Chapter 1

I dreamt of pure light. There was no source and no self, just pure white
light.

I woke up screaming. Covered in sweat and thrashing madly within my
knotted sheets I twisted and fell out of bed. A flap of blanket landed
over my head. Suddenly I was drowning, and bound too tightly to move. I
decided to destroy everything.

A knife whistled and sang. The blankets fell to shreds.

"Are you hurt?" Seth asked. He and his shadow stood over me. The good
doctor seemed concerned and knelt to help me up. Rez was impassive as
ever, checked the room thoroughly and resheathed her knife. It was small
and thin, and hid easily up her sleeve.

"Bad dreams."

"What dream scares the nightmares?" Seth asked amused.

"Bad ones. When's dinner?" A clumsy, rude evasion that would have made
me wince normally.

"It should be ready shortly. You have time to prepare yourself."

"Thank you.

"Come along Rez." Seth smiled ironically and turned away.

"Oh, Rez," I called.

She looked over her shoulder, already standing protectively close to
Seth.

"Thank you, too."

She bowed and left.



We ate dinner on the roof. Under the starlight Rez set the table with
silver utensils on a black silk tablecloth. By silent agreement we did
not light any candles or lamps. Not that we needed too.

Kratos has seven moons, six of which were visible. The stars twinkled
behind, above, and around the mountains.

"What do you think the stars are, here?" I asked.

"Supernatural creatures of unspeakable power, locked against the sky by
magic," Seth replied seriously. I looked at him curiously and he replied
with what might have been a hint of a smile.

Realization dawned. I hadn't answered his questions about my dreams and
now he was evading mine.

"Touche," I replied.

Unless he was being serious. In the infinite world much is possible.

"What do you know about Nilo's stones?" I asked.

"They were made by Nilo."

"There're four of them. Small, about the size and shape of an eyeball.
Satre has them now, or at least he's the last person I know to have them
and they aren't the kind of thing you lose."

Seth nodded. This was pretty basic information. I glanced at Rez and
raised an eyebrow. Seth caught the look and laughed.

"Don't worry about her. Rez, can you keep a secret?"

"Yes." Rez's voice was soft. It was like velvet on steel.

"There, she can keep a secret."

I licked my lips and frowned. Three people can keep a secret if two of
them are dead. Regardless, if I was going to tell Seth and he meant to
tell Rez, I might as well tell her myself. It would be an act of faith,
and Seth was still annoyed that I'd evaded his questions about my dream.

"Satre used Nilo's stones to bind Daren the Wolfshead. They are the
keystones to his power, last and greatest artifacts of Nilo. I believe
they are the locks to the Baron's estate."

Seth blinked. "Why do you care?"

"The power levels involved make unbinding Daren possible."

"And why do you care about that?"

I felt the anticipation of a cliff diver and the shocking chill that
follows as I began to speak. I'd never told anyone this.

"It began like an infection. It was sudden, unpleasant, and may end up
fatal. The occasional unrelated incident or observation entered the
periphery of my consciousness. In a matter of days I found myself
sitting on the prison wall, watching Daren."

"The Wolfshead?"

"Yes. If you recall it was my voice that sealed his sentence."

"I've read about it."

"Before Wilno, before we left Carcosa, before the Fire and the Light,
before the Seven Days, Duncton, Alyssa, and Mara sat in judgment when he
killed the Baron. Van was the Champion of the Accused. He would have sat
on the jury but Mandrake was High Judge, and House Royal could not be
represented as both."

"Satre?"

"Executioner."

Seth raised an eyebrow. His surprise crept to the outside of his face.

"We did not think anyone else would be capable."

"And you were-"

"The prosecutor."

"The others?"

"Around."

Rez began serving. I made a point of watching her.

"There was not much to be said. Duncton was, or affected to be, filled
with righteous wrath. Alyssa watched Satre the whole time. Everyone but
Satre was a witness to the crime so I made the case easily. Van made a
speech about law and mercy, but every time he said justice it drove the
sentence deeper.

The fascinating part, the only deviation from a smooth glide towards
guilty was Daren. Mandrake ordered him chained but he never moved. Even
still, he was so intense, so destructive and vicious even in stillness
that no one could look away. I delivered my closing remarks more to him
that the jury."

It was hard to pay attention to Rez. Everything she did was silent. Her
face was always an attentive look of concentration. Most of the
assassins I know are cocky. Bodyguards usually try to dissuade possible
assailants from making any attempts. Rez simply made sure she was always
in an intercept position between Seth and me.

"We convicted him and sentenced him to death. Alyssa dissented but Satre
took him to Hangman's Square."

Seth waited, curious. I smiled at him. I could see his annoyance at my
previous rudeness was gone.

"Daren didn't die. Satre hanged him, ran him through, and burned him at
the stake. Daren laughed in his face."

"Did he try to escape?"

"Never."

"How did the people react?"

"Hangman's Square is for private killings. We don't want the convicts to
have the honor of dying with dignity there. All the people see is the
head."

Seth nodded. We shared a silent moment. The wine was excellent.

"We left him in the square. Satre went to recover, and Alyssa tended to
him."

"Recover?"

I felt Daren's pride. "Satre had to get close for the execution."

"Satre?" Seth was incredulous.

"Even him."

"And you."

"That's when it started. When I tried to sleep I found myself staring
into the fire, wondering what it would be like to hide in one, waiting
for someone. I realized that I could point in the direction of the
square from any room of my house. I was perfectly aware of exactly where
he was. That bothered me and I wouldn't look that way.

The next afternoon we gather to discuss the problem. I fantasized about
how useful it would be to have someone seemingly distilled of malice and
unkillable. During a meeting with lord Bale I considered the ease with
which Bale could be strangled if one could bypass his bodyguards. Not
that wanting Bale dead was unusual. The man obsessed about grain, grain
flows, grain inventories, grain ages, and grain molds. Do you want to
know how many forms of grain mold there are?"

"No," Seth replied.

"Would you like intricate details of your lack of grain?"

"No, thank you. My grain supplies are fine."

"Bale's never were, and he was rich enough to monopolize days of my time
to endlessly complain about them. I wanted someone, Daren, to make him
silent."

"Seems reasonable."

"It kept growing. Inside of a week I thought the solution to every
problem was with knives. If I had to walk from one end of the castle to
another I would go through Hangman's Square and watch him through the
bars of his cage. He was hunched over and waiting. Sometimes I wouldn't
let myself and then I wondered why I detoured to avoid him."

To collect my thoughts I paused and sipped my wine. It was exceptional,
so making complementary noises was easy. Seth was clearly fascinated,
leaning forward over his plate. There remained some restraint in his
smile, but I knew he had taken the bait.

Rez might be a stumbling block, I thought. A direct contrast to Seth,
she was impassive. I could not understand how she did it if she was
human. My crystallized knot of suspicion accumulated more weight. Still,
she was neither necessary to my plan or opposing it.

"By the time we gathered together again, we understood we couldn't kill
him. Daren would have to be dealt with though. Also I realized I was the
only one consumed by this obsession. Duncton thought this was a puzzle.
Mandrake was concerned with legal precedent. Van watched the people and
the commons. Only I was fixated on the Wolfshead and him alone in and of
himself in a pure monomania. By now I didn't care that he'd killed the
Baron. Instead I cared about how he could have done it physically and
what force of will had driven him to it in spite of or perhaps because
of us.

"Ultimately Satre persuaded us all that imprisonment was our only
option. He used Nilo's Stones to lock Daren in a stone and steel cell
and locked it under a mountain. No one knows how he did it, so without
the stones Daren will probably remain there forever."

"Imprisonment always has the risk of escape."

"We knew. It was our last choice. But, without the Stones, Daren can't
escape.

"Daren is pure malice and the physical ability to execute such malice.
He isn't human. He's a machine. There's never been anything like him and
I don't think there can be again. So long as he remains within that
prison, the secrets of his construction and operation remain safely
locked."

I stared at Seth. He could either ignore or take the rest of the bait,
hook, line and-

"You will bring him by so I can inspect him, won't you?" Seth asked. His
restraint was gone, replaced with mania, a drug addicts need for
answers, and pure lust for knowledge.

-sinker, I concluded. "Of course."

"How are you going to do it?"

"First I need an enemy powerful enough to force Satre to bring Nilo's
Stones out of hiding. We someone or something powerful to make Satre
unsure that he can win without the Stones. We need something dangerous
enough to make him need help. Also, such an enemy should end the petty
political squabbling that plagues Wilno and let me operate."

Seth grimaced. "Difficult."

"Impossible, so far as I know. Second, we need to steal the stones when
they've emerged."

"Tricky."

"Finally, we find and release the Wolfshead from his prison."

"And survive releasing him from his prison. He is dangerous, violent,
and murderous," Rez interjected. She was calm, but I sensed a sudden
ruthless protectiveness for Seth that dwarfed my previous impressions.
This directly contradicted my ideas about her. Demons love to destroy
what they are bound to protect. Who was Rez?

"None of these problems are insurmountable," Seth replied. "Don't worry,
Rez, we will be careful."

Rez looked at me and in the light of my previous revelation I understood
her look. She thought I was going to use Seth as appeasement. If I let
Daren kill him like an offering it might abate his likely fury. It was a
good plan, but I liked Seth.

I returned my gaze to him and smiled. He smiled back. I let some of my
own restrain slip and saw the same happen in the good doctor's eyes. It
was a cumulative effect, for as I watched the alien bonds on his
insanity erode I let myself go. Here in this place the need to appear
sane was gone. Rez was being trusted with my ultimate secret so she
probably did not understand the vastly greater importance of the secret
Seth and I were sharing. Almost tangible waves of intensity passed back
and forth between our burning smiles. This was why I needed Seth.

While we shared our instability, his desire for knowledge and mine for
the Wolfshead, Rez carefully cleared our plate and left. I no longer
watched her. I no longer made myself care. For this short while we could
cease to think and on vibrate to a song we heard in our bones.

At length the sun rose. With the first light of day our bizarre
communion ended. Again by silent agreement we rose from the table and
retreated to our private rooms.



I slept without dreaming. IT took me a few hours to get ready but I was
sitting by the grand fountain by noon. Instead of James I met Rez.
Confused I watched her emerge from the crowd and come forward to meet
me. Seth was nowhere about.

