Well, not entirely on vacation. I am taking my work with me. My main job, still, is making sure that Vae doesn’t do very much wicked to Vheshrame. Our relationship has changed a good deal over the decades. When we contend now, it is no longer as an ant (me) against a tiger (Vae). It is more like a kitten (me) against a tiger (Vae). Actually, Vae has been quite inoffensive for nearly two decades, though that is surely over. She has been a boy full-time, while she and Oixe were trying to conceive. That has now worked; Oixe laid a fertilized, living egg. Vae got to get one quick glimpse of it through a scrying spell before Oixe drove him off. Oixe will not let Vae, or any other nendrai, anywhere near the egg or the child until the child is old enough to take care of itself. The nendrai incubation period is a century or so, so I am going to go through another generation of friends before Vae gets to see her sweetie again. Vae is back to female: back to a winged female serpent, at that, and utterly miserable. A miserable nendrai isn’t quite as dangerous as a deliriously happy one, but it’s pretty close. Taking her away from Vheshrame for a few years seems like the best idea for all concerned. It may even make Vae feel better, which is not something that Vheshrame much cares about, but I do.

And I suppose I should write about Vae, for anyone coming to this journal for the first time.

Vae

The summary: Vae is one of the most awful and dangerously insane monsters on the World Tree, especially to her friends. She is an fearsomely powerful mage. When anyone asks her to help them, she loses all judgment and does something that might be helpful, generally an an overpowered and devastating way. She is quite sad. She is one of my best friends anymore, though I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.

The details:

Vae (short for Vaisessasilmin) is a nendrai, one of three known instances of Nendrai lacrymosa. (I got to name her species myself though I consulted with her about it, since I live in Ketheria and people at the heart of civilization heard about my name first. Nobody else had thought to do it when we met her, everyone was too scared.) Nendrai are one of the half-dozen most terrible beasts on the World Tree. They are, in their natural form, bulky bipedal lizardly people with coarse features, some nine feet tall, with very long and agile tails. (Some of them, like Oixe, aren’t quite like that, but they’re all lizardly and all have those tails.) They have a few minor advantages, like tremendous vitality. If you stab Vae through the heart with a huge enchanted burning copper sword hard enough to kill three mighty Gormoror, she’ll grin and speak nicely of your swordsmanship and not even consider dying like any polite prime would.

The scary part of the nendrai is always the tail. They can, at a tail-touch, cast exceedingly subtle and exceedingly powerful spells. There only a few restrictions:

1. Vae’s spells have complexity 80 and power 160, or, if Locador is involved, complexity 100 and power 200. For comparison, a first-rate professional sorcerer, like a master smith, might, at the apex of her career, have one or two complexity-30 spells, which she casts at power 35 or so. A spell of complexity 40 is several times as good as one of complexity 30, so Vae’s 80s are ridiculous and her 100s are beyond ridiculous. There are plenty of primes ranked as great wizards (and deserving it) who can’t cast a single complexity-100 spell, or even an 80. Vae can cast nearly all of them that she can imagine, and she’s got a good imagination for such things.
2. Vae’s spells must involve Mutoc, the Verb of transformation. She has to phrase them as changes, somehow. This is barely a restriction; she can cast a scrying spell, say, by making a leaf change its appearance to match the scene she is scrying on.
3. Vae’s spells must not involve Healoc, the Verb of healing. This doesn’t actually stop her from healing herself. She is quite happy to transform a wounded body into an unwounded one with Mutoc. Well, not quite happy, since doing it with Mutoc hurts intensely, and doing it with Healoc is easier (for those who have Healoc) and feels good. A few useful forms of healing are beyond her, like raising the dead.
4. Vae must touch the target of her spell with her tail. This, too, is barely a limitation, given her powers of Locador — the magic of space and position.
5. (Unlike my spells and those of most people, Vae’s spells don’t cost her anything to cast.)
6. (Unlike when I try to improvise spells, Vae improvises spells without risking any failure of the spell proper. She can still do the wrong thing — indeed, she usually does — but she always does what she intends to do.)

This makes Vae a power to be reckoned with. She’s probably not as dangerous as an average city-state in Ketheria — though we have never exactly tested that, and we hope we never have to — but she is not far off.

Much to her sorrow, Vae is not exactly in control of her own mind. She was designed by the goddess Gnarn, who rules the art of Mutoc and who is vastly cruel, to be an endless well of troubles for primes. Vae’s primary blind spot is being helpful. If anyone is so foolish as to suggest that they need assistance to her, Vae will do something that — in some interpretation — might be considered helpful. She doesn’t realize she’s doing it until she’s done it, and it’s generally done in a way that’s hard to undo. One time, for example, I complained about the rain. She surrounded me with a spell of complete protection from liquids, so that they always ran downhill in a great hurry, and, for Mutoc, “downhill” was always “away from me”. That could have killed me of thirst, if my roommates hadn’t found three ways around it, and it certainly wasted a bottle of expensive brandy.

After much doom, I made Vae a pair of magic earmuffs. When she wears them, they let her hear normally, except that they muffle things that they think she might interpret as requests for assistance. She can simply ignore that part of the conversation, or teleport off to a safe space and have the earmuffs report what was said, or turn them off altogether. They’re not perfect, and they do make conversing with Vae difficult at times, but they cut down greatly on her accidental helping people to their sorrow. She usually wears them when she’s with people.

Another lack of self-control is that Vae likes to get things from primes. And the word ‘likes’ is rather too weak. She got more physical pleasure from me passing her the salt at dinner than she did from fathering her unborn child, and that act was as pleasant for her as it is for most people. Once, some miscreant offered her a bowl of pea soup if she would build him a vast and well-defended floating mansion. It took her a hundred spells — a hundred of her insanely-powerful spells — but she did it. For soup. She hates this fact about herself, but she can do nothing about it. Unlike the helpful side, I don’t have any answer for her on it. Indeed, it is official Vheshrame policy to exploit this flaw to the fullest.

My official, if officially unpaid, job in Vheshrame is “Ambassador to Vae”. I have kept peace between us and her since she claimed our territory as her own territory 125 years ago. Technically, this has entailed visiting her with gifts every three days, and both of us pretending that it’s simply an act of tribute between military allies. At various times, privately, I have thought that it was on the edge of rape. Maybe of her, since she doesn’t at all like craving it or enjoying it. Maybe of me, since Duke Conturge forced me to do it for the first decade or so and I’m the one pleasuring her.

Also I am one of Vae’s few friends and confidantes. Most people are scared of her. With plenty of justification, since she once turned all the Cani outside the city walls for miles around to wheels of cheese in response to a friend’s child complaining that ‘the Cani are bugging me!’. We managed to turn them back with a few hours’ work… but we are lucky that she chose cheese, rather than ice cream, or it would have been a massacre.

Vae hates her arms and legs. When she is sad or in need of a kind of comfort that is largely unavailable, which is often, she turns into a winged snake. I understand this better than most people. Not that I have any such problem myself — I am quite happy with my body — but my long-gone long-time lover Mynthë, who was Herethroy, really wanted to be a mammal, and hated her insectile body. (At least Mynthë had the sense to ask me to deal with the problem, not Vae.)

Vae’s mate is a female nendrai named Oixe. Oixe is a large six-legged three-headed nendrai with brazinion scales. She’s not quite the sorceress Vae is — she rarely gets better than complexity 50, which is still insanely complex. Her spells are more powerful than Vae’s though. And she’s far, far better in a fight. On their first date, they had a huge fight to determine which one would be the boy. Vae lost. Vae was thus male (via an easy Mutoc spell) whenever they met, and, when they were trying to concieve, male full-time for many years. I think that, once their child is grown up and Oixe can endure the company of other nendrai again, they get to have another fight to determine who’s the boy next time ’round. In any case, Oixe lives a very long way off. Even Vae, whose Locador spells are mighty indeed, needed to teleport several times to get there.

(She’s not wholly deprived of all contact with Oixe. They write each other love-notes several times a day and send them skipping across the World Tree with devastating Locador spells. They are thoroughly in love, after all. Still, Gnarn, in her infinite cruelty, has managed to come up with a way to reproduce that appears to hurt more than the Zi Ri way.)

When Vae cries, which is often, her tears are jagged blades of glass that force themselves out of her eyes. She then has to heal herself in order to be able to see again. With Mutoc, which hurts intensely. I have offered to make her an eye-healing talisman, so that it won’t hurt, but she always refuses it. She doesn’t like crying, and prefers to punish herself for it. We have had this conversation about once a week for a century now. I think there is a very practical aspect to it though; I think it adds tiny increments to her vitality.

In any case, I haven’t seen Vae with arms and legs since Oixe laid their egg. Vae writes love-notes to Oixe with a pen in her snake’s mouth. Vae is miserable, and a miserable nendrai is dangerous beyond words. Getting Vae away from Vheshrame seems like my civic duty, and giving Vae something to think about and enjoy seems like my duty as a friend. So, she’ll be on vacation with us.

I had been planning to buy a used sky-yacht of some fairly ordinary design, probably birdy or dragony. I was going to paint it blue as a minor concession to vanity. Not quite my own shade of blue. I’m not that vain.

I made the mistake of mentioning this at dinner in Castle Wrong.

Everyone:“We gasp in horror, Sythyry! Such a tedious ship would not fully express the crucial message, of Behold! Here comes a mighty yet deviant wizard! Your sky-yacht must be a gaudiness — a spectacle — a wonderment — a flamboyance supreme!”

