8 - Black Sails

Apart from the missing front window, the inside of the shop hardly seemed like the recent site of a robbery.  A few items were knocked from artfully crowded shelves, but nothing was obviously broken or missing.  In addition to the guards, a stout and slightly disheveled man stood timidly patting the shoulder of a tall woman slumped in a well-carved chair, looking from her to the guard captain whose questions he answered in a half-whisper, as though afraid to disturb the woman.  Amaya took them to be Higa and his wife, the owners of the shop.

These were clearly well-established merchants; despite his henpecked mien, Higa bore himself with a dignity that came from knowing his own worth down to the last copper.  Despite acting like her entire shop had burned to the ground instead of being slightly vandalized, his wife somehow conveyed a passive and constant disdain for everything not backed with sacks of gold.  She was well-suited for the melodramatic, and managed to look striking with a slender hand pressed to her temple.

When they entered, she sat up, and her face snapped to a set of harsh, disapproving lines that banished any lingering loveliness.  “These three?” she inquired imperiously.  She pronounced every word crisply, as if she wanted no one to possibly think that she was from the lower city, or even influenced with a hint of its lilting way of speech.

“Crias, dearest, ah, please let me deal with them?” Higa said, his voice sounding more nervous than soothing.  “You just concentrate on recovering from the shock.”

Crias sniffed, but leaned back and resumed her pose of one subjected to unfair suffering and woe.  With one final, quick pat on her hand, Higa walked to the front of the shop with hurried steps.  He ran his hands over his rapidly receding hair, then folded them in front of his stomach and blinked from one face to the other.

“I do hope you'll excuse Crias; she's had a very trying day,” he explained to the three.  “She is, ah, naturally very involved with community law, especially in the Silk District-- why, she brought many of the current tax and patrol standards before the council itself-- and, well, she feels a bit unfairly singled out, after she's done so much.”  Amaya caught two guards exchanging flat glances, as though they felt the guard and the district would have done just fine without her “help”.

“We understand,” Amaya said, though she wasn't entirely certain that she did.  “We are, um, a bit confused as to why we're here, though.”

“Ah,” Higa said, glancing nervously over his shoulder at his wife as though what he next said might cause her to explode.  “We were told to, ah. . . deliver a message.”  When she gave no visible reaction, he sighed slightly and began to search his pockets.  “Just a moment, I wrote it down.”  After a moment of pocket-patting, he produced a slip of parchment.  “Here it is.  Let's see... 'We have what you want, and you will have to fight us to get it.  Don't worry about finding us, we'll find you.'”

“Hells,” Jouten murmured.  Amaya looked at him with confusion; she still had no idea what this odd little escapade was about.  “Could you tell us more about it?  Maybe what they looked like?”  He looked questioningly at the captain of the guard, who nodded to Higa.

The merchant said, “There were two of them, ah, a redheaded man and a blonde woman, both dressed in black.  They came in through the back, where we get deliveries.  They made me take one of our newest crystal matrices out of this case here,” he said, rapping the front of a nearby glass-fronted display case with an empty space on one of its shelves.  “That's, ah, all they took.  Then the man, he described the three of you in detail, and told me to give you that message.  He seemed like he found everything hysterical.  The woman looked bored with the whole thing.  Angry, too.  Ans then they went out through the window.”  He added, “It wasn't as though they couldn't, ah, just leave from the back.  It was like they wanted to be followed.  Or at least seen.”

Toneriko winced.  “And I'm more the fool in hoping for an ounce of tact,” she murmured.  When Jouten scowled at her, she hastened to add, “Not you.  Them.”

He snorted.  “Reeves Fumio?  I very much doubt he knows the meaning of the word.”

“So you do know these people, then?”  Higa Crias's eyes flashed.

“Um.” Amaya looked from Toneriko to Jouten, uncertain how to respond.  “Really, we--”

Her high voice was cold as she rose from the chair, drawing herself up to her full imposing height.  “Then you have to answer for the glazier's bill for replacement of the window, new flowers for those that were trampled, and the stolen matrix, of course.”  Two of the guards rolled their eyes at each other behind her back as she crossed the shop, her heels clicking.

“Honestly, dearest, I'm sure...” her husband began, trailing off after seeing nothing could stop his wife short of a natural disaster.  He instead looked toward the ceiling, face pinched, as though invoking patience.

She continued as she bent behind the counter, her voice slightly muffled.  “And the cost of all the business lost today in this froufraraw, naturally.”    With a thump, she dropped a heavy leather-bound ledger on top of the counter and began flicking through the pages.  “After I put so much care and effort into the well-being of this city... the nerve!  Let me tell you, you would be hard-pressed to find any as dedicated to justice as I am.”  Higa looked as though he were gathering his strength to try reasoning with his wife once more, but would take a while to actually get started.  “Here we are.  All told, that should come to...”  Grabbing the quill tucked behind her ear, she dipped it in an inkwell and scratched a few figures in the book.  She glared up at the trio.  “Six hundred eighty gold.  And feel lucky you're getting off that easily.”

