The Lore Series (Box Set): All 3 Books In One Volume

by Chad T. Douglas

  Ine laughed, hunched her shoulders and held a hand to her mouth. “No, I mean, I want to find another purpose. In Honshu I was a warrior, but that is not what I want. I was only a warrior because I was given this sword,” she explained, touching the uchigatana on her hip. “I must carry it until I am no longer able. Or, I can give it away. There is no other way.”

  “Why don’t you just give it away then?” The girl was so peculiar, and perhaps this was why Geoffrey couldn’t just leave her be. Everything about Ine was foreign—more so than anyone he’d ever met.

  Ine laughed again, amused at Geoffrey’s suggestion. “Give it away?”

  Unsure what was so funny, Geoffrey chuckled along with her and smiled awkwardly.

  “I would be a fool to give this sword to someone without considering the consequences,” she told him. “This sword is Yatagarasu.”

  “Oh.” The name meant nothing to Geoffrey. “Did this belong to someone important?”

  “Yes, very important.” Ine drew Yatagarasu from its sheath and rested it on the palms of her hands gently as if it were an infant. “This was the emperor Jimmu’s companion, the wild bird that accompanied him on his legendary migration. The bird appeared on the grave of Emperor Momozono I, the man my father served when he was a soldier. I call the bird Yata for short.”

  “Oh,” said Geoffrey again. She’d lost him entirely.

  “Enma, the judge of the dead, crafted the bird into a blade. It was to be granted to whichever of the Emperor’s soldiers had served him most faithfully and dutifully.” Ine turned the blade in her hands. When the sun caught it just right, Geoffrey could see ghostly images of faces peering out from its surface. “My father, the first to travel to the Emperor’s grave to pay his respects, saw Jimmu’s bird as it took the shape of an uchigatana. There he was told by Enma that the blade is a doorway. It can call back the Emperor’s warriors from death to fight for whoever carries it, as long as it was given to the wielder rightfully.”

  “This is incredible!” Finally understanding the significance of the weapon, Geoffrey beamed and began to drill Ine with more and more inquiries. If Ine was speaking literally, he thought, then that meant that the blade was forged magically, using zoomancy. Never before had he seen anything of the sort, and the first thing he wanted to know was if the blade could freely take the shape of the animal it had been made from.

  “Of course,” said Ine, as if it were nothing at all. Giving herself room, she extended her arms, the sword still resting across her palms. A brilliant flash of sunlight swept the weapon and in the next instant, a large black bird was perched on Ine’s left forearm. “This is Yata,” she said.

  Opening its black wings from sleep, it unfolded its long neck and held up its head. Its long, curved beak took a snap at Geoffrey as it stood up tall on its long orange legs. Twisting its head this way and that, it chirped at him and blinked its blue eyes, an assortment of black and silver feathers standing up ’round the back of its neck.

  “Beautiful!” exclaimed Geoffrey, dodging the bite and stepping backward. “I wonder what species this is.”

  Ine smiled and made a face, misunderstanding Geoffrey and what he meant about its having a name other than Yata. When the bird took another snap at Geoffrey’s hair, Ine laughed.

  “I study magic,” said Geoffrey. “This is beautiful work, whose ever it is. Enma, you said?”

  “You study magic? I have never met anyone who studied magic. In Honshu, such people work secretly in the service of the Emperor, or they go off to live alone in the mountains where no one can find them.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “The people say magic is almost always evil, unless used by the gods. People are not meant to use it or carry it, because it tempts the good to be selfish. This is why I told you I cannot give Yatagarasu to any normal person.”

  “Magic isn’t evil. People might use it for terrible things, but what people don’t understand is that magic has rules and can be controlled, just like many other things,” Geoffrey explained, his passion for his discipline shining through. Ine smiled at his enthusiasm.

  Just as Geoffrey had thoroughly captured her interest, Leon, who had been listening to their conversation for several minutes, joined them by the bow and introduced himself to Ine. “Hello,” he began, “I am Leon Beaumonte. I wanted to ask you about your sword and techniques.”

  Geoffrey stopped in mid-sentence.

