Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Six

Posted by natechen on July 11, 2026

By the time Andre finished his story Isobela had joined them, asking questions that forced him to go back and fill her in. Finally, after about an hour of back and forth he reached the end of the story. Once he was done the Maestro leaned back on the bench where he sat with an arm around his wife and sighed. “It’s a bad situation, Andre.”

“You should have told us about this sooner,” Isobela said.

“There wasn’t time to do anything about it before the performance started,” Andre protested.

“If you knew the girl they were looking for you should have told us as soon as you realized it.” When she saw his stricken expression she hastened to add, “Not to send the guards after her. I see no reason for that. But we could have discussed the situation and decided what to do if they came to us immediately; then you could have been more prepared tonight.”

“Perhaps,” the Maestro said. “Though there’s no telling what would have happened. Either way, it would have been better if you had told one of us the situation before it became so salient. But the damage is done. What will you do now?”

Andre flopped down on the locked money box in the corner of the caravan. “Does it matter? The guards already took Sophia and her mother, there’s not much I can do for them now.”

Mastroianni leaned forward, his expression severe. “What are you going to tell her father when he comes looking for her? It sounds like the other girl knows enough to look for Sophia here so at some point he’s going to drag that out of her. Then he’s going to come looking for her.”

Andre put his head down in his hands. “I don’t know. I’ve never met him and I’ve never had to tell someone the guards arrested their daughter and wife!”

“You can write him a script,” Isobela said. “Contrite, I think, with a dramatic recounting of their heroic attempt to escape.”

“You know I’ll forget it.”

“It will only be two people!”

“A hostile crowd is a hundred times worse than a large one,” the Maestro said. “You’re young, Andre, but you’re also a man grown. I won’t tell you what to do about it, though I suggest being respectful and regretful, but I can’t let them stay here. It would be different if the guards hadn’t already found half their party here. Now that they have it will be far harder for us to survive a second discovery without suspicion or worse falling on us. I can’t have that.”

Andre nodded, glum. He wasn’t surprised, although the plain fact of it still stung. “Then I’ll send them on their way if I see them.”

Mastroianni slapped his hands down on his thighs and said, “There are worse things to do, I suppose.”

His wife gave him a curious look. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“As I said, he made his own decision that created this problem,” the Maestro replied, pushing himself to his feet. “Now he must decide how to solve it.”

Ha crossed to Andre and gently but firmly pulled him to his feet. “I’ve searched for the right part for you for years, boy, but I have to admit I never thought you would choose to try improv.” The Maestro led him to the caravan’s door and paused there, studying Andre with a concerned look. “If you find it’s more than you can handle, that’s fine. Don’t do anything you’re not ready for. But if you are ready for it there’s no better time to try something new than right now. We don’t have another performance for a few days so you have some time and if you need something from the props or costumes make sure it’s back before the next show. Just let us know if you’ll be leaving camp. That’s all I ask.”

Their conversation done, Andre found himself crossing the camp with his thoughts awhirl. He wasn’t sure what had just happened. The Maestro clearly had some idea in mind, which annoyed Andre to no end both because Mastroianni hadn’t explained his idea and because he clearly expected Andre to do whatever it was regardless. It felt like he was just another actor for the Maestro to boss about on stage.

Ultimately there wasn’t much he could do about that either way in the middle of the night. So he slipped into his caravan, quietly made ready for bed and did his best to fall asleep. The results were mixed.

Andre didn’t remember the sun coming up the next morning so he assumed he must have fallen asleep at some point but from his overall exhaustion it couldn’t have been for more than a few hours. He dragged himself through the next day, mechanically going through the basic maintenance and cleaning tasks of a day without a show. He never saw sign of Belladonna. No strange man appeared and identified himself as Sophia’s father.

The next day he took Tullio and Gianni over to one of the city gates and they went busking, collecting a few coins from the people entering and exiting Fionni. Tullio played flute, like his mother taught him, while Gianni and Andre took turns tumbling. They did very well. By the time the sun was high overhead Andre had already emptied the coins from their collection basket twice. He was growing worried about the amount of money in their bag attracting attention. Finally, as things slowed to a crawl during lunch, he called for a stop and told the boys to run their takings back to the Maestro. Andre himself stayed by the gate, occasionally pulling a stunt or two for passersby.

With the sun directly overhead it was hot, tiring work and Andre eventually conjured a sheet a few poles to shelter under. He was in the process of sitting down on a convenient rock when he heard the coins in his basket jingle. Worried some urchin was trying to run off with them he spun around and snatched for the basket, scooping it off the ground with more effort than he’d expected.

A small but weighty bag sat in it, nestled among the loose coins. Andre looked up from his basket to find a short but remarkably wide man with absurdly curly hair studying him with keen eyes. He looked like the type of men Andre had seen in other troupes who specialized in lifting incredible weights or dealing with dangerous animals. His hands were scarred and calloused, the arms they were attached to as wide as Andre’s legs.

In contrast to his remarkable stature, the man was dressed in the most forgettable clothes imaginable. A long, reddish brown tunic. Dark brown hose and boots that rose to midcalf. Over it all a tanned leather apron with pockets below the waist and an unadorned cap.

The two of them stared at each other until Andre grew uncomfortable. “Signore del Rhodes, I presume?”

“And you are Andre the stagehand,” the man replied, crossing his arms across his chest. Andre briefly marvelled that they were long enough to reach. “I understand you did a kindness for my family and our guest. Don’t look around for her, please, she’s nearby and safe, which is as much as you need to know for the moment. You understand the power of a simple glance, don’t you?”

“Of course, signore.” Andre forced himself to casually put his basket back down and return to his seat on the rock. “Would you like a seat?”

A ghost of a smile appeared on the other man’s face. “No, thank you. I don’t get up as easily as I used to.” The amusement vanished. “Please, just call me Ragi for now. The Borgias know my name, though I doubt any of them have seen my face.”

“Of course.” Andre eyed the purse Ragi had thrown into his basket. “You’re a very generous man, signore.”

“Consider it gratitude, Andre. I know you took care of the girls a few days ago and I hope you can answer a question now.”

Andre looked down, suddenly interested in the rocks on the ground. “You hope I can tell you where two of the girls are now.”

Ragi nodded wordlessly.

“They came to me two days ago but the guards found them before I could do anything to help. I’m sorry.”

A soft, rumbling sound leaked from deep in Ragi’s chest, a mix of frustration and something Andre couldn’t quite place. “I worried as much when they didn’t come to our meeting place this morning. I take it they were found as soon as they arrived.”

“The same night, though they were there for a bit.”

“Then I know where they are at this point,” Ragi said, spinning on one heel and starting towards the city. “Thank you, Andre.”

“Wait, signore.” Andre reached into the basket, scooped up the weighty purse and held it out towards the other man. “I haven’t earned this.”

“There you’re wrong, signore. A few moment’s kindness may not seem like much but in Nerona these days it’s far rarer than gold.”

Andre stared at the money in his hand, confused. The Maestro had made it sound like this was going to be a difficult conversation but so far, other than the lingering sense that he’d somehow let Sophia and her mother down, it had felt quite natural. Of course, Mastroianni had been wrong before and would likely be wrong again, as all men were from time to time. But a nagging intuition told Andre the Maestro wasn’t wrong this time.

“What will you do now, signore?”

“We must meet our ship,” Ragi said with a resigned shrug. “Then I must find my family.”

Andre took note of the change from ‘we’ to ‘I’ and drew the obvious conclusion. “A notion, signore.” He gestured for Ragi to join him under his shelter again so they wouldn’t have to speak quite so loudly to be heard. Once the other man did so he continued, “It will be difficult for your guest to pass the gate guards. They most likely have a sketch of her and they will examine every merchant’s daughter they see with extra care.”

“We will manage.”

“I’m sure you could,” Andre said with a placating gesture. “But even if you pass once, you and your family must pass through again, for it doesn’t sound like there will be a ship for you to leave on. So you will have to pass the gates twice.”

Something about Ragi’s expression told Andre the other man disagreed with that assessment but rather than bring it up he just asked, “What do you have in mind?”

Andre hefted the bag of coins and said, “What do you think of commissioning a private production, signore?”

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Five

Posted by natechen on July 4, 2026

Previous Chapter

In point of fact, rather than overstaying its welcome the show felt like it flew by. Andre struggled to stay focused on the stage due to a constant need to count the guardsmen on the edge of the crowd and ensure they were all still there. Yet the constant back and forth kept him so wound up he barely noticed the time passing.

The distraction was not all upside. He nearly missed three major set changes and fumbled so badly during the dragon sequence Isobela singed his hair. By the end of the show he could tell the Maestro and his wife were not happy with him. At least he had a brief respite from their disapproval as they went out into the crowd afterwards.

Andre turned his full attention towards striking the set. With the sun fully set the stagehands struggled to get everything put away, scattering more blacklights than normal and still struggling to move the delicate scenery and props in the dark of night. After nearly an hour of tripping over half seen hillocks and invisible roots the work was done. He sent Tullio and Gianni to collect the lanterns, keeping one for himself, then went to find the Maestro.

Normally he would still be milling through the audience, basking in their attention and receiving any contributions they offered. That night there was no audience left. Between the late starting time and the difficulty in striking the set they hadn’t finished until long after the audience departed.

Well, most of the audience. Andre couldn’t help but note that the three guardsmen who accompanied the grim faced man were still loitering around the stage when he policed it. That told him their leader was still around somewhere as well. He flipped the shutter of his lantern full open and made his way towards the Maestro’s caravan, vigilant for signs of Mastroianni or the guardsman.

He heard them first.

“…though I am glad something good came out of it, Maestro,” the guardsman was saying. “What brought you to Oliviamonde, if I may ask? It wasn’t the kind of place to attract actors even before the siege, did you have another profession at the time?”

Andre froze and flipped the blacklight’s shutters closed, hesitating by the corner of the lumber wagon. He couldn’t see the other two men yet but the soft glow of a lantern was visible over top of the vehicle. The Maestro’s voice was quiet but carried enough to make out. “As you must have guessed, Captain Phillipe, I was a condottiere.”

“With the Blacklegs, then?”

A soft chuckle, followed by the sound of Mastroianni slapping his stomach. “Hard as it may be to believe now, yes. And you? Fionni is a long way from the mountains and I don’t recall any flags from the counties here abouts flying in the camps either. Did you march there with one of the other hireling companies?”

“No. Like the boy I was born there, though I did not see the siege myself. By then I was a bravo, guarding caravans to earn my keep, but when I heard the citadel was fallen I hurried back to see what there was to see.”

“Ah.” The Maestro’s voice turned melancholy. “Then you must have been disappointed.”

“The town had been sacked before,” the captain replied, his voice thickening a bit. “I’m sure I’ll live to see it sacked again. But it wasn’t a warm homecoming.”

The conversation was beginning to fade into the distance and Andre knew he’d need to move to keep up with it. A quick glance around the corner of the wagon told him they were headed towards the Maestro’s caravan, which wasn’t a surprise, but there was no way to follow them in inconspicuous fashion. He’d have to go another way.

Easy enough to do, the encampment’s layout was as familiar to him as the back of his own hand and the two men were moving at a leisurely pace. So Andre looped the lantern through his belt and took off at a run. The lumber wagon was near the edge of the camp so he doubled back and went along the outside of it, then darted from there to the musician’s caravan. He heard Tullio’s mother murmuring inside but ignored it. He slunk along the side and peeked past the corner to see the light of the Maestro’s lantern but not the man himself.

Another quick lunge put him behind the props caravan, a few seconds later he was behind the costume caravan. He paused to knock softly, hopefully on the wagon’s side. He hadn’t bothered to set up some kind of signal with Sophia and her mother but perhaps they would answer him. If they were still inside.

But there was no answer.

So he moved on, crouching behind the last wagon in line, across from the Maestro’s caravan. He could still hear the two men speaking, although he had missed part of the conversation as he scrambled through the damp grass outside the troupe’s encampment. “…glad you could come, although I’m afraid I can’t really help you,” the Maestro was saying. “People come to the theater to lose themselves.”

“Doesn’t that make you the natural person to help me find them again?”

