Justicar Jhee and the Cursed Abbey

by Trevol Swift

  The yacht sailed on through the rolling seas. In calmer times, she might have found it anchoring. Now, her stomach roiled. She indicated they kneel. She stilled herself until her stomach settled.

  “What next?”

  “Unfortunately, it gets much more boring from here. Formulations and schematics.”

  She awakened her conch to find more notifications. She hesitated on the death irregularities again.

  “What was it?”

  “Mm?”

  “The message on your conch that troubled you.”

  “Some curious deaths at a cloister of celibates.”

  “A cloister of celibates. No doubt they killed themselves from being denied one of the Makers’ greatest gifts?”

  She took the humor as well-meaning, talismanic, and chose not to admonish him for it. “No doubt. This must be so distressing for you. Tell me about the latest fashion trends from the capital.”

  He folded his hands and looked at her sideways. “Do you really want to know about fashion? I thought we were going to be pouring over charts.”

  “This night is about doing what you enjoy.”

  “This night is about doing what we both enjoy, denbe. It should not be one-sided.”

  “We do what I want on most other nights. I wish to be more considerate and take interests in your interests, especially with how neglectful and rude I’ve been this evening.”

  “We’re still finding common ground. It won’t always go smoothly. What bothers me most is how you don’t relax with me and let all the other stuff go if only for a few moments.”

  She touched his hand and gave him an exaggerated once over with her gaze. He pecked her on the muzzle. Then another tentative one. He gained confidence for a stronger kiss. She squeezed his hand for encouragement. He ended the kiss with a wide grin.

  Thunder crashed overhead. Jhee stepped back. “Not exactly the pleasure cruise I promised you. I’m sorry we’ve had to travel so near the storm zone. The main routes are congested and in disarray. Hopefully, the course the captain has plotted near the edge of the buffer zone will save us time. Don’t worry. We’ll rejoin high society for festival season.”

  “I’m not worried. If you say we will be there in time, we will.” Kanto indicated Jhee sit. Once she had, he began to massage her shoulders. “I want us to attend all the shows when we reach the capital. You can show me off to all the blue-skinned elites.”

  “We will see.”

  Few pursuits disinterested her more. Perhaps his age did not concern her so much, but that they were so ill-matched.

  “Those death notices aren’t the only matters which have you preoccupied.”

  “The pirate attacks in the outlands are getting more frequent.”

  “The location of some of your most lucrative seabeds. Your investments in sustainable aquaculture almost went under due to the shield. Yours was among the few farms to survive.”

  “Um,” Jhee acknowledged, a bit surprised he knew that much about her investments. “I’m hiring extra security. Locals who have been displaced. Hopefully, it will be enough to keep them from turning pirate.”

  “Be mindful of them aiding the pirates from the inside as well.”

  She quirked her mouth at him. “What a thoughtful observation.”

  “I’ll try not to be insulted.”

  “You gave me a gift. It’s only fair I give you one.”

  Jhee rose and rummaged through the bottom drawer of the dresser. First, she pulled out an unadorned, cracked music box wrapped in a cloth bundle. She rethought and chose the top drawer. She set a jeweled candy dish wrought of smoky polymer glass on the tea table. The amethyst and citrine stones matched the tones of Kanto’s robes.

  “In my preferred color palette, no less. I think my good fashion sense is rubbing off on you.” He lifted the lid. “Wait! Are those?”

  “Lace root melon candies.”

  “My favorites. How did you know?”

  “It’s what I do. I learn things.”

  “Grandmamere gave me these when I told her something new about her guests. Sometimes I even received little citrus cakes.”

  “Lady Kaydence. This weather does have its upsides.”

  “That she can’t contact you regularly.”

  They grinned. Kanto bristled up his body hair and snuggled against her. It made the difference with his wiry, slim frame. Jhee enjoyed a nice and full build to wrap her arms around. Her young, virile husband was impressionable and eager to please. Had Jhee done him a disservice by bedding him when she intended to not make him a permanent part of her household? As soon as they reached the capital if not before, she meant to seek new arrangements for Kanto and Mirrei. Then it would be her and Shep again.

