Ten minutes later, Captain Kassa Daggersharp was suitably garbed in her favourite pirating outfit—black suede bodice with bare midriff, scarlet silk skirts, too much silver jewellery and big black boots. Armed with the confident knowledge that she looked damn good, she emerged on deck. “Who gave the order to set sail?” she snapped without even a preliminary greeting.
Aragon Silversword leaned against the mast, not reacting to her tone of voice. If anything, he seemed amused. “If you are serious about going to Chiantrio, we needed to start at first light. Unless you feel that midnight is a suitable time to turn up on the shores of an unfamiliar land mass?” Technically, he was her lieutenant, her liegeman, her partner in crime. In truth, she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. When it came to challenging her authority, he was a master at it.
Aragon Silversword had spent roughly nine years of his adult life as an Imperial champion, three years imprisoned as an Imperial traitor, and one year as a pirate, give or take the occasional moon. For some reason, it was the traitor bit which stuck in most people’s memories.
He was tall and lean, with dark blond hair. He was never pleased to see anyone, and his eldritch-looking sword tended to scare most people away if his personality didn’t get there first.
Aragon and Kassa had eventually come to a mutual understanding for their own mental wellbeing—she would resist flirting with him as much as was humanly possible, and in return he would challenge, duel, fight or just generally scare away anyone she wanted, as long as she asked nicely.
“You seem very sure of yourself,” she accused.
“Well, now,” said Aragon. “It isn’t every day that a pirate like me gets to go witch-hunting.”
Kassa glared at him. “I hadn’t decided about Chiantrio!” She had been agonising for months whether she wanted to muddy her already complicated life by adding true witchcraft to her list of career options.
“You have now.” His voice was crisp. “This ship has been sailing around in circles for months now, while we waited for you to make up your mind. We took a vote.”
“A vote?” cried Kassa, outraged. “Since when did this crew get democratic?”
“We got tired of your delaying tactics,” replied Aragon Silversword.
She looked wildly around, but the other crew members were nowhere to be seen. “And this democratic group promptly elected you to be the bearer of bad tidings?” she challenged.
Aragon almost smiled. “They didn’t have the nerve to tell you, face to face.”
“But you do.”
“You don’t scare me, Kassa. It is high time you went to Chiantrio and found out once and for all if you can be a Qualified Witch. Then maybe we can get back to…”
“Back to what?” she demanded. “An idle life of lawbreaking and outlawry? What have you got to do which is so much more worthwhile?”
“I have many ambitions,” said Aragon coldly. “Most of them involve not being on this ship.”
“Oh, you can leave at any time…”
“No, I can’t.” His grey eyes were suddenly very dark. “You know damn well I can’t leave.”
She had forced his oath of allegiance, while he happened to be incapacitated by a love spell. Maybe he wouldn’t be quite so resentful about being physically bound to her for all time, if she hadn’t actually branded him on the chest with her amateur witchmark. Still, it was too late to alter that now.
“You still hate me for it, don’t you?” she demanded, her temper easing.
“I don’t hate you,” Aragon said calmly. “I don’t hate anything. I merely prepare for the inevitable.”
“And the inevitable is?”
“That one of your damn-fool expeditions will get you killed,” he responded tonelessly. “And then I will be free.”
Kassa’s expression did not change. “It will be that easy?” she remarked, making it a question.
“Oh, yes,” promised Aragon Silversword in tones of dry ice. “It will be that easy.” he had betrayed her before. When the right opportunity came along, he could do it again.
Daggar Profit-scoundrel was mooching about in the cargo hold, trying to keep out of Kassa’s way until she had calmed down a bit. “Witching,” he grunted. “Never saw the use of it.”
“It’s a good way to weave supernatural elements into the story,” said Tippett the jester-poet brightly, pausing in the act of composing a particularly deathless couplet. “Always good for pulling a crowd, the supernatural bits.”
Daggar pulled a metal comb out of one of his many pockets and started to groom the sheep. “Never mind, Singespitter,” he muttered. “She likes you really, I know she does. Go on, then,” he said aloud to Tippett. “Read me some poem.”