“It’s a breach of trust, Captain. They come to us to be no one for a while, they come to us and make us someone. If we don’t honor that exchange we betray them and then, what are we? Nothing but impoverished itinerates living on the charity of others, good for nothing and despised by all.”

“The woman is in great danger, signore, and leaving her there is no favor to her.”

“You said she was in the company of friends.”

“I fear the danger may be greater than they are prepared for.”

“Captain Phillipe.” The Maestro’s voice shifted subtly. It became slightly less deep, more rough as the polish of his public persona lapsed just a bit and his true face showed through. “I recognize that instinct, and it’s a noble one. You see people who have abandoned civilization and taken to the wild roads and think you owe them something. Safety. A hand up. A shelter from the sun and rain. However, the world is more than these simple things. Stories teach us that if a person leaves them behind it must be for a reason. If this young woman you speak of left her family and home behind it must have been with purpose in mind. Who am I to judge her reasons? I cannot say whether the danger she faces or the purpose she pursues is more worthy of consideration. I can only tell you this.”

Andre crept along the side of the wagon and peeked out, wondering what Mastroianni was about to say. What he saw made him freeze before he got a chance to look at the two men.

The Maestro continued speaking. “If I find the woman in danger I will not hesitate to bring you to her. Otherwise, it is not my place to interfere.”

“I suppose I can’t ask for more than that.” A sloshing sound came from their direction. “Are you still interested in that drink?”

The Maestro laughed. “Am I still an actor? Come, my caravan is just down here, the one with the awning.”

Andre scrambled back behind the wagon. “Awning?” Phillipe asked. “What awning?”

It was an understandable question because the red awning on Mastroianni’s caravan was gone, most likely removed by Sophia at some point. What Andre couldn’t understand was why she would do so. Perhaps they’d chosen not to wait for the Maestro to come and taken it as a blanket to sleep under?

“That’s odd.” The Maestro sounded just as confused as Andre was. “Perhaps it blew down?”

“It hasn’t been windy,” the captain replied, his voice growing nearer at an alarming speed, his footsteps in the dew soaked grass creating a sinister hissing sound. “There may be a thief in your camp, Maestro.”

A sharp whistle split the night. A moment later, three answering whistles in the distance.

“Why would someone steal my awning?” Mastroianni asked, clearly skeptical of the captain’s diagnosis.

“It would be an excellent way to carry your money box without attracting attention, for one thing.” The captain’s voice turned thoughtful. “Or perhaps they have other uses for it.”

Andre got down on his hands and knees, then laid flat and peered under the wagon. It didn’t give him a very good view of what was happening but he could make out the broad strokes. The captain was walking back and forth, looking around the Maestro’s caravan, while the Maestro approached the door with his key in hand. “I don’t think so, Captain. The lock is still here and latched but we’ll check inside just to be sure.”

“Wise of you.” Instead of just waiting by the door for the Maestro to return, Captain Phillipe walked to one of the poles that had supported the awning and wiggled it experimentally. Then he set a clay bottle down in the grass, grabbed the pole with both hands and pulled, yanking it up out of the ground. He swept it back and forth through the air a few times and grunted once.

“Find something?” Mastroianni asked from somewhere inside.

“Not yet.”

To Andre’s horror the guardsman proceeded to kneel down until they were almost at eye level with one another. He only avoided detection because the guardsman was looking the other way, under the Maestro’s caravan. The captain extended the pole he was holding underneath the vehicle at ground level and suddenly snapped it upwards, hitting the underside of the floorboards with a sharp wooden crack.

“What was that?” The vehicle rattled as Mastroianni pounded towards the door.

Phillipe didn’t answer, instead rotating the pole forty five degrees and repeating his previous maneuver. This time the pole made a dull thud and a woman’s voice let out a muffled yelp. With a flash of motion a red bundle yanked itself out from under the caravan, pulled by a rope tied to the hitching tongue. The cloth unfolded and gently deposited Sophia and her mother on the ground, the latter rubbing her side ruefully, then spun around and enveloped the captain just as quickly.

Although he didn’t look surprised at the awning’s sudden appearance, Phillipe made no effort to dodge the fabric. He got to his feet before the cloth wound around him, the pole still in his hands, but that was all he had time for. Andre scrambled up and around the wagon. By the time he got past the end of it and ran towards the scene of the encounter, as if he’d come because of the noise, the three guardsmen he’d seen earlier were less than twenty feet away in the other direction, coming at a dead run.

Captain Phillipe had somehow unwrapped himself from the awning and was in the process of rewrapping it around the pole to keep it in place. From the way it bucked and jerked it was obvious Sophia was trying to keep him from doing so. She just couldn’t and the frustration on her face was obvious. Her mother was watching the guards approach with a resigned expression and when she put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder the cloth went still in the captain’s hands.

The Maestro stood in the caravan’s doorway, his lantern held aloft, studying the scene. “What’s going on here?”

“Maestro -”

“Not now, Andre.”

The captain gave him a look, as if waiting to see whether Andre would listen to Mastroianni or not. But once it was clear he had the floor, Phillipe said, “I think I’ve found your thieves, Maestro.”

After giving the two women a cursory once over the Maestro shrugged and said, “I suppose you have.”

Sophia opened her mouth to speak but closed it again when her mother squeezed her shoulder. Then the older woman said, “My name is Charissa de la Rhodes and I am no thief.”

“I am Captain Phillipe Borgia and I am not qualified to say whether you are or are not a thief. You will have to make your plea to the Magistrate.” He set the pole against the side of the caravan, leaned down, picked up his bottle and handed it to the Maestro. “Unfortunately, my duties prevent me from sharing that drink with you now, signore, but I hope you will enjoy it none the less.”

Mastroianni took the bottle, his face expressionless. “Of course.”

With a gesture from their captain the guards surrounded the two women and led them away. Andre tried to glean some meaningful look or gesture from them, letting him know that they still had some plan to slip away but no such fleeting contact came. As they vanished into the night and his spirits slumped the Maestro put a hand on his shoulder. “Now, Andre, perhaps you will tell me what is really going on here.”

“What makes you think I know what’s going on?”

The older man grabbed the front of Andre’s tunic and held it up, covered in dew and blades of grass. “This, among other things. Is it only coincidence that you were rolling around on the ground at the same time two women were hiding in a makeshift hammock under my caravan?”

“No, Maestro.”

“Then I suppose you have a story to tell me.”

So tell it Andre did.

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Four

Posted by natechen on June 27, 2026

Previous Chapter

“Gianni, look at this,” Andre shouted, shaking his hammer at the stake by his feet.

The boy plodded around the growing stage, his shoulders slumped and his eyes rolling up towards the sky, clearly exasperated. “What is it now?”

“You barely drove this into the ground at all! Look at it.” The stake had fallen over on the ground, a spattering of dirt covering its bottom few inches. “Are you trying to break your mother’s neck?”

Heaving a sigh in the way only a twelve year old could, Gianni knelt down and grabbed the piece of wood, hefting it into place and shoving it back into the divot in the ground where it had been. Andre held it in place as the boy slammed his wooden mallet on it a few times. Once he was done Andre grabbed his shoulder to prevent his running off. “Now climb up on it.”

The stakes didn’t shake underfoot as Gianni dashed up them, not wavering even when he vaulted off the highest into a somersault. He was lighter than Isobela or Antonio but Andre was satisfied that this time they were deep enough in the ground to be safe for use. He nodded and said, “That’s good. Get back to what you were doing.”

As Andre went back to hammering the frame of the stage itself into shape Guiseppe met his eye, grinning. “You’re stricter with him than his own parents.”

“Someone has to be, or an oaf like you is likely to trip on the way up and knock his teeth out on the stage.”

Guiseppe laughed and started lifting planks up on top of the frame. Once everything was in place he headed off to get dressed for the evening’s show, leaving Andre to tie down the boards. It gave him a few minutes to look around at the growing crowd. The guards hadn’t shown up yet, which was some relief, and he hoped to catch sight of Sophia and Belladonna before the grim-faced captain and his men did.

However, he had no such luck. There was no sign of either group by the time the stage was finished and he was starting to run the set pieces up onto it. Although it wasn’t heavy, the scenery demanded much more of his attention to handle without damaging it and he had to stop searching the crowd. Gianni and Tullio, Antonio’s son, worked together to pass the pieces up onto the stage where Andre arranged them and lashed them to their braces.

It was difficult, sweaty work but they managed to knock it all out in half an hour. Andre took a moment to stretch once they were done, pleased with the work. Or at least that it was done. A glance to the horizon told him there was still an hour or so until the sun set, which meant they had plenty of time.

Normally, the Maestro’s version of Ulysses wanted to begin about this time. The waning sunlight made the transition from the story’s optimistic beginning to the threatening middle acts more dramatic, or so Mastraionni claimed. However, here the terrain and orientation of the stage made that unwise. The backdrop was almost full west and audiences generally dislike having the sun in their eyes. So the decision was made to push the starting time back until after dusk, which would be a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, they had more time to attract an audience with music and acrobatics. On the other hand, travellers rarely stayed away from their possessions for very long after dark and, since Fionni was a walled city, that was about all the audience they could expect. Residents would be back inside the walls by the time they started.

Andre finished his stretching and dashed to the edge of the stage, diving hands first onto the step stakes and somersaulting off them onto the ground in a cartwheel. A smattering of applause came from the crowd but he ignored it. A couple of hand springs and he was far enough back to slip behind the scenery and dash off to check the props. Tullio nudged him as they unpacked the dragon. “You should have taken a bow, Andre, they like you.”

“They like seeing people jump around,” he replied, nudging the younger boy back. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Do people have to like you before you can take a bow?” Gianni asked, loading his arms up with half a dozen wooden swords.

“I don’t know,” Andre admitted. “I’ve never felt like taking one before.”

“You really are a strange one,” Tullio said. “I can’t wait until the Maestro lets me do more than carry props and play the flute.”

“No surprise there,” Andre said, brushing a stray puppet string off of his arm as he carefully extracted the dragon wings from storage. “You’ve been begging for attention since the day you were born.”

“How would you know?” The boy asked, feigning indignation. “You were only three then!”

“I’ve got an exceptional memory,” Andre said, grinning toothily.

“Then how come you couldn’t recite the opening narration when papi asked you?” Gianni asked.

“It gets worse for every person looking at me.” Andre passed one of the wings to Tullio and wrestled with the other, batting at strings that seemed to constantly wind up wrapped around a hand or arm in the least convenient fashion. Annoyed, he gave Gianni, who was standing right behind them, the stink eye. “We can’t get this out of here with you right there. Get a move on and get those things by the stage, we’ll be right behind you.”

Gianni rolled his eyes in the way only children of his age could but he did get out of the way. Tullio was right behind him. Finally free of the clinging strings Andre made to follow them, only to stop short when the threads slunk off towards the back of the caravan like shy, skinny little caterpillars.

He frowned.

“Tullio, did you lock the costume caravan next door?” Andre said when he rallied and caught up with the boy.

“Not yet. I wasn’t sure if everyone was done changing and setting their things. Do you want me to check?”

“No.” Andre tried to speak a little louder than was necessary without sounding strange. “I’ll come back and check on it in a minute.”

He finished setting the props in record time then sent the younger two boys out to work the crowd. Hopefully that would distract the guards and anyone else looking from what was happening behind the stage, too. That done, he estimated he had about half an hour before he needed to be back for the beginning of the show. Keeping his head low, Andre slipped back into the troupe’s collection of wagons and caravans, headed for the one that held their costumes.

Like Tullio had said, the caravan was unlocked. After a quick glance around Andre climbed the stairs to the door and cracked it open. Small shutters on the roof of the caravan were propped open, filling the inside with dim but serviceable light.

He didn’t see anyone, which wasn’t surprising. By this point in the evening the whole cast should have already retrieved their garments and placed them in the small canvas changing tents by the back of the stage. However, even if there had been someone standing in the middle of the wagon it would have taken a moment to pick them out. Dozens of costumes hung from long rods on either side of the vehicle. Tunics, dresses, breeches and pantaloons of all colors and sizes, a riot of colors and shapes with only a few inches of space forming an aisle between them, more clothes than the average Neronan would wear in a lifetime.

There were also sixteen pairs of shoes and boots on the floor, which was one too many.