Me:“I suppose so…”

So I got an ordinary transvective skyboat, used, and started doing nighttime enchantments on it. Some illusions, some transformations, some other things, and some rather tricky Locador stuff.

Strayway is now in the form of a seven-armed silver and amber candelabra, with seven burning candles in its radially-symmetric spirally arms. The body is a big silvery vase, some fifteen feet tall and ten in diameter (Don’t worry, it’s much bigger inside.) The vase depicts certain selected standard and ordinary scenes from mythology and history which, while undeniably standard and ordinary artistic themes, if taken together, might suggest a certain interest in some topics which I am in fact interested in. A bouquet of greatly magnified flowers sprouts out the top — or, rather, a greatly magnified illusion of anything placed in the centerpiece vase on the high table of the Grand Dining Hall inside. I plan to stick with flowers. Strayway is drawn by three three-headed antelopes made of green glass and green copper and green emerald, with scorpion tails ending in lampy gems. (Yes, of course they breathe fire. (Yes, it’s real fire. Why would I make fake fire?))

Everyone:“Oh, no, Sythyry … you didn’t!“

Me:“Um, actually I did.”

Everyone:“The Doom! The utter and highly characteristic Doom!”

This sort of thing is why wizards get a reputation for being eccentric. Wizards are not actually eccentric. Wizards simply listen to their friends.

(But I didn’t dare show her in public for a decade after that.)

Some notable features of Strayway include:

1. The hull is plated with real silver. Not a lot of real silver, but not such a little either. I have a somewhat complex arrangement with the Smith’s Guild about how much metal I can create. (Most members of the guild can create as much metal as they can. As a skilled enchanter, I can make a talisman which creates unlimited amounts of metal to sell. As a loyal and honorable Smith’s Guild member, I do not create unlimited amounts of metal to sell. … but I still have the talisman, and I can use it for things which I promise not to sell for a thousand years. Actually it’s not unlimited creation, just a pound and a half a day, but it was enough to turn a thirty-year full-time apprenticeship into a three-year afternoon-only one.)
2. The doors are not evident from the outside.
3. The candle flames are real fire. They are provided with braziers for burning nice woods, and fireproof cushions for lounging, if one is inclined to sit in one and meditate or watch the landscape without much company. One of them has a lectern which renders books fireproof, in case one wishes to read.
4. The Grand Dining Hall is pretty grand. I was trying to see how long I could make one room be, and … it’s about three-quarters of a mile long. And thirty feet wide.
5. I did an extremely poor job with the interior geography otherwise. The interior is best thought of as being divided into eighteen regions (corresponding to the eighteen space-expanders I installed). Within a region, geometry works as one might expect: if one goes through a door from one room to another, walks ten feet, and goes through another door into the first room, one ends up about ten feet from where one started. This is unlikely to be true if one crosses between regions, and one can get thoroughly lost while one is building it, and have to spont Go Home to escape from one’s own sky-yacht. I installed a regiment of signposts and maps. That still proved insufficient for me to find my way around. A certain part of the delay in actually leaving for the vacation is the necessity of constructing and providing guides.
6. Accordingly, each room has a sentient, mindful item of furniture, capable of giving directions and other useful advice. The Grand Dining Hall has one by each door.
7. The pilot’s room is an utterly standard and ordinary any-species sort of control room. It is not one bit rococo. I did not modify it, except to add a scrying device. Oh, and I replaced the quick-escape device. The original Strayway (which was called something tedious at that point) had a one-use teleporter for escaping from danger. (She got into danger, got badly clawed up, teleported away, and got sold second-hand.) I can do better, and I did do better. And my “better” even works with all the other Locador on the yacht … though we shouldn’t use it too often.
8. The pantry is provided with a device that prevents foods from spoiling. It does not prevent them from aging, though, so we can make our own cheese and wine, if we want.
9. I didn’t make any animata or other mindful servants, though. I thought about it, of course. One rarely sees an eccentric wizard without an animated floating teakettle with seven leather whips as tentacles, or something like that, where a less skillful nobleman would hire a Khtsoyis porter. I decided that — as with Castle Wrong — I would rather bring friends and people from my community along, especially ones who have trouble getting jobs elsewise.

There’s more, of course. I have been tinkering with Strayway for two dozen years or more, in my spare time.

The battle-barge Duncan’s Glory looks rather like a regular barge; indeed, I suspect that it a recommissioned one. It’s a long flat skyboat with two top sails and two side sails. It is none too fast on its feet — not that it has feet per se, unlike Strayway. I don’t think it needs to be. It has been refitted (or maybe fitted, though I expect re-) with a respectable device that can telepop it a quarter-mile a dozen times a day. The long flat main deck is used to good effect. It has four big ballistas and four fire-onagers, and a quite appealing battle-pergola heavily grown with unfamiliar but presumably highly magical vines.

Accompanying Duncan’s Glory is the xebec-o-war Soothing Ointment. Soothing Ointment is a trim and nimble skyboat, with two sails and two flappy wings. It’s built for ramming, too, with a bowsprit of a metal spike all ablaze with a harsh consuming flame. She’s got only one big weapon otherwise: a ballista loaded with a huge harpoon.

And the third of this martial trio is the luzzu The Terrible Bean. Small and fast, she is, and with a fierce sentient flame in her painted eyes. She’s got wings like a dragonfly, and a tail like a scorpion, and a brace of net-casters and another harpoon-ballista. I would expect she can use them on her own, if her crew is otherwise occupied.

We were drifting down at a nice safe speed around Beltheia, presumably in the sky owned by Dossimar. Duncan’s Glory was suddenly in front of us, with a loud flatulent thump of Locador magic. (I have gotten used to Vae’s teleporting, which is somewhere between plangent and piquant and very very pointy. Primes don’t teleport like that generally; but we do not teleport so much as Vae. Duncan’s Glory was particularly noxious about it.)

“Ahoy, the Duncan’s Glory!” shouted Windigar from the control room, presumably reading the name from the side of the war-barge. (I was in my workshop, quite busy with an enchantment, so I didn’t actually know much of what was going on.)

“Ahoy, Strayway!” warbled the pilot of The Terrible Bean, popping out of a cloudbank on our upper starboard. Soothing Ointment oozed from behind the thick growth off the world-trunk, coming towards us off our rear underneath port.

“Sorry to trouble you, but you’ve come to the domain of Dossimar,” called a Gormoror man from the deck of Duncan’s Glory.

“Our periplus agrees with you on that point,” called Windigar. “What is the significance of this, beyond our proximity to your presumed city-state?”

“Well, first things first,” shouted the Gormoror. “Have you seen any monsters lately? Ulgrane in particular, or hugeng? They’ve been a terrible pestilence on the skyways lately. Or any other dangers that you care to mention?”

“That we have not,” called Windigar. “An inistella with a peculiar crew, but that was days ago, and not aggressive.”

“Excellent. The reputation and the might of Dossimar is keeping them off!”

“The skies have been clear, to be sure,” said Windigar.

“The might of Dossimar is considerable! Note the ballistas and fire-onagers behind me; note the ram and harpoon on Soothing Ointment; note the tail and net-casters of The Terrible Bean!” boomed the Gormoror.

“Your armament is formidable, to be sure,” said Windigar, who was beginning to get the point.

“Our armament would, however, be barely consequential without the skills of our heroes. The great sorceress Oonanau herself rides in The Terrible Bean. Lorquan the Episcopicide is even now waving to you from the mast of Soothing Ointment. And I am Drogimargue the Nendrai-Slayer.”

“Respectable names indeed!” said Windigar. “I will confess a regrettable ignorance of the deeds and sagas of Beltheia. Did you really kill a nendrai?”

“I did!” boomed Drogimargue. “Bahalizonne the Lar lies dead, grilled and devoured by the citizens of Dossimar, and my hand the hand that drove the axe-blade through his spine!”

(“Anyone you know?” asked Kantele to Vae. “The N. varigatus who died here a decade or so ago,” Vae answered. “Not a personal friend was he, but once he played chess with Oixe and I was jealous.”)

“Well, that must have been a battle worth an epic and a half!” called Windigar.

“I shall be most glad to declaim them at a suitable time! But first, a practical matter. The heroes and warships whom you have hired to protect you in this airspace are puissant and potent, and, additionally, numerous. Their rates are quite cheap considering their quality and number!”

“Your choice of vocabulary is notable,” said Windigar. “Perhaps the respected and noble speech of Beltheia differs slightly from my native Ketherian. But a mistranslation seems to have snuck in — one which we will surely both laugh about. In my dialect, the word ‘hire’ means ‘requesting the labor and services of someone, for pay’.”

“I fear that — alas! — we must laugh most quietly. For that is indeed an elegant and succinct synopsis of the situation!” boomed the nendrai-slayer.

“I am afraid I do not recall requesting your labor or service…” said Windigar.

“Is your memory so friable, so subject to the gremulations of even miniscule smalliments of time? For did you not recently enter the domain of Dossimar?”

“Well, I would seem to be there now,” said Windigar, lashing his tail annoyedly in the privacy of the control room.

“Which is, of course, protected most mightily by myself and my fellow heroes! Hence, you have hired us!” proclaimed the Gormoror.