  Jhee let her fingers play in his fur. “You’re quite the cuddler and the least fitful sleeper.”

  Kanto touched the small of her back like he had earlier. She molded against him. Her mouth set in a thin line when it sunk in the only way he could have known where to touch her to get that response.

  Shep. The questions about arcane techniques and historical trivia she knew he cared nothing for. She saw, now, the orchestrated appeals to her vanity. Shep must have coached him. With their night underway and she had already flouted its rules several times, she dared not call Kanto on it.

  He cast his gaze down, then looked back up at her. “Don’t be mad. Mirrei and I must take our clues from denme, senior spouse, on how best to serve our denbe.”

  “Serve not service.”

  Kanto had planned on not being called to account. While the premeditation irked Jhee, she had been in the wrong. She mustered the graciousness not to withdraw from him. He continued to stroke the small of her back, and she stroked his ears. The tension and the awkwardness seeped away. All forgiven.

  Their travel yacht lurched to a sudden stop. They tumbled into a heap.

  2 Arrival

  Tiles and Tunes

  In the stateroom next door to Jhee’s, Shep and Mirrei played tiles. The yacht lurched. The tiles scattered in all directions. Shep checked Mirrei, who nodded to indicate she was fine. He paused to listen.

  Yelling came down from above deck. Crew members barreled by their door. Something banged against the door. Mirrei jumped. The doorknob rattled, then slowly turned. Shep flung it open, ready. Jhee and Kanto stood there.

  “You can’t seriously be going out there?” Kanto was saying.

  “They may need an artificer,” Jhee answered. “Stay with Shep and Mirrei until I return.”

  Shep harried them in from the passageway. “Wife?”

  “Everyone here fine?” Jhee asked.

  Shep gave a quick nod.

  “How is Mirrei doing?”

  “About the same. What’s happened?”

  Bax, Jhee’s head servant, poked his head in a moment later. “Sorry to disturb you, Justicar.”

  Bax led Dari, their pet shark hound, on a leash. The hound perked her ears up and whined at the sight of Shep. He and Jhee petted her.

  “There, there, old girl. Bax, assessment?” Jhee asked.

  “Forgiveness, Justicar, the wild wave drove the ship into a reef. The crew’s working to free us.”

  Jhee took the leash. “See what you can do to help. I’ll be up there soon.”

  Bax’s wizened face creased with concern. “Aye.”

  Jhee led Dari into their stateroom. Kanto took the hound from her. “At least change your robes.”

  Jhee gathered a warm outer robe and deck shoes from her stateroom before she returned to the passageway.

  Shep frowned. “Denye is right. The world can turn without you for one crisis.”

  Jhee lowered her voice, “It is nothing to trouble yourself about, dear one. Stay here. I’ll assess the situation. Keep everyone reassured.”

  “As you wish, dear wife.”

  “Wait, your robes,” Kanto said as Jhee headed above deck.

  Shep regarded his two dendes, junior spouses, and affected a smile. He patiently ret
rieved the tiles and set up the board again. “Who wants to play?”

  “Tunes? Sprite?” He addressed them by their gaming names to keep the mood light.

  “Pass,” Kanto said went to the porthole to sulk. Shep and Mirrei resumed their places at the tile board.

  “Will denbe be fine?” Mirrei asked.

  “She always returns safe and sound.” Shep mixed the tiles and made the first play. “Try that, Sprite.”

  “You’re lucky our last game got interrupted, Pup.” Mirrei smiled and countered. Her laughter was interspersed with coughing fits. Kanto gave her his usual sidelong glance then took up his lute. “Could it be pirates?”

  Kanto made a musical flourish and switched to a more somber selection. “My thoughts exactly.”

  Mirrei’s eyes went wide, and she leaned forward. Kanto now played a harrowing tune with a sense of urgency.