Closing the door behind him, Andre slipped down the narrow aisle between the racks until he reached the unfamiliar pair. Sophia looked up at him from between a velvet dress and a knight’s tabard.

“I thought you sent me here because this was a good hiding spot,” she whispered.

He matched her tone, saying, “It is. So long as no one from the troupe is looking for you. Why did you come here? The guards have been everywhere looking for Belladonna and they have a drawing of her from somewhere. Half that crowd knows what she looks like!”

“I know that now but we didn’t see the drawings until half an hour ago.”

“What happened?”

Sophia packed a great deal of confusion and defeat into a single shrug. “A pair of guards found our camp and recognized her, what else? We split up. My father and Belladonna went one way, my mother and I came here.”

Confused, Andre glanced down the two or three feet to the caravan’s back wall, as if he could have somehow missed a person standing there. “Your mother?”

The tabard Sophia was standing beside convulsed and a woman’s head popped up through the collar. “Her mother.”

Andre jerked back and hit his head on the hanging rod on the other side of the aisle. Sophia snickered. He gave her a glare while rubbing the back of his head then said, “Don’t do that again.”

“So long as you remain courteous to my daughter I don’t think I will need to,” the woman replied. “Now. What are your intentions, Andre?”

“Mother!” Sophia looked aghast.

“Quiet.” Although the woman had the same cheery face as her daughter it was, for the moment, molded into something quite hard and determined. “From what they told me you helped Sophia and Bella avoid the guards once. Now you nudge us here when Sophia gets your attention. Why?”

For a brief second Andre considered lying but decided against it. “I don’t like guardsmen very much, signora.”

A flicker of confusion broke through her hardened visage. “You have issues with Citadel Fionni?”

“No. All guardsmen.”

“You can’t have visited every city in Nerona.”

“Give me a few years. An acting troupe travels a lot.”

The womenfolk exchanged an inscrutable look, some kind of message passing between them, then the lady said, “How far will this dislike take you?”

Andre bit his lip as he thought. “It’s not my troupe, signora, and while the Maestro isn’t one to turn away someone in need I’m not sure he’ll take you for such a person, either.”

“Oh?” Sophia gave him an impish look. “How can you be so sure we’re not ruffians then, Andre?”

“Ruffians do not mend clothes in exchange for help with laundry.”
“We could be very clean ruffians.”

“Those are called lords and ladies.”

The woman cleared her throat meaningfully, cutting off the exchange. “We are waiting for a ship to come into port tomorrow, the day after at latest. If you can help us stay out of sight until then we’d be grateful, if not, we understand.”

Andre sighed. The play began in twenty minutes, maybe less. There was no time to find the Maestro and explain the situation until after it was over so he would have to make a call, at least for the moment. “You can’t hide in this caravan very long. In two or three hours they’ll be bringing their costumes back after the show. The Maestro’s caravan has the red awning. Wait there and I’ll try to get him back to it as soon as I can so we can explain the situation. Unless you’d rather not take your chances with him. In that case, you can just leave. But there’s no way I can hide you here overnight without the troupe cooperating.”

“And they won’t unless the Maestro agrees to it?” She asked.

“As you say.”

“We’ll talk it over,” Sophia said.

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to get backstage before I’m missed.”

By the time he left the costume caravan the troupe’s campsite was deserted. Everyone else was already at the stage, making last minute preparations, so Andre made no play at nonchalance and just ran for the stage at top speed. He arrived with a good ten minutes to spare.

“About time you showed up,” Tullio said as he got into position. “The Maestro was wondering where you were.”

“Something wrong?” Andre asked after catching his breath.

Tullio pointed around the right side of the stage saying, “That’s up to you.”

So Andre looked in that direction. The hard faced guardsman looked back at him, surrounded by three other men. “Wonderful,” Andre muttered. “Nothing wrong. Everything is wonderful.”

It was going to be a long show.

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Three

Posted by natechen on June 20, 2026

Previous Chapter

Andre picked up his pace, ignoring the soft, distressed noise that Bella made, and briskly rolled his cart down the path towards the guards. The two men weren’t paying him much attention, far more interested in the stack of papers they were carrying. That suited Andre just fine. It wasn’t their attention he was interested in.

Yet he did have to clear his throat, breathing deeply through his nose as he tried to warm up his voice without making a lot of noise. It was a difficult task but one he felt he accomplished well enough. At the same time he conjured a tin bowl on top of the costumes in the cart. Once he was about twenty feet away from the guardsmen he opened his lips a few inches, holding them perfectly still and speaking into the bowl using his best impression of the Maestro’s commanding voice. “Hey there, lads, come and have a look at this!”

His voice hit the tin bowl and echoed off it, ringing and distorting as it echoed over the open ground. As soon as he was done speaking he let the bowl vanish and fixed his eyes on a man in the distance, close to the city walls, who was waving flies away from his face. The guards naturally looked around to try and find who had spoken to them. When they saw Andre paying no attention to them they naturally looked to see what had him so interested.

What they saw looked an awful lot like a man waving to get their attention, so off they went. Andre slowed to a stop and waited for the girls to catch up. When they did, Sophia was giggling under her breath, saying, “How did you do that?”

“That,” Andre said, “is stage magic. I can’t tell you how it’s done, the Maestro would have my hide.”

“You just said you weren’t cut out for the stage,” Bella objected. “You look like you can manage it just fine to me.”

“We’re not on stage.”

“Does that make a difference?” Sophia asked, nudging him towards a path on the left as they started moving again.

“A lot.”

“What’s wrong with actors?” Bella asked. “You’re a stagehand, shouldn’t you like them?”

“Spoken like someone who’s never met an actor in person.”

“I’ve met a few. Why don’t you like them?”

“I never said I didn’t, although they can be a bit much sometimes.”

“That’s our wagon, over there,” Sophia said, pointing to a sturdy, canvas covered cart with a tent beside it a few hundred feet away. “The problem’s the stage, right?”

“Essentially. My real issue is that the stage isn’t real.”

Bella stopped and gave him an incredulous look. “What is that supposed to mean? Everyone knows that plays aren’t real, that’s not the point of them.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He also came to a stop and thought for a moment. Then he reached down into the pile of costumes and rummaged around until he pulled out two coifs. One was made of knitted gray yarn. The other, shimmering steel links. He held both pieces of headgear up for the women to study. “Tell me, which one of these is real?”

Sophia immediately pointed at the metal coif. “That one, obviously.”

“You think so?” Andre tossed the conjured piece of chainmail towards the cart and let it dissolve to nothing along the way. Then he set the knit coif down on top of the other costumes. “How about now?”

“No surprise there,” Bella said, clearly unimpressed. “Why would a theater troupe spend so much on a real piece of armor when a facsimile will do? It was obviously a trick, just like acting is obviously not real.”

“No,” Andre said, “the obvious thing was bait. The trick comes once you take it.” He snapped his fingers and the conjured yarn also vanished back to whence it came and he started towards the campsite again. “That’s the thing about the stage. Everyone knows the actors are playing parts so they miss that the stories themselves aren’t real.”

The two girls exchanged a confused look then started after him. Sophia wrinkled her nose and said, “Okay, Andre, that feels meaningful but I’m not really getting what the meaning is.”

“In the story of Ulysses he slays a dragon, marries the princess of Lome and eventually inherits the throne.” Andre arched an eyebrow. “How many people do you know that are given a hero’s welcome after slaying a dragon?”

“But that’s because the dragon’s closest relative comes for revenge…” The younger girl trailed off as his point became clear.

Andre nodded at her, absently scratching at the side of his neck. “No one wants a dragon around, plundering their cities, devouring the livestock and sometimes even eating the people. They tell stories about how great it is to get rid of them. But anyone who actually goes out and slays the beast is treated as worse than a dragon themselves. They’re something that brings dragons. So they get thrown outside the walls – assuming they aren’t chained to them and left there as a peace offering to the vengeful wyrm who comes looking for them. That’s because the story isn’t real.”

To his surprise, Bella nodded along looking regretful. “Many stories smooth over the worst parts of the tale and praise the best parts until they’re unrecognizable. I never liked Ulysses and the Dragon for just that reason.” Her eyes flicked up at his hand then away, chagrined. “What dragon did you challenge, Andre?”

He whipped his hand away from his neck, flushing red. “None. The only dragon I’ve ever seen is a puppet.”

“I suppose that’s enough to tell you what’s fake about the story. Can you tell what’s true?”

“I didn’t say fake, just not real. Besides.” He drew himself up in mimicry of Bella’s formal posture and measured walk, so out of place among the people camped around Fionni’s outskirts. “Do you think everything playing pretend wants the truth about it spoken?”

“No, Andre,” Sophia said, her voice barely a whisper. “I don’t suppose they do.”

An awkward silence fell over them for the last few minutes it took to reach their campsite. As they approached the wagon a woman bustled out of the tent, wiping her hands on her apron. She looked almost identical to Sophia, save for a few gray hairs her daughter lacked. “There you are!” She exclaimed, giving each girl a peck on the cheek then grabbing Andre by his elbows and looking him over. “And you! You’re the one helping some poor girls clean up. Bless you! Will you stay for a moment? I’m sure we -”

“No signora, I have to get back to my people before I’m missed. We have a tight schedule to keep, I’m afraid.”

Her look of genuine disappointment caused him a pang of guilt. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, mother,” Sophia said, gently putting a hand on the woman’s arm. “Andre’s troupe is staging a play this evening and I’m sure there’s a lot he has to do before that.”

Her mother was no fool and clearly understood there was more to it than that but she didn’t press the issue. “Very well, then. Perhaps we’ll stop by to see the show.”

“Let me know if you want to meet the Maestro afterwards,” Andre said. “I’m sure I can arrange it. If you don’t see me just look for one of the other stage hands and ask them to find me. We’re the ones in brown.”

It took a good twenty minutes to work his way back around the outside of the city to where he’d left the troupe. The roads were filling with people as midday approached. He also spotted more and more of the city guards moving about, asking questions and occasionally running a person to the ground. Andre also noticed more than one of them showing a piece of parchment to those they were talking to.

Very strange behavior. It was almost strange enough to take his mind off the two strange girls he’d met. Almost.

When he wasn’t avoiding eye contact with the guards or maneuvering his cart around other people on the road he wondered why Sophia had come down to the ocean that day. She couldn’t have known she’d meet someone doing laundry there. Was she just looking for the ship she said her family was waiting for? Or perhaps she wanted to get her cousin away from the guards milling about the walls that morning. A beautiful but unmarried woman couldn’t be too careful, after all, and more than one guard had taken advantage of such women before.

With such wonderful thoughts rattling around his head he finally arrived back at the caravan. Almost at once he heard Isobela’s voice rising over the general bustle. “Andre!” She called. “There you are, come here at once!”

Confused, his head swiveled about until he spotted her by the caravan she shared with the Maestro, waving for his attention. He hefted the cart’s handles a bit higher and started in her direction at a jog. “Never mind that.” Annoyed, she mimed setting something down. “Leave it and come over here!”

A towering man in a feathered hat stepped around the side of the caravan. He was dressed in the now familiar colors of a Fionni guardsman, although his coat and hat were of a much better quality than any Andre had seen so far. The man had a hard, weathered face that looked permanently annoyed. “No need to hurry him, signora,” he said. He glanced from her to Andre and back again. “This is your other son?”

“No, signore,” Andre said, setting the cart down as he drew near. “Though the Maestro and his family have cared for me well since taking me in.”

“Andre…” Isobela gave him a disapproving look.

The guard nodded his understanding and he produced a thin plank of wood with a stack of parchment atop it in one hand and a stick of charcoal in the other. “Your name’s Andre then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Age?”

“About sixteen, sir.”

“Place of birth?”

“Olivamonde, sir.”

He paused in his writing and looked up. Andre whipped his hand away from his neck, annoyed that he’d been caught scratching twice in just an hour. An arm wrapped gently around his and Isobela leaned against his side, keeping him from reaching up there a third time. The guardsman pursed his lips, clearly curious, but didn’t comment on it.

Instead he finished writing whatever he was writing and said, “You and your husband did a good thing, signora. You’re a very lucky man, Andre.”

“As you say, sir.”

“Did you go anywhere in particular this morning?”

“Just down to the gulf beaches, sir.”

