by Ember Lane
“Get me a net!” Faulk cried.
Pog rushed inside the cabin and soon emerged with a short-poled net. He darted to Faulk’s side, and I couldn’t resist going to peek. Between them, they landed a good-sized fish, so I sat back, content to watch them fish for more and say nothing, think about nothing—just savor the peace.
When they’d caught a nice bunch—if that was a fishing term for half a dozen fish—Faulk and Pog gutted them, and we all went inside. Sutech and Mezzerain had delved into a second bottle of rum and were grousing the way men do over a bottle. Faulk spitted the fish, and we ate the frugal yet delicious snack.
“How far can we trust him?” Sutech asked.
“He’s Elisha,” I muttered, sharing my conclusion.
“Then all the while I can match Belved’s gold,” Pog replied easily.
“Can you match a god's gold? Could anyone?” Mezzerain wondered out loud.
Pog cocked his head. “Gods aren’t usually good with the stuff. Sure, they get given a load by their subjects, but it’s normally held by the priesthood, or however that god's religion is set up. I doubt Belved has a lot. I also doubt Billy would take an IOU. After all, how would you enforce it?”
Mezzerain took a slug of his rum. “But he has that whole combinium set up.”
“True,” Pog countered, “but did they exact taxes? Harshly or just enough? Or was it piecemeal? Did boats loaded with gold transport it to Ruse?”
It was Sutech’s turn to speak. “Gold never seemed their motivator. Territory, it was all about territory. Any negotiations I had with them was solely about where they could place the next tower. Any wealth they had, they used to push another up. All taxes were mine—for the war effort. I’d say they were indifferent to gold.”
Pog clapped. “So no gold filtering upward, that’s the first take. Add in mostly dead citizens in Ruse—so no gold generation there. My guess is that Belved isn’t swimming in it like I am. Sure, he could get ShadowDancer to raise a decent bounty, but if all goes well, we’ll be in and out like a whispering wind before they can even see us coming.”
“So, by that logic, we can trust Billy Long Thumb all the while Belved, like us, is unaware of the size of your wealth,” Sutech summed up.
A half laugh cracked into the room. We all turned to see Billy leaning up against the front door’s jamb. “You can trust Billy Long Thumb right up to the extent of his well-worded contract with Pog. I do not break agreements—ever. What kind of a pirate would I be if I did? Who would ever trust me again? The boy understands parlay. You all should too.”
“What do you need the money for?” I blurted. “That’s what I don’t understand. If I judge you one way or the other, why do you need the money? You’re dead—you can’t take it with you.”
Billy shrugged. “What else is there?” His pained expression told me that my question was beyond his comprehension.
Looking around, I think they all saw it. Sutech went back to bitching with Mezzerain. Pog and Faulk fell into a novice-fisherman conversation, and I sat and regarded Billy, who turned, and with a flick of his head, bade me outside.
He sashayed to the jetty, like a strutting peacock, sitting along its length, facing the moon with his feet dangling over the water. I sat beside him.
“Gonna try and persuade me to judge you?”
He lit another of his seemingly endless supply of cigars. “I want to talk about the choices. They made you a chooser, but I don’t think they gave you any idea exactly what your choice consists of. What is…” He turned his thumb up. “And what is…” He turned his thumb down.
“Up is Talayeh,” I replied easily.
“Up is Talayeh,” Billy repeated. “Tell me about the place.”
I remembered back, sure that Sakina, Star, maybe even Lincoln had told me about the place. “The silver streams of Talayeh. That’s what they all describe it as. A verdant land with long, silver streams running in lines through it. Vast palaces thrusting upward, each of multiple colors and infinite shapes. Star used to say that she’d walk the silver streams of Talayeh with her mother. It comforted me when she died.”
Billy grunted out a plume of smoke. “And you think that would suit me? Can you see me skipping through grassy vales hand in hand with Charlotte? Can you picture the smile on my face, the wind flowing through my hair? Alexa! Alexa! It would drive me batshit crazy. I need adventure. I need derring-do. Pah! Silver streams, you can’t run a smuggler up a stupid stream. Verdant fields—I spit on them. I need a tavern brawl, a shady alley. Bright palace? Give me stone dungeons and endless peril.”