Tippett smiled shyly, adjusted his spectacles and struck an epic pose. “O!” he proclaimed.
“Indigestion?” suggested Daggar sympathetically.
“No,” snapped the jester-poet. “O! It’s proclaiming talk, it is. It means, hush up and listen.”
“I’m listening,” said Daggar in a hurt voice. “Go on, then.”
Tippett struck another pose. “O!” he said loudly.
The door to the cargo hold opened. “You can both come out now,” drawled Aragon Silversword. “She’s forgiven you.”
“That’s our Kassa,” said Daggar happily. “Quick to get angry and try to kill you, just as quick to forgive everything and make you a nice cup of tea.”
“Go on,” said Aragon in a humourless voice. “Ask her to make you a cup of tea. She probably won’t cut off all your limbs.”
“Isn’t anyone going to listen to my poem?” asked Tippett plaintively, but the other two had already left. The little jester-poet’s shoulders drooped somewhat. “Oh,” he sighed.
Singespitter the sheep nudged him with a cold nose, inviting him to continue with the reading.
Later that day, it was Kassa’s turn to prepare lunch which meant everyone was making do with dried meat and apples.
Daggar was greenishly seasick. “How far away is this island?” he groaned.
“You voted to go there,” said Kassa sweetly, not willing to let any of them forget that in a hurry. She had said little all morning, too occupied with thinking about what would happen when she reached Chiantrio, and resenting that a major life decision had been taken out of her hands.
“I don’t see why you can’t get your Witchy Qualifications on dry land,” Daggar grumbled.
“This is the smoothest ship in the world, Daggar,” Kassa reminded him. “It goes through the waves, not over and under them. Crossing the ocean is no different to crossing a road or a meadow. This illness is all in your head.”
“My stomach, too,” he said thickly. “Anyway, you’re a celebrity now, what with all that swashbuckling you’ve been doing lately, and having an Imperial price on your head, and saving the world from the Glimmer last year. People ask you for your autograph all the time, even when you’re in the middle of robbing them of their valuables. Why can’t this witch come to you?”
“Because that’s not the way it works,” said Kassa in exasperation. “The godmother witch assigned to me at my birth was Dame Crosselet, and she lives on Chiantrio. I can’t just summon her to me, it would be bad manners.”
“Not to mention that a message stating our whereabouts could be intercepted by the Lady Emperor,” put in Aragon dryly. “She’s managed to put quite a law-enforcing gang together in the year or so since she decided that Kassa is public enemy number one. Army, Navy, Blackguards… We would be dead or captured before this godmother witch could even hop on her broomstick.”
“Exactly,” said Kassa, glaring at Aragon for the interruption. “It’s much safer this way, Daggar.”
But Daggar wasn’t listening. He was too busy emptying his lunch (and most of his breakfast) over the side.
Hours later, a tiny tropical island swam into view in the distance. “Land ho!” shouted Tippett, waving his humorous hat in enthusiasm.
“Bleugh!” re
plied Daggar, still hanging over the side of the ship and looking green.
“So that’s Chiantrio,” said Kassa Daggersharp, thoughtfully.
Half a dozen small islands might be vaguely orbiting Mocklore at any given time. Some were fixed to their spot in the ocean; other bobbed around a bit. Of all the most stable islands, Chiantrio was the largest and most colourful. North-west of Zibria (the most northerly city-state in Mocklore), the island was a paradise of sun, sand, colourful flowers and venomous snake pits. From a distance, it looked quite pretty.
Close up, it looked quite dangerous. And pretty.
As the Silver Splashdance slid its way through the shallows of the beach and up on to the sand, Kassa Daggersharp pulled on her most dramatic cloak and tidied her wild, blood-coloured hair. “I’ll go ashore alone and see if I can find this Dame Crosselet person. Don’t wait up.”
Aragon raised an eyebrow coldly. “What are we supposed to do meanwhile? I suppose you would like us to do a spot of spring cleaning.”
