,” Lernea whispered to Theo, even though in the back of her mind she knew it didn’t matter whether or not they listened to her anymore. She kept her calm and didn’t appear shocked. Not even when the other Ygg dropped the pale, blood-robbed body of Rat at the platform, right behind the Ygg who did not seem to tolerate theatrics for long.

  “A doppelganger will take his place. A sense of normalcy about this place will hasten our goals,” said one of the Ygg.

  “There’s nothing normal about this place,” said Lernea and let go of Theo who couldn’t help but wriggle his wrists and try to get his blood flowing back.

  “So I’m not being sold?”

  “That remains to be seen, woodkin,” said one of the Ygg.

  “I was talking to my friend,” said Theo and pointed to Lernea. Another one of the Ygg cackled profusely, the same as before.

  “Which reminds me,” said the Ygg with a tone of pure malevolence. The Ygg looked at Tej knowingly. Tej looked at Theo and told him with the faint trail of a single tear running down his furry cheek.

  “I’m returning to the light that bears us all, Hanul,” said Tej right before a pulse of white fizzling light tore through his chest, spattering blood and bones in a burst and toppling the giant bear off the platform. Tejwel’s form fell down below, into the whirring machine parts of the huge crystal silently. Reveling in the way his words produced hurt in Theo’s face, one of the Ygg said:

  “The larger they are, the easier they fall. Isn’t that another piece of what you call popular wisdom? Such an infantile oxymoron.”

  Theo’s face remained still. It looked like he hadn’t really seen what had happened. Lernea had left her bow behind; all that she carried with was her ceremonial dagger. It was a dull little thing, fit for show and tell. But she clenched her teeth and appeared ready to meet whatever fate lay in store. The Ygg approached them like a cat approaches a fanciful toy. Lernea told Theo, in all seriousness:

  “I find death at your side suits me well, Hanultheofodor.”

  “What did you call me?” he asked flatly, without emotion. He wasn’t looking at her, nor the Ygg. He was still looking at where Tej had been standing moments ago.

  “Hanultheofodor. Isn’t that your full name?”

  “It’s just a name really,” he said and looked at the Ygg that had come within a single step of him. The Ygg looked back and let an abyssal gleam filter through his eyes; its tentacles writhed expectantly. Abruptly, the writhing stopped. Theo’s eyes were closed, his arms extended. A vein throbbed on his head. He began to tremble. And so did the Ygg; all of them.

  Lernea stood motionless. Then she began to shake as well. Theo was floating a few inches above the surface of the platform. His face was drenched in sweat; his dreadlocks stood up in a bizarre, disconcerting fashion. He looked like a terrible, wrathful figure; not the timid, somewhat kludgy sorcerer other people usually saw.

  The Ygg struggled to move, to react; all that remained was a terrible realisation in their eyes. The gems in their foreheads flickered with intensity; slowly their bodies drifted off the platform seemingly of their own accord. But Lernea knew that it was Theo that somehow did all that. She then felt the platform sway and start to gyrate oddly. Another tremor shook the world around her. She heard a terrible raucous of a thunder reverberating from deep below. Winceham, released from the Ygg’s embrace fell on the platform’s surface hard. It was the third time that day his tenderlies had received unwanted attention from blunt objects.

  “This can’t be normal,” she whispered and was surprised to hear the voice of Theo flood her mind.

  “Nothing will ever be again, Lernea,” his voice said and the Ygg were flung with blinding speed across the hollowed-out space. It looked as if some being of immense power had pulled a sinister set of strings with all its might. Their bodies had become small affairs on a distant wall, white mur
ky blood smearing it like a blotch of ink on paper, only every colour reversed.

  “So that’s how it feels,” said Theo as he settled himself down, panting not from the exertion, but from a rampaging, burning sensation in his mind; he felt hate for the first time in his life.

  “I don’t understand what it is that I just saw. But this is not good. At all,” said Lernea and wished for a set of wings for the first time in her life instead of her bow.

  “It is what is,” said Theo brusquely.

  “I’m talking about them,” she said and pointed at the hundreds of Ygg pouring out from every recess and crevice around the inner bark. They filled the platform rings and rushed Theo and Lernea. Some were cradling ornate weapons spawned out of nightmares, others simply flew with all their might across the distance, screeching in their nameless voices, a single name:

  “Shubb-naur! Shubb-naur!”