“Ah … The paperwork was unaccountably delayed,” said Windigar. “We entered relying solely upon our own defenses, which are considerable even by the standards of a martial wizard of Ketheria.” He knew exactly what was going on. “And, to avoid further administrative effort, it will suffice for us to depart without troubling you or anyone else for an actual hire. In any case, we are well-used to dealing with nendrai and other such minor inconveniences; they do not dare pester us.” Which is approximately true, though by “us” he means “Vae”.

“Do not fear, captain of the Strayway!” said Drogimargue generously. “The paperwork is a mere trifle! In any case, we must not let mere administrative matters stand between you and true safety. Behold, even now Oonanau exerts a mighty spell to protect you from horrors teleporting to assault you! Unfortunately it also restricts your own craft’s ability to teleport … but do not fear! You are surrounded by the protective aegis of the warriors of Dossimar, as an infant Cani of a martial clan is swaddled by the hardened leather wrappings of its mother!”

“Perhaps the paperwork can be disposed of,” said Windigar. “What are your rates?” He scowled, and scribbled notes to Yerenthax and Vae.

“Our rates are modest, even negligable! A mere eighty lozens per person aboard your craft! Plus, of course, the six hundred for the cley of the spell that Oonanau has already cast. And should any more cley or life’s blood be necessary in your protection, be assured that the same highly favorable rates will apply to it.” (For those uncertain about World Tree prices: these are quite high. I rarely manage to charge half of that for a cley, for one thing.)

“Splendid. How much do you charge us for shooting a ballista bolt at us? Or other of your siege weaponry, which, perhaps by coincidence, is better suited for assaulting skyboats than monsters?” asked Windigar.

“Two hundred lozens, or more if the bolt has been ensorcelled,” said Drogimargue with a smile.

“I imagine that it will not be necessary,” said Windigar to Drogimargue. “I will consult with our accountant, to see how the funds are most easily acquired.”

To Yerenthax and Vae and Kantele, “Well, what should we do now?”

Concern for the Patron

The first part that they told me about afterwards was this. (It actually occurred in less detail halfway through.)

Nearly Everyone:“We must consult Sythyry, for this is zir skyboat, and, ultimately, zir money.”

Kantele:“Sythyry is performing a particularly delicate enchantment.” Which was true, in fact. “Disturbing zir now might ruin it.” Which is false; Accanax does not want it ruined. “As zir secretary, I recommend that we deal with the situation ourselves.” Which is excessive, since, by the normal World Tree time, I would be finished in three or four ninths of an hour. I’m sure they could have delayed that long.

Nearly Everyone:“Very well! We will spare Sythyry any trouble or indignity from this situation!” I’m sure that nobody actually said anything like this, though several people told me they did.

Not that I think I could have done any better than they did.

Concern for the Passengers and Crew

Windigar:“We’re facing three warships — we’re surrounded by three warships. They’ve all got weapons for attacking skyboats: onagers, harpoon ballistas, rams. Strayway is neither defended nor armed against such things. If we fight ship to ship, I promise no great success, nor even much chance of escape.”

Yerenthax:“There are other ways of fighting. Vae, do you want to slaughter primes?”

Vae:“And why would I want to slaughter primes? The primes are the ones I love, second to my mate and child.”

Yerenthax::“Even the one calling himself nendrai-slayer?”

Vae:“Not so comfortable am I of that, truly. The money is not so hard to come by, but friends are scarce and troublesome to replace. The toll is not so very large, is it?”

Zascalle:“It’s ridiculous for a toll! Three thousand lozens! A month’s budget for all of Castle Wrong, to pass a single harmless branch on our travel!”

Yerenthax:“And the honor! Surrendering so easily would bring us scorn!”

Vae:“No so much shall we speak of it. The one who surrenders can be I — no great quantity of honor have I in any case. The money shall I replace, somehow or other.”

The Plot

Windigar:“I don’t much like paying. But, like Vae, I like being killed even less.”

Vae:“Not that did I say!”

Windigar:“Well, I don’t want any of us to be killed, and neither does she.”

Jyondre:“That goes without saying! Nobody on Strayway should die; that is our ultimate concern.”

Kantele:“With the possible exception of the stowaways… but even there we are responsible.”

Windigar:“How about this? Vae, can you take arcane connections to the money we pay them with, so that you can teleyoink the coins back to Strayway?”

Vae:“Yes, but also no.”

Windigar:“I don’t understand.”

Vae:“Not a bit of teleportation can be done under Oonanau’s prohibition. But the prohibition shall not last so long, and it can be removed in other ways.”

Yerenthax:“Can you do it, though?”

Vae:“The most likely. The sorceress may have further tricks against it; I may or may not be able to sneak around them.”

Windigar:“So … We pay the toll. We leave. At the edge of the pirate’s territory, we try to take the money back; then we flee as quick as we can. Most likely we succeed, taking off with honor and treasury both intact. If Vae somehow is prevented from getting the money: at least we — she — tried, and we all survive.”

Kantele:“I approve of this plan, so far. Does anyone have a better idea?”

Nobody did. Zascalle opened the safe, picked out thirty big round hundred-lozen coins, and gave them to Vae to taste and gather connections.

Drogimargue:“Excellent! You need not trouble yourself with sending it, for, as a convenience to you, I shall come over in a sky-skiff straightaway!”

He did, in a little blue flying raft of a thing, landing on a balcony. He was a tall and mighty brown-furred Gormoror, with a vast two-handed enchanted metal sword strapped to his back. Talismans and gnawed bones dangled on thongs from his armor, and his boots were of nendrai-skin.

Windigar:“And here you are. We offer suitable and even generous thanks for the safety you provide, and hope that your services are not necessary again.”

Drogimargue:“Ah, excellent. One more formality and you may be on your way.” He set off a Roman candle, showering blue fireballs in the air.

Windigar:“What’s that?”

Drogimargue:“The customs inspection, and, of course, the tally of passengers. You would not wish to accidentally exclude anyone from the fee, of course! We should both be so sad.”

Oonanau’s spell melted like ice. A dozen smiling prime warriors teleported next to Drogimargue, shoved past Windigar, and boarded Strayway.

Drogimargue:“I notice that your fee is, in fact, somewhat incomplete. You have neglected to pay for the cley to teleport the inspectors: twelve hundred each, as the spells were bound, and another twelve hundred for the return teleports as well. You are nearly thirty thousand lozens short. I do imagine that the owner of as gaudy a skyboat as this will be able to produce the money — or the equivalent in goods — in short order, though.”

Windigar:“I do wish that you would present us with the full tally as soon as possible, so that we could settle up and be gone.” Windigar is wise, with a nendrai-killing warrior in front of him. If he had objected too violently, we would probably need another pilot.

Drogimargue:“A sensible request. It is currently impracticable, as the precise extent of your expenses has not yet been determined. It may, perhaps, be necessary to spend a few more cley searching for hidden crew members. Or, as sometimes happens, a passenger or two will object to our routine and reasonable requests; the fee schedule for violence against us is quite steep.”

Windigar:“I have noticed that your fee schedules are generally quite steep. Do you have any small fees?”

Drogimargue:“In point of fact, we do. We provide light refreshments gratis. I am about to partake of some arrack; may I offer you some as well?” He took a hearty gulp from an ivory hip flask, and offered it to Windigar. Windigar held it to his mouth and pretended to drink.

The intruders split into four groups of three, and wandered around the interior of Strayway a bit. I suspect that they were not expecting quite such a large interior.

Pirates and Lost

The first group headed into the corridors and got lost.

Pirates and Me

The second group followed the radience of power and headed for my workshop. I was finished for the day. Indeed, I had been finished for the day for most of the day (as I measure time, which is not so simple). I had then had a full night’s-worth of sleep (still on the same day), and was lying in the fireplace reading a storybook (not in the fireplace.)

Oonanau:“Hey! Open up in there!”

Me:“Who is this?”

Oonanau and a pair of Rassimel warriors burst into my workroom. Bursting involved breaking the door down with a mace. I was not terribly pleased at this. Oonanau is an oldish Cani woman with pure white fur, wearing iron chain armor, holding a sparkling dagger in one hand and a sparkling shield in the other.

Me:“Let me rephrase that. Who are you, and why have you broken my door down?”

Oonanau:“Never mind that. Hand them over.”

Me:“I beg your pardon?”

Oonanau:“You’ve got a room full of heavy magic items. Hand them over.”

Me:“Indeed. Allow me to start with a Holocaust War weapon that I happen to have close at hand.” I am not always so very quick on the uptake, but some situations are clear enough.

Seven-winged burning thing: The seven-winged burning thing does not precisely speak. It expressed delight at the opportunity for some exercise, in part by emissions of intense purple light, and in part by immediate and eager exercising.

One of the Rassimel:“Oh, dearie me, Oonanau. A good portion of the left half of my body is well on the way to becoming overdone.” (His actual words were more succinct.)

Oonanau:“Pah. Zie’s not a sorcerer. Zie’s just got some magic items. Take them from him, Rassies!”

Me:“In point of fact, I am no sorcerer. Indeed, I have not bothered with that title for quite some time; I have quite outgrown it.”

One of the Rassimel: “Sprex!” The utterance triggered a bound spell which teleported him away — probably to one of the warships and a much-needed healer.

Other Rassimel:“Chovio!”Another bound teleport, though obviously bound with a different command word.

Oonanau:“Oh, bother! They’ve both popped off!”