Though blunt and to the point, I couldn’t fault his argument. “So you wanna go down into the fire?”
“What do you think that is?”
Now his eyes were afire with excitement, twinkling in the moonlight. His devious smile taunted an answer from me. In my mind I had fire, I had demon, and I had rage. When I’d cast Sakina down, I had imagined that too. I’d thought I’d cast her to eternal suffering. But making those parallels again, I wasn’t so sure now. If Talayeh was suppose to be Barakdor’s manifestation of the ship’s computers, down had to be their engines, their energy, the chaos of propulsion with its ignition, its force, and its expulsion.
But how could I explain that to him? If I were even right? Were the demons actually the fires of propulsion? Could I make that leap of thought? It was my gut feeling. Pog wasn’t around, so I went with it.
“Is it the wind, the driving rain, the swell of the waves, the force of an eruption? Is it the chaos of a storm, the raw power of a hurricane, or the strangle of a twister? I think it's all those and more, all trapped underneath, all vying for superiority.”
“Confusion, then?”
“No, power. It is power, brute force, energy, and naked aggression.”
Billy tapped the jetty. “So with your little bit of extra meddling, tell me, which would suit Charlotte, and which would suit me?”
He said those words, and my heart sunk. The slick water sucked at my thoughts, but there was no way out for me. “Oh…”
Billy took a long drag on his smoke. “Oh, indeed. Why do you think I vanished? It was unfortunate getting killed, but it got me out of a tight spot.”
“Oh…” It was now my go-to word.
“Look, Alexa, I had to let her go. I knew the options. I understood what choices I made up here would impact me when I died. Imagine, Alexa, imagine if you and me had met all those years ago. The adventures, the journeys that we’d have had, and then in death, we go to tame the maelstrom. We would have been ideal—perfect—eternal.”
I saw his vision, but his words floored me like a perfectly timed uppercut. “What did you say?”
“What?”
“What did you just say—about the maelstrom?”
“I said we’d go into the maelstrom.”
“No, no you didn’t. You said we’d tame the maelstrom…”
“Same thing. So would you like to? Your lives are up. One more slip, and you’re a dead 'un too. You know once you choose, once you complete your veils, that’s it for you. Want to spend eternity with little old Billy?”
But I wasn’t listening. An immense weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I finally understood what Sakina was doing—why she’d chosen damnation. She’d planned out everything above but needed either part or all of her consciousness sent below. She had to tame Mandrake’s maelstrom.
She was readying it for me.
“And what of Charlotte?” I asked Billy. “Do we just leave her to wander paradise alone?”
Billy slapped his leg. “Aw, come on, paradise can’t be all that unless it has a place to meet a bit of hot stuff, can it? Charlotte’s a good-looking ghost; she’ll find someone.”
He howled with laughter, throwing his head back like a baying wolf.
I joined him, his laugh so infectious. “I suppose, but how do I ever tell her?”
“You tell her right now. I went and fetched her. She’s in the boat.”
My heart sank. “Now? I can’t just tell her now. I need to work out my words—what I’m going to say.”
“Now,” said Billy, jumping up and offering me his hand. He pulled me to him. “Just do it. Tell her I’ll be along shortly and meet her by the marshmallow palace on the confluence of the two silver rivers of Xanadu. Tell her anything; just get her gone,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
I took a breath. He was right. I needed to undo my meddling.
“You’re coming with me.” I stood midpier, blocking his immediate escape.
Billy glanced over my shoulder, looking like he was about to make a bolt for it anyway. I shoved him around, feeling quite odd when my palm sunk into his shoulder until it hit bone.
“March,” I ordered.
We strode to the boat, or yacht as he more aptly described it.