“That’s not the direction you came from.”

There was no reason not to tell him that he’d walked a couple of girls back to their campsite along the way. Except for the fact that he didn’t want to. “On the way back I bought some thread, sir. Some of our costumes need mending.”

The guardsman just grunted and put his charcoal stick away. “Did you meet anyone along the way?”

“I saw a lot of people, sir. It feels like half of Nerona is on their way to Fionni today.”

“That’s true most days.” He plucked a parchment off the bottom of his stack and held it out for Andre to look at. “Let me be more specific. Did you meet this person?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, if you do let a guardsman know. Thank you for being so cooperative, signora, I look forward to your show tonight. I’ve always enjoyed Ulysses and the Dragon.” The guard turned and walked out of the troupe’s camp at a measured pace, a few other guardsmen falling in behind him as he went.

Andre watched him go, wondering what it was all about. The charcoal sketch on the parchment he’d seen wasn’t great art, in fact it was badly smudged in places, but it was still perfectly recognizable as Bella. He couldn’t begin to guess why they were looking for her, though.

Whatever the reason, he found himself hoping Sophia and her cousin didn’t come to that night’s show after all.

The Drownway Epilogue – Rumors in Renicie

Posted by natechen on August 23, 2025

Previous Chapter

“I’m very glad to see you here, Signore Teodoro,” Grigori said, his smile warm and broad. “The trip across the Drownway must have been very trying for you but I hope my men made it as easy as possible.”

“I regret that they didn’t, Signore Borgia.” Teodoro sat on the chair in Grigori’s chambers with enough force that it seemed it would break. The bulky man paid it no mind. “I regret that I have not had the pleasure of hearing from you since our last correspondence a month ago. I am sure a man of your means has already learned the outcome of that.”

“Indeed?” It wasn’t surprising to him but disappointing none the less. Grigori studied the gray layers of Teodoro’s clothing, noting that he did seem unusually moist and bedraggled, even for someone who had gone through Nerona’s dampest passage. “Perhaps the unnatural waves that lashed the islands three days ago were the cause. By all reports they were quite violent.”

“That much I can confirm myself,” the other man replied, leaning back in the chair and staring into the distance. “I never felt as close to death as I did when I saw the water coming. It seemed like the whole Adriatic Ocean had come for my life, as if there were some score it had to settle with me.”

“Yet here you are.” Grigori settled into his own chair in a more restrained fashion. “Shall I send for something to refresh you? Or would you prefer rest?”

“I haven’t the time for either, I’m afraid, not if I wish to remain a free man.” He gestured weakly towards the outside world, presumably referring to whatever forces still sought to imprison him. “The successor to the Prince of Torrence may still be an open question right now but such matters rarely go unresolved for long. Whoever rules from the citadel next will eventually have to turn their attention to affairs of state. The murder of a Conde by one of his brothers will not be low on the list and I intend to be far from here by then.”

Grigori winced to hear such an important matter put so tastelessly. “Wise of you, Signore. I will not detain you then. Find Evincio in the stables, tell him you require the chestnut stallion and he will see you well mounted.” He motioned to Gunter and the Eisenkinder brought him a bag, small in size but heavy in the hand, which Grigori passed on to Teodoro. “This will see you well on your way.”

He weighed the bag for a moment, clearly debating whether he should examine the contents, then nodded and secured the bag in his belt. “Thank you, Signore. You have always been very kind to me. I hope we will meet again.”

“As do I, Teodoro. As do I.”

Gunter kept himself from scornful noise until after the door closed and their guest was gone. “What a nearsighted fool.”

Grigori sighed and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and massaging at a sore spot in his stomach where a shallow cut was still healing. “Teodoro was a loyal man. Perfect for his role in every respect, save for his lack of imagination, and a very valuable weapon in the courts of Torrence. If he could have inherited his brother’s title it would have benefited us greatly. Pity he never made it across the Drownway.”

“If you say it then it must be so, Papa Borgia. Will Evincio need my help in the stables today, do you think?”

“No, no, Gunter, you always sell him short. Leave him alone and he will surprise you.” Gunter chuckled but knew better than to comment on his master’s joke. “Besides, I need you to go into the square today and start making inquiries among the bravos again. Our quiver is out of arrows and at the worst possible time, when Torrence is in chaos and ripe for the picking!”

“What about the Blacklegs? They are still here, aren’t they?”

Grigori cracked one eye open to glare annoyance at the Isenkinder. “I don’t need a whole company of condottieri to shield my investments, Gunter, I need a few arrows I can loose into the squealing runts of the herd. Besides, I have heard a dragon was spotted along the Drownway recently. The Prince will likely buy up all the large bodies of troops to mount an expedition against it and I have no desire to bid against him. What about those Hextons you know?”

Gunter scratched at his pale beard. “The Herakleans took a contract headed north a few days ago. I believe they were headed to Lome and from there to Fionni as caravan escorts. At wagon speeds it will be a month before we can expect to hear from them even if they were a good fit for the job you have in mind.”

“I haven’t told you what I want them for yet.”

“I’ve arranged hundreds of tasks for you over the years, Papa, and I can only think of three or four I would trust them with. They’re Hextons. Their conscience dictates far more of their behavior than is wise.”

“I see.” Grigori closed his eye again and considered his options. Three of his men lost waiting to ambush Teodoro on the Drownway, many of his others tied up dealing with business in Lome. He had not had as much need for bravos since he brought Gunter into the family and his connections among them were not as strong as they had once been. He ran down that list of names, quietly eliminating them one at a time, until he arrived at an unenviable conclusion. Grigori sat up and opened his eyes to the grayness of the world to find Gunter quietly watching him. “You know what that leaves us with, don’t you?”

“We wait a month to see what new options appear before us?”

“Fortune favors the bold, not the passive. Someone will succeed to the throne of Torrence and I will have a blade at his belly or my name is not Grigori Borgia! Now, bring me the Blind Man.”

Gunter let out a breath that might have been a sigh. “Very well.” He crossed to the chamber’s exit, opened the door and summoned a page, telling him, “There is a Blind Man enjoying the master’s hospitality in the kitchen. Fetch him here.”

There was a bottle of wine sitting on the sideboard and Grigori helped himself to a generous serving. “He was here already?”

“I was on my way to report it to you when you summoned me on account of Signore Teodoro. It didn’t seem wise to mention it while he wasn’t here.”

“Your discretion is praiseworthy. It can be difficult to know how to deal with things when I am not entertaining guests. Your own position became available because your predecessor couldn’t parse such delicate matters.” Grigori drained his cup and waited for the bracing warmth of the wine to hit him. He was going to need it.

The servants in his household were nothing if not swift and less than three minutes after Gunter sent him the page returned, knocking on the door and announcing, “The Blind Man requests an audience with Signore Borgia.”

Grigori fixed his eyes on the door and said, “Enter.”

The page stepped into the room, holding the door open for a man dressed in a simple gray tunic and hose with a gray cloth wrapped around his eyes. He held a rough wooden staff that came up to his leather belt. The man’s hair was dark, bordering on black, but streaked with silver. In a few years Grigori suspected the situation would be much the opposite, with gray the dominant color and the black fading into obscurity. In spite of his incredible plainness the newcomer had an unsettling air to him.

Grigori marshalled his full faculties, doing his best to attend to every small change he observed, but he still found no indication of when the Blind Man began seeing through his eyes. Perhaps he was using Gunter’s or the page’s instead. Grigori raised his wine cup in salute.

“Papa Borgia,” the Blind Man said, bowing deeply from the waist. “I hope I find you well on this blessed morning?”

“Well enough.” Grigori motioned the page into the room. “Pour my guest something to drink, boy.”

“I am content, Signore,” the Blind Man said, a thin smile on his lips. “If you enjoy your wine that is more than enough for me.”

Grigori ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth, wondering if his guest was picking up on that sensation as well. Then he waved the page out of the room and made eye contact with Gunter. The Isenkinder nodded. “I should see if Evincio ran into any surprises. Excuse me, Papa.”

Once they were alone Grigori turned his attention fully to his guest. “Well, Fabian. Here we are again.”

“You don’t seem very happy about it, Papa Borgia,” the Blind Man said. “Have I done something to displease you?”

“I can’t help but recall that every time you come to me it seems like I get swindled out of something.”

“I? Swindle the Prince of Plunder?” His expression turned to one of mock horror. “How could I? Who can cross you and live to make the mistake a second time?”

“Perhaps I should give you your eyes back after all.”

The Blind Man’s expression lost all hint of mirth as he said, “You would value them more if you could see as clearly as they did.”

“The color of a thing has little to do with its value. My eyes work well enough, as you can tell for yourself. If you don’t enjoy seeing the world as I do then you shouldn’t have paid your debts as you did. Or you could just visit less.”

“Have you heard the latest news from the Drownway, Papa Borgia? And I don’t mean Teodoro. Clearly you have already learned about that or Evincio wouldn’t be on Gunter’s mind.”

Grigori pursed his lips, annoyed at the way the Blind Man seemed to learn everything there was to know in Renicie the moment it happened. Even if he could listen with every ear in the city he couldn’t use them all at once. Could he?

“It seems you haven’t.” The Blind Man folded his hands around his staff and sat back in his chair, looking as satisfied as a pick pocket with his first purse. “Signore Marelli’s caravan has arrived at last.”

Grigori sat up straight as an arrow. “Have they? They’re more than three weeks overdue!”

“Well, not the entire caravan, no. The word on the docks is that they were attacked by the Benthic and the wagons were lost. But not the crown jewel of the collection.”

For the first time since Gunter mentioned his presence Grigori started to feel like he might get something useful from the Blind Man this time around. “Are you saying…?”

“There were three survivors from the caravan.” He held up said number of fingers and wiggled them as they were named. “A bravo hired as a guard. One of the junior merchants who was driving a wagon. And a young woman with eyes like sapphires. They arrived just after low tide this morning in the company of their rescuers.”

Just like that Grigori saw all his plans for Torrence coming back together in a new shape, possibly one that would bring him even greater returns. There was only one little detail that gave him some hesitation. “Their… rescuers?”

“It seems the surviving bravo had a brother who heard he hadn’t arrived and set out to rescue him. Touching, really. The people on the docks seem as excited about the Ironhand and his party as they are about the survivors that were rescued.” The Blind Man offered a helpless shrug. “So fickle. Just last week they were bemoaning the loss of all that good Fionni cheese Marelli was dealing in.”

“They must be an impressive bunch if they managed to rescue prisoners from the Benthic, survived a falling star with the waves it raised and made it all the way here afterwords.” Grigori rubbed at his bottom lip, considering the facts. Given his current position and the fact that these bravos had somehow retrieved a key weapon he’d thought was lost he couldn’t afford to ignore this development. What he wasn’t sure of was why the Blind Man had brought the matter to him. News this significant would have fallen in his lap sooner or later. “Do you know where these bravos are?”

“Of course Papa Borgia.” The Blind Man got to his feet, his covered eyes still pointed towards Grigori’s own. “Would you like me to bring them to you?”

“Yes. As it happens I was in the process of searching for just such skillful individuals.”

“Then search no longer.” He sketched out another bow. “I shall return with them in a day or two, if not before.”

“I look forward to good news, Fabian. Until then.”

The Blind Man let himself out, the thin smile back on his lips, passing by Gunter as the Isenkinder returned with his usual impeccable timing. He made sure the door was firmly closed behind the Blind Man then approached Grigori’s desk. “That one may be reaching the end of his usefulness, Papa.”

“Reaching the end, Gunter. But not there yet.” He took a sip of his wine, wondering what his next move ought to be. “Evincio?”

“It’s a shocking thing, Papa. It seems he found a horse thief who broke into the stables! Thankfully they have kicked the villain to death but, alas, his skull was cracked like a chestnut in the process. His face is unrecognizeable. I fear we’ll never know who he was.”

“Tragic. The horses?”

“In good health. Unfortunately it seems Evincio was hit by one of the mares. His arm is broken.”

That was one problem settled and another in its place. Grigori got up and headed for the door. “Start putting together a sling, Gunter, and we’ll go and look in on poor Evincio. I leave for Lome in ten days and I need those horses in their best shape. I will take the break so he can return to work.”

“Of course, Papa. Of course.”