The seven-winged burning thing fluttered its wings delicately at the loss of two playmates, and then pounced at the third. Oonanau’s protections were more extensive than the Rassimels’, and she cast a nervous Grand Armor Turning Pyrador to help her avoid it.

I counted my cley. After a full day’s enchanting (I’ll explain that later), they were not so numerous as I might like at the start of an invasion by an unknown number of warriors and sorcerers. I let the burning thing dance with Oonanau, and flew for the cabinet where I keep certain tools and devices suitable for the occasion.

The seven-winged burning thing pounced at Oonanau. Her Grand Armor and general nimbleness got her out of its way, but the fringes of three wings brushed against her armor, melting a few links. Oonanau struck at it with her sparkling dagger, and cut off two of its wings.

Me:“Not bad, but I’ve a trick worth a half-dozen of that.” Spending a cley seemed worthwhile, if she was that dangerous.

That trick is Dancing in the Garden of Statues: far and away my most complex spell. I traded a great deal of work for it, and have not had many chances to use it for serious purposes. Hopefully I won’t have too many more on this vacation. All things became still when I cast it, and the burning thing’s tongues stopped in mid-flutter. All things except for me and the things I wished to have something to do with, that is. I grabbed a glove, an arrow that never flew, and a tiny drum from the cabinet: the first things that came to paw, and perhaps not the best choices. They came alive (or at least active) as I touched them. I flew back to the statue-still Oonanau, deprived her of her sparkling dagger and shield, and, abusing the poor glove’s side-enchantment of strengthening horribly, stuffed the severed flaming wings into her armor. And that was all the spare time that Garden had made for me; all things resumed their normal movements.

Oonanau:“This turn of events does not greatly please me!” (Also not her exact words.) “Chovio!” (Her exact word. It set off a bound spell that whisked her away.)

Usually-seven-winged burning thing: expressed annoyance that its exercise was so soon over.

Me:“I wonder what that was about?”

I packed the burning thing back where it belongs, incidentally repairing it, and had the arrow take me to Strayway’s control room, where I hoped I would find some answers. Of course nobody was there, so I teleported around for a few moments before I remembered about the seven insignias. I am sometimes quite smart, and sometimes … not.

When I arrowported back to my cabin to get my insignia, Strayway crunched and rocked terribly. Duncan’s Glory was firing her onagers, and they had taken off one of our candles.

Pirates and the Crew

The third group was: one Khtsoyis with three metal clubs, one red-and-brown Cani wearing red-and-brown armor with a downright scary staff, and one a cheerful Orren woman wearing a short green waistcoat and a long green veil, far and away the most dangerous of the three. They cornered Kantele, Jyondre, Yerenthax, Zascalle, Rheng, Umbers, and Vae. This was easy enough, for they were near the balcony for Windigar’s sake. Vae, incidentally, was a naked Orren girl of about twelve years, with a garland of buttercups around her brow and a silver bell on her tail. (The bell was to remind her not to do anything magical. (It never works.))

Khtsoyis Pirate:“Hand over all your cash, jewelry, and magic items, and nobody gets hurt.”

Rheng:“We should have Grinwipey here. He could translate.”

Cani Pirate:“The concept is actually reasonably straightforward. Even a Sleeth should be able to understand it.”

Zascalle:“We’ve paid our three thousand lozens. That’s plenty.”

Cani Pirate:“It will pay Drogimargue’s salary for the week. I need to earn mine too, wouldn’t you know?”

Orren Pirate:“Times are hard all over! Especially for you!”

Rheng:“Perhaps for you as well, rrai! Now we dance the dance of claws and spells!” He crouched, ready to pounce.

Cani Pirate:“Now we dance the dance of brains and hostages!” He grabbed Vae in one arm and held the dead crow’s head on his staff to her head.

“But why did you let him do that?” I asked her afterwards.

“The he wanted it so very much,” she said. “The things that happened later had not happened yet, also. The defense spells I set aside for his convenience. Not so he could beak me, but so he could hold me.”

Which is to say: nendrai are crazy; only a little bit of their minds are truly their own.

Yerenthax:“Vae? What are you doing there?”

Cani Pirate:“She is my hostage.”

Vae:“The yes! I am being his hostage!”

Yerenthax:“Come down from there this instant!”

Cani Pirate:“Actually, ma’am the dense Gormoror, the whole point of being a hostage is that she can’t come down from there. I’m holding her tight, and if she moves, I’ll have this here crow staff bite her ear off. Maybe take a big gulp out of her brains.”

Jyondre:“No, you won’t. Vae, you’re being ridiculous.”

Vae:“Not a bit ridiculous am I being! Not a single prime have they harmed or tried to harm. The comfort is as much here as there for me — he can hostage me all the hour if he departs peacefully in the end!”

There was a confused sort of impasse. My friends greatly had the martial advantage, but the martial advantage refused to be martial, and was generally helping the enemy. The enemy, for their side, thought that they had the advantage, and refused to believe that the small Orren girl mattered as anything but a hostage.

The impasse was complicated by the sudden arrival of another Rassimel warrior, escaping from the seven-winged burning thing, teleporting next to the Orren Pirate.

Other Rassimel:“What are you waiting for, you idiots? We’ve got to act fast! There’s a Zi Ri sorcerer in the back bedroom, and zie’s all pissed off!”

Cani Pirate:“Rightie-O. Zascalle, you must pony up, right away, or I’m killing Vae.”

Vae:“There’s not to be any killing. At all.”

Oonanau: [teleporting in] “Orren Pirate, can you please put me out? That cursed lizard crammed some flameystuff under my armor.”

Confusion reigned for a few moments. Then Strayway crunched and rocked terribly. Duncan’s Glory was firing her onagers, and they had taken off one of our candles.

Oonanau:“Right. Grab and run time, guys. This skyboat is going down in flames.”

Pirates and the Children

The fourth group — two Cani of brindled mastiff styling, and a Rassimel man holding a mace in one hand and a wand in the other — soon came to the room where Arfaen, and Mellilot were trying to keep the children calm, and Grinwipey was trying to keep them safe.

Grinwipey:“Hey, I got three clubs, you got three shanderbucked guys, works out all right.”

They had a bit of a scuffle. Grinwipey got killed twice, saved twice by Heal the Awful Wounds. He was only wearing two of them, so the third time he stayed dead. The Maceimel tossed his body in a corner.

Brindled Man:“So much for him. Are you two fine women going to interfere?” He grabbed Ochirion by the arm.

Arfaen:“What are you doing to him?”

Brindled Woman:“Just a bit of a hostage-taking, miss. For convenience to encourage you to pay your bills, y’know.” She grabbed Quendry, and the Rassimel took charge of Feralan.

Quendry:“Mommies! Don’t let them take me away, mommies!”

Brindled Man:“Mommies? The bitch I’ll believe is your mommy, but the other one’s a bug-girl.”

Quendry:“She’s my mommy too! Mellilot! Make him let me go!”

Brindled Man:“Wait, are you two scrompers?”

Arfaen:“I don’t know what you mean. Let my son and his friends go this instant.”

Brindled Woman:“They are, can’t you smell it?”

Brindled Man:“Bug-lover! Feh! Bet you did it with the shoggy there too.”

Arfaen: assorted furious denials and demands, all of them ignored.

Brindled Man:“What she needs is a taste of a real Cani or two to remind her what’s what.”

Arfaen and Mellilot: assorted angry disagreements.

Brindled Man:“Hey, Brindled Woman, you want first turn, or do I get it?”

Brindled Woman:“I’ve got affan. I go first.” She tossed Quendry to Brindled Man. “Right, scrompey-bitch. Lick tight and lick good, or Brindled Man’s taking off your son’s tail.” She started unlacing a bit. Strayway crunched and rocked terribly. Duncan’s Glory was firing her onagers, and they had taken off one of our candles.

Quendry:“Mommy! Help! No! Don’t do that to Mommy!”

The Cani Pirate holding Vae said, “Quiet, little girl.” Then Vae curled her tailtip around his staff, ringing her bell, and teleported herself and the staff to Quendry. The council room erupted in a hideous melee, with five angry and rushed pirates assaulting six or seven assorted wrongfolk. The wrongfolk didn’t have much of a chance. In a moment, some of us were broken, and some fled. The five pirates took what money they could (mostly from Zascalle’s body), and started to rampage down the corridor rather haphazardly. Duncan’s Glory’s onagers knocked another candle off of Strayway.

Vae appeared in the nursery, still a young and nude Orren girl, twirling the crow-staff in one hand. “Not a thing like this you must do to my primes!” she proclaimed, and then burst into giggles from the pleasure of having gotten something from a prime.

“What is with these people? First the shoggy tells us no, then the bug-scromper tells us no, and now the flippin’ little girl tells us no. You need to learn to say ‘yes’,” said Brindled Woman. “You ’specially,” she said to Arfaen.

Vae twirled her stolen staff in a delicate lemniscate, laughing a laugh like tiny golden bells rung by a fairy, enlivened rather than distracted by her forced pleasure. She hooked out Brindled Woman’s lungs, some Locador sleight allowing the crow’s beak to avoid the Cani’s flesh and bones and armor.

Brindled Woman stared at Vae in fear and pain, her eyes pleading. Vae chirped, “Yes! The yes I say to you! You can have them back!” She twirled the staff backwards, and flipped Brindled Woman’s lungs into her face. Brindled Woman did not seem to be terribly grateful for their return. She did lose consciousness, for which I imagine she was grateful. She did not regain it.