"Insanity is a loss of control, of the ability to function. Sanity,
healthy or ill, is the ability to operate, function, integrate yourself
into society and drive yourself in the direction you desire. When you
and my Master sit and let go you're becoming weak, broken, and reveling
in your disease. You aren't smarter. You aren't more creative. You
aren't become pure, true to yourself, or others. You're becoming broken
and weak, and I will nurse him through this ambulant sickness. Remember
when you lead my Master down that twisted path some infections need to
be cut out, cauterized, or killed."

Threats were fine. Animosity was perfectly within my tolerances. This
did not transmit either of those impressions. It was a clinical
diagnosis that involved deadly force and in response I stared at Rez,
shifting through parameters for one that would fit her. She left before
I found it.

"Who is that woman?" I asked myself.

Later that afternoon I went down to the harbor. Over the waves flocks of
seagulls spiraled, feeding on the fish that came up for the roses.
Outside the rose covered cliffs the winds whipped the sea, driving
strange tides. My ship was secure behind a seawall and I went aboard.
Once below I unwrapped my mirror. Contact was immediate. Daren was in a
particularly lucid state.

"Kratos?" he asked when I'd summarized recent events.

"I'm waiting for Ryan to arrive."

"What's in Kratos?"

"Seth and Rez are the only people here of power." I gave her the benefit
of the doubt.

"Not who, what? In old times this place was busy with people and vices.
If it is still such there must be trade in commodities not accessible
elsewhere. What are those things? What do they do? What can be done to
them?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "There are roses and mountains. The port is
nice but storm tossed."

"Then there must be something here vital enough to outweigh the risk.
While we have time learn these things. They may be necessary to know."

That made sense. "What puts you in such a calm mood?"

"It comes and goes. Little things drive me about as if I were a ship
with no keel. Perhaps the worst part of this is in my moments of clarity
I understand how deep I sink."

"I"m sorry."

"You have reason to be but do not be. You and the others put me here for
good reason. It will not matter when we begin our work."

"But it does matter. What happens to you and what you do about it is who
you are. Actions are not everything."

"Thoughts and feelings?"

"Matter." I finished his question as if it were a statement. "All that
is you." I wished I could make him understand that I cared and he should
too.

"It is a soft, measureless identity."

We were at an impasse. Arguing with Daren was an exercise in futility.
Perhaps that was for the best. His mind was controlled by Satre's will.
If he judged himself by something protected from that influence he might
be slightly more immune it.

"How long do you expect to stay this way?"

"Time has no meaning here. Find out what you need. If I'm twisted when
later, wait."

With that dismissal I broke contact. A few minutes later the mirror was
repacked. On a whim I checked my phone. It had power from the battery
but no signal. There were a few overt methods of I could use for
communication if I found I needed to talk to someone badly enough.

"Out in the port I found an old seaman. One of the few to live to grow a
white beard, he sat on a pier and fished. Saltwater had dried his skin
to leather and polished his head.

"Catch anything?" I asked.

"Nope."

"Expect to?"

"Nope."

"Know where I can find the main markets?"

He finally looked up with his stubborn eyes. "Markets for what?

"What are my choices?"

"Dry goods are anywhere. Food's towards the center of town. Diamonds
only come through the palace."

"Diamonds?" This conversation had become fascinating in one word.

"The legit ones anyway."

"What type of diamonds?"

"Hard, shiny ones." He turned back to his fishing.

"Cut or uncut?"

"Uncut, mostly. The street of the setters is up that-a-way." He waved
ambiguously.  "But you have to buy them through the palace."

"Are the rates fixed?"

He half turned. I responded to his suspicious look with an earnest
smile.

"Prices are set by the office of the Chamberlain. There are bulk
discounts to shippers. The black market only sells in small quantities
but cheaper."

Twice now he'd alluded to the black market. I noted this.

"Where are the mines?" I asked. I wasn't sure how to open the topic of
diamond smuggling.

He waved vaguely in a way that could mean the cliffs, the mountains or
the moon above.

"Then since I'm looking to buy I should go to the palace?" Tact clearly
wasn't working.

"How many do you want to buy?"

"Not many but I'm particular about color."

"Come by Whiskey Street after mo onset tonight. Come alone."

"Don't be absurd."

"Then don't buy diamonds."

My patience ran out. I pulled a wad of cash out and shifted through it
to find the dark red bills of the city. I handed the old man several.

"Find me black diamonds."

The money disappeared. I smiled and disappeared myself. With plenty of
time left in the day I visited the official diamond sales in the palace.
The palace was made of white marble and rose quartz, well lit and
cleaned by an army of servants. The central tower looked like a flower
bud, ringed by smaller halls and buildings that spread into the city
like roots. The Chamberlain's tower was in one of these.

It was filled with people, merchants and foreigners mostly. Four hours
later I left without what I wanted. Glad to be free of rich people I
returned to Seth's manse.

When I met him he was covered in blood. It had worked deep into his skin
and the corners of his eyes. He smiled, thoroughly excited, as we passed
in the hallway. His shadow followed, almost as bloody. She carried trays
of used knives and scalpels.  They did not join me for dinner.

Another servant, one I'd never seen before, told me they were attending
to a patient with a complicated condition. Dinner was pleasant alone,
and that night I got some much needed sleep.
Over the next four days I learned everything I could of Kratos. My past
visits had been transitory and I knew little about it.

Kratos was fueled by the diamond mines. Coastal volcanoes to the north
and south were riddled with mines and bore holes. Ore, building stone,
and virtually anything else that could be dug from the earth flowed
through the city day in and out. Worked steel was another main export.
Everything left via the harbor or the desert.

The highland desert stretched west across a stone plateau. Other than a
few oases, cracks in the volcanic rocks where tiny pools supported life,
there was no water anywhere. It never rained. Two ancient roads lead to
cities far away, traveled by caravans that arrived daily.

OF greater interest to me were the people within. The natives were
either seamen or miners. They were short but strong, dark skinned like
the coal and rock they mined. Determined and relentless by nature, they
possessed a certain quality of relentlessness I have seen in few other
places. Great fortunes moved through the city but food had to be
imported from far away making it costly. All power rested within the
palace, and the heart of that was impenetrable to foreigners. Some few
offices were open to me but nothing important.

In the evening I sought the old fisherman. He was in the same place as
before, continuing to probe the sea.

"Catch anything?"

"Nope."

"Expect to?"

"Nope."

"Find what I'm looking for?"

"Nope."

I smiled nastily.

"The Obelisk, fed to the Farmer of Fire," I said and tapped his fishing
rod. Briefly a sucking sensation pulled the feeling from my fingers. The
pole shriveled, dried, and disintegrated. "Now, since you can't look for
what I told you too, I'm going to burn your eyes out. Brace yourself
because this is really going to hurt."

The old man twisted to look up at me, and I made eye contact. His fear
provided me with an opening, and I smashed his mind with my Will.
Destroying his memory or identity would prevent him from doing what I
desired, so I searched for his dreams and ate them. He had a fear of the
dark places of the earth, so I buried him under the mountains in his
mind. Every time he closed his eyes he would feel the weight of the rock
above and see creatures come up from below.

"Now, Peters." The name seemed odd in this place. "You have two days.
Then I kill you in a manner significantly worse than anything you can
imagine. Trust me. I checked." I patted his cheek with my tingling
fingers and went back to my ship.

"You should have burned his eyes out," a soft sibilant voice whispered.

"I don't need too. Besides, that's too noisy."

"He might think you're weak."

"He won't. I hit him with the Will."

Daren was silent for a while. "I couldn't tell."

"That's why I talk to people and you kill them. Division of labor."

"When I get free?"

"Soon."

"It's hard to remember what time is."

"Soon, Daren."

Back at the Galleon I checked the ship over thoroughly. The lines would
need to be replaced, the sails mended, and a few other small tasks
waited for me. After finishing my examination I decided to do the work
myself. It would give me something to do while I waited.

For a few days work went smoothly. When I went to check on my diamonds
Peters brought me to an old, disgusting man given over entirely to oily
fat rolls. We discussed stones. His samples were acceptable. When he
attempted to bicker over price I named a figure that made his eyes bulge
in his fat face. We exchanged goods for cash and I left.

As expected thugs came after me. I broke their wills and left them kill
each other in a gutter. I considered going back for Fatty but was
repelled by the thought of him. Besides, he might be useful sometime
later. I returned to work on my ship.

Mounting the stones on the appropriate places on the hull and mast took
time. When at last I finished the few remaining bits of maintenance and
the Galleon was ready for what I intended to put her through I had been
in Kratos for almost a month. Seth had never asked why I was here or
when I was leaving. Still, it was time to leave. Fortunately James Ryan
showed up at noon on the next day. I waved and called him over.

James was one of Duncton's primary 'go to guys.' Duncton always liked to
have a few in his employ. James' job was to do whatever his boss wanted
quickly and quietly. He was tall, incredibly athletic, and moved easily.
Both of his shins were wrapped. The rest of his clothing was light and
loose.

"Hello, Ma'am."

"Good morning, James. Let's get something to eat, and I'll explain what
I can do for you."

"Certainly."

"Have you ever been to Kratos before?"

"No, Ma'am."

The food is exceptional." I handed him some money. "Pick enough for the
two of us and come back here."

He trotted to a few vendors, saw what they had, and bought some stuffed
rolls from one. Now at least slightly confident I was not going to
poison him, he returned and we ate.

"How was the trip?" I asked.

"It went smoothly, ma'am. Long, but enjoyable."

That block of formality would be a problem. I changed my plans. "Good.
What you want is in a place called Carcosa. Have you heard of it?"

"In a few songs. It's referred to as 'lost Carcosa' or the silent city."

"That's right. There used to be a city there but it was destroyed long
ago."

"Is the place dangerous?"

"There are people, things, and-," I stopped, trying to figure out how to
describe a Shoggoth. "-others that dwell nearby. Some can be quite
unfriendly."

James noticed the pause. "Lovely, ma'am."

"The reward will be. The Lilies of Carcosa grow in the fields and broken
streets and do not know death or decay. Unless destroyed they bloom
forever. Think of how beautiful a gift they will be."