If only every problem House Borgia faced could be handled so easily. Still, there were new bravos at hand. If they proved sharp enough they might be a worthy weapon for the next duel. Time would tell.

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Seven – The King of Stars

Posted by natechen on August 16, 2025

Previous Chapter

Cassian washed up on shore on a wave of exhaustion and bruises. The moon was setting overhead and, if he closed his eyes and ignored the four Benthic scattered along the sand, he could almost imagine their entire trip beneath the ocean hadn’t happened. Almost.

He flopped onto his back and put one arm over his head, hiding from the stars overhead. If he was going to slip into total fantasy he might as well try to pretend that Cazador hadn’t gone missing in the first place and all he had to do to find him again was head home to the farm. Problem was, that fantasy wasn’t going to help anyone. Not himself. Certainly not Cazador. So Cassian rolled onto his front and slowly pushed himself up onto his feet.

“Are we all here?” He asked. “All alive?”

“Can’t be alive,” Adalai croaked. “Hurts too much.”

“The dead don’t feel pain,” Marta replied. She had a lot less trouble getting to her feet than the rest of them. Cassian wondered if she knew that she’d grown a thin layer of scales holding her shield against the rush of water that came in when the cavern under the ocean collapsed. He wondered if they were permanent.

“I beg to differ.” Adalai refused to move anything other than his lips. “If this is life it’s too miserable for anyone to survive it.”

“I don’t think anyone does,” Verina said, looking down on him from a perch on top of the Linnorm’s head.

He finally lifted his head up off the sand but only to glare up at her. “Pedantry.”

“Stop wallowing,” Cassian said, reaching down to grab him by the collar of his doublet. “Just because you died once and Returned doesn’t mean you can become a whiney misery for the rest of us.”

Adalai finally started moving for himself, brushing Cassian’s hand away and pulling himself upright. “What makes you say that?”

“The whining, mostly.”

“No, what makes you think I Returned from Eternity?”

Cassian blinked once, wondering if the other thought he was some kind of idiot. “I watched it happen. Adalai, your body vanished from the cavern for at least five minutes then the mists parted and you popped out of them like a spring saying the King of Stars was coming. I’m not a deeply religious man but even I can figure that out.”

“When you put it that way it does sound awfully compelling,” Adalai murmured. “I wasn’t exactly dead, though. That place was nothing like the outskirts of Eternity.”

“How is this place still here?” Verina said, her voice echoing over the sodden beach as the Linnorm lifted her higher and higher so she could survey their surroundings with her own eyes. “How are we? That star fell and the waves were like mountains! They should have ground us on the rocks like a millstone and shattered these islands as well.”

Cassian glanced at Trill, who still hadn’t moved, and said, “I wonder if they have anything to do with it. The Stellaris have some kind of pact with the King, perhaps he arranged to spare them.”

“Well either way we should probably get them back into the sea,” Marta said. “I don’t know how long it’s been since we washed up here but they have to be running low on water to breathe by now. After all they did for us I’d hate for them to die in such a pitiful way.”

“Of course. Stupid of me not to think of that. Are you in any shape to help, Adalai?”

“Give me a minute.”

In point of fact Marta and Cassian managed to get all four Benthic back in the water before Adalai rallied enough to move about. It was hard to hold it against him. Regardless of what the others might think, Cassian was fairly certain Adalai had died and Returned in that cavern. That kind of ordeal would leave anyone exhausted.

Trill and her guards came around after a couple of minutes in the ocean which was a bit of a relief to Cassian. “We’re all alive,” he said, sitting on the seabed so he would stay submerged with them. “So are you. I hope that’s enough to convince you we bear you no ill will because I have no intention of going back to the Ursus Nest with you.”

Trill made a dismissive gesture. “At this point I don’t believe there is much to be gained by bringing you back with us. If you were a threat to the Stellaris you’d have shown it by now. In addition the dragon you killed was a threat to us, so I suppose we also owe you a favor. Return to your arid lands. All I ask is that you take the time to ask for permission before entering our waters again.”

“Wait.” The Benthic paused on the brink of departure. Marta struggled for a moment as she tried to frame her question. Finally she just blurted out, “What about Braxton? He has been your prisoner far longer than is just and his own people need him back.”

She needed him back, although Cassian wondered if there was a future for her with the man she was so obviously smitten by now that fate had conspired to make her devour part of a dragon. However, whether or not that would matter was largely up to the Benthic. Trill did little to set the issue to rest. “I will do what I can,” the Benthic captain said. ”But I can’t make you many promises.”

Cassian cleared his throat, which didn’t sound quite as impressive under water, and said, “Forgive me for being a pessimist but are you even sure Ursus Nest still exists? After that star fell I have to wonder. The islands in the Drownway absorbed far more of the impact than I expected them to but the waves still must have dealt terrible destruction to anything in or along the Gulf.”

Trill swished her tail to cut off the Hexton woman’s protests. “Worry not, Marta Shieldbearer. Ursus Nest is quite safe, as is anything along your shores. Matriarchs are far more powerful tide turners than the normal Benthic. The reason these islands remain here instead of being swept into the Gulf is most likely because the Matriarch we saw put the whole force of her power into calming the waves caused by the star’s fall.”

“Your people have that kind of power?” Cassian asked, disturbed by the notion.

“We couldn’t survive without it,” Trill replied. “Stars fall in the ocean far more than upon the arid lands. Even without a Matriarch the Stellaris have found the power to turn back larger waves than these. We will be well. In time, when the needs of the treaty are upheld, we will return your Baron to you.”

Cassian returned the speaking pearls to Trill and they parted ways. As he waded through the surf back towards shore he glanced at Marta and frowned. “You’re still showing scales.”

She rolled up one sleeve and showed him the reptilian patterns there were fading. “I think it will go away with enough time. I’m not sure why they chose just now to finally make an appearance.”

“I have an idea or two but it’s pointless to guess blindly. In the forge we would have to hammer things out and I suspect this will be much the same.” Somehow, in the midst of all the insane underwater antics, he’d managed to keep ahold of his bag. Once he opened it up and looked he found his map was still in its oilcloth. Not a huge stroke of luck but he would take it.

As he waded the last few feet to shore he unfolded the map and tried to match the contours of the shoreline to the outlines on the page. He took the position of the stars. He looked east, then west, then east again. Finally he came to a stop, still ankle deep in water, staring blankly at the paper.

Adalai came out to meet him there. “Are you okay, Cassian?”

He kept staring at the map, unseeing. “Where… where do I go, Adalai?”

The other man took him by the elbow and gently dragged him back towards shore. “How about we go to Renicie?”

“But… the caravan… we haven’t found the caravan yet, I can’t even pay any of you and…” The map swam in front of his eyes.

“It’s all right, Cassian,” Marta said. “We all take some losses here and there, this is just one of them.”

“But…”

“You can’t stay out here searching for him forever,” Adalai said. “Come on, it’s time to head back to dry land.”

The map slipped from his fingers and crinkled softly as someone folded it again. Cassian staggered forward as the full weight of the day settled in on him. They had found dozens of Clayhearts like Cazador in the dragon’s lair wrapped in coral and, while they hadn’t looked at every one of them, it was a foolish fantasy to think his brother wasn’t among them. A caravan was a natural target for a dragon. And if Clayhearts were a part of whatever sorcery or ritual the creature was undertaking that made Cazador’s group even more of a prize. They had gone missing in the same general area the dragon hunted.

Now the dragon’s lair was destroyed by star fall.

A flash of rage cleared his vision and Cassian spun around, ripping his breastplate plate off with his Gift. “What a stupid…”

The breastplate skipped more than a dozen times of the waves. “Waste…”

He ripped off a gauntlet but before he could throw it Adalai grabbed him in a bear hug, dragging him back from the water line. “Let me go.”

“Calm down, Cassian.”

“I have to -”

“There’s nothing left to do. It’s time to move on.”

He finally let himself stop, staring out at the waves as they rolled in endlessly, rippling with the reflection of the heavens. Perhaps the King of Stars had come to Return Adalai, perhaps to destroy the Benthic’s gods. Perhaps it was just his duty to guide Cazador and the others into Eternity.

“Let go of me, Adalai.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. You’re right, it’s time to head back to land.”

The other man relaxed his grip and stepped away, leaving Cassian unsteady but upright. The rush of anger that energized him a moment ago had vanished, somehow leaving him even more tired and sore than before it arrived. He sighed and squinted at the ocean, absently wondering if he could catch the gleaming of his metal armor. All he could see was waves. Then he caught a brighter point of light that he focused on it. But it didn’t have the glimmer of metal he’d come to associate with the dragon sight he’d inherited from the sea dragon.

It was more of a cluster of lights. Seven of them. They were rushing inland and quickly separated into a seven pointed crown that raised itself up out of the ocean, seeming to reach all the way to heaven. Beneath them was the outline of a man. Terror washed over Cassian as a living representation of forever stepped up and out of the ocean, steam rising off a body filled with the power of the constellations, and bent down to the shoreline. He shrank back from the entity as one closed hand came to rest on the ground.

The fingers flexed, full of blazing comets and shimmering starlight, then opened to deposit three unconscious human forms on the sand. Then the King of Stars straightened up, paused for a moment to look at the four people who watched him in frozen awe. Then his body vanished and his crown stretched upwards until it merged with the stars above.

Cassian wasn’t sure how long he stared up after the King before he came back to himself. At the very least it was still night when he did. He wasn’t sure why they’d been chosen to see the vision, nor did he care. There was only one thing that really mattered to him.

Reenergized, he dashed forward to the bodies on the beach. It was clear at once they were all breathing. One was too small to be an adult and the second had long, graying hair so Cassian ignored them. The last was the right size. Before any doubt could build in his mind he grabbed the man and rolled him over so he could see his face.

That was how Cassian Ironhand found his brother at last.

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Six – The Inevitable

Posted by natechen on August 9, 2025

Previous Chapter

One of the rarest Gifts given to men was the Gift of Artifice, the power to take a bit of another person’s Gift and hide it away in an object so that anyone could use it. In his brief time in Nerona Adalai had seen two such Artifacts. To the average person such a thing was indistinguishable from any other object of their kind but to someone with the Gift of Arms they were quite obvious.

The sword he’d grabbed was an Artifact.

There were other hints it wasn’t his sword as well. It was a touch heavier than his rapier, the blade was short, leaf shaped and made of bronze and his own weapon was still in its sheath. In fact, if he hadn’t been so disoriented he might not ever have grabbed it. Now that he was holding it he was more disoriented than ever.

To an Arminger an Artifact was even more complicated than a normal object, since normal stuff only picked up powerful impressions if they were used constantly by a single person for a decent period of time. If a thing changed hands the old users’ impressions faded away while the new slowly overwrote them. An Artifact contained traces of at least two people all the time, the Artificer who made it and the person who’s Gift was used to create it.

To make matters even worse, most Artifacts needed to be recharged. That required an Artificer as well as another instance of the Gift stored in said Artifact – and they didn’t have to be the same two people who created it originally. Those distinctions didn’t make much of a difference to most people. To an Arminger they could make the Artifact basically unusable, as the conflicting impressions drowned out any other thoughts from the Arminger’s mind.

Fortunately the sword he’d discovered among the remains of the Deep’s prison wasn’t that complex. He only caught the afterimage of two people from it. The sword was also quite old, so he wasn’t able to tell much about either person, whether they’d been male or female, young or old. The only thing he knew for sure was one of them was a Thunder Hand, as that was the Gift the blade contained.

That said, he strongly suspected the blade belonged to someone who hated the Benthic. As soon as he stepped out of the fog and his eyes landed on Captain Trill he felt a surge of hostility flow out of the sword. He’d never felt such a powerful impression from any object before, Artifact or not.

A hand fell on his shoulder and he spun to find Cassian staring at him with a bewildered look. “What happened to you?”

Adalai opened his mouth, about to explain the vision he’d seen, then stopped himself. “It would take too long to explain.”

Cassian glanced up and Adalai followed his line of sight to discover an enormous, bloated Benthic dragging the last of its hundred foot long tail through a newly formed hole in the ceiling. “I hate to say it but we probably won’t have time for it anyway. Marta’s keeping us dry for the moment but if that thing breaks her shield the Linnorm’s getting doused and that’s our best weapon off the table.”

