by Aaron Crash
“So if you left her, wouldn’t you get a harem of your own?” Ymir asked.
Sambal chuckled. “No. That’s against the law. Women, queens mostly, can have multiple men. Men can’t have multiple wives. Not in the islands and not on the coast queendoms. Really, I don’t mind. We aren’t like the elves. We all like to fuck.” He frowned at Lillee. “Sorry.”
“I understand,” she murmured.
“How did this situation start in the first place?” Ymir asked. “There are many more women than men.”
Jenny and Salt Love smiled at each other.
Jenny finally answered. “Even before the official Age of Withering, not many boys were being born. It was the Vempor Aegel Akkridor casting fucking magic that he shouldn’t. Then he died, the Akkridor Empire fell, and all of Thera got torn apart. Welcome to the Withering, and the men tried to take as many wives as they could get. On the Swamp Coast, in the Scatter Islands, there wasn’t any way we’d let that happen. Not us swamp women. We killed the men who wouldn’t play our game the way we wanted to play it. We did outnumber them ten to one. We then passed the laws we wanted to pass. See, Ymir? You’re lucky to have me. I can kill.”
The swamp woman tried to smile, but her eyes watered. She closed them before the tears fell.
Ymir frowned. Did this have anything to do with her nightmares?
The atmosphere around the table changed. Jenny let out a laugh. “You know what helped, though, is that some of us women realized we liked the hole instead of the pole. That helped. You know it did, Salty.”
“Oh, I know it did,” she agreed. “But this girl likes the pole in all her holes!” That brought the party back.
The haggling went quickly. Salt Love offered a discount on the initial batch she had in her dinghy. Her regular price was far under what they’d budgeted for. Of course, Ymir couldn’t take the initial offer, and had to get her price down. He showed respect for her by not wasting her time by lowballing her. Salt Love, of course, didn’t take his offer either. They found something square in the middle.
Doing business with her would be easy. Ymir didn’t think they’d need paper. He still didn’t like working without a contract. Sure, drinking the kelp beer had them all feeling good right then. That could change in an instant. Contracts weren’t made for when everyone was happy. Contracts were made for when everyone was sad.
But Ymir wasn’t going to give Salt Love and Sambal a single sheck before he saw they did have the sacks of xoca beans.
The jug was empty. They were all feeling good, and Damnation Sue was more sleepy than cackly. Her chin kept drifting to her chest. The candle began to sputter as the wick lost wax.
“Before we go,” Ymir said, “I have to ask about the Midnight Guild. I’ve not heard of that. Have you, Jenny?”
The swamp woman shrugged.
Lillee shook her head.
Salt Love leaned forward. “There is no Midnight Guild, you know? But there is the Midnight Guild. They kill people. We know that. Some people blamed it on the Silent Scream.”
Ymir shook his head, not understanding what the Silent Scream was.
“Those are the assassins that work for the Bloody Dawn Guild,” Jenny explained. “Assassins are a kind of mercenary too. You can bet they find work all across the Swamp Coast queendoms.”
Salt Love nodded. “Yes, that’s true, but the Midnight Guild is different. We have a story. We had a friend, and no one would have put a contract on our friend. This friend, he found an artifact in Reytah that could summon storms. It could control the ocean, it could, and we told him to get rid of it rather than sell it. Well, he tried to sell it. He sent me a sand letter, which I picked up in Williminaville, saying the Midnight Guild wanted him dead for even having the artifact. He was killed. That artifact was gone. Maybe it was taken to Old Ironbound. They have a place for things too powerful for this world. Like the Fractal Clock.” She smiled. “If I had the Fractal Clock, I would be queen of the world. If the Midnight Guild didn’t murder me first.”
Ymir recognized the name of that magical item. Most likely, the Fractal Clock was locked up tight in the Illuminates Spire. Della Pennez guarded that section of the Librarium jealously. Violently.
He grew quiet. Lillee reached out and grabbed Jenny’s hand, and the two sat closer.
“It could be that this Midnight Guild is trying to kill me,” Ymir mused.
Chapter Thirteen
DAMNATION SUE LET OUT a snore, snapping awake. “Aww, don’t ruin the night with scary stories. Let’s get these kids their beans so I can get to bed!”