James considered this. "That does sound pretty smooth."

"Alyssa has wanted them for years. No one has been able to to get them.
It will be an amazing feat to return with them."

"Amazing?"

"Nigh impossible."

"Then how am I going to do it?"

"You'll fly. This is avoid most of the more troublesome neighbors.
Besides, the road was destroyed and you wouldn't want to use it anyway.
There are-" I considered the Shoggoths again. "problems with taking the
road."

"The people, things, and others?"

"Yes. Those."

"How will I fly?"

"I'll show you." I smiled at him in a way I hoped was dazzling.

"Excuse me, ma'am. But what are you getting out of this? You're being
awfully helpful."

"I always enjoy helping someone who works for a friend. Your current
boss, my dear Duncton, is a charming individual. I want him to help me,
so I'm going to help you."

"I think you're making a mistake about something. I really don't pull
that much weight with Duncton."

"Actually, you do. But aside from that, when you return with the
unobtainable by using my help, Duncton will have proof that I can
provide as promised. Then he and I can deal. You get the flowers and
hopefully the girl. I get Duncton to the negotiating table. No one
loses."

"I think there's a lot of very important stuff you aren't telling me."

"There is. When I was a girl I wanted a pony and didn't get one. The
rest, like the pony, doesn't matter."

James was trying to do the smart thing and stay suspicious. I shrugged.

"If you want, contact Duncton and ask. In fact, I'd recommend it."

"I think I will."

He pulled a small, intricately made silver medallion from one sleeve.
With his eyes closed and head down me moved his lips like he was talking
for several minutes. I finished my roll.

"He likes the idea," James informed me and replaced the medallion.

"Wonderful. The ship is already ready."

"I thought you said I was going to fly?"

"I did. That's what the ship is for."

"Okay," he replied. He seemed more relaxed now and accepted this without
any further argument.

"Meet me at the harbor's west end in an hour. I have to do a few things.
By the way, I'll be coming with you. We leave directly."

"What!?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you coming? You didn't say anything about coming before."

"I know. I'm coming to show you how to fly."

"What else aren't you telling me?"

"Lots of things. Many of them involve ponies."

"This is such a dumb idea," James told himself.

"Not nearly as dumb as falling in love with Varya."

"That wasn't my fault!"

"Doesn't matter. It's done."

"Dammit." James resigned himself.

"Don't be rude."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now, enjoy yourself. You have an hour." I gave him more money and sent
him off.

When I arrived at Seth's Manse he was out. My few things were untouched
in my room. I took what I could carry and left the rest. For a while I
considered leaving a present. There was nothing I had that he might want
or need, yet, so I discarded that idea. Instead I wrote a short letter
and left it on the bed. I finished the last of my errands on the way
down to the docks.

"You're here. Good." I said when I met him.

"It was the roses," James told me. "Everywhere I go I can see the roses.
This place is full of them and they got me thinking and here I am
again."

"I know, dear. That's why I picked this as our meeting place."

We proceeded down to the harbor and moved to my ship. She was ready to
go and as the provisions were carried aboard I introduced her to James.

"Have you sailed before?"

"Yes. Yes, I have," James replied with a cocky grin. He swung aboard and
ascended the rigging like a monkey. With amazing grace he moved about,
finally running along lines upright. Waves slapped against the hull
rocking the ship, but he might as well have been on a wide sidewalk. I
watched him dart about, making sure to remember this for later. James
would be useful.

"She a nice little ship." He fell out of the sails and landed on the
balls of his feet next to me. "Why did you reinforce all the lines with
metal strands? It makes them vulnerable, and the mast will snap before
they do anyway."

"It's not reinforcement. I want the lines to conduct."

"Won't that make lightning a problem?"

"We don't need to worry about lightning." I replied. "I'll explain
later." I wanted him to have some idea of what was going on but had not
yet decided how much. I shifted the conversation to other things and
avoided the topic.

By afternoon we were ready. The many moons of Kratos make the tides
perpetually erratic and night sailing perilous. We set  out by the last
dying daylight. Other sailors hollered warnings and a few floating roses
from the morning swirled about us in mute testimony to the risks were
were undertaking.

"Look at them," I told James. "Think of the beauty of these flowers on
the waves. Think of how much more beautiful the ones we go after will
be."

"I have been," James answered.

"Excellent. Let's get to work." The sea was rough and heavy. I smiled at
the cutting waves.

The ocean was dangerous is the same non-malicious way a den of cobras is
dangerous. Outside the port were a multitude of twisting currents. Half
of them tried to suck the Galleon against the great cliffs where the
hard granite edges waited for her. The rest formed eddies and whirlpools
that appeared and moved about, seeming to roam the seas at random. We
evaded them, ran the gamut between the reefs, and wandered about the
winds jumbled from the great mountains. Here water cools sooner than
rock, and as the warm air of the mountains rose the cold sea air pushed
forward to replace it, creating a wall of hostile wind that drove all
before it back to the cliffs. I laughed my joy to the night.

We made it to the open ocean by mundane skill. The Galleon responded
quick and readily to every command. James was the biggest surprise. His
enthusiasm for sailing was matched by his aptitude at it. Instantly
familiar with every inch of the ship he ran from the top of the mast to
the prow and back like a flying gazelle. Every necessary task was done
before I could ask. While I watched the night and piloted he manipulated
the ship with expertise that bordered on virtuosity. Ultimately all I
did was call our courses or headings and allowed him to make such
adjustments as necessary. We rarely disagreed.

By midnight we ran before a strong wind. I told James to keep us south
by south west with the wind full at out backs and went below.

Speed was not much of a concern. Therefore we could afford to take the
slow way. My arms had recently finished healing and were strong
encouragement not to take the fast way again. I wanted to approach
Carcosa as inconspicuously as possible. This in mind I unrolled an old
map, weathered and curiously inked on leather. Of all the possible
routes I chose Angel's Pond. The trip should only last a few weeks.
Without too much noise, this was the fastest quiet way there. I stared
at the map for a while after deciding and found no flaw in my logic. The
bad times would begin when we arrived.

"James," I called when I returned above.

"Yes, ma'am?" He was at the wheel, whistling and enjoying himself.

"We have three days of deep sea before us. Then we will pass a great
point on the port. There we turn due south."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You can call me Helen, James."

"Yes, ma'am."

I rolled my eyes and checked the ship. She was fine. I let him steer and
sat with my back against the mast. I could feel the waves on the hull,
the thrum of water across the keel, the way the ship moved internally
with each wave crest. "So what did they tell you about me?" I asked.

James answered cautiously. "Duncton said you were very capable. He said
you never lied."

That was certainly edited. "And the others? Mandrake?"

"I've never heard Mandrake speak of you. But I rarely talk to Mandrake
at all. I don't spend much time in Wilno."

That fit with his questions about flying. It also explained his lack of
familiarity with Carcosa. "Where are you from, James?"

"A place called New York." He settled into an easy story telling rhythm
and began what turned out to be a long tale. I listened, interested
without pretext, and will probably repeat it later.

He slept on the deck a safe distance from me. I was reluctant to talk to
Daren lest I appear crazy. Daren wouldn't mind. He wouldn't even notice.
I felt the loss, though.

In the late afternoon I was piloting while James attending to the water
supply. I had a fifty five gallon evaporation still that kept us
provided with fresh water without touching our stocks. James broke the
silence suddenly.  "Why does Satre hate you so much?"

"I tried to have him killed."

"That's a risky proposition."

"The plan was solid. Something went wrong along the way. Satre found out
and took it personally."

"That's why you don't go to Wilno?"

"One reason."

"I'm surprised you're as healthy as you are. Satre's a nasty guy when
he's mad."

"Satre doesn't want to come after me. Wilno is his place of power, and I
stay away."

"It seems like there's more to it than that."

I considered my answer. Normally I play strictly by the rules. One
answer for one answer is the way of the game, and I'd already bought
James' help. Still, I wanted to encourage the openness he was showing,
and these were not crucial secrets.

"Satre's power, politically, is built on two foundations: his marriage
to Alyssa, eldest child of the Baron, and his personal strength. So long
as I live all Wilno knows he isn't omnipotent."

"You're a living symbol someone can defy him and live."

"Exactly." I was one of two such symbols, but saw no reason to mention
that. Besides, it was outside the realms of the conversation.

"Why doesn't he just force the issue?"

"Two reasons. Three, actually. First, it's not worth it. I'm no threat
to him politically and he knows it. Second, he's never seriously tried
and everyone knows that. If he goes all out and doesn't kill me, he'll
suffer an even greater loss of respect. That will erode his image of
power, one of the foundations of his command, and that's a vicious cycle

"Finally, in the circles we run in, meaning myself, Duncton, Satre, and
the others, you never enter that kind of conflict unnecessarily. He has
little to gain by winning and a great deal to lose. Let's imagine you
were Satre. The house Royal, Van and Mandrake, is already very powerful,
in the city, and eliminating those two would more or less lock you,
Satre, into sole lord of the city. Do you pick a fight with them?"

"Hell, no." James replied without a moment's hesitation.

"But you have everything to gain."

"And everything to lose. Besides, no one wants to take those two to an
open contest of arms. There might be someone better than Van who isn't
Mandrake, but that would only be Mandrake's reflection."

"But Mandrake might not be able to get involved. All you have to do is
raise the question of their legitimacy-"

"And what? Van challenges me to a duel, and the collateral damage from
winning that will leave the city in rubble. No one says, 'You aren't a
true son of the Baron.' to them. I'm pretty sure their servants don't
tell them if they forget to wear their hats because Mandrake might kill
someone after he says 'You aren't-' on general principle."

"Precisely." I agreed. "And Satre doesn't want to come after me for the
same reasons."

James looked at me suspiciously. "You're putting yourself on a level
with the house Royal?"

I laughed, clear and happy. It struck me as being charming to hear him
underestimate me so. "You dear child. You don't understand why you're
here yet, do you? Don't fear. You will."