The sword was incensed. Adalai glanced down at it and realized it was a tool created for exactly this kind of situation. At first he wasn’t sure what it was trying to do, the concept didn’t make a lot of sense to someone who wasn’t used to an electrical Gift like the Thunder Hand, but he had a sudden flash of insight when he glanced at Marta to see how she was doing. As he looked at her he thought of Braxton.

Who was a Thunder Heart, who could breathe under water somehow because his body was living lightning. That was when the pieces clicked into place.

“Have Marta let me out then shrink the dome down to a bubble and make it as solid and layered as she can. It’s going to get bumpy.”

Cassian gave him a skeptical look. “You have an idea?”

“Not an idea.” He hefted the bronze blade. “This.”

“Well… better than nothing.” The Ironhand didn’t look convinced but he moved off to do as he was asked.

There were many things Adalai had learned back home that the people of Nerona were totally ignorant of, a shortcoming he’d learned not to hold against them. Their Gifts gave them the power to see and do many things he’d never dreamed of, either. Yet more often than not it turned out that the science he’d learned in school and the preternatural gifts of Nerona overlapped in the most unexpected ways.

Electrolysis, for example.

He wasn’t sure how masters of Nerona’s lightning wielding Gifts had discovered the fact that water contained oxygen and that you could use electricity to separate the air from the water. Much less how they’d done it without exploding all the hydrogen created as a byproduct. Yet someone out there must have put all the pieces together because the longer he held onto the sword the clearer its function became. Some mad Artificer had built it for the sole purpose of cleaving water into air, allowing its owner to breathe and fight the Benthic on equal footing.

Adalai wasn’t sure how exactly it did that. Fortunately Artifacts didn’t need him to understand all the details of their function. He just needed to tell it to start cutting water and it would. Just as well since the bronze blade didn’t have the same feel to it as a sword that had spent years in the hand of a fencing master. It couldn’t guide him through a duel.

Yet it did still have some guidance for him. Adalai could tell that this wasn’t the ideal situation to use it in, for example. His own understanding of chemistry and physics told him that the stunt he was thinking of pulling was going to be pretty rough. He might not survive it.

For a second Adalai wondered if the Linnorm still smelled inevitability clinging to him. It had been a long time since Karoushi told him he would find his way home if he continued down the path he’d chosen. He wasn’t sure if he was still on that path.

Years in Nerona had changed him quite a bit. And if he did still carry a touch of the inevitable about him there was no telling if it came from the same promise Karoushi made him at the corners of Eternity. Perhaps he walked a different, equally inexorable path to a far different destination.

There was an easy way to find out.

He stepped out through Marta’s shield bubble, letting the cold water of the deep sea pass over him for a brief moment, then raised the sword and nudged it to life. The blade cut through water with a sharp crack. He pushed it to do more. For a moment foam filled the water around him then Adalai flinched as the water around him lit up, a brilliant lightning bolt filling the cavern.

The original purpose of weapons like these was to be thrown into the water just ahead of its user. They would burrow into the water leaving a corridor of breathable air. Adalai couldn’t tell how the man who originally carried the bronze blade intended to keep the water from replacing all the air once it was created. Presumably there was another Artifact or someone with a Gift to handle that.

Regardless, Adalai found himself almost throwing the sword out of his hand as he used it since it wanted to bury itself into the seafloor again. He had to actively work against the impulse as he cut the water around him into its component gasses. It got worse as the pressure around him built.

It was impossible to guess how much liquid the massive lava chamber held but what Adalai was certain of was that the water would take up much more room as gas than as liquid. With only a comparatively small hole in the roof to escape from, things got tricky fast. Adalai felt his ears pop once, then twice, as he swung the sword around him in larger and larger arcs and the pressure in the chamber built. He felt a strange sensation, as if the ocean floor hiccuped. Then there was an abrupt sensation of movmenet and he felt himself being swept up in a rushing current, as the sound of crackling electricity was replaced with a roaring waterfall.

Adalai felt himself tumbling along, water around him and to his back, blade still cleaving apart the sea. He would have lost it if he hadn’t already grabbed the hilts in a two fisted death grip earlier. He wasn’t sure how long it went on. Looking back on it, maybe twelve seconds passed from the moment he began slicing apart the water to the moment he willed the sword to stop cutting. In that time a lot changed.

For starters, when he opened his eyes he found he’d been thrown out of the cavern over the sea floor. The explosive rush of air and water had not only broken the roof of the cave it had thrown everything within across half the ocean. Marta had formed a solid, shimmering sphere out of her shield. It looked like she had shrunk it enough that the seven of them inside were kept from jostling and, although no one looked comfortable, they also didn’t look like they’d broken anything from jostling as they rode the geyser.

The Benthic that didn’t have the benefit of Marta’s shield hadn’t been so fortunate. One drifted in the water a few dozen feet away, her body unmoving, twisted into a painful spiral shape. The Matriarch had been more fortunate, perhaps because of her greater size. She drifted by the gaping opening in the sea floor a few hundred feet away, dark eyes glinting with sinister reflections in the murk of the ocean bed.

To his horror she reached out one oversized hand, grabbed the corpse of one of her daughters and shoved half of it into her mouth. As she chewed her eyes turned up and met his.

Adalai twitched himself around in the water and pointed the bronze blade at her. It was a show of force, yes, but an empty one. He could tell the Artifact had lost most of its potency. It might contain enough power to cleave a few more gallons of seawater but no more. The majority of the weapon’s power was spent and it wouldn’t be restored until another Artificer and another Thunder Hand collaborated to recharge it.

Unfortunately the Matriarch didn’t buy his bluff. She pushed the last of the morsel into her mouth and lifted her imposing bulk up off the ocean floor and started towards them.

Marta’s shield bubble vanished and Trill’s guards zipped out of it, one breaking off to collect him, then all eight of them made their best time upwards towards the surface. As they drew close together Cassian called out, “Was that supposed to kill them?”

“Mostly I was just hoping we’d get out of there,” Adalai admitted.

“Well it worked but we’re not out of the woods yet.”

“What are we not out of?” Trill asked. “It didn’t translate.”

“Just swim,” Cassian replied. “Unless you think the eight of us can kill a Matriarch.”

“We can. One or two of us may even survive.” She pointed towards the stone spire that housed the dragon’s lair. “Better to fight from arid land. She is too large and heavy to fight well out of the water, even my troops will be able to outrun her there.”

“Doesn’t leave us much room to maneuver,” Adalai muttered.

“We can deal with that,” Verina said. “The advantages are still mostly on our side.”

They breached the surface a few moments later and the humans began to help the Benthic up away from the waves. It was late in the evening and the stars were beginning to show. Adalai took them in for a moment, wondering if the King of Stars had left a new omen there for them.

“Get up as high as you can,” Cassian said. “I assume a Matriarch can throw water as well as the rest of you and the more we make her work the better.”

“Get back in the water.”

He froze. “What?”

Adalai pointed upwards, towards a gleaming star far brighter than the others that pierced through the dusk. “Falling star. Get back in the water before it hits.”

Marta followed his finger and squinted. “Shooting stars almost never fall to earth, I wouldn’t -”

“I saw the King of Stars not five minutes ago and he was not happy, get back in the water before he gets here or I’m not responsible for what happens.” Without waiting for a reply Adalai scampered across the small stone island towards the far shore. It took less than a minute. In that time the falling star had grown noticeably larger.

Once he got down to the water again he pulled off his cloak and tied it around his waist, since it looked like he would have to swim on his own. He managed to wade out to knee deep before Cassian called out, “Wait!”

The others were coming over the crest of the island behind him. “Change your mind?”

“The Matriarch surfaced long enough to look at the sky and left again,” Trill said. “If she isn’t willing to stay here, I’m not.”

“Then let’s get going.”

“Where?” Cassian asked.

“Far away.” Adalai looked up to see the falling star had already grown to the size of his thumb. “Let’s hope it’s far enough.”

They made it half a mile when the star hit the spire and a wave the size of a mountain swept them away.

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Five – The Matriarch

Posted by natechen on August 2, 2025

Previous Chapter

When the Mists rolled over Cassian he readied himself for every conceivable outcome other than none. So, of course, that was exactly what he got. Other than a light coating of moisture nothing of note came out of the strange rocks at all. After several days underwater he didn’t even notice the damp anymore.

Cassian tapped Verina on the shoulder and motioned towards the Linnorm. A moment later it disappeared and Marta was able to let her shield collapse, surrounding them with breathable water again and wiping the mists away all at once. “Trill,” he snapped, pointing towards the tunnel in the chamber’s ceiling. “Let’s get up there and-”

“Adalai’s gone,” Verina said.

That was absurd. Yet when Cassian looked around he realized it was also true. A moment ago the Arminger had been right there beside him, not more than six or seven feet away, and now there was no sign of him. “Did anyone see anything?”

“He was beside me,” Burp said. “Then, when the Mists in the Deep passed between us, he disappeared.”

“Of course he did,” Verina yelled. “That’s what mist does, you overgrown fish, it makes it impossible to see.”

“Verina!” Cassian tried to stare her down but she had turned away and knelt among the rubble of the stone knot, sifting through it desperately. Frustrated he turned to Trill. “Could the Mists in the Deep have moved him somewhere else? Is that something it does?”

“I don’t know Cassian,” the Benthic captain replied. “I told you, we didn’t bother to remember much about these things. It was the King of Stars that solemnized our treaty with Nerona and changed us so we no longer had to be born of a Matriarch. We didn’t want to keep worshiping gods that made us kill our whole family just so we could hatch children.”

“You could have kept some notes so you were ready to fight one if it ever showed up.” It was an unreasonable thing to say and he knew it but he didn’t feel it was that much more unreasonable than anything else they had to deal with at the moment. “Verina, he’s not there. Get up.”

She spun about, fury in every inch of her face. “What is wrong with you?”

“I’m going to die some time in the next hour. I’d like to do something useful before then.” Because he had his gaze locked on the tunnel mouth Cassian spotted the exact moment the first Tidallais Benthic entered the cavern. It carried a spear of coral and glass and looked exactly like all the others they’d seen so far. It even had a grayish pearl in its forehead. He pointed her out to the others. “Here they come.”

“Any chance they’ll just leave when they see we broke the thing back there?” Marta asked.

“Makes it more likely they’ll stay to get even with us,” Trill said. “They don’t get anything by leaving. Their sisters would probably take it as an opportunity to kill and eat them for their failure.”

“Wonderful.” Cassian glanced around, trying to figure out the best way to deal with the coming onslaught. “Get up, Verina.”

“I cannot conjure the Great Linnorm here for long, Cassian. What do you want me to do?” The Slavic woman’s voice was slow and weary. She was still rummaging through the rubble of the stone knot but her movements were as listless as her voice.

“Marta. Build a shield. We can let the Benthic in one or two at a time and the Linnorm and I will deal with them.” He gestured to Trill. “You can keep drawing in water with the Benthic so we can breathe.”

“That won’t work for long,” Marta said. “There’s no way I can hold up that kind of shield for more than a minute or two. It would be hard enough to hold up a shield with this much water overhead and only air inside. But there’s no air here. A watertight shield with nothing inside is even worse.”

“We can put air inside,” Trill said. “The Lord of Folded Waters gave us the power to turn the tides when it created us, with that power we can turn water to air. It’s difficult but we’ve had a lot of practice. How do you think we made the air pocket under the Ursus Nest?”

Cassian allowed himself a brief smile. Their odds of living through this still weren’t good but at least he could die breathing air rather than water. “Get to it, then. Keep water in your lungs and air in ours and we’ll do the fighting as long as we can stay alive.”

“Well.” The water around the Benthic began to bubble and foam, the turbulence making Trill hard to hear. “At least we know for sure now.”

“Know what?”

“You did kill the dragon after all.”

Cassian snorted. “It only took eight of us running to our deaths to prove it. Given that I think I could have gone without the credit.”

Trill burbled laughter and bowed her head towards him. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find your brother.”

