The Accidental God (A Pygmalion Fail Book 1)

by Casey Matthews

  “Anyone else hurt?” I asked.

  “They blinded Dori with some kind of glue, but we ripped enough off for her to breathe. An eel tossed Fi over the side, but thank Varus, she sank her blade into the hull. Clung tight just long enough for Ronin to pull her back on deck.” Kyra thumped the shoulder of the blonde to her left, who had close-shorn hair and a dark feather tattoo on one side of her face. “Quinny was wounded by their arrow nails, but she refuses a sickbed, the stubborn ox.”

  Quinny snorted. “You call that a wound?” In point of fact, white bandages wrapped her entire midriff.

  Kyra narrowed her eyes at Quinny. “It went through you. You should be on bed rest.”

  “You give the healers an inch and next thing you know, they cancel your shore leave,” Quinny said. “I got seven or eight pints on Galley Row with my name on ’em, soon as we hit Amyss.”

  “You drink those pints and you’re liable to need two corks for the holes in you,” Kyra said. “One in front, one in back.”

  “Not the holes I plan on having corked,” Quinny said, and all the Akarri but Kyra burst out laughing.

  Kyra’s face turned scarlet, but she schooled her features nonetheless. “You won’t be laughing if one of your dozen-odd lovers pops your sutures.”

  “Are you offering to tag along and satisfy my lovers?” Quinny asked.

  “Of course not!”

  “I’ll lend you anyone but Tarv—he’s my favorite.”

  Kyra tilted her chin up. “I do not like taverns.”

  “This is why I love rich girls,” Quinny announced. “All proper words. Two pints and you’ll be dancing on the tables like the rest of us gutter rats.”

  “Not so,” Kyra said. “I would dance better than you. I’ve had lessons.”

  Quinny blinked. “They got lessons for dancing? You upper-crust gals ruin everything.”

  They jabbed at one another awhile and when I had a moment, I asked Kyra about Elsie.

  “Still in sickbay.” Kyra leaned in conspiratorially. “We’ve all agreed she’s better. Elsie’s just lazy and likes to be waited on.”

  “Who’s playing nurse?”

  “Captain Tammagan’s taking her meals,” Quinny said.

  I chortled. “I bet she is.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Quinny asked, an edge to her voice.

  “Nothing,” I said, remembering what Elsie had said about Akarri culture. First rule of life: don’t pick a fight with anyone who’s tattooed their face and carries a bladed object. “Obviously Elsie likes to be waited on by a superior officer.” Who she’s completely hot for. “That’s all.”

  Quinny seemed satisfied and I caught Kyra hiding a grin. It gave me a sense for who was in the know.

  An awkward silence settled over the galley. Since I’d already train-wrecked the moment, it seemed an opportunity to shovel another socially awkward question onto the table. “So Ronin mentioned I should talk stuff out with you all.” I studied the remaining biscuit on my plate.

  “Talk about what?” Kyra asked.

  “That was sort of my first battle,” I said.

  “Not so,” Kyra said. “You slew a dragon.”

  “The dragon and orcs weren’t the same. They weren’t straight-up battles. No one shot anything at me. None of my friends were hurt. I was in danger, but… not like last night.”

  Quinny grunted. “You’ve got nerves?”

  “I think. Do any of you wake up jittery? Have nightmares?”

  They all stared. No one said anything and I was terrified they were moments away from laughing their asses off; that, or the awkwardness would grow so palpable that they’d stand up one by one and wander away, leaving me staring at a table of half-gone biscuits and gravy.

  Kyra shifted uncomfortably and said, “Yes,” at precisely the moment Quinny straightened and said, “I have.”

  They glanced at one another and some hidden communication passed between them. Then Kyra went first. “Nightmares after my first real fight. It was before I had my field medallion—a bog demon came on the village my master and I were staying at, and the two of us put it down. Master took a nasty blow that knocked her senseless and the final exchange was my responsibility.”