Salt Love frowned at him. “If the Midnight Guild wants you dead, then I feel sorry for you. Everyone knows about the Silent Scream. No one knows about the Midnight Guild. That makes them unbelievably powerful.”
Sambal shrugged. “It’s none of our business unless you die. Then you can’t pay!” He laughed.
Ymir laughed with him. His life truly was none of their concern.
“One more thing.” Salt Love wore a bemused smile on her lips. “Here you are, a warrior from the north, and yet you are starting a business selling xocalati. I’d expect you to wield an ax, not make candy.”
“And isn’t it the greater man who can do both?” he asked.
Jenny agreed, wearing a smile of her own. “There are many kinds of battles. And there are many ways to crush your enemies.” She was a little drunk, but too drunk to quote Grandfather Bear perfectly.
Getting the xoca beans was quick work. Thankfully, the sky stopped pouring rain for the twenty minutes it took to move the sacks. Jennybelle put a tarp on the bottom of the boat to keep the beans dry. She put another tarp over the top of them because the rain would come back without a doubt.
Sambal helped Ymir shoulder ten fifty-pound bags, moving them from the dinghy to their hired boat. The craft sank lower in the water. Sambal explained that the “beans,” now nibs, were already processed up to the point of grinding. They’d been fermented, dried, and bagged in Reytah, then shipped to the Scatter Islands for processing. On the island of Buskatow, they’d been roasted and then cracked and winnowed, separating the husks from the nibs. The bags of nibs would then have to be ground and pressed into powder.
From Ymir’s reading, thanks to Ckir Vesset and his love of details, the clansman knew that it took about four hundred xoca beans to make one pound of xocalati. A xoca pod weighed about fourteen ounces and contained thirty to forty beans. Four hundred beans weighed about ten pounds. That meant, with the nibs he had, he could make fifty pounds of xocalati. It was a start. They still had to consider a price point. He wanted to charge a platinum sheck per pound.
Ymir had to smile. Grandfather Bear had loved numbers and how everything could be simplified once you translated ideas into mathematics. The numbers didn’t lie. They couldn’t. By their nature, they had to add up perfectly or they were invalid.
It was a hundred platinum shecks, or a thousand gold, per person per semester to attend Old Ironbound. That meant he’d need to make more xocalati and would need more nibs from Salt Love and Sambal. The pair made the trip from Williminaville to StormCry every couple of months, or six times a year.
Jenny walked back to Sue’s house, and she left a sack of shecks there, in the crazy old woman’s woodpile. No money exchanged hands. Fifty gold shecks for the fifty pounds of xoca beans, in nibs, seemed like a good deal. Ymir would have to pay Jenny back for her initial investment. Tori was providing the rest of the ingredients, including the vanilla, another export product from the Scatter Islands.
Before the smugglers left, Ymir agreed to send them a sand letter in time for their order. He would mask his language, and speak of rolling papers, rather than nibs. Those students addicted to kharo needed their rolling papers, and those weren’t controlled.
Damnation Sue hugged Ymir a bit longer than necessary, then weaved her way back to her cottage and her cat.
Salt Love and Sambal sailed their craft back to StormCry and the Wind Raider, their ship docked th
ere.
Ymir liked the smugglers. More than that, he trusted them, though his father would’ve called him a fool for not putting their deal on paper. Nothing stopped Salt Love and Sambal from increasing their prices or changing any number of the details. Grandfather Bear would’ve been kinder toward them, but Grandfather Bear trusted his instincts more than he trusted the strength of a contract. Better to be friends than business partners, or so Bear would say. There was generally less blood involved.
The rain started up abruptly, starting in a sheet to the west. Again, he was thankful for the Flow fascinara in the tarps that kept his precious xoca nibs dry.
That left Ymir, Jenny, and Lillee on the dock, with their boat riding low in the water.
Jenny laughed cheerfully. “Good thing I’m not rowing. And if we increase our order, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Lillee gave the swamp woman a soft look.
Buying contraband seemed to agree with them. They looked better, with more color on their faces, more light in their eyes.