During my sleeping shift I sat alone on my bed. Slowly I drifted my
fingers across the surface of the mirror. My reflection, Daren with
bloodshot eyes and manic anger, stared back. Our fingers seemed to touch
but all I felt was glass, cold and inhuman. He was barely cognizant of
me. I watched him gibber and twitch uncontrollably as I sat still. He
moved further and further from me until he ceased to be bound by the way
I sat and stalked about his cell in insane fury. In the wan candlelight
the stone faces of his accusers seemed to move. Shadows played across
their immobile faces, bending and turning the outlines until the mouths
seemed to open and speak, taunting him. Daren began fiercely denying
them incoherently yelling in a empty display of bravado. The noises
echoed back from the walls, sounding like condemnations full of his own
anger. He shrieked back and ran about trying to make the voices stop.
Deeper shadows and louder noises made the horror worse.

Finally he attacked, striking and smashing stone and steel with his bare
hands. Sparks leapt from his fingers when he hit metal and blood when he
hit stone. They combined in a red, burning corona that painted him and
the walls a twisted black, the color of pure evil and hate. He swung
until the prison broke his arms, then kicked till it broke his legs, and
finally bit until his teeth were jagged fragments. He fought them and
his own weakness until he was ruined by exhaustion. His ultimate defeat
was inevitable and he lay in a crumpled heap before the faces of the
judge, jury, and executioner who had imprisoned him here at my behest.
For my face had a position of honor with the rest, and every word of
vile condemnation I seemed to say was a thousand times more toxic than
the rest. The candle burned itself out.

Stone screeched on steel. Sparks leapt from the wall and relit the
unburnt candle. Daren's injuries were gone, the faces again immobile,
and the very tip of the candle burned with a steady light. As the
minutes ticked by it burned down and began to bob and weave on its pool
of wax. The shadows began their dance again. When I couldn't hold back
my tears any longer they fell and distorted the image. I lost sight of
him as the masks began to jeer again.

"I'm so sorry. Oh, Daren, I'm so sorry."

Daren had been sentenced to death not as punishment but as protection
for the living. Instead he got this eternal living entombment with all
the bitterness and anger of the city deprived of its lord and a family
of spite deprived of its focus. I thought about Ozymandias and who I had
been and tried to understand why. Nothing came to me but a reflection of
anger.

When I went back above deck I was sandy eyed. We sailed until dawn in
silence, and then James slept.

On the third day we passed the point as expected. Great clouds of birds
spiraled above it. There were few trees for the sea here was merciless
in the winter. A low rubble pile stood as mute testament to a long gone
watchtower. We went south without stopping.

"What was that place?" James was looking over the stern, hunched over to
sit on his haunches on a line. He kept his balance easily in the wind.

"It was called the Fourteenth Point. It was one of fifty way stations on
the path to Carcosa."

James looked at me like he wanted to say or ask more. I did not meet his
gaze and he let the matter drop.

Much later we shared lunch. It was hard bread, dried fruit, and salted
meat. After we were done I went below and returned with two bottles of
strong Kratos wine. The wines of Kratos are famous for one thing, and it
isn't taste.

"Drink up." I poured James a glass and passed it to him. I filled my own
equally of the thick, viscious fluid that ran slowlly down the walls of
the wine glass to form a pool of thick fluid.

"Cheers." We tapped glasses and knocked them back. "Good stuff," he
lied.

"Thank you." I refilled his glass. "Would you like to know a secret?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'm going to drink you under the table tonight."

"We don't have a table."

"Then you'd better tie yourself to something."

He laughed. I threw him a rope. He laughed again but let it trail off
when he saw I wasn't joking.

"Why are we drinking?"

"Tonight I'm going to put us on course for our destination. I don't want
you to know how to get there. So you have a choice. You can get drunk
and pass out, or I can hit you over the head and lock you in the hold.
I'm trying to be nice."

He took a slow sip of wine. "Isn't it a bit early?"

"You don't trust me, so you're going to try to remain sober. This gives
us a little time on a calm sea. We'll drink, talk, and when you fall
over I'll go about my business."

James sized me up. He outweighed me by about a hundred pounds.

"Do you think its a good idea for both of us to be drunk? Besides, if
I'm incapacitated I won't be able to help you if something goes wrong."

"Don't worry. I'll be fine."

"Is this one of those 'don't ask' things."

"Ask all you want."

"Will you answer?"

"Not helpfully."

"Okay," he surrendered. Then he finished his glass and held it out for a
refill. "Well, thank you for the prior warning."

"You're welcome." I topped him off. "Don't worry about getting drunk
quickly. You can take your time."

"That's good. This is pretty vile stuff."

"I know." I sighed. "But you shouldn't have any significant hangover,
and it's powerfully soporific."

"Why didn't you drug me?" he asked simply. "Why tell me what you're
doing?"

"Several reasons. The first is that I'm trying to be nice. I'm not very
good at it, but I'm making the effort."

"And I appreciate it. It just seems, well, out of character."

"It does? Think. I'm trying to use you as leverage to influence your
boss. It's much easier to do that when you have some level of trust in
me. Speaking of which, tie yourself a safety line."

"That's kind of Machiavellian."

"Who?"

"Machiavelli. From the place I'm from. His big thing was it is better to
be feared then loved but above all you must not be hated. Ends justify
the means and all that." James finished with the rope and relaxed,
settling in to make the best of the evening.

I leaned back against the rail and kept one hand idle on the wheel. The
sea was still and wind constant.

"His big thing?"

"Well, that's what I got out of it," James replied.

"Do you agree?"

"There's an element of truth in it." He took another sip. "But you're
playing it very carefully."

"Oh?"

"Oh, don't think I haven't noticed. Everyone in Wilno is scared of you.
Maybe the lords aren't, but Duncton has a very healthy respect for you.
For the people on the street you're like the boogie man. Woman."

"I thought you didn't spend much time in Wilno?"

"I don't. I came through it from where I was, a place called White
Mountain, to here. While I was there I asked around about you."

"But you knew about me the first we spoke. You recognized my name over
the phone."

"I know." James leaned back against the mast himself and sipped his
wine. He grimaced. "This stuff is bad. I mean bad. I've had some bad
wine but this is a whole new style of bad. It's not that its cheap. It
isn't. I can taste that it's been aged well. It's just bad."

"It's distilled to brandy and remixed with water. It's potent but
usually leads to a passive evening."

"Maybe you should have drugged me." James snorted.

"There's still time," I offered.

"No, no. Bad wine is fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"Very well. You were telling me what people in Wilno said about me."

"They were mean. Really mean. You are not a friend of most of those
people. I think you may be the one person who's more disliked than my
girl Varya."

"So, she's your girl now?"

"Of course she is."

"Does she know this yet?"

"No. And every time I try to tell her something gets in the way."

"Like other people?"

"Last time she stabbed me."

"Ah."

"Don't get me wrong. She loves me back. She's just a cast iron bitch,
and sometimes she stabs me for very bad reasons."

"There are good reasons for her to stab you?"

"Well, this one time she was leading an army against someone I'd decided
to protect. Neither of us knew about the other. We have that whole star
crossed lovers thing going on. Anyway, I was with the guy when she kicks
down a door and leads a bunch of crazy murderous thugs in. The guards
and them start having hostile words, but me and Varya beat the holy shit
out of each other before either of us realized who we were. That was a
reasonable time to stabbing. No hard feelings."

"What happened after that?" I leaned forward.

"We started making out."

"And the others?"

"Still fighting."

"How did that go?"

"Not well. My reinforcements came, and she had to flee with her men. The
boss was pissed. Pissed." He leaned forward and waved his hands for
emphasis. "I told him she'd used magic on me. Besides, she had stabbed
me in the face so the boss believed me."

"She stabbed you in the face?"

"The face. Right here." He pointed at a spot between his nose and eye.
"Her knife almost pierced my skull and hit brain. But she must have
really loved me because she stopped in time and made sure I was okay."

"So that's what you kids are calling it now."

"Yes. Yes, we are."

I topped off his glass again.

"May I ask why you fell for Varya?"

"I dig warrior women."

I blinked twice and leaned back again. I emptied my glass and put both
hands on the wheel.

"But it's more than that," James went on. He stopped looking at me and
stared up at the sky. "There's something terribly compelling about her.
She's so motivated, so driven, but at the same time soft and fragile.
Underneath the armor that is. Like you, only not as much and human."

"Not as much what?"

"Driven. Obsessive, but in a good way," he assured me. "You don't even
need armor. I'm sure by this point your skin can turn blades and your
blood is magma. Varya is still human. She likes hacking her way through
a horde of adversaries but also likes flowers. Well, she damn well
better like flowers because if I go to all this trouble and she hates
her some flowers I'll be pissed. Pissed like that guy I was working for
was when I started kissing the assassin who was after him."

"She likes flowers." I looked up and considered the height and
brightness of the sun. It might be possible. I leaned back and let the
light hit me. "Are you sober enough to hold us on a stable course for a
bit?"

"Sure!" James replied. He killed his glass in one drink and popped up to
his feet. He walk over perfectly straight with amazing posture. His
pupils were dilated and his movements a little jerky, but he still
walked easily on the swaying ship with perfect balance. I let him take
my seat and moved so I was staring directly at the sun.

"She likes fresh flowers. Only fresh." I closed my eyes and let the sun
beat against them. On the backs of my eyelids I could see her playing in
the sun, watching Alyssa pit Van, Duncton, and Mandrake against each
other in pointless little fights. A shadow passed over me and I lost
them.

"Fresh is good." James ignored my pause if he noticed it at all. "The
flowers are fresh, right?"

"Always," I assured him. "She likes to run, fight, quarrel with the
others."

"The others?"

"The family. We all played together." The sun came back and I let it
warm me. I searched for her in the dim recesses, let the sun light the
dark parts of my mind. "She used to pick dandelions and buttercups and
bend them into crowns." I started to sweat. It was hard, like enduring
bone chilling cold or grinding fear, but I forced my memories to
surface. I could see Varya, running with the boys, beating them at their
games. She left and went to talk to someone. "She had a favorite."

"A who?"

"A favorite." My teeth started to ache, and I realized I was grinding
them.

"Who's her favorite? Vorite? Ite?"

"He's short, and happy."

"I'm happy."

"He plays with small stones."

"I play with small stones!"