Mellilot took the opportunity to scuttle over and slap her bound Heal the Awful Wound on Grinwipey. Wipey poked up his eyestalks and moaned a bit. “Sorry as the dashitzie, couldn’t do much for you.”

Vae smiled quite sweetly at the other two pirates. “The menu for brunchtime murderings is a choice for you! The we have a very fine conversion of the heart and circulatory system to a nest of stinging wasps, served on a bed of arugula and accompanied by a light whipping by a peri armed with nettles. The or we have a slow and elegant disembowelling accompanied by a sweet sherry gravy, always a classic, and but not to be considered meagre, no matter how familiar it becomes. The and finally, as today’s special, we could turn your fingers, tongues, and genitalia into unfriendly and slightly poisonous serpents, who are only under your control with your full concentration. The protracted death, which may appeal to those who find life so sweet that they want to suck it down to the last drop. And Sir Brindled Man, which will it be?”

Brindled Man, not quite understanding the situation, started to strangle Quendry. “Drop that staff damn quick, girl, or the kids all die.”

Vae flicked her tail once, twice, thrice. The children’s fur became furious masses of lashing animated iron quills, each quill tipped with corrosive flames. They struck at the pirates, again and again in a rain of vicious burning pricks. The pirates had no real choice but to drop the children. The children, perhaps more upset than the pirates, fled to Arfaen and Mellilot; Vae let her spells lapse before they attacked the women.

“But why did you do that, Vae?”, I asked her later.

“The I wanted the pirates to let go of them in a hurry,” Vae explained patiently.

“But why didn’t you teleport them away, O mistress of Locador powers beyond nearly anyone I know?” I asked.

“Not a bit did I think of it!” she admitted. “The bit of a fury I was in, I fear me.”

(I fear you too, Vae my friend. Indeed I fear you.)

“The very wise choice you have made, Brindled Man,” said Vae in a silky-sweet voice. “The fingers you use for murder, and this shows that your fingers should ne’er be yours again.” She touched him, and gave him many serpents to wrestle with.

“And for you, Maceimel — the disembowelling, I believe?” He tried his very best to kill her with his mace. Space and time bowed in obedience to her tail: the first blow of his mace removed half his belly; the second opened his chest; and there was no strength in him for a third. Vae took his mace from him and trickled her scalpel-clawed fingers in his entrails.

Maceimel moaned “Sprex!” and teleported back to Duncan’s Glory. Vae produced a round doorway in nothingness, reached through, and dragged him back. Three pirates, one of them a very burned Rassimel being tended by the other two, expressed an assortment of displeasures and alarms. Vae continued to vivisect him jauntily as the children wailed.

(Grinwipey quite mercifully broke Brindled Man’s skull with his clubs while Vae was distracted, if I understand what Grinwipey said properly.)

“How could you do that in front of the puppies?” Arfaen asked later.

“The good I thought it would do them, to see such a revenge,” Vae said.

“But they’re puppies!” Arfaen yelped.

“I’m not a puppy anymore, and I’m glad I didn’t have to watch,” I said.

“Not so well do I understand. Always a joy it was for me to see my mother torture an enemy!” said Vae. She looked at Arfaen’s face. “Not the same way it is for Cani or Rassimel puppies, then?”

“Not in the slightest! They’ll be puking up nightmares for months!” barked Arfaen.

“As they would if they had seen us raped,” added Mellilot. “So thank you once again for saving us.”

“Yes … thank you,” said Arfaen, who was rather less certain. She has endured considerable time with unwanted lovers — albeit friendly spouses, which I suspect is a rather different matter. I do not know whether it is a difference of degree or kind though; I hope I never understand perfectly. She could have endured this too, I think.

“The sorrow is on me for doing it in an unsuitable manner, though,” said Vae, and two daggers of glass and blood trickled from the corners of her eyes.

Boots thumped in the corridor outside. A pirate barked, “That sounds like Brindled Man screaming in there!”, and kicked open the unlocked door.

“Oh, no! More pirates, Mommies!” wailed Quendry.

“The Brindleds!” wailed Oonanau. The Cani Pirate who had been holding Vae tried to grab her again. She was having none of it, though, and teleported him three hundred miles in the sky, to fall or rescue himself as best he could. Other Rassimel became a small wooden rocking-horse, just Quendry’s size. Cheerful Orren got two steps away down the corridor before she became a bright red rubber ball with blue stars painted on the side. The Khtsoyis and Grinwipey traded insults, or, perhaps, taught each other insults.

“You were much nicer to that batch than the others,” I noted afterwards.

“The they had been much nicer,” said Vae. “The Cani Pirate even petted me once or twice while he hostaged me. The year can pass to the next year between times a prime will do that!”

“Fly, you fools! This is an enemy beyond you all!” barked Oonanau, or words to that effect. She grabbed Cani Pirate’s staff, which Vae had dropped, and said “Sprex!” so that her bound spell took her to Duncan’s Glory.

“Pleasure droppin’ in on you like this. Look m’up if y’re ever in town, Wipey,” said the Khtsoyis pirate, and sprexed off as well.

Vae screamed in rage. “The staff, the crow staff! The crow staff is my staff! The Cani Pirate I took it from!” She leapt through her round doorway to Duncan’s Glory, whirling her stolen mace. Two pirates got in her way — in the sense of not getting out of her way quickly enough — and she disposed of them, one getting knocked off deck with the mace, the other by transformation into a short curving roadway to Oonanau.

Oonanau, being a sensible sort of sorceress, took the instant to teleport to the Dossimar city gate and bolt through.

“The crow staff, the crow staff that is mine!” howled Vae. “The Orren has taken my crow staff into the city!” She could not retrieve it through the city walls, so she set to work getting revenge.

“Why did you want the crow staff? It was all bloody and lungy!” asked Feralan rather afterwards.

“The things I get from primes are hard things for me to give up quickly,” said Vae.

“Oh…. I don’t have a crow staff. I’ll give you a cup with a pelican drawn on the side!” said Feralan.

“The please, the please!” moaned Vae.

Zascalle took Feralan aside after he had given her the cup, and told him that giving presents to the nendrai was not always a good thing.

Windigar and Drogimargue and Me

Drogimargue, hearing a commotion from inside the skyboat, kicked Windigar in the belly and ran inside. He found a roomful of incapacitated and dead wrongfolk, and no pirates; he roared to find his companions.

Windigar picked himself up and prodded at his insignia, hoping to get Vae’s attention. Vae was beyond any interruption at that point. I, however, was looking for clues about what was going on; I noticed, and arrowported over, and got a few essential hints.

So Windigar and I and the re-seven-winged burning thing rushed into the council room. The burning thing politely distracted Drogimargue, where by ‘politely distracted’ I mean ‘attempted to grill alive’, which is quite polite under the circumstances. Drogimargue fought back moderately effectively for a bit, and then decided to sprex off. I fluttered to the wrongfolk and used most of my remaining cley on several advanced healing spells.

Resurrection is only generally possible within a few minutes of death — a variable few minutes depending on how quickly the spirit of decedent gives up and returns to the relevant creator god. Dancing in the Garden of Statues is an excellent way to arrange to resurrect a half-dozen people all at the same time, since the time I spend in the garden doesn’t count towards the limit of resurrection.

Then we followed the footsteps, and the advice of the furniture, and came to the parlor with the children and the civilians and the dead pirates and the door to Duncan’s Glory.

Vae’s Vengeance

A dozen or so pirates surrounded Vae on the deck of Duncan’s Glory, including Drogimargue the Nendrai-Slayer. They were terribly outnumbered by Vae. And by Vae’s elementals. She had turned a wind into a seven-headed lightning bear, and Drogimargue’s sword into a mushroom with a poisonous gaze, and someone else’s forearm into a spiky Locador demon. Vae was mostly ignoring the pirates, except when they somehow got a spell or a sword within six feet of her, at which point she produced another elemental to interfere with them. They were not her concern.

The pirates were not fighting Vae out of personal fear, or professional obligation. They were fighting her out of civic duty.

I joined the pirate’s cause when I saw what was going on, of course.

Vae was ripping up vast tracts of countryside. She’d demarcate an area of some twenty or thirty acres of fields or countryside. She’d carefully transport all the people and animals in it into the nearest village, for she is a tidy monster. (And by “tidy” I mean “happy to fill villages with all manner of beasts and pests and vermin.”). Then she would arrange for the direction “up” to mean “towards the city of Dossimar, and with a force a dozen times as great as usual”, rather than its usual meaning of “upwards”. Everything in the region would fall heavily towards the city. First the loose things, fallen logs and ponds. Next the weakly-affixed things: houses and trees, plants and buried logs and loose soil. Finally the rest of it: all the soil down to the world-wood.

The avalanches could not actually break the Dossimar city walls. But the enchanted sphere rang like a bell struck by Tenmen’s hammer; it squashed to a hideously oblate spheroid, and then rebounded. The towers and homes on the edge of the city were cast down and ruined.

And by this time there was quite a dike around Dossimar: soil and detritus piled high. The gates of Dossimar were buried; and the moraines draped on the walls loomed far above the tallest buildings of the city.

“Vae, Vae!” I called to her. “Please don’t destroy the city!”

“Of course I will destroy the city!” she snarled. “The sorceress in the city Took. My. Crow. Staff!”

I know this mood. I have seen it before, though never with quite so much devastation. “I’ll bake you a cupcake if you come back to Strayway.”