Kassa smiled brightly at him, batting her eyelids. “A marvellous idea. You should have this crate squeaky clean in no time.” She blew him a kiss and swung herself overboard, making neat booted imprints on the sand.
Aragon glanced at Tippett and Daggar. “You heard the Captain.” He went to fetch himself a deck chair, a foot stool and a very large drink.
In the cargo hold, a sturdy treasure chest began to rattle menacingly.
All the stories and legends about Chiantrio suggested that the isle was far too close for comfort to the OtherRealm—the moonlight dimension, the land of the fey—and that various supernatural creatures such as aelfs, faeries and wyrdings made this their first port of call when cruising the mortal dimension. Looking around the local village, Kassa believed the rumours. Nothing else explained the otherworldly beauty of the local people, or their extraordinary dress sense.
According to a girl with flowers in her hair and a coconut-shell brassiere, Dame Crosselet was to be found in the middle of the rainforest on the far side of the village. Kassa made her way through the spindly green trees and undergrowth, her mood descending a notch every time something dripped on her nose. By the time she reached the gingerbread cottage, she was just about ready to kill something.
It was a gingerbread cottage. A real, sticky, doughy cottage with sugar-glazed windows. As Kassa approached it, she noticed a swarm of flies hovering over the damp, sagging roof. A cloying scent of rotting cake filled the air. Mould was creeping up the walls.
“Hello?” Kassa called, trying to avoid breathing through her nose. “Is anyone there?”
“Don’t want any,” snapped a crackled old voice. A hunched woman emerged from the gingerbread cottage. If anything, she smelled even worse than her house did. “I’ve tole you people before,” she added in a grumble. “I don’t want to buy any of your newfangled crystal balls. I got better things to do than watch some Smug Family. Leave me alone, y’hear?”
“My name is Kassa Daggersharp,” said Kassa patiently. “I’ve come for my training…”
“Bit late, aren’t yer?” the old woman said with a sneer.
Kassa smiled faintly. “I couldn’t make up my mind, you see. If I wanted to really be a witch.” She frowned slightly. “You are Dame Crosselet, aren’t you?”
“Reckon I am,” said the old woman with a sniff. “You’d better come in. Don’t eat the gingerbread, by the way,” she added.
Kassa barely restrained a shudder. “I didn’t intend to,” she said with great conviction.
“Good, cos it’s rat-poisoned,” said Dame Crosslet.
Kassa stared at her in horror, the last of her childhood illusions falling away like so many autumn leaves. “You poison your gingerbread cottage?”
“Keeps out the cockroaches,” said the old woman, sniffing again. “An’ the fair folk. Slimy little buggers. Can yer cook?”
“I don’t usually,” said Kassa stiffly. “But under the circumstances I could make an exception.” An apprentice witch had to start from the bottom and work her way up. It was traditional. Wasn’t it?
“Good,” said the old woman. “Come on, then. Yer can start by making me dinner.”
It was their first holiday. For the first time in about fifteen moons (give or take a wax or a wane), Kassa was not there to bully her crew into attacking fat merchants or staging dramatic raids on the Lady Emperor’s property. For the first time, the outlaws could relax.
“I say we take turns at being Captain,” said Daggar lazily, sipping from a tall glass full of brightly-coloured bubbles with a paper umbrella.
“Good idea,” said Aragon Silversword with his eyes closed and his feet up. “Why don’t you put it to Kassa when she gets back? I’m sure she’ll jump at the chance of taking a back seat while you turn this into a jewel-smuggling merchant vessel.”
Daggar was a profit-scoundrel by nature, devoted to the gaining of wealth and prosperity by any means possible. Unfortunately, he was a bone-lazy coward by inclination, and could never quite bring himself to risk anything very much. Staying with Kassa meant that someone else made the decisions on a permanent basis. “Have you got any better ideas?” he said.
“Just the one,” replied Aragon calmly. “We sail away. Right now.”
Daggar’s mouth dropped open. “Just leave her here? She’d kill us.”
“If she ever caught us.”
“But—I couldn’t do that to Kassa,” said Daggar with something like relief. “She’s my cousin!”