There was so much shadow, but I ground it aside. I pushed my jacket
aside and let the sunlight hit every part of my body, blocked only by my
thin shirt. I opened my eyes to take as much light as possible. James
was having problems looking at me. His head rolled on his neck and his
eyes were no longer focused. This was almost private so I stood totally
still and concentrated, breathing in light and bracing myself.

"He."

"He!" James agreed.

"Is."

"Is he?"

A splitting pain ripped through both my temples, coming forward to meet
between my forehead. Another stab of pain appeared at the back of my
skull. I sweated, let my fingers began to twitch, and pushed the light
into the back of my head. I could see the glass case we lived in. I
could feel the grass, the still air, the thousands of watchers kept away
from us by armed guards and the Baron's will. I found Varya and focused
until my brain screamed in agony. Van was fighting Mandrake over Alyssa.
Duncton played with me. Over the top of his head I could see Varya. She
sat still and quiet, talking.

"Push harder dammit!" Daren yelled out of the silence and I reached.

The sunlight poured over Duncton's face. I could see her perfectly
clearly, talking with Seth over some quiet point.

"What?" I said aloud, opening my eyes in shock. The sun caught me by
surprise, blinding me. I lost the vision and the pain in my head
pulsated with the light. I grunted and fell to my knees.

"Seth was one of the Baron's children?" I asked myself. Immediately I
wanted to smack myself for saying a secret like that aloud. I glanced up
through the haze to see if James had heard me.

He was passed out unconscious, standing perfectly upright with a long
train of drool hanging from his lips.

"I need a drink," I muttered and crawled to the water barrel.

The water was warm and delicious. It rinsed tart aftertaste from my
mouth. I lifted James and carried him to the mast. He was already tied
to it so I positioned him comfortably and left him there. I drained the
still and refilled it, waiting.

At the third moon rise I shifted course and headed straight for it. This
moon, Eptis, was small and slow moving. The wind remained strong, and I
tacked across it. With the bow pointed dead at one bright star we moved
almost sideways.

By midnight I spotted two low islands dark against the night sky. I
changed course again and went between them, hugging the right side.
There was a calm pathway in the center where submerged reefs rose razor
like to almost break the surface. Past them the winds changed again. I
ran before them and waited.

The water took on a slightly different tint by moonlight. I nodded to
myself. We were in the keyhole to the lock. Above clouds raced across
the sky, blocking and revealing the stars. They changed form as they
moved, twisting and merging. There was chaos in the sky, and I could
feel the effects of it in the air as well as see it. The Galleon cut
deep into the sea I called the Lock.

A sun rose. Faster than the clouds it flew upwards, tracing a long
burning arc that left an afterglow of fire. More moons, strange ones
that had never been seen in Kratos began rising from strange places on
the horizon, sometimes not setting at all but spiraling about until
clouds obscured them and they disappeared. I counted those that moved in
an orderly fashion and waited.

The sun rose again, signaling another day, but this one lasted only some
few minutes. The next was shorter. The moons lost track of their
numbers, pulling the ocean up and down. Six, seven, eight, four, two,
nine, their intervals were strange and movements spastic. Sometimes they
burned brilliant in the sunlit sky, putting the sun to shame. I piled on
more sail.

James mumbled in his sleep. When I looked over he was trying to stand
up. He tottered to the edge and relieved himself. I watched him in
silence, and did not breathe easy till he collapse unconscious again. He
was still deep in the grip of the wine. But soon he would finish
metabolizing it and we were in the crux of the journey. The Lock lead to
Angel's Pond and was a closely guarded secret. I kept it a secret
because everyone else who knew about it was dead.

Suddenly the clouds parted, and I stared at the face of one huge, rocky
moon. Its immensity was more than just size, but the visible
manifestation of its proximity. I swung the tiller hard and headed for
it.

A rogue wave moving perpendicular to the wind came rushing towards us.
Were the Galleon angled in any other way we would breach and die, but
she leapt from the top, skated down the trough and attacked the next.
For a brief moment I felt weightless, and I thrilled. We were in the
most dangerous part.

Another rogue came upon us and threw us into the sky. James fell up from
the deck, hung in the air with the ship as we plowed down to the sea,
and collapsed in a heap. Another came and another, each one juggling my
tiny ship higher and higher until at the very apex of our flight we
didn't come down but bobbed slightly and everything smoothed. We never
hit the sea again. Bits of spray reached up for us, but I turned and the
prow rose, and I set our course into the sky.

The sky was full of one great ball of wounded rock. Deep craters pocked
with chasms and rifts on the moon surface were visible as we went above
the layer of mad clouds. Each of them was as familiar as an old friend.
The sun never shone here or where we were going, and the steady
movement, now undeniable, towards home filled me with the anticipation
of a young child.

"What time is it?" James asked from the pile he lay in.

"That question isn't really meaningful here." I shrugged.

He sat up, stretched, and noticed a foul taste in his mouth. He returned
to the side of the vessel to do his business again and came for water.

"How long have I been asleep?"

I considered. "Forty days." If you count one sunrise and sunset as a
day, that was right.

James yawned and grimaced. "Are you sure you didn't drug me, woman?"

"That's debatable with Kratos wine."

"That's a witch's brew."

"Want some more?"

"Never, thank you." He sounded emphatic.

"Suit yourself."

"Wait a minute!" He turned and rushed to the rail, halting only as he
came to the end of his tether. "We're flying!"

"Noticed that did you?" It was a cheap shot for his befuddled condition
and that was my fault. It really didn't bother me.

"I can see clouds down there."

"Mm, hm," I agreed.

"Holy shit! I can see stars down there!"

"I knew I brought you along for a reason." I leaned back over the stern
and looked down as well. "Greater Sickle, Bull and Hammer, Doom's
Bell."I pointed them out. "Ivan, the Dragon, Nilo's Eyes. The King is
behind those clouds. The Baron doesn't seem to be out."

"How are we flying? Magic?"

"Only in the most general terms. It would be better to say the rules are
different here."

He untied himself and all but climbed over the side. Childlike
fascination filled him as he stared down at the sky below. I couldn't
mock him. It had struck me the same way at first and traces remained.

I also watched the air. In deep sky, with no cover, we were sitting
ducks. Anything big enough to investigate us was probably faster than we
were even with the mast straining under sail. Anything that came hungry
was also probably mean. I kept the course steady but prayed for clouds
ahead. I have and had no idea who I prayed to.

Our luck stumbled but did not fall. A few specks had turned and seemed
to be heading for us as we hit our first major cloud bank. I set us on
the very top where the air was merely foggy. Our wake was foamy swirls
of mist that vanished back into the air. Above the cloud waves beat
against our mast and threw little streamers about. We went a little
deeper to remain hidden.

"Be careful," I called softly to him. The fog dampened voices and eased
the usual running noises of the ship. "Our path becomes treacherous
here."

James straightened from his perch staring down at the fog below. There
was something odd in his eyes when he looked at me, and I wondered what
he had caught in my voice. Perhaps the mist between us was making me see
things.

"Of course, ma'am." He picked a guide rope and crept up it to perch on
the mast above.

The fog was deep and still. We seemed not to move and the dovetails of
our wake were a natural phenomenon that had nothing to do with motion.
The creak of ropes and mast was the only sound in the world. It was a
peculiar ghost story with the roles reversed, for we were a real ship on
a ghost sea. I had no warning when the head emerged from the rear and
opened wide to snap me in two. James screamed and flew over my head.
There was a shocking noise of bone striking bone.

The creature had too much speed to stop. I turned about just in time to
see its head driven down into the aft. It's body kept moving and the
long neck bent like a serpent, hitting my side and face and knocking me
down the short stairway to the cabin. My head was ringing and my eyes
were dark.

"Helen!" James screamed from above me.

"Get it!" I yelled back.

There was another terrific crack of bone on bone. The shadows vanished
and I realized the beast was almost directly above me. I stared up at
its armored guts while its head bobbed and weaved snakelike far above,
striking at something I could not see. The creature was ten feet tall at
the shoulder, not counting the tail that lashed about. Short stubby
forelegs grabbed my ship for stability as it fought. Broad bat-like
wings beat the air, ridden with veins and only lightly covered by the
scales of the body and legs.

"Wyvern," I told myself.

There was another jolting impact and the beast recoiled, leaning
backwards. James flew overhead, sideways and spinning. While the monster
regained its balance he extended one leg and dropped the full force of
his weight on its bony forehead with his shin, resulting in another
splintering crack. There was a noise like coughing, and it fell
backwards over the side.

"Helen?" James called.

"Fine. It will be back."

"Good."

James appeared at the top of the stairway and looked down at me. I'd
finished giving myself a visual and tactile examination, and waved his
concern off.

"I said I'm fine."

"Good." James nodded and darted out of sight.

"James!" I yelled.

"What?"

"They hunt in packs."

He said nothing.

I wasn't bleeding at all. Nothing seemed broken. I crept up the stairs
and glanced about, seeing only the ghost world. We must have gone
deeper, for now the mast and booms were gone, and I could barely see the
steering wheel. It was unattended and spinning.

That would be nothing but bad. I started racking spells as I ran to it,
keenly aware of how exposed I felt. When I righted our course and
started pulling us up out of the mist there was a sudden twitch of the
wind behind me.

I ducked.

My anchor, a double bladed metal plate the size of a large dog arced
past. I couldn't see the monster strike, simply noticed that my wyvern
free view of the anchor suddenly stopped being wyvern free. Jaws larger
than my waist snapped shut where I had been and the anchor was. The
blades impaled its jaws, jutting out above and below with dark bloody
points. The anchor blades weren't sharp, so that must have really hurt.

James flew through the sky again, screaming. The beast must have
recognized him because it jerked its head back, which succeeded in
setting the tines deeper. Then whatever it was attached to snapped back,
yanking the great head forward into harm's way.

Louder than ever before the crack of shin on skull sent visible ripples
through the fog, compressing the mist into shock patterns that radiated
halo-like from the impact site. The great wings, coming forward to
protect the head, caught James in the head and body, twisting him and
throwing him spinning over the side into the mist.