And a fine yacht it was too. Eighty feet, maybe more? It was hard to judge in the dark, any distant reference point vanishing in the face of its magnificence. Its bow looked like it could carve through solid rock like a knife through butter. Its hull picked up a silver sheen from the moon, sweeping back like a wave of fine, gray hair. Two masts spread evenly along its length—tall, stout and proud, their sails wrapped around their booms, tethered above the slightly domed roofs covering the decks below. It was magnificent. Billy walked the brief plank up and jumped onto its aft deck.
“This way,” he said, directing me below deck but without his customary sweep and bow.
His nerves were clear to see.
Billy was out of his depth, and for some reason that made me smile.
I ducked under the deck’s wooden head and entered a good-sized cabin—a study in rosewood and tall oil lamps. Sumptuous would describe it but still understated in its elegance. A main galley led through it to a closed bulkhead door but either side was furnished with cushioned seats in rich red leather, and low, cherrywood tables made for a split reception room that would have graced the finest hotels if they’d been miniaturized a little.
One thing that really did stand out was Charlotte’s ghost sitting cross-legged gazing at Billy with adoring eyes.
Or were they adoring?
“So? Will she do it? Because I’m still not happy about your explanation yet,” Charlotte said, her lips in such a thin line it was hard to see how the words escaped.
“Explanation?” I asked as I assumed Billy hadn’t told her the truth of his plan.
“Alexa!” Charlotte’s entire demeanor suddenly changed, throwing me completely off guard. “Sit, sit, sorry, sorry. He yanked me from Speaker’s Isle without telling me a thing. I expected—” She suddenly broke off as if something extremely important had occurred to her. “Sit, sit,” and she patted the seat next to her, well, more spanked it if the truth be told. I sat. She continued. “Where was I? Oh yes! He ripped me from Speaker’s Isle. Which I allowed as I fully expected to end up sitting at The Lobster Pot, having our nice meal, and readying ourselves for eternity together.”
“That’s okay—” I made to say, but she quickly cut me off, drilling her steely gaze into a still standing Billy.
“You sit over there!” she screamed.
Billy sat.
Charlotte wasn’t quite the bashful innocent, the dainty beauty, I’d met previously. She also appeared to have a split personality, or at least the ability to switch between psychotic and pleasant in the blink of an eye.
“Wine, Alexa?”
“Please.” I steadied my nervous voice.
She poured me a glass of blood-red wine. I eyed the bottle wondering if it would be impolite to snatch it.
“So,” I said, getting ready to spin a lie that I really didn’t wish being a part of it anymore.
Charlotte’s hand shot up. “Before you start”—she pointed at Billy—“I know he’s up to something. Want to enlighten me?”
“I…”
Her laughter tinkled out like little glass daggers dropping on a marble floor. “Don’t worry. Carry on. He won’t hoodwink me. So what’s this all about?”
“Well,” I feebly attempted to go on, “I’m here to judge you, as you know, though I know absolutely nothing about you, Charlotte…” My words dried up before I could enter Billy’s web of deceit, and he was no help. He seemed completely dumbstruck in Charlotte’s presence, though I was probably the most confused by both them. I struggled on. “Thing is, I can judge you—send you where you want. It makes no matter to me. You can pick up, pick down, I’ll choose whatever.”
“But…” Charlotte sat back, crossing her legs, and coddling her wine in front of her mouth like a winning card hand. “There’s a but coming; I know there is.”
Billy squirmed awkwardly, leaking a little cigar smoke, though he appeared to have none lit.
“But,” I continued, “I can’t judge Billy yet, so wherever you choose, you’ll be on your own for a bit.”
There! I hadn’t told a lie.
Yet.
She topped my glass up, slowly, deliberately. “Explain both options to me.”
I took a slug of my refreshed wine and relayed our earlier conclusions of Talayeh and down there. Charlotte shrugged as if each choice was irrelevant to her as if all she wanted to be was with Billy. Billy looked as if all he wanted to be was elsewhere.
She appeared to come to a choice.
I let slip a sigh of relief.
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight, Alexa. I choose one, and then you solemnly promise to send him there after he’s finished whatever shady business he’s up to. Is that about correct?”
“Yes.”
It was nearly over.
She paused ominously.
“Not good enough.”
“What isn’t?” Billy asked a little too quickly.