The air formed a solid, singular bubble around them and Marta raised a glowing dome over it to keep it in place. The last few drops of water gathered themselves in pools around the Benthic. Verina got to her feet and tossed a last piece of rubble aside, her tattoos sparking and sizzling as the water evaporated off of them. “What a waste,” she murmured. “Slew a dragon, defied a god and nothing to show for it at the end. The least we could have done is boiled the sea and taken the Benthic with us but I can’t sustain the Linnorm that long and there’s no liquid stone to help us along the way.”

Cassian glanced down at the floor, wondering if he could make that possible somehow. Unfortunately there was no sign of the angry red glow the tales said hinted at liquid stone, just the sparkling gleam he had seen here and there since gaining a dragon’s eyes. He suspected it was some kind of ore. He’d begun to wonder if his Gift had fused with the dragon sight and created some kind of new ability but he hadn’t had the time to explore it. It looked like he never would.

“Look on the bright side,” he said. “If we killed all the Benthic here there wouldn’t be anyone left to tell our story after we’re gone.”

“Not how I was hoping to be remembered anyway,” Marta replied.

The Tidallais had gathered themselves into a phalanx a dozen strong and now they swooped down towards the seven of them, brandishing their weapons. Cassian glanced at their Shieldbearer. “How many of them can you keep out?”

Before she could answer Verina cut in, saying, “Let them all in.”

Cassian flexed his fingers, setting his daggers and sword floating as he calculated the odds. Even with the Linnorm, twelve against eight was difficult. It turned out the Tidallais evened the odds for him, splitting into two groups moving in opposite directions. Half of them continued towards Marta’s dome, the others spun around and headed back up towards the cavern entrance at top speed.

He wasn’t sure what they were doing but there were more pressing matters to deal with. Marta did as asked and let the Benthic through her shield, doing her best to keep the water out when she let them in. She succeeded, to a certain extent. The Tidallais had gathered some of the ocean under their sway before they passed through her barrier and they managed to get that through but the rest of the sea remained outside. They flopped through the shield a few feet above the ocean floor and charged as soon as they picked themselves up.

Cassian immediately chose four of them and sent a blade flying at each. One dodged, another batted his sword aside, his aim was off on a third and the dagger glanced off the coral and carapace armor she wore. The last dagger slammed home in its target’s throat.

Two of the remaining Benthic threw boulder sized orbs of water at him and he scrambled, getting clear of one before the other slammed him into the rock below. He lay there, head swimming, then webbed hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. Burp and Trill were helping him up as the other two Stellaris reclaimed the water that hit him. As he was dragged out of the way the Linnorm appeared and swept in.

Cassian had always assumed that having two necks and two heads to keep track of must have been a huge liability in battle. Clearly that was not the case. One of the Linnorm’s heads focused on the Tidallais, blasting a constant stream of fire at the fishy creatures that they warded off with their rapidly dwindling water supply. The trapped sea boiled and foamed, filling the dome with steam.

One of the Tidallais Benthic used the clouds as cover, moving out from behind the water wall and throwing a smaller globe of the liquid at the Linnorm. However the second head spotted it and evaporated most of the projectile with a snort of flame. Cassian stretched out with his Gift, whipped his sword off the ground and plunged its point through the attacker’s side. The Benthic dropped to the ground, thrashing.

In spite of the way the numbers had turned against them the Tidallais pressed forward, their supply of ocean dwindling as the Linnorm wore away at it. Cassian retrieved his sword and daggers. He took a traditional dueling stance, allowing his extra daggers to drift along beside him, and advanced in tandem with the Stellaris to meet them. The translation pearls apparently didn’t work without water as a medium. However Trill still made her intentions clear with a flexing of her jaws and chopping gesture with one hand.

Cassian nodded and shouted, “Hold the flame!”

The Linnorm’s mouth snapped shut and the heat died away; then the five of them charged the four Tidallais, meeting in a brief, sharp melee. Cassian let Trill’s troops go first, using his Gift to sling daggers at calculated moments, tipping fights in their favor one by one. Forty seconds later, all the Tidallais were dead.

Cassian lowered his blades, breathing hard, and took stock of the situation. The Great Linnorm shimmered overhead, transparent but still close enough at hand to instantly join the fray once things started up again. Verina’s bound spirit was clearly the best asset they had to hand. Yet her ability to use the two headed menace was entirely dependent on keeping it dry, or at least mostly dry. He glanced at Marta. “How much longer?”

The Hexton woman had a thin sheet of sweat forming on her face, her breathing steady and deep like a laborer dragging a heavy load. “A while.”

“How long is a while?”

“Longer than soon. I don’t know, Cassian, I’ve never had to hold something like this so long and there’s strangeness going on up there. It feels like we’re stuck in a storm.”

Cassian looked up, wondering what she was talking about. He discovered that the six Benthic that remained outside their air pocket had been joined by others, bringing the number up to at least ten. They swam in a large, vertical oval. One end of the shape was near the middle of the chamber the other was at the tunnel entrance overhead. Each Benthic seemed to be throwing something at the tunnel as they swam past.

There was something coming down from the passage, too, something that glimmered in his dragon sight. He scowled. “What are they doing?”

A cool touch rested on the side of his head, startling him, and Cassian looked down to find Trill had come close and connected their heads with a tunnel of water. She placed her translating pearl in the water and said, “The ocean eats the stone. It is our way of shaping rock. Soon they will have weakened it enough that the Matriarch will be able to come through.”

“How long will that take?”

The answer, as Marta might say, was soon. Although her shield kept them separate from the shockwave Cassian could still see it buffet the Tidallais when the chamber’s ceiling caved in. A huge hand had broken through there. It withdrew and an equally enormous head pushed into the new opening.

It was a strange mix of human and eel features with eyes far larger in proportion to its skull and an underbite so pronounced Cassian briefly thought the creature was injured somehow. Fronds and tendrils as thick as bundled hay drifted through the water behind it. Its huge hands clawed at the opening, tearing more and more of the stone away as the Matriarch dragged its bulk further into the cavern. A score or more additional Tidallais swarmed in around her.

Cassian heaved out a deep breath and readied himself for the next assault, once again taking stock of his allies and their situations. As his eyes swept through the bubble he noticed the steam drifting past. Or not drifting, per se, but all gathering together at the center of the bubble, where the stone knot had been. It settled until it formed a shallow pool, rippling and churning like a storm about to burst.

Then the mists parted and Adalai stood up from among them, a strange, bronze sword in one hand, and the mists rose up behind him…

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Four – The Deep

Posted by natechen on July 26, 2025

Previous Chapter

The Mists whistled and howled like a thousand tea kettles, the deafening cacophony battering Adalai worse than any physical thing he’d seen along the Drownway. He wished he was back in the vacuum of Marta’s shield. It took several seconds before he realized the Mists were actually speaking to him. The discordant shrieks did a good job of obscuring the more sibilant sounds and the words had a breathy quality that made picking out individual syllables more difficult than it should have been. But there were definitely words in there.

Adalai Carpathea, the Mists howled. Have you at last come to return what was taken?

“I don’t have anything of yours,” he yelled, spinning around and trying his best to locate exactly where the voice was coming from. The mist deadened the sound and made his hearing unreliable.

Not so, not so, the voice hissed. Once you have evaded us and twice you have stolen yet you come to us now and plead ignorance. No more! Return what is ours and we may yet forgive the rest.

The tone and cadence of the voice changed from one statement to the next and Adalai briefly wondered if the ‘we’ the Mists spoke of was a royal we or something more concrete. It wasn’t that important, though. So instead he turned about, trying to locate the rest of his group. Whether by chance or by deliberate design it turned out that there was no sign of Cassian or Marta, or even the Benthic. He did catch a brief glimpse of a winding, serpentine form that might have been the Linnorm, although whether that meant Verina was nearby or the spirit was just visible through the obscuring vapors the Mists had conjured was an open question.

There was also a possibility the Mists were, in fact, a dragon themselves. That was something he didn’t want to think about.

Do not think you can deceive us, Adalai Carpathea. The voice had shrunken to a whisper. We can smell on you the touch of the Mist. You pollute it and us with your filthy, mortal flesh and we will have it from you. From all of you. It never should have been given to the likes of man.

The image of the glass box came to his mind like a thunderclap. At the same time he remembered the moment, just before he was sent to Nerona, when he had met with the King of Stars. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

Adalai slowly reached into his bag, digging for the box, as his mind cast about for a way to stall. “Why do the great Mists in the Deep show so little charity? Certainly it is a small thing to spare for the low and mortal-”

It is your very mortality that offends! The voice returned to full shriek. Why should the life of Mist Eternal be shortened to that of vanishing mortals, creatures that pass into Eternity with nothing to their name, not even their very flesh? We were made for so much more than this!

“Well if it’s Eternity you’re concerned about you could just ask the Kings directly,” Adalai said as his fingers closed around cool glass. It was the wrong thing to say.

A wave of sound crashed over Adalai, knocking him down. It was impossible for him to describe what he heard, the sheer volume of noise battering his ears into uselessness. He felt, rather than heard, the cacophony. On the other hand he still heard everything the Mists had to say, as strange as that might be.

The Kings, you say? Nothing more than mortals who have strayed from the very things that made them special. They should have known their place. What have they done instead? Meddled with the order of things, taken and returned on their own whim and doomed those such as you to suffer the trials of life far longer than is just or proper.

Adalai flailed his free hand about, trying to find purchase to get to his feet again. To his consternation he discovered there weren’t any solid surfaces anywhere around him, not even in the direction he had thought of as ‘below.’ Was he lost in a vision again? It would explain why he hadn’t seen or heard from the others since breaking the stone knot.

Not that he was hearing very much at the moment.

“I’m not that upset about the trials of life at the moment,” Adalai said, trying to feel the words as they rolled off his tongue. Hopefully the Mists could understand him regardless of how his words sounded. He pulled out the box and held it aloft. “If taking and returning is what really bothers you I don’t know why you want this back so bad.”

The pounding pulse of the Mist’s rage faded away, replaced with a chilling sense of malicious attention. What have you done to it?

“Nothing. It was like this when I found it. What makes you think I did anything to it?”

Adalai could practically feel a watching eye boring into him from somewhere in the Mists, moving around from in front to behind him like a stalking tiger. It is constrained. Unnatural. You have perverted our nature. Set it free.

“It was like this when I found it. I have no idea how it got in here or how to get it out.”

It is your crime that has imprisoned it. The voice grew softer and softer, setting Adalai’s hair on end. You must set it free.

The box didn’t have a lock but it did have a latch, a small silver flange that swung down over a little post. Opening it wasn’t exactly difficult. On the other hand, whatever was speaking on behalf of the Mists didn’t seem to understand the lives of so-called “mortals” very well. Perhaps that was enough to thwart it.

On the other hand, perhaps it needed permission to take what it wanted.

“If it was really yours, why do you need me to set it free?”

It was stolen. The voice spoke as a parent to a particularly stupid child. It must be returned.

Adalai studied the box, wondering if his new intuition was correct. Cassian hadn’t been able to see the mist within, which suggested it wasn’t a normal mist. Shortly after handling it he’d seen the King of Stars in a vision. The King claimed that vision was an omen yet it wasn’t a sign of things to come, which was the generally accepted nature of omens, but rather a vision of things that had been. The explanation didn’t seem to explain.

On the other hand, the scrying pool that showed Adalai the vision was tied to the Mists in the Deep and the King spoke as if the Mists were at least somewhat aware of his presence. Had that forced the King of Stars to speak in riddles? What had he really been trying to say?

Most of all, why did the mist in the box seem familiar? Was it because he’d looked into the scrying pool and his Gift of Arms had allowed him to pick up some sliver of intention from the Mists in the Deep?

Or was it because he had seen this mist before? Not just anywhere, but in the hands of the King of Stars when he was offered a second chance at life?

Adalai looked up from the box and swept his gaze across the fog surrounding him. “Are you certain you want this?”

Certain? If he’d been hoping the Mists would show some sign of hesitation he was disappointed. Why would I question my desire for what is mine?

“Because it’s not yours. It’s not even a mist.” He flipped the latch open, lifted the lid and reached to take the Gift within. “It’s a cloud.”

When the King of Dreams gave Adalai the Gift of Arms he hadn’t really noticed much change at first. It had taken months of practice before he was able to make much sense of it. The Gift of Clouds was the opposite. As soon as the cloud merged with his hand Adalai became aware of the mists surrounding him, feeling them drift and turn almost as if they were a large, lightweight head of hair.