Amaya paled.  “But-- we don't even have that kind of--” she stammered.

“Mistress Crias,” Toneriko said smoothly, stepping forward with a slight bow and a pleasant smile.  “It's certain sure you'll be agreeing with me saying this was truly an unfortunate happenstance.”  Crias began to speak again, but Toneriko continued as though she didn't hear her.  “Also with me saying that it was nowhere near so bad as it could have been.”  She gestured to the walls, the locked cases of arrays and other items.  “Especially when considering you have far more expensive items?  In easy viewing?”  Crias's thin lips snapped shut.  “Now where's the sense in organizing the thieving of your fine shop, taking one of the meanest items for sale, then hanging about just outside?”  Toneriko shook her head.  “Now, some not as trusting as myself might go so far as saying that you planned the heist and blamed it on three visitors to this fair city, for the attention such a strange robbery would gather, the large unlikeliness that anyone would care about three clear strangers, and the chance to line your purse with a fair bit more coin in damages collected.”

Crias flushed with anger.  “How dare you even suggest that I--”

Toneriko spread her hands in a placating gesture, her polite smile never slipping an inch.  “All here can see you're the victim in this.  Simply in the path of those two, plain as day.”  Crias looked slightly mollified.  “But be assured we three were, as well.  They are no friends of ours, only harriers sent by them as would wish us difficulties.  Truly you care more for seeing justice done than the bill for a broken window?”  Crias could hardly dispute the matter without appearing a complete hypocrite in front of representatives of the justice she claimed to love so dearly; she was trapped, and she knew it.  Her already harsh face puckered as though she had swallowed a lemon.

§

A very short time later, duly apologized to for any inconvenience, the three were following a road with the city of Boarri at their backs and the falling sun just to their left.  Amaya finally asked a question that had bothered her since she first heard of the incident at Higa's shop.  “So Kate and Reeves break into one of the more prosperous shops in the entire Silk District, and take only one thing just because they knew it would help us?  As opposed to, say, anything of real value?”

“Mayhap the value to them's in our delay,” Toneriko pointed out.  “Walking takes a fair bit longer.  I think they have a small ship, too.”

“A ship.  Which means they're pretty much guaranteed to get where we're headed before we do?” Amaya continued.

“That sounds about right,” Jouten agreed.

“And when we do get there, how likely is it we'll find Kate and Reeves have somehow made life more difficult for us?”

“Very,” Toneriko and Jouten said simultaneously, then looked at each other with surprise.

“Oh, good,” Amaya sighed.  “And here I was thinking that running across the whole of Trovellia trying to find one small boy would be too easy.”

“Hikaru's really very smart.  And he's not that small, you know,” Jouten said, trying to be helpful.  

Amaya simply looked at him.  “He's only twelve.”

Jouten refused to be deterred.  “And at that age, you'd already been taking care of him and yourself, arranging things with the temple and the villagers, for almost five years.”

“That's fair impressive,” Toneriko said thoughtfully.  “And just by your lonesome?”

“It's different,” Amaya muttered, embarrassed.  “I'm his big sister.  I'm supposed to look after him.”  And I failed, she thought miserably.  Even if I find him, I'll still have failed, because I never should have let him get taken in the first place.  Amaya quickly changed the subject before she could dwell on her failure any longer.  Better to think about what could be done.  “So can we talk about what you heard today?”

“Mm, right,” Toneriko said, sparing a quick glance around the deserted road.  “It appears as though our Commodore is in this direction, only a quick jaunt from the fair city, and has been for a few days.”

“And her windship is just sitting there?” Jouten asked.

Toneriko nodded.  “Sitting and waiting.”

“Then she knows we're coming?” Amaya asked.

“It's possible, thanks to our two light-fingered gun-toting friends,” Toneriko allowed.  “Though I assure you I was the height of discretion.”  Jouten smirked at her word choice, and she rolled her eyes at him.  “Anyway, it's a bit off the road, but the area's flat enough that it won't be much a problem,” she continued.  “I've heard tell it's a little fold in the land.”

“Why land in the open?” Amaya asked.

“It's like they wanted to be found,” Jouten agreed, with a flat look for the erstwhile pirate.

“Black sails.”  Toneriko smiled briefly.  “Anyone not already in the path of a Blackstrike takes great pains not to toddle into that path.  Works better than wards, that reputation does.”  She added, “Besides, landing in trees is a fair sight more difficult than it might seem.”  She surveyed the horizon.  “We'd best turn off here,” she directed them, and the three left the road for the tall grass of the surrounding land.  Despite being more uneven than the well-tended road, the grass was pleasantly springy beneath their feet.  There was only one small difficulty.