“No one asked you,” Charlotte snapped. She turned her attention to me. “Alexa, I’m sure you can see the small, but also glaring, problem with all this?”
I lowered my eyes like a caught-out schoolkid. “Sort of.”
“Sort of. Can Billy or can Billy not evade judgment by simply running away from you before you judge him? He knows the Endings like the back of his bony hands. He can somehow travel to any land.”
Billy inadvertently tapped the yacht’s rosewood side and gave that game away.
Charlotte continued. “In short, he can abscond.”
“I wouldn’t do—” Billy shrank back into his coat, realizing his error before he completed his sentence.
Charlotte snapped her attention to me with unholy speed.
“Also, you might be in league with him.”
“I’m certainly not,” I lied.
“How do I know?”
“Well…” She had me.
Charlotte leaned forward, her arms clasped in front of her. “I need some guarantees.”
“Like what?”
She smiled the most gracious smile I’d ever seen, and I began to wonder how much gold it would cost me, well, Pog, to forge this guarantee.
“Oh, nothing much. Would you be open to accepting a simple quest?”
Billy spluttered a little.
“Like…”
She waved away my concerns. “Nothing extravagant. In fact, quite simple. I would be happy to choose now, if you accept a quest along the lines of…” She became lost in thought before her eyes lit up again. “How about, and we could alter the wording slightly: Send Billy after Charlotte as soon as you’re done with whatever you’re doing and nowhere else.”
“I could do that,” I said quickly.
She laughed, which terrified me. “But I wouldn’t expect you to do it for nothing. We need a reward.”
“Reward…”
“And penalty.”
“Penalty…”
“Oh this is such fun,” Charlotte gushed. “How about Reward for quest completion: eternal bliss.”
It wasn’t over.
“The penalty?” I inquired.
She clapped her hands together, sending a dark shiver down my spine.
“This is just off the top of my head, but perhaps something like this: Penalty for quest failure: you would be strung out over a pit of hot coals with stabbing iron spikes popping up and down and running you through every few seconds while a bottomless saltshaker empties its contents over your boiling skin. How does that sound?”
I was beginning to look at Charlotte in an entirely new light. Before I could answer, some form of sudden inspiration came to her, and her whole face lit up.
“Tell me,” she said, morphing from psycho to coconspirator again, “just what’s Billy up to?”
Billy began, not so subtly, making horizontal, chopping motions with his hands.
I could see no way out, and at that particular moment, Charlotte was infinitely more scary than him, so I revealed our plans: Billy’s bargain with Pog and the proposed end of our journey. Although we hadn’t quite settled on an end land, I’d assumed it would be Mandrake and told her so.
Charlotte pondered my words while Billy glared at me.
“Let me get this straight,” she finally said. “You are venturing to Ruse to find a fragment of a stone that will save the world, and while you’re there, you, Alexa, are going to attempt to kill the same god that sent his troops and priests to Valkyrie and killed me. Not only that—”
“Very dangerous, Charlotte,” Billy said, suddenly growing a pair.
“Shut it,” Charlotte hissed, instantly chopping them off. “Not only that, the same god that killed my true love, Billy Long Thumb.”
“Yes,” I said, downing the last of my wine and licking the bottom of the glass to a sparkle.
“I’m coming,” Charlotte announced.
Neither of us argued.
And so we were seven—Billy and Charlotte, Pog and Faulk, Mezzerain and Sutech, and me—ever the loose end.
Morning rose after a restless night’s sleep, visions of Charlotte’s penalty filling my nightmares. Not that I’d needed to accept it. The strange thing was, morning brought a very different Charlotte.
Instead of the dowdy, stately, shrinking-violet-type, psychotic, murderous sadist with a tongue like a cat-o-nine tails, she had morphed into an adventurer type. Personally, I wasn’t convinced what either Billy or Charlotte could actually do for us in battle. For instance, would their swords slice living flesh? They were both, after all, ghosts. But as usual, Pog had the answers. He was actually enthused by the new addition to our party, especially when he saw her get up, and heard her explanation.