"Oh, no you did not just ruin my plans." It was time for brutal,
blinding, bloody murder of the visceral nature only forbidden magic
could accomplish. I discarded Silence as being too absolute,
Annihilation for being too painless, and settled on the complex known as
Withering. "The Predator shall-"

James reappeared, swinging sideways out of the darkness like an insane
pendulum. Instead of striking he landed on the shoulder of the beast
who, hooked like a fish, was clawing at its jaws with its short stubby
arms. The beast had protruding brows of horned bone designed to protect
its eyes that served only to give my young accomplice hand holds. His
whole body contracted behind his elbow, driving the point of it into the
great green eye's pupil. It popped like an exploding watermelon.

"-do nothing," I reconsidered. "Annihilate the Legion of the
Hierophant." My tongue went numb as I spoke the words, but magic
vanished from the air.

"Oh, what? What?" James was screaming. The monster coughed, loud and
painful, and leapt backwards of the ship. My mast shrieked and bent.

"Bond to the Treacher," I said carefully. My tongue was asleep so
enunciating was hard. I grabbed the anchor chain and pulled, and it came
apart like putty in my hands, sucking the feeling out of them. It
vanished over the side, and the I heard the flap of great wings,
retreating.

"James!" I yelled.

He did not reappear.

"Dammit, James, you flew before. Where are you?" I shouted to misty air.
"Get back here!"

"Little help here!"

"Big baby," I muttered and followed the voice. There was a rope hanging
over the side of the ship and at the bottom of it was the man in
question, upside down and apparently tied up by the twisting of the
beast.

"Hi!" He yelled up to me, cheerfully.

"Hold still." I sighed. It took me a few minutes to set the rope on a
winch and a few more to reel him in, but like a game fish he came back
over the side. "Be patient, and I'll cut you out of here."

"No need." He grinned rakishly at me and twisted his hands, and the
looping coils fell away. "I just wanted to see if you would help me."

"Next time I won't," I retorted angrily.

"Aw." I wanted to kill him for the grin.

"Listen you little upstart bastard-"

"Shh, ma'am. They hunt in packs. We need to be silent."

I decided to murder him. But he leapt into the rigging and got to work,
and I had to run back to the wheel. This fog was now more of a hindrance
than an assert, and I called out snappy commands to get us out of it. We
broke forth into blue sky seconds later, popping across the sharp
division between cloud and air. Streamers of fog tried to grab the the
ship and come with but they fell away to rejoin the cloud sea without
ripples or waves.

We abandoned stealth run across the open sky for hours. When the rest of
the pack emerged from the cloud bank we were miles ahead. They chased us
for a long time, but broke off as we approached the dead moon. I smiled
and took us down.

Skimming low over the surface our keel almost scraped stony ridges and
crater walls. I set our course towards one of the larger crevasses, a
great gaping hole that opened unnaturally across the terrain. It sliced
through hills without regard for the lay of the land.

"Look!" cried James, leaning forward in the rigging.

"What do you see.?"

"Ruins. A great temple, crushed. The stone is cracked. It looks
splintered."

"Oh. That."

"Yeah, that. What's that?"

"Ruins." I shrugged. "Don't worry, they won't bother us."

"What happened to them?"

"Judging from the craters, probably meteors."

James looked down at me and scowled. I did not want to talk of those
that that had lived here, so I met his gaze, challenging him and putting
a bit of power behind it. He sighed and let it go.

Tricky cross winds from the crevice sprang up, causing the ship to list
heavily. We adjusted our course and came around a series of low hills.

"There's more," James informed me.

"James. Dear. There will be ruins everywhere. Somebody had to to to the
temple, right?"

"Shouldn't we investigate?"

"Why? They're dead. We aren't. We have business. They don't."

He was almost twitching with curiosity. I kept a tight grip on the
steering and our course straight.

The chasm opened unnaturally across the next wave of hills. We glid
about to a parallel course that avoided the down-drafts the canyon was
sucking into itself. We had to ride high in the air, avoiding
concealment, to evade them.

"Helen!" He forgot the ma'am that time. "More ruins!"

"Yes, James. That's good, James," I patronized him.

"No! These have people in them."

That was bad. That was very, very bad.

"Where?"

"Dead to port."

That was across the abyss. I looked where he was pointing and soon made
out a like of worked stone on the cliff face. Following it I could pick
out a few more spidering up and down the face.

"I don't see any people."

"There. By the stairway. They're in the shadows."

"Newcomers. Newcomers who have been here long enough to build and in
sufficient numbers."

"Could they be survivors from before?" James asked. He was leaning over
the sails, peering out. Occasionally he glanced about, making sure no
one else was visible.

"Not likely. During the Seven Days the atmosphere was burnt off in the
impact that killed the people. The sky caught fire and incinerated
everything that moved or drew breath. It took years for the air to leak
in from other places."

"Is that what destroyed Carcosa?"

"No. That was much worse and later. Perhaps the Seven Days were the
nails in the coffin."

"What caused the Seven Days?"

"Dear, I don't want to talk about it."

"Yes, ma'am." James clenched his jaw in frustration and pulled another
quick full circle check.

As we approached I could see dots moving against the wall. They were
hidden by the stonework, but large shapes suddenly moved apart from the
wall entirely.

"Sails," James declared. "Three ships coming this way."

I considered my options. They knew we were here. I wanted to kill them
all and protect my secrets. That wasn't practical. Somewhere, someone
always survived. I lacked the power for a total solution like this place
had endured before.

On the other hand, they might not deserve it like their predecessors
did. I had borne the news of their demise lightly, but perhaps their
great sins had been burned from the rock.

"How fast do they look?"

"Slower than us. Square sails, deep crude hulls."

"Let's see what they have to say."

"Aye!" James swung down a mainline and smiled excited. We slowed until
almost halted. On silent agreement we made ready to run again, quickly,
if necessary.

I tapped my lips with one finger. "Daren?" I whispered. He babbled in my
ears, soft and oddly seductive for all his madness.

"Hail!" The first ship pulled up some hundred feet away, flanked by the
others. "This is the Vapor." There was a man in dark colors standing on
the fore deck, shouting across to us.

"Hail!" James hollered back. He checked with me before replying, "This
is the Galleon of the Winds."

"We come from the Lord of Stone Mountain. We welcome few visitors to our
realm and bid you come; enjoy our hospitality."

They had visitors, so there must be others. I scowled at my vanishing
grip on secrecy. Still, from the way their sails were set they could
never survive the way we had come. There was still hope.

"Should we go with them?"

"If we were going to refuse, we would not have stopped."

"I thought so." James nodded. "We would be honored and delighted to
accept the hospitality of the Lord of Stone Mountain," he called.

The three turned and lead the way back. There seemed to be different
levels of winds, which explained how they could retrace their path with
the setup they had. It also meant they must have been here a while to
learn the intricacies of the air here. The Vapor lead us to a high
stone-worked bay. Many men lined it and caught our lines, pulling us in
and making the Galleon fast. They did the job quickly and
professionally. Thick cables were passed beneath the hull and tightened,
forming a cradle that held us.  James leapt from the spar and escorted
me down.

Several men in loose fitting clothing came forward to greet us. All were
the soul of civility. They were dark skinned with Caucasian features,
not black like James. They remained a polite distance away, but there
were many of them.

"Welcome to Stone Mountain." One stepped forward and took charge. "I am
the Receiver General. Let me welcome you to this place and bring you to
my Lord."

"I'm honored. This is James Ryan." He bowed, and I took the time to
decide whether or not to lie. "And I am Cassilda," I lied. "Please, lead
us to the Lord of this beautiful place."

The Receiver smiled and lead the way. James looked at me carefully but
strolled after our guide easily. At least they got to the point quickly.
I no longer regretted letting them live.

We moved along a causeway cut into the cliff. Only a low line of
carvings separated us from the fall. While I made chit-chat with the
escort party James looked over the edge. He returned with a disturbed
expression.

"We're coming now to the Royal Way," the Receiver told us. The wider
concourse he indicated was perhaps five paces wide. The wall was steeply
sloped and pulled back from the center pit. Rose quartz sculptures of
demons and gnomes lined the path here. "We built this in imitation of
those who had lived here before."

"Charming," James replied.

"This is the Bath. It is carved, as all sculpture here, from a single
block of quartz. Water from this bath is used to anoint visitors." He
stopped and dipped one hand ceremonially into the water. James performed
a slight head bow and let himself be sprinkled. The water looked like it
was mixed with fragrant oils. I took a step forward after him and froze,
one foot still in the air. Slowly I replaced me foot exactly where it
had been and turned my head to the left.

"Who is that?" I asked. I pointed at an immense block of quartz set into
the wall. It was slightly taller than me, twice as wide as a man. Inside
was a woman. I stared hard.

"That is the Waiting Stone," the Receiver replied carefully. "Some few
of our old legends speak of a sleeper within."

"They're true." I walked forward and stared into the red block. The
stone blocked my vision of her a little. She seemed to be lying at the
bottom of a deep hole filled with mist and smoke. I touched the stone
ever so gently, catching the feel of it with my fingertips like a soap
bubble. I recognized her of course. She was Mara.

"Ma'am?" the Receiver asked. He sounded so much like James I turned and
faced him. He looked cautiously uncertain. The crowd behind him was
giving me a look I've seen before. They thought I was insane. Only James
seemed at ease. He looked relaxed, like this was par for the course.

"Let's go."

I stepped forward quickly, moving fast and efficiently while I created
and discarded a thousand plans. The Receiver babbled something behind me
but I ignored him. There was only one way to go to get to this lord of
theirs and I took it. The crowd fell in behind me. James and the
Receiver caught up. James handled everything, asking questions, making
appropriate noises of appreciation at the answers, and no one asked why
I was almost running. The pathway turned into the wall and became a vast
tunnel with carved walls and beautiful scroll work on the floor. I
didn't pretend to care. Mara was here. Duncton might as well get down on
his knees and bow before me if I could capitalize on that. I had James.
James worked for Duncton. Duncton wanted Mara back like a drowning man
wanted air.

"The Lord of Stone Mountain!" someone yelled. I stopped and curtseyed,
noticed everyone else was genuflecting, and continued down to my knee.

"Be welcome," an old man  on the silver chair said. He was a withered
thing. Fine clothes hung from his stick like frame. Age had pulled the
skin tight on his hands, leaving his fingers long and thin.

"I rejoice in the graciousness of your kind welcome." I really didn't
care, but court mannerisms came to me easily.