Vae grinned excitedly at me. “And with chocolate frosting?”

“Certainly!”

She jumped up and down once or twice. “Let’s go!” Then she stopped and looked at the city, as if seeing her handiwork for the first time. “The bribe you’re offering me. And did I do another wicked thing this time?”

“We’ll discuss that when we’re back on Strayway,” I said.

“The meaning of that phrase is ‘yes, and a most extravagantly wicked thing’, is it not, Sythyry?” Drogimargue rammed a blazing metal-tipped spear through her heart. She rather absentmindedly teleported the spear to me; the wound wasn’t serious enough for her to bother with. “And if it is so terrible, can I still have the cupcake?”

“Come back home, and you can have the cupcake.”

She dispersed her elementals, took a crossbow bolt through one eye, and came home. I insisted on healing her, because I know from a century and more that it is very, very, very important never to piss the nendrai off.

As I did, the shots of two ballistas and three flame-onagers wrecked various bits of Strayway. Windigar used the replacement quick-escape device then, and took us a dozen or two miles out of range of ballistas and flame-onagers.

I baked for her, and healed people while we waited for the cupcaked cooked. I was more or less out of cley, but we are a very friendly ship, and many people gifted me with cley and embraces. [Transferring cley to someone else requires a close hug. -bb] Most of them wanted bound Heal the Awful Wounds, and, for those who had enough cley today, resurrection spells as well. Tomorrow, I will spread bound defenses around even more.

The Score

The Winner

I suppose we won on points. Unless we (Vae) killed a lot of people we (Vae) didn’t intend to in the city, which presumably counts against us.

It didn’t feel like a victory in the slightest.

The Losers

Me. This sort of thing is precisely what I’ve spent the last 124 years trying to keep from happening. Vae wrecking the countryside and assaulting a city, that is.

Us. We are demoralized and scared. Vae and I took pains to put up three scores very loud and blatant magical defenses: huge buzzy spells that cradle the ship as a sea urchin’s spines and shell cradles it. A dozen exceedingly menacing elementals circle us constantly now, glaring outwards with the faces of legendary devils, their limbs and wings abristle with weapons. Not everyone finds this comforting: it is very much short of city walls. I have promised that, as soon as we can find an otherwise safe place, I will defend Strayway with out-and-out city walls. They won’t be Vheshrame’s walls, but they’ll probably be better than Dossimar’s. (Note to self: tracking down that Glory of Hren Tzen in Heleshario is more important than ever.)

The Children. The children were beside themselves with horrors. (And some of the adults too; as soon as I write this, I am going to go where nobody can see me and indulge in an episode of the utter shrieking fantods at Phaniet.) The families with children were discussing what to do next: whether Strayway is safe enough for them, or whether they should ask to get off at the next city, or beg to go home to Vheshrame. If the latter, I will indulge them, and do my wall-working in the safety of Castle Wrong.

Strayway. I no longer have a beautiful, flamboyant, and spectacular sky-yacht. I have a half-ruined sky-yacht that will need massive repairs before it is completely safe to live in, much less impress people with.

The Fourth Group of Pirates. All dead, and not in nice ways either. Which does not distress me greatly: however it was that Brindled Woman had affan in … whatever she had affan in … she cannot have come by it in any decent way.

The Captive Pirates: Currently transformed into harmless objects. The best plans are (a) to deliver them to the Sky Pilot’s Guild for justice, or (b) to forget about them and leave them transformed. (a) is particularly cruel, as the Sky Pilot’s Guild does not greatly approve of sky piracy. (b) is particularly vengeful, as they will not be reincarnated normally until the harmless objects are destroyed, which may be some long while. It depends on the character of the Sky Pilot’s Guild in the next port.

The Other Pirates: I don’t imagine that they will be quite so eager to attack the next ship, having had such a terrible loss on this one. Nor do I imagine that Dossimar will be quite so willing to encourage them, having had such a destruction due to them. (We didn’t ask many questions of our captives, but we think that the city condones the pirates to some extent — as far as I can tell, they impose smaller tolls on trading ships, but the pirates decided on their own that a rich prime’s yacht could be soaked for more.)

Vae: Any hope she has of being recognized as a decent and civilized monster any decade soon are ruined. She nearly destroyed a city — not out of justice, as might have been acceptable, but out of anger at someone stealing from her. She cried herself to sleep, with me listening and wiping the blood from her face tonight, and I expect, for several more nights.

My Warriors: Yerenthax, Rheng, and Wipey are not feeling terribly proud of how well they fared when outnumbered and surprised by pirates. The fact that they mostly weren’t equipped — Yerenthax was fighting with a knife and no armor against enemies with swords and chainmail — doesn’t count for much. Also most of them are recovering from being dead.

Dossimar Mene: They lost about a square mile of arable land, and what remains to them is clawed through and through with vast canyons reaching to world-wood. The city is nearly buried: though its walls have kept the dirt out, it will be quite hard to get in and out without flying or teleporting until a vast quantity of soil has been moved back to the canyons. I don’t know about damage to people or the city.

City Walls: For all that I’m planning to protect Strayway with the best walls I can manage in the space of a few months … city walls are not the absolute defenses everyone is taught they are. To be sure, Dossimar’s walls didn’t let a bit of Vae’s dirtstorm into the city. They couldn’t have stopped her from burying it in soil altogether. Cities are safe from direct intrusions, of course … but a clever and terrible monster has other assaults.

The Winners (on technicalities)

Vae: Vae has managed to acquire one small sliver of sanity. She took pains not to kill innocent people and animals in the countryside. This is not at all natural to a berserk nendrai. It is a pitiful triumph, but retaining any measure of personality and morality in that state is remarkable.

Drogimargue: Few indeed the heroes who can boast of surviving two furious nendrai.

Sky Pilot’s Guild: One nest of sky pirates substantially weakened.

The Judgement

If anything like this happens again before we’re properly (which is to say ‘insanely’) defended, (1) Wake the wizard up! (2) Take every measure to get far away quickly! (3) Negotiate payment without letting pirates on board! (4) Warriors get their armor and weapons at the first hint of danger! (5) Try not to piss the nendrai off!

“And do we?” asked Vae. She did not. She was wearing a heavy bovine body very poorly supported by five thin arms, so that she was walking on hands that really couldn’t hold her weight. Her dozens of udders, each bristling with inflamed and scarred teats, dragged on the floor beneath her. Even her tail was a little bovine paintbrush sort of thing. Her fur was marked with the symbols of doom and mourning. The only part of her that actually looked like her was her head, as if she couldn’t think of any way to make it look worse.

“Nah, you look like a lump of cud someone horked up,” Grinwipey said.

“Which should not be ta’en as a great startle,” said Yerenthax. “For it is how I feel this morning.” Jyondre refilled her kathia chalice, and got a tired smile from her.

“I know why you’re so shaky, Yerenthax, and Rheng and Kantele, and certainly why Wipey is,” I said, trying to get people to stop insulting the monster who had saved them. “Arfaen, did you get killed and I didn’t notice?”

Arfaen shook her head. “I got nothing worse from the pirates than words, really.”

“I know evasive when I hear it,” I said. “What are you not telling me?”

Arfaen shook her head and tucked her tail between her legs. “It’s nothing really, not compared to Grinwipey, or Yerenthax and Rheng and Kantele.”

“I continue to know evasive when I hear it,” I said.

“I’m not evading! We just didn’t sleep very well last night,” said Arfaen.

(Note to self: while I do know evasiveness when I hear it, sometimes it’s perfectly fine and proper for the evader to evade.)

“I had a nightmares!” said Quendry proudly. “I had a nightmares that Dad had hired pirates to make Mommy do too much sex with Cani. So she would forget Mellilot and me. Then we’d have to go back home and I wouldn’t have affan in anything and they’d put liver in my bed and make it go all stinky and wormblown. Then they’d make me cut up my favorite tree so they could carve it into insect dolls and they’d put those into Mommy too. And … ”

Arfaen hugged Quendry. “You don’t need to tell the whole dream.”

Quendry wagged his tail. “It was awful! Mommy let me sleep between her and Mellilot.”

“I had a nightmare too,” said Kantele. “I dreamed that the pirates killed everybody on board.”

“Even me?” asked Quendry. “Why did the pirates kill me?”

“I don’t remember very clearly. I don’t hold on to my nightmares to enjoy them later! Something about some birds that we were trying to hide from them,” said Kantele.

His mother wagged her tail, “Because you were too cute to live.”

“In dull despair, and dream-distracted / we are too weak for poem protracted,” staved Yerenthax. “Not one of my best.”

Jyondre rubbed his girlfriend’s ursine head. “For your saving my life yesterday, I will gladly listen to a thousand such staves.” (I’m pretty sure that the pirates killed Kantele as soon as Vae teleported off, and then Yerenthax and Rheng held them off briefly while Jyondre, Zascalle, and Umbers fled.) Yerenthax leaned her head tiredly against Jyondre’s forearm.

“I had a nightmare too,” said Umbers.

“Oh, no! What was it?” asked Inconnu.

Umbers shrugged her mid-arms. “Nothing worth going over. I dreamed I was back in the underground clubs, servicing … never mind who. And they made me cultivate mushrooms in between customers. I hate growing mushrooms.”

“I’ll never make you grow mushrooms! I don’t even like mushrooms!” chirped Inconnu.