  The huge crystal formed a crack on its outer layer; the rings had fallen out of sync. Everything appeared to be breaking apart. A terrible grinding noise had risen up from the very depths of the crystal assembly and it wouldn’t die down.

  “Theo, I really am honored to die by your side!” she shouted as to be heard. Theo only barely whispered a reply.

  “Honor has nothing to do with this. It’s justice.”

  “Noone dies!” shouted a voice above the din. Lernea looked behind her and saw Ned sweeping inches above her head only to grab Winceham in his arms a moment or so later. Not to far behind, a comfortable height up, a small, sleek twin-hulled ship floated elegantly amidst the crumbling chaos of the infernal crystal machine. Layers upon layers of crystal began to crack and shatter, giving off blinding amounts of light followed by scalding heat waves at random.

  “Throw me a line!” shouted Lernea. Just as she had finished her sentence, she saw a strange-looking thin blunderbuss firing off without ever seeming to be in need of reloading. It cut down the first lines of the Ygg with an outrageous hail of fire. But they would not double back. Even as the world around them became undone, it was as if a higher zeal compelled them to bring ruin to those that dared take the Ygg for fools.

  “Hasten thee, sister!” came back a loud answer; it was Parcifal, benting over the ship’s rail and waving as if it wasn’t clear enough where to look for her.

  “Will you drop a line?” shouted back Lernea. Theo looked as if he wasn’t aware of what was actually happening. Then as if he had a sudden moment of enlightenment, he sprang at Lernea without a care, ignoring the bright white shots of deadly light the Ygg were throwing at them. The floating ship wobbled slightly as a series of cannonshot sprayed havoc amongst the ranks of the Ygg. But still, they came.

  Theo fell on Lernea and threw her a couple of feet away right when she was just about to catch the line they’d thrown for her. She was about to start shouting obscenities she would have found quite distasteful herself, when a huge piece of rock smashed the ring platform in two, right at the spot where she was standing a moment earlier. Theo held her hand as they both slid off the platform and started falling down into a blazing inferno that seemed to rise with every beating heart.

  Ned saw them, as did Parcifal; but they were helpless, frozen in disbelief. Tark shouted by himself, while no-one had asked him:

  “We need to fly off now; I can’t risk the ship and the mission any longer!”

  Then Bo’s eyes flared up with fire suddenly; the next moment Bo the Bunny leapt off the ship as everything around them began to look like thick grains of sand, sliding away into a sea of fire. The Ygg were lost in vortex of fire and ruin, chanting as they fell into oblivion.

  “No!” cried Ned while Parcifal hang by a thread on the ship’s rail. Judith held her back.

  “It’s done!” she shouted, while Parcifal couldn’t break free from her grasp. She fell on her knees, and letting go, she began to wail with every drop of her soul.

  Tark led the ship on a steep upward course with a speed that no ordinary ship could handle; everyone had to hang onto something. As they shot up and away from the cataclysmic ruin, there was a bright blue flash of light like a broken piece of glass shimmers in the sun. Then every platform, every ring and piece of crystal along with all the Ygg was engulfed in flames. Bursts of lightning flared away and the sound of doom ripped past them like a howling tide. Ned caught a glimpse of that blue flash; all he knew was it looked out of place, even in a mess like that. In his heart, nothing was certain.

  Even Tallyflop looked like it was still standing though battered and shaken; all its lights were out and not a merry song could be heard.

  Parcifal was sobbing on Judith’s shoulder with as much dignity as a princess of Nomos could muster. Judith found the feeling strange; she wanted to comfort Parcifal. She was ashamed to find out she had forgotten how. She simply hugged her and felt the tremors against her chest.

  Tark had lit up a pipe, and was sharing it with Winceham who was still in shock, reliving another time entirely.

  “I’ve never felt so much pain in one single day in my life. It’s up here, down there; I’m telling you, it’s everywhere,” Winceham managed to croak dizzily.

  “Don’t you have the least bit of decency for Parcifal’s sake? I don’t know you half as good as I’d like you to, Mr. Tark. But not you as well, Wince. Gods below, not you.”

  “Mr. Larkin, I can’t assure you about much of anything that happened, but I can safely assume it’s going to be alright,” Tark told Ned.

  “What makes you say that with that grin on your face?”

  “Did you see a bright blue flash down there, when we were outrunning all the shockwaves and debris?”