Except he could feel them. It was like every drop of mist was a raw nerve and a thrumming muscle, waiting for him to direct them. It was overwhelming. For a brief moment he hesitated and, in that moment, the Deep struck.

There was something malevolent among the mists, something seething with fury, burning hot and demanding control. It was the Deep, truly, but had nothing to do with the mists. They did fear the Deep, however, and as it moved they fled before it. Perhaps the Deep had hoped that Gift would give it the control it desired, perhaps it just resented others having control over what it delighted in terrifying.

The mists whipped around Adalai, panic and dread spreading through them and reaching their fearful tendrils towards him as well.

“Enough hiding.” Adalai spread his hands apart and called the clouds to himself. The mists rolled together into tighter and tighter clumps until they were nothing more than a pile of woolly mounds around his feet. All around him was a dark and empty void. The only other thing present was a single eye.

It was as huge as a house and yellow, with an odd, rectangular red pupil that stared with fiery intensity. It gazed at him from the same plane at first. Then it lifted itself higher and higher, rising up to reveal a strange, insectoid face over a mouth with flat, grinding stone teeth. The Deep was far greater than anything Adalai had ever seen.

His heart hammered at his ribs wildly, as if it could burst free of his chest and flee from that stare. His grip on the mists slipped and the clouds began to billow up again. His legs felt weak and tried to back away from the soul shaking figure before him but there was nothing to stand on. No place to find purchase.

You should not have looked. The Deep continued to rise higher, sending him tumbling further and further down. Now you will die and another will return what was stolen from me.

“Clouds don’t hide the depths,” Adalai stammered. “They hide the sky.”

The Deep’s single eye blinked slowly, as if it failed to understand. At the same moment, far above it, seven points of light glimmered into the void.

Adalai had a hard time following what happened next, not only because it happened so quickly but because the scale was so vast. One second the Deep’s head was slowly turning upwards. The next a spinning galaxy in the shape of a man, a crown of seven supernovas on its head, crashed into the Deep. The King of Stars beat the Deep with meteoric fists. The Deep struck back, wrapping his starry body in serpentine limbs burning with deep, red fury and dragging the two of them down.

The clash unleashed a horrifying shockwave that blinded Adalai. His ears, still ringing from the Deep’s previous screaming, were battered once more. Crushed under the weight of unfathomable battle raging around him he felt his consciousness slipping away. By all rights, that should have been the end of him.

So he was quite surprised to open his eyes and find himself surrounded by jagged shards of stone, lying on a still warm chunk of the ocean floor, his eyes and ears once again working normally. Instead of clashing cosmic forces he heard Cassian shouting orders as Trill’s Benthic gathered up water from the sea floor.

The Mists in the Deep may be dealt with but that was only the beginning of their troubles. Adalai grasped around until his hand fell on the hilt of a sword and he dragged himself to his feet.

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Three – The Knot

Posted by natechen on July 19, 2025

Previous Chapter

For a brief moment Adalai let himself fantasize about the Mists in the Deep having a totally scientific, material basis that Benthic mythology had distorted into a legend over time. It was the kind of thinking most people back home had indulged often. Over the years since he’d left home he’d spent many a wistful night wondering what his life might have been like if it was true and there were no personal avatars of the inexorable forces of nature. Definitively shorter, for one thing.

However his life had not been short because death, at the very least, had spokesmen. He wondered what the Mists in the Deep actually spoke for. Nothing good, if what Trill said about the Benthic life cycle was accurate.

He wasn’t a huge fan of the way the Stellaris dragged them everywhere underwater but he did appreciate how quickly his Benthic minder got him down to the stone structure they’d discovered. He’d barely started examining it when Trill said, “It looks like the Sign of Folded Water.”

“That’s the primary Benthic god, right?” Cassian asked. “Is that good or bad?”

“The Stellaris don’t venerate any of the creatures the other Benthic worship,” Trill said. “But it was the Lord of Folded Waters who supposedly raised us up from eels and gave us minds and the power to control the tides.”

“I don’t suppose you know anything about the Mists in the Deep?” Adalai asked.

“No. Nothing of their songs or prayers were brought into the Stellaris when we were founded.” She stared blankly at the stone knot for a long moment then shook her head. “I doubt either of them will look on us with favor now.”

“If the Lord of Folded Waters thought it was a good idea for Benthic women to eat all their sisters I’m not sure his favor is something you want,” Verina said. She let herself drift down until she was on the bottom next to the stone formation.

Adalai settled next to her. “Do you see something?”

“No…” But her voice suggested just the opposite.

“Does the Linnorm see something?”

“I’m not sure. It’s not answering my questions right now, which happens every once in a while. This is the first time it’s happened when I’ve been in some kind of immediate danger, though.” She stuck a knuckle between her teeth and chewed on it.

“Have you been in danger a lot in your life?”

“The Slavs are lost, Adalai. I fear we’ll all be in danger until we find our home again.”

There was more truth in that than he wanted to admit so he ignored it. “So I guess we’ll have to figure this thing out on our own.”

“Why are we figuring it out?” Marta asked. “We could still try to bottleneck the Benthic up at the entrance.”

Adalai shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s going to work now. What was it you said back in Fionni, Verina? This whole job has the touch of inevitability to it, right? I think this is why.”

“I did ask you to come on this job because you have a Gift that gives more insight than the norm,” Cassian said. “However, in this case I’m going to need more than ‘a touch of inevitability’ to go along with whatever you’re suggesting.”

Adalai chewed on his lower lip, trying to organize his thoughts. “It’s not as simple or straightforward as you might like, Cassian, but I’ll try my best. The Kings at the Corners are revered in Nerona but they’re not from Nerona, if you see what I mean. Where I’m from we had a name for them but we didn’t have anything like the orders of Heralds, for example.”

“The Slavs are much the same,” Verina said. “But what does that have to do with this?”

“It’s the same concept, I think. The Mists in the Deep are revered by the Benthic but it doesn’t mean said Mists have no influence at all on the rest of us. Or that we have no value to them. Trill says they’re associated with volcanic vents which are created by liquid stone. Clayhearts can turn to stone and the sea dragon had a whole mess of them captured in its lair. A place that also had a scrying pool in it which I am certain was connected to this thing somehow.”

Cassian shook his head. “That doesn’t feel very concrete at all, Adalai.”

“I know, I know. There might be more I could get if I used my Gift on it but I’m fairly certain that if I did I wouldn’t live long enough to share any of it with you.” He rubbed his gloved palm with the tips of his fingers, wondering if he was about to say something foolish. “The worst part is I’m fairly certain those Clayhearts are dead, or close enough to it. I’m afraid that if your brother is up there we’re not getting him back.”

The other man had gone dangerously still. “Why do you think that?”

“Because when I looked into that scrying mirror I saw the King of Stars and I don’t think he was just there because a scrying shows you omens of things to come. Those pearls…” Adalai tasted bile in the back of his throat as he thought of them. “I think those pearls extract the Clayheart’s souls for some purpose. I’ve no doubt that at some point the King will have to take those souls into Eternity and that was the real reason he was there.”

“You can recognize the King of Stars just like that?”

“We’ve met.”

“Yes…” Trill said softly. “You said the only one you hadn’t met was the King of Dawn.”

Cassian ignored her. “You don’t know that-”

“No, I don’t.” Adalai let himself drift up from the seafloor and grabbed the other man by his shoulders. “Your brother may be alive. He may not even be one of the dragon’s prisoners, we didn’t have time to look at all of them. That thing over there might have nothing to do with the Mists in the Deep. But we’re out of options here. We can try and fight that Matriarch and her Benthic, however many there might be, or we can tamper with that thing, whatever it might be. But those are our choices. Only one of them seems like it might get us out of this alive.”

“So let’s get up to the entrance and barricade it before the Benthic get down here,” Marta said.

“He means this,” Trill said, pointing to the stone knot. “Matriarchs can have hundreds or thousands of daughters. There’s no way we can kill them all, even with the strange and unpredictable way human Gifts work.”

“That’s insane,” Marta snapped. She thrust the head of her mace at the knot. “We don’t know what that is and we don’t know how to manipulate it. If we fight the Matriarch at least we know what we’re fighting and when we’ve won, we touch that thing and we might not even realize when it’s killed us.”

“Marta.” It took a second for Adalai to realize who was talking. There was a chill in Cassian’s voice that made him sound like an entirely different person. “Look around. You’re not tired but that makes you the only one. Summoning the Linnorm in water took a lot out of Verina and I doubt she’s going to be able to pull it off again more than once. Adalai has used his gift a lot in the past few hours on top of the puking. Trill and her troops have been dragging us all over the ocean floor for half a day in addition to fighting with the Benthic earlier. Me? I suppose I just don’t have your stamina.”

The last one was the only one that didn’t have a basis in reality. Adalai watched Marta’s face as she looked around her and slowly realized it was true. “Fine. Fine. How are we getting into the middle of this thing, then? I can’t swing a mace fast enough underwater to smash it.”

Cassian peered at the stone, running one gloved finger along it, his sudden grim mood receding for the moment. “It’s not metal, so I can’t help.”

Marta glanced at Trill. “Can you four breathe air at all? I know the ones the dragon enthralled stayed on land for a good while.”

“We can hold water in our chest and breathe from it for nearly one hour if we don’t move much,” the Benthic replied.

“Better suck all that in, then. The rest of you, hold your breath.” Marta unslung her shield and raised it over her head. The metal scale pulsed with light. Unlike with most of the shields she created with her Gift this one did not simply appear at the size she desired. Instead it bubbled out slowly, pushing the water out from a central point and expanding around any solid object that got in the way.

Adalai wasn’t sure why she said to hold their breaths until his ears slipped inside the shield dome and suddenly heard nothing. There wasn’t any water inside the dome she’d created. There also wasn’t any air. It was a vacuum. They were going to have to try and smash the stone knot as fast as they could because he couldn’t breathe water from his chest for nearly as long as a Benthic.

Based on the strain visible on Marta’s face one of the rest of them was going to have to swing her mace for her. He doubted she had the energy to spare. So he reached down and grabbed it, only to drop it again when the Linnorm’s heads peeked into their world. They appeared as soon as there was space, their eyes gleaming with some emotion he couldn’t describe.

The spirit latched both its jaws onto the stone coils and chewed, spectral muscles on its necks standing out in ropes. He shot a look at Verina but she seemed just as surprised to see it as he was. The Benthic fell back from the Linnorm, shielding their faces against the heat they doubtless expected from it. Of course, in a vacuum they were in no danger but he didn’t think people in Nerona encountered those very often.

Adalai tried to find an angle where he could look under the dragon’s jaws. If it needed help prying the stone apart the mace was still near at hand and he wasn’t above contributing his own arm strength to the endeavor. Thanks to that he got a front row seat to the stone structure breaking apart.

It did not look like he’d expected.

Instead of a violent shattering or a sudden crumbling the loops of stone gracefully unfurled, at least at first. It reminded him of a flower blooming. Except halfway through the Linnorm got a solid grip on two of the petals and ripped them right out of the flower with a silent snap. The remaining three loops continued to unfurl until they pointed out and up towards the ceiling like curled fingers.

In the center of the newly created flower was a dull red thing that looked like clay yet glowed with its own light. It released a torrent of white, roiling mist into the vacuum. With no pressure to contend with the mist immediately boiled out to fill the dome, washing over Adalai and obscuring everything around him.

As soon as he was surrounded by mist Adalai noticed three things. First, he could hear again, which meant he was standing in the air or the water once more. Second, the mists were warm but not as hot as one might expect if they were coming out of a lava fed steam vent. Third, he was being watched again.

It had the same feeling as the thing that had watched him when he looked into the scrying mirror. Just much closer. To drive that point home the watcher chose that moment to speak to him.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Nate Chen Publications

Project Sumter and Other Stories

Tag Archives: fantasy

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Six

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Five

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Four

Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark – Chapter Three

The Drownway Epilogue – Rumors in Renicie

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Seven – The King of Stars

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Six – The Inevitable

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Five – The Matriarch

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Four – The Deep

The Drownway Chapter Twenty Three – The Knot

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