Umbers tapped him on the muzzle. “You won’t make me do anything. Just because of last night with you doesn’t mean we’re married, or even that we’re going to have a next night. It just means I was lonely and sad, and you were handy and entertaining.” Inconnu looked so sad and wide-eyed that Umbers had to flatten her antennae and say, “Doesn’t mean we won’t have a next night either. But we’re definitely not married.” Inconnu brightened.

“It was a bad night of dreams,” said Zascalle. “Having your children attacked by pirates and you not even there to protect them can do that.”

“Why, what was your dream about?” asked Kantele. “For nothing shows a dream to be a harmless and evanescent phantom more than explaining it in public.”

“My dream wasn’t a harmless devil-scent phamtom!” barked Quendry. “It was a nightmares! It smelled like a burnt pig trotter with mustard and jam and poop on it!” Which might be true, for all I know.

“I dreamed I was doing the books for Castle Wrong — I dream about that quite often,” said Zascalle. “And nothing added up right, and the charges for apples kept getting higher and higher every time I looked at them. And V…” She looked around. “Well, someone said that Ochirion was getting cut in half by pirates, and I couldn’t come save him until all the sums were done and staying done.” She shook her head. “Nothing much of a surprise there.”

“There’s a sorrow on me for troubling you so, even in your dreams, Zascalle,” said Vae.

Zascalle flattened her ears and tail. “You didn’t … it’s all right … Actually it’s totally unfair of me to dream that, since you actually saved the children.”

“The children of Strayway I saved, to their terror. And did I kill many children in Dossimar, think you?”

I bated between them. [That means, I hung on to the tapestried back of a chair and flapped my wings hard. My translator suggests I define that for some reason.] “Though there is an accounting sort of question I had for you, Zascalle: will we be able to pay for the repairs of Strayway, do you think? Or will we need more money?”

Zascalle didn’t raise her ears a bit. “A few spells and a bit of cheap carpentry, and it will keep the rain out. We can board off the broken parts of the interior, so that the children don’t fall through the floor or some such. We can at least get to Srineia that way.”

“I know evasive when I hear it, really,” I whined. “And I don’t want a boarded-up sky-yacht. I want a fine one.”

“It’s been an expensive trip so far, Sythyry, and we didn’t bring as much cash as we intended to,” said Zascalle. “You cannot afford to fix Strayway back to her original beauty with just the money you have on hand.”

Inconnu wiggled his tailtip — he had somehow insinuated himself into Umbers’ lap. “Can’t you use lots of Healoc Herbador to put it back right?”

Phaniet shook her head. “The underlying enchantments are shaken and wrenched; they need to be repaired simultaneously, or the skyboat will never fly properly again.”

“Can’t Sythyry do that?” asked Inconnu.

I picked up a spoon and pretended to hammer a nail into his head with it. “I am not much of a carpenter. I can do part of it, but not all.”

Inconnu stared at Este. Este shrugged. “I’d be glad to try if that’s what you really want.”

“Meaning no insult to my husband … my husband is no crew of shipwrights. He and Sythyry could do a fine job in a pinch, considering that they are only two people and the job should properly require two dozen,” said Phaniet, curling her tail with Este’s.

“Also it would be a bit of a waste. Sythyry can earn more in a week than we’d spend on the two dozen shipwrights,” added Zascalle.

“If I find the right customer,” I noted. “I can earn a million lozens in a month, but not every month … and not every decade, even. I’ve only done it once. And, for what it’s worth, my nightmare was that the city I sold it to sent the pirates by way of complaint.”

Jyondre looked up from behind his pink barbarian. “I’m sure that a city on Srineia will want better walls: Bephengy or Heleshario, if not Eigrach. Our best sorcerers are not much for wall-building.”

“How are they as shipwrights?” I asked.

“Adequate, I should think. Eigrach has a modest shipyard, and Heleshario a specialty maker of racing-boats,” said our native guide and expert on all matters Srineian.

“Well, we’re not that far away. I suppose we’re better off limping to Eigrach as quick as our emerald antelopes can carry us, and seeing how we can repair the boat there,” I pronounced. “Arfaen, you were chief amongst those who wanted to return to Vheshrame earlier. What say you?”

Arfaen said, “I …”

Kantele pricked up her ears, interruping. “If we head straight for Vheshrame, we will be passing close to Dossimar Mene, where we have recently stirred up the pirates and rendered the general populace amazingly displeased with us.”

Arfaen said, “Yes, but …”

Phaniet added, “Only, this time, we will be flying a crippled and sluggish skyboat, and the best of our warriors recovering from a bit of death.”

Arfaen said, “Yes, but I …”

Kantele stood up, her tail all a-bottlebrush. “To be sure, the nendrai would be eager to fight.” Vae did not look to be eager to fight: she was curled up backwards on the floor, chewing on her tail, her udders poking out, in a position that surely would have been impossible for anything with an actual spine. “I daresay she won’t stop with ruining one city-state this time.”

Arfaen said, “Yes, but I think …”

Quendry wailed, “I want to stay with Mommy and Mummy! I don’t want to go back to the longhouse!”

Yerenthax stood up, with some difficulty, and said “I should like to hear Arfaen’s actual opinion before trying to argue her out of it.”

Arfaen said, “Thank you, O Gormoror. I think that I would rather have some city walls around me soon, more than Vheshrame’s walls around me rather later. I would rather travel in a skyboat that Sythyry has properly armed and armored — more than in a broken one, and more than any more precipitous means that may be available. I would rather not explain to my husband what became of his son and his tail just now. I am not feeling any braver than yesterday, but my cowardice is less tightly focussed. I will stay with us through Eigrach.”

Hops brought out a cauldron of soup made from dried shrimps and garlic. “Hey, m’lordres, Calla the exhausted Herethroy night cook made this for your breakfasts.” She glared at Arfaen. “Calla’s having nightmares about having to cook every meal for the whole crew for the whole trip, zie is, and that nightmare is coming out real.”

Everybody:“We want city walls and no more pirates! Can’t we get to Eigrach faster?”

Me:“We’re already flying all the time.” I am, rather guiltily, standing two shifts (18 hours) as pilot. This is not, strictly speaking, approved by the guild, but I am sure to get a full shift’s sleep (9 hours) after each one. Windigar, whose attitude towards time is rather more sensible than mine, is standing the other one, split in two 4.5-hour halves so I can get my nine hours of sleep between them.

Everybody:“No! Faster, faster, faster!”

Me and Vae:“Yes, but it’s not a wonderfully good idea.”

Everybody:“Do it! We have surely run out of doom for this leg of the voyage!”

Me and Vae:“Doom is not an exhaustable resource.”

Phaniet:“Well, if we do thus-and-so, or such-and-such, the dangers are scarce, are they not?” She is my assistant for very good reasons.

Me and Vae:“Yes… Scarce … well, more scarce. “

Everyone:“Do it!”

Me and Vae:“Well, um, OK…” Neither of us is particularly a leader, nor particularly good at denying our friends.

The Hurrying

Two-thirds of an hour later, we were in the sky eight miles over Eigrach. Most of the two-thirds of the hour was discussing details with Phaniet. The travel was only a few minutes. Locador magic is very effective and powerful magic.

The Vindication

The reason one does not generally use this much Locador on a skyboat, especially a skyboat containing as much Locador as Strayway does, poked a dozen mile-long black fingery spikes (Technically, I believe that it has only a single finger-spike, but that it is in several places at once) though the injury our skyboat had left in the world’s outer rind. Which isn’t actually part of the world per se; it’s just a sort of a coating or shell just outside the world that keeps nasty things from coming in and bothering us. Except, of course, when we wound it by too much Locador magic. Locador magic is very effective and powerful magic, and that means that it has consequences now and then.

Me:“Oh, dearie.”

Vae:“Oh, dearie, to be sure. The trouble and a half it is, when such a thing comes to visit.”

Phaniet:“I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

Me:“Yes.” I’m usually nicer to her.

Phaniet:“What do we do?”

Vae:“The fighting. The troublesome fighting. If we are lucky, a god will come to us and help us.”

Phaniet:“Is that likely?”

Vae:“If Oixe had not been with me the other time I faced one, yes, probably Flokin would have chased the being off after I died.”

Phaniet:“Oixe isn’t with you now.”

Me:“I’ll do what I can.” I’m not nearly as dangerous as Oixe — for that matter, Vae isn’t nearly as dangerous as Oixe.

The Battle

Vae and the Vindication — which is surely an unusual name for such a creature, but it is what I called it, short for “Vindication that I Was Right And One Should Not Overdo It With The Locador.” — got into a bit of a battle royale. The basic disagreement was over whether the sky-wound was to be big enough for the whole of the Vindication to come through (the Vindication’s opinion), or not (Vae’s opinion). The sky-wound obeyed them both quite happily. I tried my best relevant spell. The sky-wound ignored me.

So, the Vindication tried to distract Vae. It shattered one of its finger-spikes, and sent the shards as spiralling darknesses to attack her directly. I tried to stop them with spells, but they ignored me. Vae, who is much stronger and more experienced at this sort of thing, was able to block them, but at the cost of many seconds — during which the Vindication had stretched the sky-wound much wider. We could see its four eyes peering at us, arranged in an equilateral pentagon with eleven mismatched sides.

Vae started tugging the sky-wound closed. The Vindication let her, and shattered another finger-spike. (I’m not sure how this works if it has only one finger-spike. Confusing abomination, that Vindication.)