  “I did. What of it?”

  “That’s when I got Bo’s message in my mind,” Tark said and smiled thinly.

  “Well?”

  “I thought it’d be better to pause for dramatic effect. Anyway, she said it worked. I believe she actually shouted it, if that’s at all possible.”

  “What did?” asked Ned biting his lip.

  “I’m not a mind reader myself, Mr. Larkin. But it’s pretty likely that whatever worked, was in their favor.”

  “That was all? It worked?” repeated Ned without being able to understand.

  “Nah, this bloody pipe isn’t working. Too weak a blend. Where’s my pouch?” said Winceham, shearching the ship’s deck like a drunken, dizzy turtle for a pouch that not long ago had fallen through a bright, blue, blinding flash, and onto a hard, broken shore.

  “Judith?” Tark beckoned. Judith nodded and waited knowingly for an order.

  “I’ll man the helm for now,” said Tark and took the good ship Mary Righteous on a course for the very heart of the Human League.

  END OF BOOK II

  Book III

  “There’s a sinister threat lurking in the cosmos. It is dark, sticky as tar and far worse than moldy cheese. It reaches in places you would never believe or feel comfortable with; its livid tendrils are sneakily out to get everything that’s fair and beautiful around us, even unicorns. I must do as my conscience bids me; I must fight to expose their ill-doings and bring them down once and for all. There’s a lot of danger involved which means I’ll probably die or go mad in the process. But I have to do this, for the sake of my children alone. And perhaps all the things I find dear in the world, like Taem berries. And roast veeb. Perhaps, Rovenii mead and Yule beer as well. Just thinking about what is at stake here, makes me ravenous.”

  -- Athmoor Radaniel, from his personal journal

  Lernea felt her face set against something wet and grainy. As if caught in the moment between wakefulness and sleep, her mind felt numb, soft and muddy. A word popped in her head:Sand.

  Wet sand.

  Her face was half-buried in a patch of wet sand. There was a feeling of cold water splashing against her body every now and then. Maybe it was time to go to the latrine, she thought to herself, but she quickly realised it was the feeling of waves embracing her gently.

  A beach then, she came to realis
e and opened her eyes half-expecting everything to be a dream.

  There was no silken bedding around her, no morning sun’s glory behind laced curtains; just a misty, fog-laden beach with low, crumbled rock outcroppings in the hazy distance, which really wasn’t much of a distance at all. The sun lay hidden behind a grim overcast sky, dull and undignified. Lazy grey clouds barely seemed to move; a harsh, cold, salty breeze made her face flush.

  She saw the white bunny rabbit to her right, the way her head lay; Bo was munching on a small brush of salt-weed when she looked her way as if enabled by some sixth, or perhaps even a seventh sense.

  “Good, you’re awake.”

  The words rang crystal clear in Lernea’s head; she was instantly confused. It was a woman’s voice, warm and cheerful. Her first thought was she had either bumped her head somewhere along the way or had gone mad. Voices in her head were more than she could cope with - it was indeed the worst time to check her sanity levels.

  “It’s alright. It’s me, Bo,” the voice said while Bo munched away, seemingly possessed by a real appetite for destroying salt-weed bushes. Lernea squinted at the bunny with a puzzled, weary look. For all she knew and cared for, a talking bunny made as much sense as a magical, fire-spouting one. What felt weird was that Bo sounded to her like a female. That didn’t register as a life-threatening situation, Lernea knew; she’d just come out of one alive and well. And quite wet, she added in her mind as an afterthought. She sighed and suddenly wished for a steamy hot cup of chamoleon: she could almost smell it too.

  Lernea raised her head slightly above the wet sand and felt a sudden, awful dizziness. She remembered the drop into that churning nightmarish void fire and the flash; a bright, blinding flash. She remembered Theo falling right behind her, clasping her hand and Bo’s eyes flaring up as as if the small white bunny was about to explode with a hail of brimstone and fire.

  She dug her hands in the sand and propped herself up; her shoulders felt sore. She looked to her left and saw Theo laying there, his back against a patch of damp sand with arms splayed and eyes closed, where the waves would barely lick his body. Her mind flashed with a horrifying thought; she felt her stomach tie itself in a knot. His hair looks dreadful, she thought.

  “He’s just sleeping. He was actually snoring a little while back,” Bo sent to her.