  “It’s the cannons that do it for me,” Quinny said. “I been here longer than most; we took our boat through a gaggle of dragons once, tossing out lightning left and right. Fire poured back from the beasts. We won the battle—lost some good soldiers. But damned if the boom of thunder doesn’t take me right back to those moments and set my heart to pounding. I hated it at first. Then got used to it.” She shrugged and her grin was half feral. “Sometimes I wonder if I’d miss it.”

  “So you get used to it?” I asked, looking around the table, hungry for reassurance.

  They all had different answers for me. There were eight Akarri at the table and eight completely different experiences. I got a distinct “wait and see” gist, but Ronin had a point: the talk loosened me up about what had happened. None of the soldiers laughed off my worries—though Quinny made light of my bowel-evacuating moment with the dragon, which I really hoped wouldn’t spawn any unfortunate nicknames.

  The conversation shifted back to shore leave and back to Quinny trying to con Kyra into carousing with the rest of the crew. Quinny had rank and experience on everyone else at the table and struck me as a second-in-command sort, after Tammagan. She wasn’t as formal as the good captain—Kyra had no compunctions about biting off an indelicate response when Quinny prodded her too much.

  The talk of shore leave reminded me of Ronin’s talk from the night before. When Kyra looked in dire need of a new subject, I jumped in. “What does Ronin do when you’re in port?” Dak was probably right—I had to keep chasing the ninja lead.

  Kyra latched on to the topic. “We’ve no idea. He’s rarely seen unless there’s trouble brewing.”

  “Maybe he goes back to his island,” I said.

  Blank stares all around.

  “You know—his island? The one he’s from.”

  Kyra’s mouth fell open, then closed. She leaned in and whispered, “He told you that?”

  “He… didn’t tell you?”

  “He tells us nothing,” she said.

  “Does this settle the bet?” asked an excited Akarri.

  “No,” Quinny said authoritatively. “Anyone can live on an island. It’s not enough.”

  “Bet?” I shook my head. “You’ve lost me.”

  “We have a betting pool,” Kyra said. “My money says Ronin is a ghost possessing armor. There’s nothing beneath his mask but vapor and the bonds of his final task.”

  “But I’ve seen his eyes,” I said.

  “Only in darkness. In light of day he’d appear translucent.” Kyra grinned. “I know it’s foolish, but it’s my money and my bet. Tammagan’s idea is better. She thinks Ronin is old. She laid her money on him being an elf—an old friend of Queen Eliandra’s.”

  “What’s the easy money say?” I asked.

  “Horrible scars is where I’ve got my coin,” Quinny said. “Man’s got a face like a patchwork quilt for all the fighting he does.”

  “You still want him,” joked one of her subordinates.

  “Only if he leaves the mask on,” Quinny said. “I like ’em pretty.”

  “What’s the most outlandish bet?” I asked, curious. Sometimes it was the strangest idea that held the most truth.

  “That would be Elsie’s bet,” Kyra said.

  “I’m sure that’s rich.”

  Kyra grinned. “Elsie thinks he’s Dracon’s twin brother, cursed to an eternity of vampirism.” Kyra used a dramatic voice and hand motions and it wasn’t hard to tell it was an Elsie impression. “Forced to don a demon’s face to protect himself from the tyrant sun! Made to wander the plain until he avenges his brother’s atrocities one by one! And he bangs a different woman in every book.”

  “Every book?” My eyebrow shot up.

  “That’s why we dismiss it,” Ky
ra said. “It’s the plot of a novel series she reads. It’s ridiculous, but on the other hand, Valor’s Vandals do occasionally fly around on a sky ship crewed by beautiful women. So who knows?”

  Quinny made a disgusted face. “I hate the Vandals. Every woman’s a dope and you never see her again after Valor screws her. Much prefer Magister Ferocious.”

  A spirited debate erupted over the merits of the two series, both of which I gathered the entire crew had borrowed from Elsie. I made a note to ask Elsie for some reading material.

  Lunch was bittersweet. It hurt to watch the Akarri chat, their jokes and smiles like a phantom pain in the part of my spirit where my best friend had lived. Just three months, I reminded myself. And it also helped to be in the Akarri’s presence, because it filled the air with conversation. The thought of my lonely bunk spurred me to beg Quinny for some chores. She declined, saying Ronin wanted me “stowed” outside meal hours.