  Ine smiled at Leon and looked at Geoffrey once more, not knowing what to say.

  “It’s all right,” said Geoffrey, relieving Ine and leaving the two on deck to spar. From the side he watched dejectedly for the remainder of the afternoon.

  “Her plan is to jump another ship in Nassau,” Decius was saying as he paced the dim cabin in circles around Chera Rocha. “This won’t be difficult, and if you cooperate, we may be able to find out what it is that Charles Walsh doesn’t want us to know at the same time.”

  “How do you know what she will or will not do? And I do notice when you don’t include my name when you talk about the ‘rewards’ that ‘we’ can expect on these bounties.” Chera folded her arms and let her long black hair fall in curls into her face as she listened to Decius’s impatient footsteps.

  “The Eighth specifically asked for you when he assembled us. You’ll get your money, and we’ll get ours,” said Decius, swinging his head to look at Macius, who smiled to himself stupidly in the corner.

  Chera, a gauche and dusky Venezuelan of twenty-eight, knew no master but her own desires. Decius, despite his way with words, might as well have been persuading a tree to grow backwards. Even if she could be charmed by the right kind of man, Chera hated Decius, and she refused to play the Bureau’s games.

  “You’re making the same old tired promise that the Eight and the Bureau have been making for years, Decius. I bring in more heads than any of you. I’m paid half what you’re paid and ranked half what you’re ranked. I’m sorry if I don’t get as silly and giddy as you when I’m told to go hunting.”

  “I wish I sympathized,” he said casually. “Forgive me, but I find it hard to pity the person who killed my partner and handed me to the Bureau to begin with.” His words were bitter, but he smiled nonetheless.

  “You should be honored, if anything, to have been caught by me,” Chera argued, “And your partner there”—she flipped a wrist in Macius’s direction— “isn’t dead. He looks content to me.” Chera flounced over to Macius and put an arm around his shoulder. “If only I’d shot you in the head, then you wouldn’t have to follow this idiot around like a child.” She pointed at Decius.

  “Quiet!” he snapped. The smirk on his face was gone.

  “This is your own doing, you know.” Chera wasn’t through pushing him.

  “If you’re so pious, what would you have done?” Decius demanded.

  “Let him die,” she answered with absolute nonchalance.

  “That’s what I would expect from you,” he hissed. “Demean me all you like. I may be a thief but I’m not a pirate,” he said, directing the term at her.

  “If you get the sword …”

  “When I get it,” he insisted.

  “Are you sure you can? Maybe that’s why you brought me along!” Chera burst out in laughter, her eyes pinched shut in a mean, mocking way.

  “I don’t care how great a swordsman she is. When she’s trapped in Nassau with nowhere to go, she’ll forfeit that weapon, alive or else.”

  “Why do you want to bring him back?” asked Chera, pointing a Macius.

  Decius turned his attention to his old friend. The man couldn’t hear a word they were saying, and only then did Decius realize he spoke about his partner right in front of him all the time, as if Macius were a dog and couldn’t differentiate speech from the wind. Instead of questioning the morality of bringing back his partner’s soul from oblivion, he was angry that Chera had asked him such a callous question. “Because I did this to him, and when I get him back, we’ll ruin the Bureau.”r />
  “You know, that will put me out of a job,” remarked Chera with a smart look.

  “How tragic.” Decius’s feelings for Chera were dead, at best. “You’ll have no choice but to go back to what you love doing, then.”

  “I miss the sea.” Chera moaned, touching the planking in the walls and tilting back her head. “That’s the only reason I agreed to this. It’s been so long since I had a ship, and the sea was never cold to me.”

  “You ought to cooperate, then,” warned Decius. “I’ll make certain this is the last time you see it if you don’t.”

  Chera frowned in confusion, standing upright and unable to get a word out of her mouth before Decius and Macius left her alone in the room. Had Decius allowed her to come only so he could kill her once he had Yatagarasu? She hadn’t considered it before because the Eighth had only ordered them to report about the ship’s activity, not to procure a sword. But the Eighth was unaware of Ine, Chera reasoned. No, she thought, Decius needs my help. I’m his best soldier.