  “You can read minds now as well?” replied Lernea audibly, with just the right amount of annoyance in her voice.

  “No, but it’s not that hard to tell what must’ve crossed your mind,” Bo replied in her thoughts and dug her rabbit body under a rocky ledge where the wind seemed to die down, and sat there snugly. Lernea replied with an annoyed stare and a scoff.

  She drove a hand through her hair reflexively; it was all a ragged mess, pieces of seaweed clinging on like little green, mushy braids. Her leather bodice was soaking wet and her boots made squishy, childish sounds. She felt wet and miserable, her only measure of relief the reassuring weight of her bow still strung against her back.

  “Aren’t you cold? At all?” Bo asked her timidly, her little bunny body shivering involuntarily.

  “I am the rightful Queen of Nomos, the Kingdom of the North,” Lernea replied in a stern voice. She felt better just by saying that.

  “So, you’re accustomed to this cold, I take it?”

  “You know, Theo would need to ask something as obvious as that. Are you two related, by chance?” Lernea asked as she took the bow off her back and began to run its curve with a hand.

  “Actually, Theo is my brother,” said Bo and in Lernea’s mind, the voice carried an awkward feeling.

  Lernea raised an eyebrow and took a long, hard stare at Bo. Then she shook her head and looked at Theo; a silver-haired head with just a touch of blond, the wet, ragged dreadlocks adorning his elven face with all the grace of a mop. She burst out laughing.

  “You’re funny! You’re better than Ned!” she said and the bunny replied in her head flatly, “I’m serious.”

  Bo’s words nearly made Lernea’s mind feel a bit heavier with all the weight the voice carried suddenly.

  Lernea blinked furiously as if something had been caught in her eye. Her face became taut suddenly; she stared back at the sea like a castaway waiting for a ship that’d never sail by.

  “Ned. And Parcifal. They’re not here, are they?” she said and walked over to Theo, vague footprints from her boots trailing behind her on the impressionable sand.

  “No. Neither is Winceham,” Bo sent. Lernea shot her a frowned look and paused mid-stride. “The weird, short fellow. Don’t you remember?” Bo asked with a hint of worry.

  “Halfuin, really. I remember. I’m not really sure what exactly happened, that’s all,” Lernea said and sat down beside Theo, legs crossed. Locks of her hair were glued against her face. She looked to windward, her arms laid back against the sand.

  “Do you want the short version, or the long version?” Bo queried in Lernea’s mind.

  “I wager we’re not in a hurry. If someone wanted us dead, they’d have done it by now,” she said and shrugged. “Shouldn’t we wake Theo up as well? He might want to hear all this,” she added as an afterthought. Bo twitched her nose and hopped towards the sea, soaking her bunny feet in some wet, gravelly sand.

  “He gets a bit antsy if you wake him up,” she said in Lernea’s mind, cautiously. “He’s kind of groggy and slow-minded for a while afterwards as well,” she added and backed away playfully from a slightly frothing wave. Bo seemed to be having some kind of fun, despite it all.

  “For a while? Like what, till the sun sets and the moon rises?” Lernea said with a sneer. Bo turned her bunny head uncannily towards Lernea; her eyes seemed to brighten up, if only just a little - it was a reflex.

  “Hey, that’s not nice,” she sent to Lernea’s mind. There was some sadness involved, rather than anger. Lernea looked at Bo for a moment and closed her eyes. Right beside her, Theo could be heard, snoring lightly.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. My apologies,” Lernea said and awkwardly ran a finger in the sand, drawing random curves and shapes. Bo seemed satisfied; the bunny’s eyes lost their glint and she turned to look at the undulating sea once more, her head bobbing slightly as if mesmerized by the waves. “It’s true though, isn’t it?” Lernea said after a while. The bunny looked at her sideways.

  “Well, he can be a little daft sometimes. But he did save us,” Bo said and hopped merrily towards Theo and snuggled right beside his head.

  “He did? I thought that was your doing,” Lernea replied, genuinely surprised to hear that.

  “I tried, but there wasn’t much I could do other than put a shield around us. The wormhole that brought us her in the nick of time, that was Theo, not me,” Bo sent and a little bit of pride had seeped into the thought.