  Shep hoped Kanto caught the rebuke in his expression. Pirates would have found the main routes as inconvenient as they. They may have made the same calculation their captain did to brave the storm zone. “Doubtful. They’re finding it far more lucrative to loot sunken homes.”

  The last thing Shep needed was Kanto’s wild stories and drama frightening Mirrei. Although, the young woman appeared more intrigued than scared.

  “’Don’t be another crisis she has to manage,’” Kanto said. He bowed his head and played something light. “We shall take our cues from you on how to respond.”

  “While you’re watching out for us, who’s watching out for her?” Mirrei asked.

  A question Shep had grown tired of asking. Hopefully, increased familial duties might succeed where he had failed.

  The Reef

  On deck, rain pelted Jhee’s face, and the wind howled as if the Wave Witch herself hailed them. Her sleeves snapped in the maelstrom like pennants. What did it say about her that she preferred a deadly storm to more time alone in her stateroom with Kanto?

  Sailors equipped with long, hooked poles crowded the left side of the deck.

  “Careful, ladies. Steady. This is a protected reef,” the captain yelled.

  Jhee ran to the side. She breathed deep then glanced over. Water, deep blue-black, darker even than the high imperials’ skin, gave away nothing. Her throat tightened. She braced, like always expecting to see something slither beneath the surface or catch glimpse of an enormous, scaly, glowing eye. When she saw nothing of the sort, she exhaled. Followed up as always by cursing herself for foolish fancies. She faced away from the sea to address the crew. “Spotlight.”

  To draw the sea. Almost as daunting a prospect as testing the storm. Jhee rolled up her sleeves and cleared her mind. She engaged the gears of transmutation within herself. The liquid essence of the waves and the fiery source of the spotlight’s incandescence became clockworks in her mind. Within her, the Divine Mechanism used her as a conduit to bridge the two. Her esca tingled. The tingling grew as did the spotlight’s glow. The deepest blue water lightened as if the water itself illuminated. Not bad for a Water tertiary. She doubted a Water dominant drawer could have done better.

  The famed and magnificent sapphire and ruby coral of Bibsbebe’s Reef had hooked itself to one of the rails on the yacht. What an inauspicious omen. She would not conclude their journey and arrive for her new duties at the capital as one who had destroyed the thousand-year-old reef.

  She took a moment to think. Unless the crew were shipwrights, they should not draw the yacht. It had to be the reef. The contradiction coral were, like flesh and bone. Earth drawer work. The element she had the least expertise with. She looked at the all-female crew.

  “Do you have Earth drawers?” Jhee yelled.

  A sailor hesitated a moment then at a signal from the captain joined Jhee. “I can do both aspects but as subsidiaries.”

  “Good enough.”

  Jhee communicated with hand gestures how she wanted the sailor to manipulate the coral. She steeled herself to look over the side again. She reached out through the universal mechanisms to the water, winding and guiding it away from the reefs so as not to dampen the sailor’s watch work.

  “You.” The captain gestured to another sailor. “Put your hook there. If we get under it, we might be able to dislodge from the reef without damaging it.”

  The captain looked over and nodded. She waved for the sailors to do as Jhee suggested.

  The sailors wedged their billhooks in. With a mighty crack, the yacht shuddered and drifted away from the reef. Sapphire and ruby-colored fragments floated away and sank beneath sight. Nowhere near as disastrous as it could have been. The tingling in her esca stopped as she stopped her concentration on her spell sequence and water drawing. She leaned heavily against the yacht’s side, careful not to look back at the water. The winds died down, and the seas calmed, but the rain continued strong as ever. The Storm Child had not done having its fun with them.

  Bax came over.

  “Assessment,” she said.

  “We’ve cleared the reef, Justicar. The ship was damaged. We’re taking on water. We’ll have to put aground to affect repairs.”

  “Makers’ whim, if it’s not one problem, it’s another with this journey.”

  “Aye, Justicar. The pumps should keep us afloat until the squall passes.”

  “Where precisely are we?”

  “Northern edge of District Sixteen.”