  With all her thinking, Chera didn’t know how powerful Yatagarasu was. It didn’t occur to her that once Decius had the sword, he might not need her anymore.

  ****

  The first half of the voyage, requiring nearly a month, saw almost everyone onboard in a tiresome routine. The crew did not disappoint, and Tom rarely had to set a foot on the main deck in order to take disciplinary measures or even to frighten some respect into anyone whose mouth got the best of them. By the beginning of the fourth week, the sameness of the food was turning everyone’s stomach, and no one said much of anything for a few days.

  Leon occupied Ine’s time quite often, wanting a sparring partner, and as a result Geoffrey learned to say as much to the alluring young woman as he could while he had the opportunity during the middle of the day. Leon was inactive around noon, often retreating to somewhere quiet and dark while the sun beat down on the skin of everyone on deck. It was during the hottest parts of the day when Geoffrey would chat with Ine and tell her about all the fascinating things he’d learned of magic, and in the evenings, Leon would pull her away. Until sundown, Leon and Ine, much to the crew’s entertainment, would spar on deck, matching West against East in a contest of steel. Because their fighting styles contrasted so wildly, each found the game satisfyingly challenging. Neither was accustomed to practicing with a partner, and neither lived for much else than the sword.

  While Tom directed his crew and discussed uninteresting matters with Morgan, Molly occupied much of her time in her and Tom’s cabin. Since first picking up a journal of notes on Scriptic from Tom’s library, Molly never traveled without close to twenty pounds of literature on magic. She didn’t enjoy being out on deck and around all the men that winked at her while Tom wasn’t looking, save for Leon; Ine, nearly the only one onboard who didn’t harass her, was occupied by Geoffrey almost every sunlit hour of the day. Studying magic became Molly’s daytime friend, and she shut her books only when she had Tom to herself each night and wouldn’t need anything else again until morning.

  Decius and his lot haunted the main deck all day every day. They served as only a background cast to the crew, but Tom wasn’t expecting them to do anything except disturb him endlessly and possibly try to murder him in his sleep. Occasionally one of the crew would be pulled aside by a Bureau soldier. Whatever their exchanges consisted of, they were brief, and Tom held up each man who was spoken to before dinner every night to make them spill every word to him, after first making sure no one was listening and Decius, especially, had gone to the galley. From what every one of them had said, Tom couldn’t extract any sign of treachery, but experience told him that mutiny was often tasteless and odorless until it was too late to detect. For this reason, Ine was ordered to linger annoyingly close to Decius all day, so that keeping anything a private matter would be impossible. After a few days, the soldiers stopped talking to the crew, but liveliness on deck became scarce, and meals were quiet.

  One morning, realizing she was quickly exhausting her reading material and feeling at a loss for anything else to do, Molly decided to tour the deck and enjoy the sea before the sun got high and unbearable. Much to her delight the crew had just begun to busy themselves, and they were too occupied to bother with her. This was novel, considering that Tom was still asleep and would be until the smell of breakfast tickled him awake. Normally the crew would have been whistling at her like robins. Whatever their reaction, she never gave them the benefit of the doubt, deliberately and proudly displaying her pistols on her gun belt.

  Just when Molly began to think better of the scoundrels, her morning turned for the worse, but not because of the crew. From up the galley ladder, tossing her hair and swinging her hips, Chera Rocha came strutting across the deck. The clatter of her boots first drew the attention of the men hanging about the rigging, but not until she approached Molly and slid one of her silky tan hands up Molly’s thighs did all eyes turn and all unshaven jaws hang open.

  Molly froze inside and out. She hadn’t the slightest notion what she had done to evoke Chera’s advances, and only because she was a woman did Molly not draw a pistol and shoot her then and there. The only reason Chera’s dark lips hadn’t yet touched hers was because Molly’s arms had seized Chera’s the moment she made her advance. Molly almost shouted, but then Chera stopped, and she said something that didn’t make any sense.