  For a while, Lernea stared at Theo as if in shock. The sound of waves dying a few feet away rose easily above the eerie silence. Bo blinked at Lernea without saying a word. Overhead, a sea bird of some kind croaked. It drew Lernea’s stare. “I thought he was quite inept at all things magical, especially for a sorcerer” she said.

  “Oh, whatever he did, trust me, it wasn’t magic,” Bo said and wiggled her nose. “Theo is magically inert. Has been ever since I can remember,” the bunny said and dug its face in Theo’s sand-ridden dreadlocks, before pulling it out again sharply - as if some unruly smell assaulted her nostrils.

  “I thought he was a sorcerer,” Lernea said. “At least he seemed to perform like one; well, kind of. Sometimes, at any rate,” she added with a shrug, sounding clearly confused.

  “No, no. I just made it appear so; I’m the sorceress in the family,” Bo sent and her bunny eyes flared up with a tinge of red flame that was snuffed out the next instant, just to illustrate her point.

  “Just for appearance’s sake?” Lernea asked. Bo leapt above Theo’s slowly rising and falling chest and perched herself on top of a mass of rocks. She stood straight up and looked around, surveying t
he misty landscape.

  “The woodkin that raised us knew. I have a soft spot for Theo, what can I say? I thought it was a prudent thing to do. Magical bunnies aren’t a dime a dozen - if word got out...” Bo let the words echo faintly in Lernea’s mind. She gave Bo a weird, squinting look; it was her calculating, thinking look.

  “You’re both in hiding, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right. Have been for years,” Bo sent with a feeling of relief.

  “From who? Why?” Lernea said and put her bow down on the sand.

  “I have no idea. I only have the words of my father, ringing in my head,” Bo sent to Lernea and paused, sniffing the air. “Hide. That’s all I can remember.”

  “I think I can relate to that,” Lernea said with a shallow voice. Her face became taut, remembering how she and Parcifal were cast out, humiliated, to be excised from living memory, from history even. As if they never had existed. She bit her lip and her mind turned to the quandary at hand.

  “Then how did he manage to pull off whatever it was he did that saved us?” Lernea asked and nodded at Theo’s snoring form, looking baffled.

  “The wormhole? I haven’t got the slightest idea,” Bo sent to Lernea’s mind and uncannily shook her head slowly like a human would. “Same goes about the place we’ve ended up at,” she added, her nose twitching faintly.

  “It could’ve been worse,” Lernea said and stood up. A cold breeze snapped against her hard, lean face. She felt invigorated.

  “We could have been charred to the bone or flash-steamed into space, that’s true,” Bo sent and began scouring the sand and rocks for signs of moss or something generally green and preferably edible. She sniffed profusely, like only some kind of herbivorous hound would.

  “I mean, this place could have been worse. Far worse. It however kind of feels... Homely,” she said after pausing for a moment, searching for the right word. She cleaned a bit of the sand off her pants, but the majority of the grains mostly clung on heedless. Bo’s eyes widened and she turned her bunny head around at an impossible angle; anyone passing by would have been horrified by the unnatural movement.

  “What’s homely about this cold, wet place? I can barely see what’s out there. And as far as I can tell, there’s nothing but rocks not even a tint of moss. The sun is hidden there is no way to tell the time. It’s moody and grey, suggestive of a rainy afternoon without the rain. It’s ”

  “Kind of like home, indeed,” Lernea said and nodded.

  “This place reminds you of home?” Bo asked Lernea, the thought echoing with a positively glum quality.

  “Reminds me of Thraka; the northwestern reaches. My sister and I spent a whole summer there when we were kids.”

  “Must’ve been a lovely summer,” Bo sent, the sarcasm lost to Lernea. She dug instinctively in a shadowy cleft where lo and behold a cluster of mushrooms lay. She began nibbling at them after barely affording them a peremptory look. They didn’t seem poisonous, and anyone hungry enough would have arrived at the same conclusion.

  “It was; we went whale fishing,” Lernea replied with a thin smile. Bo was focused on the mushrooms, making sure to eat just the caps; she never did like the stems.

  “I was being sarcastic,but never mind. Whale fishing, you say? Just how old were you?”

  “Twelve,” Lernea said, nodding slightly to herself.

  “What kind of kids go whale hunting?”

  “We were rarely, if ever, normal kids, even by Nomos standards. We were born to become queens, mind you,” Lernea said, looked at the bunny and sighed.