  Jhee stroked her nose. “What’s that glow over there in the distance? There’s an abbey around here, isn’t there? Could that be it?”

  “Aye, the storm light from the Drakists on Torilsisle. They have a bay and a dry dock large enough for a yacht such as this.”

  The death record irregularity searches. “Ask the captain to contact them. Have the monks and nuns dispatch tow skiffs once it’s safe. Use my official title if necessary.”

  “At once, Justicar. Now, please, get below.”

  The lightning lured her attention again. The storm. The beautiful storm shield had its own slight glow. Thermals and winds and lightning made to behave as mortals willed. Truly, it was the marvel of all marvels. Those who created the storm system used the same methods as she did in her daily works. The scale and sheer number of artificers and elementalists made for a fascinating complexity. One an artificer could be forgiven for wanting to test herself against.

  When might it be clear enough for a rescue? The Storm Child had cost her family much in the past. Not today. She thrust her divine-granted will beyond the yacht into the forces of the storm.

  The storm yanked at her. Despite her earlier warning to Kanto, she had no buffer to dull the onslaught of it. She lowered herself into her stance. She seized a piece of the storm. She fought to impose an order on it, to reveal its workings like any other device. Residuals of the hundred and thousands of elementalists who had shaped the perpetual storm system bombarded her. Snatches of sound and fury shattered the visualization of the clockworks. She released the storm and let it keep its secrets for now.

  Her sleeves no longer whipped back and forth with as much ferocity as before. She heard Bax’s voice much clearer now.

  “You’ve done enough Justicar. Let’s get you back inside, or Mr. Shep will have my pouch.”

  Bax saw her safely below decks. Jhee blanked her expression and counted in her head. She knocked on her cohort’s stateroom door, and Shep swept her inside. Mirrei and Kanto sat beside the porthole. She embroidered while he brushed her hair and hummed.

  Jhee shook herself off. Shep took a towel and brusquely wiped the moisture from her fur. “Let’s get you out of these wet things.”

  “You forgot to change your robes,” Kanto said.

  She glanced at the pile of clothing, and the new robe was indeed mixed amongst her wet things. Kanto made an exasperated sound. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her headache had reasserted itself now the excitement had passed. A sneeze rocked her balance and made her sinuses feel as if they would explode. “I think I may have caught cold.”

  “Serves you right.”


  She placed her hands on his shoulders. Steady voice. Without panic. Without worry. His shoulders relaxed under her grasp. “I know. I know.”

  Mirrei stifled a cough. Jhee turned her attention to her. Kanto gave up his seat for Jhee.

  “Have you no admonishment for me, dende?” Jhee asked.

  Mirrei hid a weak smile behind her hand. “None that has not already been given, denbe.”

  “You’ll be happy to know we’ll be leaving these dreadful waves and cramped cabins for a brief stay on land.”

  “Where?”

  “An abbey nearby.”

  Kanto’s narrowed his eyes. “One with a cloister of celibates?”

  “Um, yes.”

  “For how long?”

  “Not long. There are some minor repairs we need to do.”

  “Us too.” Kanto held up her robe and shook his head. Jhee jerked her head at Mirrei. He took a position next to Mirrei and squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll be in time for festival season. Once we reach the capital, we’ll see the Grand Court in all its finery. Catch the biggest shows. Shop in all the finest shops. Won’t that be fun? We might even meet the Grand Sovereigns themselves or glimpse the Wave Wanderers. Jhee promised.”

  Mirrei nodded then was overtaken by a coughing fit. Shep laid a towel on Jhee’s shoulders. Everyone exchanged worried glances over Mirrei’s head.

  The Landing

  The Storm Child had returned to hir mischief though with not as much vigor by the time their yacht came within sight of the abbey of Tranquility Bridge. The imposing structure loomed on a large outcropping of rock set apart from the nearby isle. The storm light swept around in a circle from the highest shell spire with the elongated-conic shape. Three additional spires each shaped like a different gastropod shell spiraled up into the sky silhouetted against the ever-present glow of the storm shield.