That simply would not do. If Vae blocked the shards, the Vindication would open the sky-wound enough to get its whole head through, and then the rest of it, and that would not be particularly good. If she didn’t, we would all die quickly from the shards, which was certainly preferable but still not a good idea. And Vae was the only one of any use in this fight, and she was overwhelmed by the Vindication’s speed.

I’m not Oixe; I don’t have any fraction of her native violence. But I do understand time reasonably well. I cast Dancing in the Garden of Statues on her. She seemed to teleport eleven inches that way, presumably because she wasn’t quite standing still when she was Dancing. The attacking shards had become peanuts and show tunes all at once from her defensive spells. And the top of the sky-wound had gotten a bit stitched up; she must have had a bit more time than she needed.

So I cast Dancing three more times on her, giving her two full minutes and some to do whatever she wanted without the Vindication interfering. I would have kept casting, except after the third, she left a note saying “The we have won already” over my eyes.

I looked. The sky-wound was closed. Scarred terribly, as always with Vae’s Mutoc-based healing, but closed enough to keep the Vindication out.

The Investigation

Arfaen:“I thought I saw some … black lightning or something? Any idea what it was, Sythyry?”

Me:“Well, yes.”

Vae:“Not a thing to worry about was it.”

And so we didn’t.

But I don’t want to hurry that way again.

The first thing Windigar noticed about Srineia was the clouds.

(In case you care, the first thing I noticed about Srineia was the fact that our hurryup spells had botched. The first thing that Lithia noticed about Srineia was that Lost-Eyes kisses like a girl. (I don’t know exactly what Lithia means by that. I don’t believe that Lithia has enough breadth of experience at kissing to be able to tell girls from boys from co-lovers from the osculation alone … I don’t think I could do it, and I’ve kissed reasonably broadly.) But that is what Lithia and Lost-Eyes were busy doing while we were travelling. (According to a later report. I was not snooping. I would not snoop on them. Ordinarily I am quite happy to watch Orren kissing — indeed, it is a favorite watchment of mine — but Lithia is my pseudo-child, and I am rather annoyed at Lost-Eyes.))

Anyhow: the clouds of Srineia. As Jyondre promised, the clouds over Srineia are often froliose. I don’t think that Srineia is the only place that has froliose clouds, but I have never seen them before in person. Froliose clouds are spherical in shape, pure white over most of their surface, but have a single cloudy-black shape on their northern side: today they were showing horizontal bars with a small circle at the west end. Jyondre doesn’t think the actual shape has any significance. Srineian scholars disagree, or, at least, they have kept careful records of the shape-of-the-day for quite some time.

Windigar knows better than to fly through froliose clouds. They evidently leave everything sticky and reeking of rotten lavender.

Chromodon

Far from the first thing that Vae noticed was the shark-mouthed cat sort of thing that appeared next to her from a smallish blossom of (to the magic sense only) dark claws and spikes. “You-nob have come most noisily to my home territory!” the beast exclaimed.

“The yes! The greetings I make to you, O mighty Shadatei, and the thanks for allowing me to make this very temporary visit to your home territory, after which I shall be returning to my home territory which is very far from here and does not border on here and which is where I considerably prefer to live in any case! The name of me is Vaisessasilmin, but you may call me Vae if you wish, for everyone else does.”

This, then, was one eighth of the chromodon Shadatei, the terrible monster who claimed a great deal of Srineia as his territory. Vae, incidentally, claims Vheshrame Mene and some significant space on either side as her territory. The rest of us ignore these claims: it is a matter of monster law or custom, and who cares about that? Well, aside from monsters.

“I-nob am less worried about the length of your stay than the manner of your arrival, O mighty Vae. Something extraordinarily dangerous peeked at us from beyond the universe,” said Shadatei. Of course any great beast would notice such an intrusion, though most primes would not.

“Oh! That!”, said Vae. It had been nearly eighteen minutes since we had nearly destroyed the branch; the event must have slipped Vae’s mind. “We put it back. It will not return.”

“You-nob are permitted to explain further,” said Shadatei. From which Vae gathered that she was, in fact, encouraged to explain further, and she did.

Shadatei scowled, his teeth shining brilliant orange and purple. “I-nob would prefer that you refrain from such extreme actions on my territory henceforth. If you-nob are unable to defend yourself from prime pirates, I shall be glad to curtail their activities for you, or even destroy them outright.”

Vae bristled. She was in a familiar shape as a long-tailed dull green serpent with (at the moment) fifteen butterfly wings along her spine. She fluttered her wings fiercely. “Not so hard is it for a N. Lacrymosa to take care of a few pirates, or a few dozen pirates! The other half of their city-state is what in a fury I would not destroy!”

(The subtext made explicit: Nendrai can work more terrible spells than chromodons, and are more terrible in battle. Not that chromodons are weak exactly — they are among the great beasts, after all — but they are dangerous in a different way. I doubt that Shadatei can cast any spell I can’t, and I can cast many that are beyond him. But there are eight of him, all thinking cooperatively and quickly, and able to cast spells through each other. In a battle, he would shower us with dozens of substantial spells to each of ours (though I would presumably offset his advantage with generous use of Tempador). If we killed the body he was using, he would teleport it off and heal it, giving us no particular victory. If we killed it beyond healing, then the remaining 7/8 of him would plot a most clever and dreadful revenge — and they are well-known for their revenges. In any case, Vae is more than a match for him in a battle, but Shadate would be most difficult to actually defeat in any lasting way.)

(Sub-subtext: “great beast” is one of various words that the mightiest monsters on the World Tree call themselves. Nendrai, chromodons, scyanturges, and a few others use the word. The rest of us generally don’t.)

“I-nob am glad that you are willing to display the competence that one might expect from your species. Destroy whatever cities you are inclined to in Srineia; it is my territory, and I care nothing for the cities. But leave the husk of the world alone.”

Vae fluttered her wings, then curled up. “The I will.”

He snarled at me, “That goes for you too, prime.”

“I will admit that I have no great desire to become the plaything of a Locador demon, and, thus, I agree to your terms without complaint. Indeed, this is a resolution which I made myself, some seventeen minutes ago,” I said. I hope this is polite, or at least, matchingly polite.

He snarled at me again — this time his teeth were crimson and black — and turned to Vae. “I-nob wish you a pleasant visit. Indeed, a relaxing one, without the need for any of those remarkable exertions which your kind is known for. And, of course, without conflict with any other great beasts.”

Then the curved and straight claws of an unimpressive teleportation spell embraced him, and he was gone: some few hundred yards outside of Strayway I would estimate.

“Charming monster, that,” I said to Vae.

“Oh, yes! The I hope to spend more time with him. Not when I have just endangered him so, though; that’s not a good start.”

“I was trying to be sarcastic, actually,” I said.

Vae pouted, which is challenging with a snake’s face. “The few enough friends I will have here. Not so much should you denigrate the ones I can expect to have.”

And she didn’t accept a spoken apology either. The scene ended where such scenes often do: in the kitchen, baking cupcakes.

[Occasional status markers will be written to show that speech is in Srineian, or where they are relevant for the story. In most cases they will be omitted. -bb]

From the wizard Sythyry to the mayor and nobility of Eigrach, greetings. I-nob have arrived in Eigrach Mene some weeks earlier than I had expected. I should be grateful of an opportunity to present my credential as ambassador and enchanter at your convenience. With great respect, Sythyry.

I am technically an ambassador of Vheshrame. I am not the ambassador to Eigrach of course. I am the ambassador to Vae. Nor does Vheshrame have any real need of an embassy in Srineia. But there is no reason to be rude. So I have an official scroll from the Duke promising eternal friendship with Eigrach. Puffery through and through, of course — I believe that Oorah Thrassen has a dozen such scrolls — but a very polite sort of puffery.

So Kantele hired a porter to take the message to the mayoral mansion.

“What does Eigrach look like?” asked Lithia.

“It’s all woven,” said Kantele. “I’ve seen chairs and baskets like that, but never whole houses.”

“It comes by the name ‘Wicker City’ honestly,” said Jyondre.

“Well, they do quite impressive-looking things with it. Every house by the gate has two or three spires or onion-dome or a grand spiral balcony at the very least. Sometimes the onion domes are on sideways. There’s one building that has got to be a brothel; I can’t see any other excuse for the number and arrangement of sideways onion domes,” said Kantele.

Jyondre grinned sadly. “Oh, that would be the Ord Bord. It’s famous. My parents sent me there for three days once.”

“Is that a usual sort of treat on Srineia?”

“Hardly that. They had found me with my first reciprocated crush, and they wanted to be sure that I would never have such a crush again. Some parents might have beaten me, and some might have scolded me. Mine were enlightened. They sent me to Ord Bord for three days with a purchase order for all the Orren I could screw, and hoped that the experience would teach me never to lust after Herethroy again.”

Yerenthax chuckled. “And…?”

Jyondre grinned. “It worked! I have never lusted after Herethroy again. Now I devote myself wholly to Gormoror.”

Yerenthax smirked. “Your parents will be happy, I take it?”

Jyondre shook his head. “I somehow doubt it.”

Lithia raised her illusionarily-Orren head from Lost-Eyes’ shoulder. “Will you win another trip to the brothel from it?”

Yerenthax declaimed, “From fearsome flirts, and fuck-for-fee / we both shall fly, my love and me!”

Lithia threw a pillow at her.