  “I was under the vague impression that queens are all about croquet and tea parties,” Bo sent and somehow her thoughts conveyed a sense of insatiable hunger, even while the mushrooms were being depleted rapidly. Lernea spent a few moments staring at Theo’s rising and falling chest, hypnotized by the waves of the sea chiming in on tune. She was frowning once more, her mind seeking refuge in sweet memories past.

  “We’ve met danger together. Narrowly escaped death. I thought you’d think better of me by now,” Lernea said in earnest. She smiled playfully.

  “True enough,” said Bo and let out a tiny, nearly insignificant bunny burp that mostly sounded like someone sneezing.

  “Bless you,” Lernea said and Bo looked at her sideways, as if she had just said something dangerously provocative.

  “What for?” Bo sent and her nose twitched.

  “I thought you sneezed.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Bo insisted and waggled her tail.

  “Well, it sounded like a sneeze,” Lernea said by way of an apology.

  “No, I felt full, that’s all.”

  Lernea nodded and then frowned scornfully. A lady, even in the guise of an animal, that admitted to making vulgar sounds was a deplorable thing. She was about to begin lecturing Bo when a noise was heard, very much like someone sneezing at a quarter of the speed but ten times as loud.

  “Was that you again?”

  “I told you, it wasn’t a sneeze. I burped, only ever so slightly. Now this sound.. This is neither a sneeze or a burp,” Bo sent.

  The odd sneezing sound grew louder and louder, until it could be heard for what it was: the sound of creaking wood.

  “That’s odd. Sounds familiar,” said Lernea and looked around her trying to peer through the ubiquitous, impenetrable mist, to no avail. “It has this wooden quality. Something to do with wood, in any case,” she said and strained herself to hear closely for the source.

  “I think it’s coming from the sea,” Bo sent, her tiny upper body turned around, scanning the sea nervously, her ears jolted rigidly upright like impossibly small, furry, full-blown sails.

  “Wood creaking in the sea. That’s bound to be a ship, then,” Lernea said and grinned.

  “A ship?” Bo sent, not feeling entirely sure. “A ship,” Lernea replied and put a hand above her eyes, searching for a sail, a mast, a bow, or the smell of cider and mead. The creaking grew louder; it was as if the ship was riding past them. Theo’s light snoring could not have hoped to match it.

  “Ahoy! Over here!” Lernea shouted into the mist. No echo was returned, her voice soaked up by the fog.

  “What are you doing? You’re exposing our position!” Bo sent, and hopped nervously around Lernea’s feet, looking at her like a lost, desperate puppy.

  “To whom? We need to find out where we are, one way or another. What if there won’t be another ship passing our way for years?” she replied in a hushed voice. The creaking sound became clear as day; the waves rising up the beach became jarred, irregular.

  “What if they’re bloodthirsty cutthroats like Culliper? What if it is Culliper?” Bo sent in an anguished thought.

  “Ned sold him as a slave, remember?” Lernea said flatly.

  “You’re being naive! Do you really think someone wouldn’t recognize him? Strike up a deal to use his talents?” Bo sent, angst-ridden and jumpy.

  “Who would strike up a deal with a slave? That’s preposterous!”

  “Why are you, my dear lady Teletha, screaming to no-one in particular?”, Theo offered drowsily.

  “I’m having an argument with your sister!” Lernea retorted, sounding riled up.

  “My sister?” Theo asked looking light-headed as ever.

  “Bo? The bunny?” Lernea said and stuck out both of her arms in frustration, wild-eyed and nodding intensely.

  Then a giant shadow carved itself through the mist with alarming speed. A dark wooden bulk in the shape of a ship’s prow appeared, accompanied by a creaking noise and the sound of foaming, rustling water.

  “Move!” Bo managed to sent with a gasping thought to Lernea and Theo both, while the ship ran aground heedlessly, kicking up wet sand violently all around its prow. No-one had time to move, but nevertheless the ship came to a jarring, abrupt halt with a grinding noise reminiscent of millstones and sliding tomb doors. Nobody was hurt, but they nonetheless couldn’t pry their eyes off the ship’s prow; there was a bronze-and-marble statu
ette of a luscious half-gorgon, half-mermaid decorating it. It was voluptuously sculpted, sexually suggestive and quite terrible to behold.

  “Who goes there?” came the grumbling shout of a man. Lernea cleared her throat and assumed a slightly regal pose, the seaweed still cluttering some of her hair.