“These hills!” Jouten moaned, after their company had mounted a number of them and was about to tackle another.  “They look all deceptive with their pretty flowers and their rabbits, like they're nothing at all to worry about.  And then they make your legs fall off.”

“They are nothing to worry on.  Wait 'til you see the Cloudspring Mountains,” Toneriko said, as she passed a glaring Jouten.  “Much the same, save with goats instead of rabbits.  And snow on their tops, even in the hottest days of summer.”

“Maybe you wouldn't have as much trouble if you spent less time sitting in your inventing studio, making things explode?” Amaya asked blithely as she, too, passed him.

“Clearly we've stumbled across the Cloudsprings,” he muttered.  “Someone got us lost.”

“We're most certainly not lost,” Toneriko said in a carrying whisper through the gathering twilight.  She was already peering over the top of the hill.  “Hurry up.”  Amaya quickened her pace.  Jouten sighed, but trudged up after as well.

“The moon'll be to our backs,” Toneriko warned them.  “Though there won't be much of one tonight.  Still, stay low as possible.”

Crouching among the tall grass, the three peered over the crest of the hill.  The western slope was much steeper than the one they had come up, and the land opened up into a sizable valley.  A pale airship nestled like some strange grounded bird.  Between the darkness, the distance, and the shadow of the valley, it was difficult to make out many details.  The silvery ship seemed to be swarming with activity.  Amaya could just make out tiny figures tending to the sails, engines, and myriad ropes.  Were they leaving already?

“The delivery,” Toneriko murmured.

“Delivery?” Amaya tore her eyes from the miniature airship's impending departure and turned to her.  “What delivery?”

Toneriko shook her head. “All I heard said she was waiting for some delivery.  Nothing of what sort.”

“And now she's just going?” Amaya asked with alarm, half-rising.  Her brother was so close-- she couldn't just let him be stolen away from her again.  “We have to get down there!”

Jouten held her sleeve, gently keeping her from standing.  “Hold on, Mai.  There's another ship,” he said, pointing with his free hand.  “Look, a little to the south.”

Amaya stared into the darkness in the direction he indicated until she thought she was going cross-eyed.  As her eyes finally adjusted to the gloom, she saw it: another ship, slightly different in design, made of the darkest wood she'd ever seen in her life.  The furled sails and its tall masts seemed to be just extensions of the shadow.

It looked extremely uninviting.  “That's where we're going?” she said, trying to keep the doubt from her voice.

“Right,” Toneriko said.  “We'd best go now.  With luck we'll make it unnoticed to the ship.  The Red Cannon has a long takeoff, especially in a tight fit like this.”

“And once we get to the ship?” Jouten asked as the three carefully proceeded downhill.

“Just trust me,” Toneriko said brightly.  He looked as though he was about to enumerate a very long and detailed list of unpleasant things he would rather do before trusting the Zoramerin turncoat, but at that moment, the main engines of the Red Cannon kicked on, and conversation that wouldn't attract unwanted attention became very difficult.

The three tried to minimize the wake they left in the tall grass behind them, but the tangled drafts in the valley caused by the silver ship's maneuvers helped hide their presence.  They were over halfway to the black ship when they literally ran into a dozing sentry.  There was a frantic scuffle as they fought to silence her; though she struggled valiantly, she soon was sleeping much more soundly, thanks to a sharp blow to the temple from the hilt of Amaya's buda-katana.

When they finally were certain they had remained undetected to the rest of the sentries and the ship, the three exchanged a look.  It was an unspoken but shared sentiment that they had been extremely lucky to succeed before she had sounded an alarm.  They had been relying too much on the backdraft from the Red Cannon to hide their tracks.  After that rather pointed reminder to be more alert, the three were able to see and avoid most sentries through a more careful watch and Toneriko's occasional magic.

At last they stood near one of the anchors of the windship.  The hull of the Dragon's Coral loomed menacingly above them, its masts stabbing into a slightly lighter sky just beginning to be dotted with stars.  “Like as not, the crew will mostly be in the galley.  I'd wager my gun to a gooseberry this so-called delivery's disarrayed their schedule right proper.”

“They're not very disciplined?” Amaya asked.

Toneriko shook her head, the bobbing of her hair just discernable in the deep shadows of the ship.  “They are.  Zerian's the one who sees a tight schedule as more of a guideline.  And he disorganizes things just by being nearby.”

“Too bad for them,” Jouten grinned.