Jenny’s lantern sputtered and the light winked out. At that moment, the lighthouse was facing the other direction. They were lost in a stygian darkness.
Something big splashed in the water next to their boat. A stink hit the air, not the rot of ocean life, but something more animal, the stink of elk intestines and congealing blood. Was this the merfolk coming to spoil their deal?
Ymir was on instant alert, battle ax in hand. The Black Ice Ring was cold on his left ring finger.
Something hissed from the edge of the dock. It was too dark to see. No moons. No stars. Only clouds and rain. The lighthouse wouldn’t help for another five minutes or so.
“Get the lantern lit,” Ymir hissed.
The air felt wrong from the stink. Something slopped up onto the dock. In the inky darkness, there against the gray wood of the weather-beaten boards, something had crawled up out of the drink, trailing plankton from its misshapen body. It was as if it had walked up from the bottom of Angel Bay.
Ymir’s eyes narrowed. This thing wasn’t a mermaid; it looked more bestial than that, almost like a bear. Could a hargen have walked from the mountains and across the sea floor to get to them? It was hunched over, whatever it was.
Ymir moved in front of the princesses.
“Caelum caelarum.” Lillee cast a Moons cantrip. Her glowing hands illuminated the dock around them.
Nothing was on the dock. Whatever had hunched there, dripping, was gone. Like it had disappeared into the very air.
Ymir blinked the sweat and rain out of his eyes. He couldn’t see it. He could still smell it.
Jenny knelt over the lantern, whispering, “Ignis ignarum.”
The shadows behind her seemed to rise and coalesce into something shadowy but wet, a stinking thing of darkness and oil. Eyes gleamed a dull lead color, but the fangs were far brighter. Instead of arms, it had tentacles, long ropes of darkness.
It lashed out at Jenny. Ymir sped forward, bringing his ax down with both hands. His blade struck the coil. And bounced off. It was like he’d struck it wrong, but that wasn’t the case. His steel simply couldn’t pierce its thick tendrils.
It leapt up on its thick legs and disappeared, turning into smoke in the rain. Its stench lingered. It wasn’t going away. It would hit at them again.
“To the lighthouse,” Ymir growled. “Out in the open, it will strike at us again.” He dropped his ax and pushed Lillee and Jenny forward. Neither princess was crying or seemed scared. No, both were as grim and as focused as he was. The clansman was proud of them.
From the side, the creature took shape, splattering ichor onto the seagull droppings covering the rocks next to the worn path. Lillee’s light shimmered off its oily, undulating hide. He got a better look at it. Those lead-dead eyes. The needles of its fangs. The thick throat of the thing. It was bear-shaped with tentacle arms and a big humped back. Its ass was far thicker than its front.
It lashed out with its coils at Jenny.
“Jelu jelarum!” Lillee flung out her left hand. Icicles lengthened from her fingers, growing longer, longer, until they crashed against the thing’s ropey arm.
Ymir doubled down on the Flow magic. “Jelu jelarum!” He sent a stream of cold into the thing, freezing all that water in the air and making an ice spear of his own. His spike of ice shattered on the thing. Weapons nor magic could harm it.
This creature had to be a demon, a summoned demon probably. That would be devocho magic, but in which Studiae Magica? And could Ymir’s magic ring help them? He didn’t know. An ironic thought came to him—they hadn’t covered Focus rings in class yet. There was no end in sight to his studies.
The demon vanished into smoke again.
Lillee pulled Jenny along. The pair ran the rest of the way to the lighthouse.
Ymir waited a beat, waited to see if the thing would appear, using his nose more than his eyes. The air in front of him reeked. The creature took shape again and waddled up the path after Jenny, reaching for her.
Ymir thundered forward. His ax hadn’t hurt it. Neither had the ice spikes. He leapt onto the thing, getting an arm around its throat.
His stomach boiled at the blinding fetor emanating from its greasy, wet hide. Touching the thing made him sick—the softness of its skin, like caterpillar flesh, disgusted him. Underneath the skin, he could feel the hard bones of its neck, hard for the moment, though it could melt away into shadows. Yet, it wasn’t vanishing. He had it, straining hard to crush the thing’s throat. It had a throat. And it began to writhe, huff, and gasp.