  “All right, good show. Now let’s slip away just under the quarterdeck ladder over there, and we can speak without any of these pigs thinking anything of it.” Chera spoke close to Molly’s face and kept her eyes over her shoulder as if she were being watched. With her head turned away from the drooling men in the sails and rigging, she kept her hands on Molly.

  “What are you doing?” Molly whispered so loudly Chera jumped.

  “Follow my act.”

  “I’m not following you anywhere!”

  “If you really didn’t trust me, you would have shot me already. Come on!”

  In retrospect, Molly never figured out why she followed Chera, but she did. As they crossed the deck, Chera kept up her ‘act,’ batting her eyes at Molly and caressing her shoulders. The onlookers bought every exaggerated second of it.

  Under the stairs leading up to the quarterdeck, Chera immediately shed her leering expression and peered through the steps to make sure Decius and his gang were not yet coming up from their cabins.

  “Charles Walsh. He’s Thomas Crowe, isn’t he?” Chera asked abruptly once she turned back to Molly.

  “What? Who are you?” demanded Molly. As far as she knew, Decius had no idea who Tom was yet, and plans were being made to ensure he wouldn’t.

  “Chera Rocha, captain of The Quetzal II. I’ve heard stories about Captain Thomas Crowe for years, and this has to be him. If it is, Decius cannot know,” she said, speaking deliberately and with little patience.

  “What do you want? Why are we hiding?”

  “Decius is going to take control of this ship. He has already swayed the men by telling them they are working on a stolen vessel and they will not be arrested and tried if they cooperate with us.”

  “Well you don’t have my allegiance!” Molly misunderstood Chera, who winced when she raised her voice.

  “Calm yourself! I want you to tell your captain that Decius plans to overthrow this ship tomorrow night. I want to work with you against him.”

  “Why would you work against him? You’re a soldier with the Bureau! I know how badly they must want Thomas!”

  “They don’t know about Thomas yet! Neither does Decius! He came because of Matsuda Ine! He wants the weapon she carries. The Bureau captured us and forced us all to hunt outlaws. If I had said no, they would have executed me.” Pressed for time, Chera spoke nervously and earnestly. “If we act soon, we can interrupt the mutiny. I have to go!” With that last word, Chera reached around Molly and smacked her derriere before sashaying away, swaying her hips.

  “Why couldn’t you have just told Thomas?” Molly whispered after
her. Chera didn’t reply.

  Chera preened, pretending to fix her hair for the benefit of the men in the sails who craned their necks to watch her. Over her shoulder she looked back slyly toward the stairs where, open-mouthed, Molly stood with a hand resting at the place where Chera’s hand had last been.

  Decius and his men arrived on deck, their eyes scanning the activity with distrust. After that, Tom appeared from his cabin and met Morgan and the helmsman on the quarterdeck, beginning a discussion with them. Several times that morning Chera looked anxiously at Molly from across deck, as if she were worried that Molly hadn’t believed her. After three hours of deliberation, Molly decided there was no harm in telling Tom what the strange woman had said, and if anything, he should know that something was going on.

  That night, Molly spoke with Tom alone in their cabin. She explained everything that Chera had said to her. Tom sent for Ine, who had been listening in on everything Decius and his men had said earlier in the day. Tom wasn’t convinced Chera was telling them the truth, but his suspicions weakened when Ine told him about the odd change in schedule for that night. Decius had ordered his soldiers to establish a watch on deck overnight, something they had not done before. Tom had told Decius before departure that he did not need a watch, for he had his own shifts arranged, and his crew was capable of defending the ship in the instance it became necessary.

  “Did Decius or anyone report this change of orders to anyone? Morgan, perhaps?” Tom asked Ine, who shook her head. “But you overheard this decision being made?” he asked. Ine nodded. “Molly, did Chera say anything else that you haven’t told me yet?” he asked, turning to Molly.

  “I don’t think so …” she said, trying to remember the entire conversation she had with Chera earlier. “Wait, yes, she said that Decius wants a weapon that you’re carrying,” she said, looking at Ine, whose eyes widened.

  “Why?” asked Tom, glancing back and forth between the women. “Ine, what do you have? I have only seen you carrying the one sword that is always on your person.”