Toneriko took hold of the anchor's rope.  “Once we're on deck, I'll be able to hide us, but not whilst we're climbing,” she cautioned them.  “I'll go first.  I can quiet any unlucky sentries much more, well, quietly.”  She quickly began to shimmy up the rope to the dark ship.

For a second, Jouten almost looked impressed, but Amaya decided it was only a trick of the light.  “After all those cursed hills, this is exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my evening,” he said flatly, eying the rope with distaste.  He sighed and hoisted himself up the rope as Amaya shook her head with a smile.  She might poke fun at his lack of appreciation for a good physical challenge, but his inventions and quick thinking more than made up for it in her book.  At least when his inventions did what they were supposed to.  She let him gain a bit of distance before she started to climb after him.

As Amaya quietly pulled herself to the top of an elegantly carved railing inlaid with a line of silver enamel, she looked around the deck with concern.  It was completely deserted, of enemies and allies alike.  She silently dropped to the deck with a soft but inventive curse.

“I'm shocked you know that one, temple-bound,” a quiet voice said teasingly.  Amaya had her katana half-drawn before Jouten and Toneriko suddenly appeared.

She pushed her blade back into its sheath.  “A girl would think you actually want to be impaled,” she whispered.  “So where's the ward?”

“We're all in it,” Jouten said.  “We can see them, but we're the only ones who can see us.  Or something.”

“Close enough for now,” Toneriko said to this explanation.  “Now's not the most opportune of times to discuss magical theory.  Shall we?”

Amaya nodded, and Toneriko led them on a convoluted path through the ship's innards.  The ward seemed unnecessary; the route traveled narrow corridors with low ceilings, half-forgotten storerooms, and dozens of junctions, but the closest they came to any other signs of life were hearing voices through the walls.  Even pressing her ear to the paneling, Amaya couldn't make any sense out of the words, although the voices were loud enough that she should be able to understand them.  A ward against eavesdropping? she thought.  On every common room, even the galley?  Either the Blackstrikes on this crew were very paranoid, or they had that many secrets to protect, even from each other.  Maybe both, Amaya mused as they at last paused outside one heavy door.

Toneriko glanced at a point above their heads and made a small gesture.  Amaya thought she saw the barest hint of silver out of the corner of her eye; when she blinked, it was gone.

Toneriko interpreted her look of puzzlement to include their ward.  “I added a silence to it,” she explained.  “Now, we're getting fair close to the Commodore.  She should be in her rooms, where we'll be in another corridor or two.  We'll try for surprise.  Fair enough?”

The other two nodded, and Toneriko reversed her small gesture.  Again Amaya thought she caught a sparkle of silver curving in the air around them, but when she tried to look directly at it, it vanished.

Toneriko gently pushed open the door, and the three slipped into the wide, rectangular room.  Like the other finished rooms they had passed through, it was furnished in blacks and deep greys, the near-constant severity only broken by silver accents and gold light fixtures.  The walls were covered in bookshelves; some were simple rows of books, others glass-covered cases to display important or rare volumes.  One of the shorter walls was devoted entirely to scrolls arrayed in small but deep cubbyholes.  Several chairs clustered around low tables in the corners of the rooms.  There were two doors, one in the long wall directly across from them, the other in the shorter wall at the far left end of the room.  Toneriko motioned to the door across from them, and they crept towards it.

A movement caught Amaya's eye; a pale hand languidly turning the page of a thick volume.  The leaf's whisper froze her companions.  So still was the woman, they had completely failed to see her in their first examination of the room, despite her fair hair and green garments being the only source of color in the room.  Her legs tucked underneath her, the woman appeared utterly absorbed in the book cradled on her lap.  Toneriko motioned again towards the door, but suddenly jerked upright as though she had been pinched.  “Hells,” she murmured.

Without being able to say how she could tell, Amaya suddenly knew they were no longer invisible.  There was certainly no immediate reaction from the woman; her eyes continued on the page a few heartbeats longer before she tucked a silver ribbon in the book, closed it, and laid it down on the small table next to her chair.  “Sneaking about like that is quite rude, you know,” she said in a musical soprano.  Jouten started when she addressed them; apparently he hadn't realized the woman had banished the magic that had concealed them. Only after adjusting her book to a precise angle did she regard her uninvited guests.  She looked at Toneriko with a bored expression.  “I knew it had to be someone who knew of ships,” she said.

“Kitsune,” Toneriko said flatly.

“Commodore Kitsune,” she corrected.  “Even a foolishly misguided turncoat ought to have enough sense to show some respect.”  Even her quirked half-smile would have been beautiful, had it reached her pale eyes; instead her gaze glinted coldly, like the stare of some venomous python hypnotizing its prey.  “But if you were looking for a fight, Riko,” she said, unfolding her legs and idly caressing the curved scabbard at her hip, “rest assured, you've found one.”