Ymir had his feet under him. He flexed every muscle, keeping the thing there and slowing crushing the life out of it. A part of him was screaming that this unnatural thing was damned, and it would damn him for touching it. That superstitious part of him was hard to overcome, but he had no choice. This hellish thing needed to die. And he would send it back to the fucking hell from whence it came.
Tentacles grabbed his leg. Another snaked its away around his throat—those coils must’ve lengthened to grab him. Ymir growled, “Jelu jelarum.” Again, he focused on putting a skin of ice around himself, under his clothes, around his leg, around his feet, icing them to the ground, and most importantly, around his own neck. The tentacles tried to crush his throat, but the ice held.
The demon was flopping, flailing, but it wasn’t vanishing.
Ymir was so intent on breaking the fucking thing’s neck, he hardly saw Jenny dash forward with Lillee behind her. Jenny dropped the lantern. Its flame was snuffed out. Lillee provided the light, which gleamed off Jenny’s dagger, the Sapphire Fang. That dagger went into the monster, right into its foul belly.
The demon opened its mouth wide, showing the needle-teeth. It screamed, a terrible, otherworldly keening, and then its tentacles burst through Ymir’s icy armor. Instead of crushing him, it flung him aside in a last desperate attempt to free itself.
It shoved Jenny back, then went rolling down the path. It was headed for the water, but it didn’t make it. The thing stopped rolling, slumped to the side, and immediately that pliant flesh began to sizzle and melt. The skin became a puddle around the bones, white in the sudden brilliance of the lighthouse. The bones too began to melt. Rain was already washing the foul puddle down into the ocean. Still, the stink turned Ymir’s stomach.
“What’s this fear? What’s this fire? Where’s the foe!” Damnation Sue shrieked. She left her home with a Sunfire lantern held high. In her other hand was a thick short sword. She wore a wide-brimmed hat and a big coat. Rain wept off the oilcloth as she stormed up the rocky steps that connected her cottage to the main path.
Ymir knelt with Jenny while Lillee stood over them.
Ymir swallowed, grateful to still have a throat to swallow with.
“Demon?” he asked.
Jenny was gasping, her eyes wide. Sweat leaked down her face. “I ain’t never seen a demon. I laughed at the idea of ’em. But it was real. It wanted to kill us.”
Lillee dropped
to hug Jenny tight. Too tight by the pain on the swamp woman’s face. Ymir was still trying to catch his breath when the elf girl pulled him over to join them.
Damnation Sue stood awkwardly nearby. Her sword was nearly rusted away from the hilt. It was clear she only ever took it out when demons attacked, and as far as Ymir understood, this was something that never happened. Yes, he’d killed the Lonely Man, who had been coughed up from hell itself, but this shadowy thing felt different, less intelligent and more bestial. Was it naturally occurring? Or had it been sent to murder them?
Was it summoned by the merfolk? Had Nan Honeysweet or her fairy conjured it up? And was this another attempt on Ymir’s life? Could this thing have come from the Midnight Guild?
He went back through the fight. The demon had gone after Jenny, twice. Or was that his imagination? He didn’t know, and in the thrill and fire of the fight, it was hard to remember the sequence of events.
Damnation Sue finally found something to say. “Whatever came after you, it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Salty and Sammy. Why would we? You already paid them, and they gave me a little finder’s fee. I might have a sweet tooth, but no candy is worth murder for.”
Ymir thought she was telling the truth, and he still trusted the smugglers. They’d been amicable. So, who else might be trying to murder them?
Sad to say, they had a list of people who might bear them a grudge, including Auntie Jia.
It took a bit, but they got Lillee calmed down. Jenny got some color in her face. As for Damnation Sue, she helped them gather themselves, their weapons, and their wits and got them on their boat.
Ymir rowed the princesses and their cargo back up to the hidden docks. The clouds dropped low as if they followed their rain down. The lights from Old Ironbound were indistinct smudges.
Despite their cloaks, they were soaked by the time they left the boat. Ymir made three trips until all of the xoca nibs were stacked in his sea cell. His floor sometimes got a little wet, so he laid them on the desk and on his bed. His room was now their supply room. He’d either sleep with Jenny or Lillee.