  “My name is Lernea Te-” Lernea uttered before abruptly pausing mid-sentence. A weird pain rose from her feet; her gaze wandered downwards, where Bo was trying to bite her toenail through at least three layers of thick boot leather and skin.

  “Don’t tell him your real name! Make something up! Make something up!” she voiced frantically in Lernea’s mind.

  “Why, I can’t seem to shake off this terrible dream,” Theo said mostly to himself, looking rather worn. His voice had a touch of befuddled rasping quality about it.

  “My name is Lernea Testarossa.. Of the Testarossa family,” Lernea said with a hesitant frown, staring at Bo who in turn stared at the ship as if it were one giant carrot.

  “You’re not a mermaid, are ye?” said a scruffy-looking old man that suddenly appeared at the ship’s railing. He was wearing what appeared to be more than a slightly used horned metal cap on his head and a tattered old shirt with matching pants of an indiscriminate nature and original color. A rather musky old beard hung from his face down to his waist; what looked like tiny barnacles clung on strands of it, as if their life depended on it, which was probably true. There was a wooden parrot that appeared to be physically and permanently attached to his shoulder. It was also quite emphatically dead, judging as it didn’t breathe nor move on its own.

  “No good sir, I assure you. I’m not a mermaid,” Lernea replied after clearing her throat.

  “What’s he then? Could it be, he be a merman?” the old man said with evident worry in his voice, pointing at Theo with a bony finger.

  “No sir. He’s a woodkin elf, a friend. We’re stranded here.”

  “Where might ‘here’ be then?” the man asked, twiddling his thumbs.

  “I was hoping a gentleman of your caliber and seamanship would be much more knowledgeable in these maritime affairs of navigation and mapping,” Lernea replied, to which the man strained his neck like a turtle and offered with a bland, vacant expression: “Wot?”

  Lernea sighed and let her shoulders sag. “I thought you’d know,” she said and waved a hand at the ship at large. The old man who quite closely resembled a rather out-of-luck, struggling old-timer pirate picked at his nose and flicked its output with a bony finger.

  “Lady, I’ve been wandering around these parts for eighteen years. I’m still, I’ll have to admit, bloody hopelessly lost. I’m Cap’n Van der Breckenrod. Perhaps, if it’s worthwhile, at your disposal,” he said and smiled showing an array of teeth in all their possible states of decay.

  Lernea felt let down. She was hoping there’d be a silver lining in all that mess of a situation. Bo whispered in her mind, even if there was no real need to do so: “Don’t tell him anything. Ask him everything.”

  There was a slight hint of paranoia right there; if the Ygg had reached out wherever this place was, Lernea thought to herself, their agents would’ve realised who they were talking to by now. More to the point, she reasoned, if that old geezer was working for the Ygg, they were indeed a sad, hopeless, desperate lot.

  “Mr. Gunnadeer, you’ve run us aground. Again,” the old pirate turned around and said to someone either invisible, or non-existent. It was quite possible that he was simply driveling, yet Bo was instantly wary. “Where are the others? Why don’t they show themselves?” she sent to Lernea, in what resembled a hiss. She was trying to gnaw at her paws, but bunny physiology sadly made that impossible. Theo was still trying to get some sort of bearing with reality at large, sand running through his palms.

  “Is this really not a dream?” he asked, with a voice just like one would expect in a dream.

  “It’s not a dream, Theo,” Lernea replied sternly. Theo blinked still trying to understand and got up, whole clumps of wet sand weighing down his dreadlocks.

  “We wish to parley,” Lernea said aloud to make sure the old pirate would hear her. He looked behind him for a moment, as if someone had tapped him on his shoulder, but there seemed to be no-one there. He nodded to himself, shrugged and said to no-one in particular:

  “Mr. Munsheen, lower the boat. Prepare a landing party. I’m going ashore,” the old man said and coughed profusely, before spitting a globule with a decidedly abnormal mass, the color of emerald sludge. It splashed into the sea audibly with a plop, and lingered for a moment before sinking.

  “Let me do the talking. There’s no real danger; he’s old and probably senile. After all, can’t you see his alone?” Lernea whispered.

  “What about the ghosts in that boat then?” Theo said and Lernea looked at him with a frown that nearly brought her eyebrows in contact, while Bo’s eyes flared up with a spark of orange light.