“I can’t leave,” chimed in Tippett, sounding scared at the very idea. “She’s my only chance to be a famous poet. I can’t write epic poetry without a hero to follow around. Heroine,” he corrected himself.
Aragon smiled thinly. “And Kassa thought she only had one sheep on board.”
“What’s with all this big talk anyway?” added Daggar. “You can’t leave any more than we can. Kassa put that witchmark on you to keep you loyal. You can’t leave her side, right?”
Aragon stiffened. “I am hardly likely to forget that.” In his mind’s eye he saw the small spiral-within-a-spiral that Kassa had branded into his chest. It was more than a symbol; he had tested its power too many times. If he deliberately put too much distance between himself and his redheaded captain, it filled his mind and body with unspeakable agony. “One of these days, I might just decide that the pain is worth it.”
A chilly silence settled over the crew of the Silver Splashdance.
Aragon leaned back in his deckchair, forcing himself to relax. Being obliged to spend most of his time on this ship with this particular crew made his palms itch. The knowledge that he could not walk out at any time made it that much worse.
Deep in the bowels of the ghostly galleon, something went, scrape scrape kchink.
Aragon’s hand moved swiftly to his transparent silver-steel rapier. “What was that sound?”
“It’ll be Singespitter,” muttered Daggar sleepily.
“No,” said Tippett with a nervous twitch to his voice. He pointed at the sheep who was snoring peaceably on the sunny deck. Its fleece looked vaguely tanned, but no one thought that was worth worrying about.
“Quiet,” ordered Aragon Silversword.
Scrape, scrape, kchink kchink.
“Why don’t you go to investigate,” suggested Daggar quickly.
“Why don’t we all go?” squeaked Tippett.
“I’ll go,” said Aragon in disgust, rising to his feet in one swift motion. “If you hear my screams, don’t hesitate to hide behind something.”
Kassa chopped and sliced and sautéed and generally went about the ordinary, everyday business of putting a meal together. It had been a long time.
Dame Crosselet hovered around, sniffing loudly and getting in the way. The stench of rotting gingerbread overpowered any herbs or spices Kassa could get her hands on.
“Don’t do this often, then?” snorted the crone.
“I live with three men and a sheep,” said Kassa firmly, stirring the s
auce and testing the potatoes. “If I cook one meal, none of them will ever lift a finger again.”
“Humgh!” said the crone.
After the cooking of the meal (eaten noisily, but without comment) came the baking of new roof tiles, and after that came the sweeping of the floor. Kassa took about two and a half hours of concentrated domestic servitude before she lost her patience entirely. She faced down the crone, armed with a cobwebby broom, dusty hair and an implacable expression. “Just as a matter of interest, exactly how long am I going to have to behave like an unpaid skivvy before you admit me as an Apprentice Witch?”
The crone sniffed noisily and chewed on something which might have been tobacco, but was probably much more disgusting. “Who said anything about ’prenticing? I just needed some chores done. Not a witch, never said I was. Just cos I got a gingerbread house and I look like something someone stepped in, everyone always goes around making assumptions all over the place.”
Kassa’s mouth fell open. “But—you are Dame Crosselet?” she demanded.
“Course,” grumbled the crone. “Dame Veedie Crosselet, esteemed baker of,” she sniffed loudly, “comestibles.”
“But I was looking for Dame Veekie Crosselet, the witch!” exclaimed Kassa. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You knew that!”
“Tough,” snarled the crone. “I knew ’er. Lived down the road a bit. No relation, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. Just a coincidence. Oh, an’ she’s dead.”
Kassa felt faint. “But she can’t be! She hasn’t taught me to be a witch yet. Her name was set out for me at birth—no one else can officially initiate me into the Craft!”
“Hmm,” said Dame Veedie, unimpressed. “Like I said. You took yer own sweet time about getting here. I remember her yappin’ about it. You were due when you were sweet sixteen, thereabouts.”
“But…” protested Kassa, and then realised that she had nothing to say. There really was no excuse. “I hadn’t made up my mind,” she finished lamely.
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