  I kept my sanity in the bunk by thinking on the problem Kyra had brought up. How had Dracon found me?

  “Magic” was the obvious answer, but it probably wasn’t his standard black magic. The Akarri knew its limits and rules—and they were confused at his finding us. So it wasn’t a standard-issue spell. It’s something he drew, I realized. Nearly anyone, it seemed, could use black magic. Whatever trinket or pet was tracking us, it seemed powerful enough that Dracon would keep it to himself.

  So when had Dracon started tracking me? He’d found me first at the Isle of Ipsus, but now that I thought about it, the orcs hadn’t been precisely ready for me. They’d stumbled upon me. Dracon obviously kept track of the portals in and out of Rune and probably kept orcs near known entry-portal locations, monitoring them in case one opened.

  He’d found me next in Astor, but could have guessed I’d wind up there—it was the city nearest the shoreline I’d shipwrecked on. I remembered the dragons swooping through the skies. It was a search pattern, I realized.

  No, something had happened between Astor and the Akarri ship that allowed Dracon to track me. But what? The sheer volume of possibilities terrified me. Had he acquired a hair from my head? Did he have wizard satellites in orbit tracking my movements like some NSA spook? Did they even have spy satellites that could track people when Dracon was on Earth, though? Wasn’t he from the ’70s or ’80s? The imaging couldn’t have been that good back then, right? Would he even think to try that?

  I shook off my paranoia. I had to narrow it down.

  Okay, so probably not hair fibers, or he’d have had the orcs pluck a strand. He never gave that order. It wasn’t something he needed to get off me.

  That was what made Astor different. The orcs hadn’t been prepared, but the dragons had flown straight from Dracon’s lair.

  It hit me then. The dragons brought something from Dracon’s hideout. Something I missed. Dracon was a Cold War–era artist, so of course he’d plant a bug. Probably a tracking device he tagged me with when the dragons had my attention.

  It could look like anything: from a coin secreted into my pocket to an arachnid-shaped tracer stuck to the bottom of the Akarri hull. The Magarans were able to follow its signal, though, so their magic could detect the bug.

  I fished out the serpent wand and wrote “scan transmissions” out on a sheet of paper, working through permutations for a suitable anagram. Then I tapped the snake-head wand at the air and cast: “Sins as mist. No narcs!” Blue light flashed from the wand’s head and a spherical field expanded to fill the room. I glanced left and right, seeing nothing within its field of effect.

  I caught a flash of red in the steel mirror. Tilting my head, I realized it was in my hair.

  I shuddered. Reaching up, I stroked through locks of hair behind my ear until I found something hard like a tiny pebble. I tried to scrape it off, but its grip was unyielding. I scrounged for a small knife on the bedside and cut the lock away.

  I held in my palm a glowing red tick the size of a sharpened pencil lead. It was rendered visible by the wand’s light—but I could see mostly through its translucent shell and realized it was invisible under normal conditions.

  “Of course,” I muttered. “A literal bug.” It must have jumped from dragon hide to my head in Astor and ridden me ever since. Worse yet: when I spoke, the light inside the insect flared. My spell was scanning active transmissions, which meant the tick was transmitting my every word. This wasn’t just a homing signal.

  It was a listening device. Dracon had heard all our plans.

  “You son of a bitch.” I threw it to the floor and shattered it beneath my heel. The red light winked out.

  ***

  I told Ronin about the bug, but his plans didn’t waver. “Dracon likely knew we were planning to fight him; likely knew we were traveling to Amyss. The only new information he has is that you’re more clever and dangerous than you appear.”

  I blinked. “I am?”

  “You intuited and destroyed an invisible homing beacon the size of a tick. I believe Dracon’s initial plans were to kidnap you and force you to draw for him—to attempt to undo your changes to Rune. As you become a more tangible threat, he may prioritize your murder.”

  “Not comforting,” I said.

  “It means he’s nervous,” Ronin said. “Nervous men make mistakes.”