"And we rejoice in your presence. Too long has Stone Mountain lived
without the chance to host a new visitor." The lord rose and came to me.
His outstretched hands reached out to enfold me, and I wondered what
form of unnecessary affection I would be forced to endure.

A soft mad voice spoke in my ears. "Kill him, now." He was mad, but
again penetratingly lucid.

"Lord Farmer doubled Fire," I snapped. Blood pulsed in my veins, my
temples seared, and my tongue burned against my lips. Frostbite bit my
fingertips and bones. The Lord, the ingredient, was fed to the Farmer
double refined by Fire, the reaper of ashes, and the combination mages
call Dessication shriveled the Lord of Stone Mountain away. His flesh
vanished like wax in a flame. I refueled the spell while it still
hovered in the air. Old magic seeped into the Lord's fractured bones.
There was a crackle, an ashen smell, and he was gone.

Around us our escorts shrank back. Sudden twisted delight came to the
Receiver. His eyes were bright with lust for power as he watched us cut
down his boss. The guards hung back.

The remains of our host had dropped to a pile of splinters and dust. The
entourage who had thought I was crazy now stared at us in fear. This was
either a tactical necessity or the worst faux pas ever. Daren might
still be mad. He probably was. The dice were still rolling, though, and
I have the devil's own luck.

With all eyes on me I walked forward until I stood aside James. He moved
off, leaving me alone at the center of the great room with the broken
remains. I picked up the skull and it came free of the body with a snap.

"My, what big teeth you have," I observed. "James, would you look at
this?"

I tossed him the skull. He caught it, realized what it was, dropped it,
and caught it again before it hit the ground. Gingerly he pried the jaw
open so he could see the eight long incisors.

"That doesn't mean he's evil, you know."

"He had to die, James." I made sure I kept my relief hidden. I was badly
shaken, far more so than I expected. I'm lucky that stone bitch came
easily to me too.

"We don't know that."

"I do." More accurately, Daren did. I wasn't sure if those two
statements were really different. "You, Receiver. By the blood and ashes
of the old king I anoint you in his stead. Now swear eternal allegiance
to me or die." I still had some dust from the skull of his old liege
lord on my fingers, and I blew him a kiss with it. It wafted to him
intact, letting the impression of my lips touch his forehead like a
blessing.

"I do solemnly swear I shall serve you with my life in such methods as
you ask now and forever more," he knelt before he really realized what
he was doing.

"Splendid. Clear the court. James, skull."

He handed it back to me, and I sat on the throne and examined it. When I
brushed aside the last bits of dust and charred gray matter I could see
that the it was amazing. It was a masterpiece. Perfectly formed and
reinforced by internal buttresses of bone, the dome was uncracked by its
recent beating. The spinal column had been similarly enhanced to hold
the extra weight. Small channels from the fangs lead to where the throat
would have been. Even the bone itself was lighter than it should have
been. I pried a segment of it out. The cross section revealed it was
layered in perfect geometrical repetition like composite vehicle armor.
Truly it was a masterpiece and a tribute to whomever had built this
perfect creature. One person with the know how sprang to mind.

"Helen," James stage whispered.

"Yes?"

"They haven't left. They look hungry."

They did indeed. The new Lord had backed his people up, giving us space,
but several dozen of them ringed the room, watching me with burning,
hungry eyes.

"Lord, control your servants or your rule will be a short on." I
delivered the ultimatum in a bored voice. My spell was still etched
across the air above us, invisible I assumed but no less potent. My
headache was down to the intensity of splitting and I couldn't walk yet,
but I imagine if I was willing to knock myself unconscious I could hit
the spell with enough energy to insure mass destruction.

"Is this why you didn't want to come here?" James asked.

"No. The people who used to live here were much worse."

"How much worse?"

"I despised them from a moral high ground."

"You?"

"Me."

He eyed me, thinking true and unflattering things about my morals and
the level of degradation necessary to evoke my outrage for those
reasons. I pretended not to care.

Another darkly clad individual began pushing his way through the crowd,
which moved with sullen reluctance. The new Lord took advantage in the
break in the tension to give a few simple commands which dispersed some
of the horde.

"You killed him?" asked the new arrival. Casaroc was his name, I would
later learn.

"Yes."

"Good. When are you leaving?"

"But we've only just met." I drawled.

"Do you ever wonder why no one ever likes you?" James asked. He looked
meaningfully at the pile of ashes.

"Jealous of my good looks," I replied.

"Well, you're either stupid or leaving tonight," Casaroc continued as if
I was hanging on his every word. "If you're stupid I don't care. If
you're leaving I want to go with you."

"See, he likes me." I told James. "We haven't even met, and he's
propositioning me."

"But he's evil."

"Don't be rude. We don't know that. Now, my sinister and patient friend,
yes I am leaving soon. Where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere but here."

"That's never reassuring. It always sounds like you're running away from
something."

"I am. Vampires," he replied as urbanely as we were.

"A good reason," James agreed. "I like where your head is at," he told
Casaroc.

"Thank you," Casaroc nodded to him.

"Maybe you aren't even evil. That would be a nice break from the norm."

"What's so bad about being evil?" I demanded.

"You aren't evil," James reassured me. "You just kill people without
guilt for no reason."

"How do you know she doesn't have reasons?" Casaroc asked. "She
certainly did when she destroyed him," he indicated the dead with his
foot. In some cultures gesturing towards the deceased in such a manner
is terribly offensive. I gathered he wasn't overly loyal to the old
ruler.

"That being?" James asked.

"He was going to eat you both."

"Told you," I said.

"Not that I'm doubting you, but how do you know?" James continued,
ignoring me.

"He tried to do the same to me."

"Why didn't he?" I was curious.

"He found out I taste terrible."

"Or you could be one of them," James suggested.

Casaroc smiled and pulled his lips back in an unnatural grimace,
exposing his normal teeth.

"Maybe you have a better dental plan?" James countered.

"I'm willing to pay."

"Pay what?" I asked.

He was clearly waiting for this and stepped up to me. He extended a
closed fist and dropped several small pebbles into my hands. They were
rough, larger than Nilo's stones and lacked their sensation of potent
weight. Carefully I rolled them in my palm before realizing what he was
offering. My eyes went wide.

"Is this a trap?"

"No trap. Four of them, unused, untouched, virgin and pure. All I want
is transport to a safe place where I can find my way away."

I sized him up much more carefully. He was cocky, direct, and probably
very dangerous to survive this long in a den of beasts. He also offered
me a princely gift without any negotiation or haggling.

"Done. You sleep on the deck."

"Welcome aboard." James offered his hand. I'm James Ryan."

"Casaroc." He looked at the hand curiously.

"We'll talk about that later." James let his arm drop. "And in the
meantime, I think we should leave. Now."

"That's reasonable."

Casaroc was already looking twitchy. There were more than enough people
around us to cause problems if they felt like it. I again considered
deep fat frying a few of them to make an abject statement. There were a
lot of problems with that approach, some based on the mechanics of rune
magic and some on the fact that the rest might panic and swarm us.
Unless I was one hundred percent certain I could kill the lot of them I
did not want to try.

"Well, it's been terribly interesting, but we have to be leaving. Toodle
loo." I waved. James and the peculiar Casaroc began moving the way we
had come with a the steady, belligerent pace of two men who were ready
to cause havoc. I followed behind.

The crowd opened up before us and closed as we passed, forming a comet
train of hungry blood suckers. There was no way to prevent them from
being behind us without sacrificing speed and initiative, something that
would be tantamount to suicide.

We swept along, moving confidently. When the long royal way came to a
bend and gave a impressive view of the abyss before us, the crowd began
to make noises. My ship was still several hundred yards away, and Mara
lay entombed in the next great hallway.

I looked over my shoulder, hoping for some gap in the expected malice of
the horde behind us. Sadly, my hopes were wrong and my intelligence
correct. The horde was chasing us, walking silently and searching our
steps and strides for any trace of fear or doubt. One beast was barely a
long stride from me, moving silently. He froze when I looked at him.

"Begone." We continued our walk out of there, playing the bluff to the
hilt.

When we appeared on the pier that lead to the ship it was hours later.
Only minutes had passed. We sprang aboard and made ready to cast off
while the hyena pack stood watching us from windows and doorways. Rope
by rope we were cut free. The two men hacked away quickly, never looking
up at the watchers. I stood looking back, settled into an easy, menacing
stance. It wasn't hard. My muscles were tight and knotted, and the rocks
in my stomach were growing. I let myself go a little, stopped filtering
the anger and fury from my face.

As the last of the great bow lines was cut free the entire crowd took a
sudden step forward and howled, dog like and full of intense loss. It
was an utterly inhuman, reverberating in pitch and tone in ways the
human voice cannot. It told me of unrequited desire and a dropped
facade. The yearning was so intense as to be painful for them. I
understood perfectly. It soothed me, assuaged my guilt, and made me more
ready to unleash the old magic. They did nothing else. The sails caught
air, crack, and we pulled out.

"I never want to see this place again," James said, leaning forwards
over the bow to watch us slip away to the free air.

"I've been thinking that for a damn long time," added Casaroc.

We caught a hard, fast wind running along the center of the chasm and
piled on some sail. I realized that I still had the skull of the dead
king with me.

"How much more do we have to go?" James asked.

"Not much. As the scenery gets worse and locale grows more dangerous
we're getting closer."

Casaroc eyed me from the deck. "It's going to get worse? How?"

"Imagine cities of those beasts without their one redeeming virtue."

"They had a virtue?"

"Yes. There wasn't many of them."

"You know," said James. "I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about this trip
as I used to be."

"Don't worry. We're almost there."

I set the skull on the deck and examined it again. The artificial aspect
to it got stronger the more I examined it. It was simply too perfect,
too artificially complicated to be the natural result of unguided
evolution. It had a dead smile or hungry grin, depending on how I
thought of it. James busied himself in the air, picking his way through
the rigging. Casaroc took a seat by the prow, and started asking the
basic questions. I listened to their exchange.

"Where can I sleep?"

"On the deck with me. Our fearless leader, Captain Helen, has the only
cabin, and she doesn't seem inclined to share."

"Are there any blankets?"