  Ronin had me sweep the ship for more bugs. We found none, but it did put me to work for most of the day. When I finished, I found Tammagan and Elsie on the weather deck near the anchor-rod castor at front. They stared over the side with a respectable distance between them. I tried to skirt away in case it was an important moment, but when Elsie spotted me she squawked and threw her arms into the air. “Where’s my glad-you’re-better hug, wizard?”

  It was damned good to see Elsie on her feet, so I hugged her. “You look better.”

  “You kidding?” Elsie asked, coughing weakly. “Barely up to half strength.”

  Tammagan rolled her eyes. “She’s on shift to wash dishes. I suspect she’ll make a full recovery by tomorrow when the shift changes.”

  Elsie tilted her chin into the air. “I resent the implication.”

  I clasped my hands on the deck rail and looked over the side. Distant toy-sized trees passed beneath us. The sun sank toward the far horizon, lighting the cloud cover a brilliant pink. Wind snapped at my shirt and, in spite of everything, the view of a sunset from a mile over the earth eradicated all my feelings of unease. Sure, an evil wizard from Earth wanted to torture or kill me for wrecking his world. But I was on a flying pirate ship with a freaking ninja bodyguard and I had magic drawing powers. I can do this, I decided.

  “If you’re done sweeping the ship, you should return to your bunk,” Tammagan said. “Before Ronin catches you.”

  “Aw, c’mon,” I said. “Five more minutes.”

  “Yeah, boss,” Elsie said. “Let him enjoy it while he can.”

  I chuckled. Then I frowned. “What do you mean ‘while I can?’ ”

  “I doubt Queen Eliandra’s going to let you out of her sight once she sees what a powerful wizard you are.”

  “Ronin said we had to fight Dracon, though,” I said.

  “Ronin’s not in charge when we hit Amyss,” said Tammagan. “Queen Eliandra rules in the kingdom of Korvia, though even her power has… limits. While she will want you close and hidden, the Council may want to trade you to Dracon for peace.”

  My eyes widened. “Trade me?”

  “Make no mistake,” Tammagan said. “Magaran witches are nothing compared to the dangers that lie ahead. The forces arrayed against us are just as soulless, and cannot be fought with swords or wands.”

  “And what is it we’re facing, exactly?” I asked.

  Tammagan’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Politicians.”

  To Be Continued in

  A Pygmalion Fail, Book Two: Mistakes Were Made

  Coming August 2016

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a quarter-million dollars, consider leaving a review or telling other people about my work. Maybe one of them will have a quarter-million dollars. You never know.

  Meanwhile, you can follow me on Twitter @CenterFringe or check out that thing I refer to as a website at www.caseymatthews.org. Not “.com,” mind you, though last I checked the “.com” Casey Matthews also had some pretty cool stuff too, so maybe check her out and then me.

  Acknowledgments

  The romanticized writer locked away in her room, all alone with ink and page, is something of a myth, and for two good reasons: first, while all the writing parts really are lonely, there’s nothing romantic about it. And second, there is no real “all alone” once you decide to publish. It is humbling to know that, in many ways, this work is not solely my own. It belongs also to the following people:

  My parents, I guess, who are primarily to blame. The fact I’m doing this instead of lawyering for tons of money is actually directly my dad’s fault, since he threatened to murder me with a chainsaw if I ever went to law school. Oh, and Mom, who took me to the town paperback book shop to meet her writer friends—Sherry, Gloria, and Laura—who had years to corrupt me.

  To Katie, who is perfect in every way, except (of course) that she chooses to spend time with me each day. She is my emotional and spiritual support in a world full of monstrous, moving things I don’t entirely trust.

  To Emily, who went before me and lit the way. A better friend I could not possess. That we despise all the same philistines does help. Check her out at www.menyoral.com, because her elves are full of sparkle, rage, and all that lovely stuff.

  To all the Scriptorati, who were more than just beta readers. A literary conscience was once described by Bryan Caplan as an imagined reader who alters your writing based on how they would feel about your work. I’ve had several for these books.

  To the Dragon Rocketship—that merry band of villains.

  To my cover artist, Akira007. I’ve never met him, but when Fiverr says “recommended, 5-star artist,” holy shit, they aren’t kidding.