"A few. I doubt any two of us will be asleep at the same time so we'll
probably share."

Casaroc shrugged.

"Do you have anything to eat or drink?"

"There's plenty of food. And to drink you can have some splendid Kratos
wine."

"There's wine aboard?"

"Ma'am, how much more of that wine do we have?" James called down to me.
His voice was even and his face straight.

"Plenty," I replied. "Casaroc can finish the bottle you started."

"That might be nice. I would like to get some rest since you two clearly
don't need help with running the ship, and something to drink makes it
easier to get to sleep."

James burst out laughing. Casaroc stared at him questioningly, and
glanced at me for an explanation. I shrugged ambiguously.

"On second thought, maybe not."

"James, take the helm. Keep us on this course and keep a low profile. If
you see anyone else, make yourself a ghost. Casaroc, you're free to move
about the ship. You and James can work out sleeping arrangements. If you
come to a basalt monolith, wait there. Don't disturb me for any reason."

They both nodded. In comparison they were the same color of dark coffee,
but James had the features and build that went along with his African
heritage. Casaroc was thinner. His nose was hawkish and his face narrow.
He wasn't as tall as James or as well built. Surprisingly, the palms of
his hands were as dark as the rest of his skin. Both of his arms were
bandaged from the wrist up beneath his sleeves. The bandages went
halfway up his neck and were tucked in tightly. Very little of his skin
was visible at all, only his head and neck. Like everyone I had seen at
Stone Mountain, he was dressed in dark gray with black boots.

I nodded back and went below. After making sure the door was locked, I
collapsed.

My legs were twitching wildly. Muscle spasms moved up my thighs,
something I'd concealed earlier. It had been well over two days since
I'd slept, and the unbelievable drain of sailing combined with killing
the lord, both magical and mental, had now sucked the last bit of
strength out of me. I think some of that wine was still in my system,
working its nasty effects on me. There was the sound of rushing water in
my ears, a river of exhaustion that carried me away to my dreams.



"'Evening." Casaroc greeted me much later.

"It's always evening here. Evening or night. So good night too," James
added.

"Hello." I sat on the railing, content to let the other two manage the
basic ship operations. There was not much to do. We were riding at
anchor atop a low fog bank. Before us was a needle of black stone,
hundreds of feet tall. Around us was a ring of hills that encircled us
in a bowl of thick mist. Looking over the side I couldn't see anything
but slow moving white. "How long have we been here?"

"Several hours. I tied us to a big rock since we don't have an anchor
any more. Oddly enough, we keep drifting straight towards the needle."

"You got out of the boat?"

"Yes."

I looked him over carefully. "Did you touch the mist at all?"

"No."

"Good." His skin seemed fine.

"Why?" Casaroc asked. He was sitting on the rail, with his hands on his
lap. "Is the mist dangerous?"

"Just don't touch it."

"All right."

"James, lose the anchor chain."

"Sure thing." He leapt to the windlass.

"No, James. Don't reel it in. Release it."

He stopped what he was doing and glanced at me. I took my position
behind the steerage. "We need to buy a new anchor anyway. We'll get a
new anchor chain also."

"What's so bad about the mist?" Casaroc asked.

"You touched it, didn't you."

"Maybe. Why?"

I sighed.

"I didn't," James told me.

"You're learning."

"Everything else on this trip has been nasty. Why should a fog cloud be
any different?"He pulled three restraining pins loose and watched the
anchor chain fall overboard. It fell silently out of sight.

The ship immediately began drifting towards the black spike. We twisted
and dipped off a bit at the last second, coming up beside it. We dropped
bumpers and tapped into it sideways.

Up close the rock was pitted and worn.

"Get some dirt, make mud out of it, and wash your hands in that for a
while." I told Casaroc. "And next time, regardless of whether or not I
tell you not to, don't touch anything. Ever."

Casaroc looked at me levelly. I got the impression of incredible pride
held in check. Without a word he turned and began gathering dirt and
rock.

"Now, we're almost at Carcosa. I assume James gave you a synopsis of our
trip and purpose?"

"He did," Casaroc replied.

"Good. Carcosa is extremely dangerous. You can and will die there if you
make any mistakes. We need to go over the rules." I looked at each of
them. "Gentlemen, there are very bad ways to go, and there are ways to
survive them that are worse than dying. This is a very serious place
we're coming to.

"The first is never light a torch. Do not light any kind of fire at all.
If you used to smoke, you just quit.  If anything, and I mean anything,
ignites within a mile of you, run. This is rules one, two, three, and
four. No fire. I absolutely cannot stress this enough. Casaroc, if
you've got any firearms, guns, or anything of that nature, leave them on
the ship. Don't try to smuggle them or leave them on safe. If you have
any flint or matches, leave them. I'll lock them down for you. Trust me
on this, it will not go well for you or us."

Casaroc shrugged. James nodded.

"Next, try not to make loud noises, don't go off alone, or poke your
nose where it shouldn't be. If I do,  don't follow me. Don't do it
yourself. Again, trust me on this one. We're going to able to talk
quietly so long as we don't draw any attention to ourselves.

"Finally, we're going to spend as little time in Carcosa as possible.
We're going to come in high and fast, drop down to street level, do what
we have to do, and return the way we came."

I looked at the two of them, looking for any signs of a question or
confusion. James had a serious expression and was paying close attention
to everything I said. Casaroc was working the mud into his skin. His
face had a blank expression.

"Casaroc, I'm telling you this one ahead of time. Am I being crystal
clear on this?"

"Of course."

I didn't like his tone. If he made a fool of himself I'd leave him there
without hesitating. But perhaps he was just  annoyed with me. He had to
be competent to have stayed alive where he did so long.

"Good. When you've taken care of your hands we'll set out to a spot we
can rest for a while. I'm sure the two of you need some sleep."

I had a large canvas bag that I keep in the hold. It had eyelets around
the mouth an appropriate size for wire. By the time we were ready to
depart I had threaded a long loop of wire through it. One end was made
fast to the brow and without preamble the bag went over the side. "Brace
yourselves."

The ship bucked like a bronco and jumped forward ten feet. Then it
paused and began a slow circle.

"Dude, I would really recommend you grab hold of something." James told
Casaroc. He, Casaroc, was standing in a relaxed stance, sideways to the
ship. The ship bucked again and we shot twice the bow length forward.
There was another slow lull.

"So be it," he replied. He picked up a safety line.

The ship spun wildly and stood up on its nose, spinning around twice
while the sails traced circles in the fog. I fell forwards against the
wheel and spun. I'd been expecting this but had forgotten how violent it
would be. Casaroc tumbled forward off the deck, arresting himself with a
hard yank on the rope that left long bloody streaks from his hands. The
ship spun again, and he bounced from the mast to the deck and back. That
looked like it hurt.

"Got you!" James snagged him when he bounced close. The tail of the ship
rose high into the air and the whole vessel bobbed. We cut a tight
circle in the mist, skittering halfway across the foggy pond and around
the stone plinth. The mast's moorings groaned and cried. The wire went
slack and we fell down to ride easy on the surface.

"Brace yourselves," I repeated. My tone was flat and dry, and I waited.

There was a twitch, the fog rolled, and an infinite ocean of fire lunged
up from beneath to fill the sky. Someone gasped. The fire grew black and
cold, and burned brighter.

"Momma, I'm coming home."

The world collapsed in on me. We were gone.

Inside the fire, life wasn't pleasant. There was some shrieking, some
screaming, and a whole lot of yelling. Someone asked for a quick end,
possibly meaning the fire. It was a bad time.

With a sensation like waking I realized I was bent over the aft throwing
up. When I tried to stop my stomach wasn't under control but there was
nothing left in it. I dry heaved for a while.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, ow, fuck," James told me. He lay on his back, holding
his head.

"Yeah," I agreed.

When I could I hobbled to the bow. The wire was still attached and ran
down to the limp bag. I reeled it in with my throbbing fingers. I
withdrew a small pouch from my pocket. Inside were the four stones
Casaroc had paid me. The rock had broken and cracked. I dropped the
contents to the bottom of the bag. Dozens of tiny fire lit points were
bumping around the bottom of the sack, bouncing into each other and the
fabric drunkenly. They converged like moths to flame and seeped into the
cracks in the four stones.

This is going to hurt, I admitted to myself. My pride made me take a
quick look at the other two. James was still not sure he wasn't dead,
and Casaroc wasn't moving at all. Neither would be really conscious for
a while yet. I gritted my teeth.

Gingerly I took hold of all the stones. One quick breath turned into
three, and then I squeezed them in both hands, clenching my fists so the
edges cut into my palms and blood trickled out. White light flared up
from the bag, boiling out of my skin and flashing at my eyes. Each tiny
light was a separate and distinct burning sensation that crawled under
my skin and between my fingertips. The pain was exquisite, as Seth would
say.

I spoke my name four times, and with each word the light shrank as I
bound it to me. Every bit of heat vanished. On my palms were a
crisscross pattern of old and faded scars that had never been there
before. My hands felt fine, and the stones lay inert when I touched
them. I plopped the stones back into a pocket and untied the bag and
wire. While I was getting my bearings again I started cleaning.

"Where are we?"

James was sitting up. He looked tired and sick.

"Carcosa."

He looked where I was pointing. Far away, high above us on a mountain
circled by twin suns was a blinding light. The cloud sea below boiled
and lapped at the few peaks that managed to rise above it, breakers
crashing with audible grumbling against rock. Every cloud wave was
outlined in brilliant flashes of silver and gold. The sky was mad with
spinning stars, dancing and twirling, exchanging partners across the
sky. There was no horizon in any direction, just light, movement, and
colors.

"Oh," James replied.

"Casaroc, wake up. We're at your namesake."

"Ugh?" he groaned.

"We're here."

"Eh?" He rolled over and took his hands from his eyes. Pure natural
power blinded him, prying his eyelids wide. His jaw fell open, slack.

"Now we relax. It's still almost a week away at full speed."

The wind was strong and steady. It knew me, kissed me on the head and
feet in the old welcome, and was only too happy to fill our sails. I
tied off the wheel and took a bottle of wine worth drinking and three
glasses to the others.

"So, Casaroc, now that we're almost here tell me something. Why are you
named after my city?"