Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz:

Three Adventures

Garth Nix

Contents

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again

Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe

A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again

“Do you ever wonder about the nature of the world, Mister Fitz?” asked the foremost of the two riders, raising the three-barred visor of his helmet so that his words might more clearly cross the several feet of space that separated him from his companion, who rode not quite at his side.

“I take it much as it presents itself, for good or ill, Sir Hereward,” replied Mister Fitz. He had no need to raise a visor, for he wore a tall lacquered hat rather than a helmet. It had once been taller and had come to a peak, before encountering something sharp in the last battle but two the pair had found themselves engaged in.

This did not particularly bother Mister Fitz, for he was not human. He was a wooden puppet given the semblance of life by an ancient sorcery. By dint of propinquity, over many centuries a considerable essence of humanity had been absorbed into his fine-grained body, but attention to his own appearance or indeed vanity of any sort was still not part of his persona.

Sir Hereward, for the other part, had a good measure of vanity and in fact the raising of the three-barred visor of his helmet almost certainly had more to do with an approaching apple seller of comely appearance than it did with a desire for clear communication to Mister Fitz.

The duo were riding south on a road that had once been paved and gloried in the name of the Southwest Toll Extension of the Lesser Trunk. But its heyday was long ago, the road being even older than Mister Fitz. Few paved stretches remained, but the tightly compacted understructure still provided a better surface than the rough soil of the fields to either side.

The political identification of these fallow pastures and the occasional once-coppiced wood they passed was not clear to either Sir Hereward or Mister Fitz, despite several attempts to ascertain said identification from the few travelers they had encountered since leaving the city of Rhool several days before. To all intents and purposes, the land appeared to be both uninhabited and untroubled by soldiery or tax collectors and was thus a void in the sociopolitical map that Hereward held uneasily, and Fitz exactly, in their respective heads.

A quick exchange with the apple seller provided only a little further information, and also lessened Hereward’s hope of some minor flirtation, for her physical beauty was sullied by a surly and depressive manner. In a voice as sullen as a three-day drizzle, the woman told them she was taking the apples to a large house that lay out of sight beyond the nearer overgrown wood. She had come from a town called Lettique or Letiki that was located beyond the lumpy ridge of blackish shale that they could see a mile or so to the south. The apples in question had come from farther south still, and were not in keeping with their carrier, being particularly fine examples of a variety Mister Fitz correctly identified as emerald brights. There was no call for local apples, the young woman reluctantly explained. The fruit and vegetables from the distant oasis of Shûme were always preferred, if they could be obtained. Which, for the right price, they nearly always could be, regardless of season.

Hereward and Fitz rode in silence for a few minutes after parting company with the apple seller, the young knight looking back not once but twice as if he could not believe that such a vision of loveliness could house such an unfriendly soul. Finding that the young woman did not bother to look back at all, Hereward cleared his throat and, without raising his visor, spoke.

“It appears we are on the right road, though she spoke of Shumey and not Shome.”

Fitz looked up at the sky, where the sun was beginning to lose its distinct shape and ooze red into the shabby grey clouds that covered the horizon.

“A minor variation in pronunciation,” he said. “Should we stop in Lettique for the night, or ride on?”

“Stop,” said Hereward. “My rear is not polished sandalwood, and it needs soaking in a very hot bath enhanced with several soothing essences … ah … that was one of your leading questions, wasn’t it?”

“The newspaper in Rhool spoke of an alliance against Shûme,” said Mister Fitz carefully, in a manner that confirmed Hereward’s suspicion that didactic discourse had already begun. “It is likely that Lettique will be one of the towns arrayed against Shûme. Should the townsfolk discover we ride to Shûme in hope of employment, we might find ourselves wishing for the quiet of the fields in the night, the lack of mattresses, ale and roasted capons there notwithstanding.”

“Bah!” exclaimed Hereward, whose youth and temperament made him tend toward careless optimism. “Why should they suspect us of seeking to sign on with the burghers of Shûme?”

Mister Fitz’s pumpkin-sized papier-mâché head rotated on his spindly neck, and the blobs of blue paint that marked the pupils of his eyes looked up and down, taking in Sir Hereward from toe to head: from his gilt-spurred boots to his gold-chased helmet. In between boots and helm were Hereward’s second-best buff coat, the sleeves still embroidered with the complicated silver tracery that proclaimed him as the Master Artillerist of the city of Jeminero. Not that said city was any longer in existence, as for the past three years it had been no more than a mass grave sealed with the rubble of its once-famous walls. Around the coat was a frayed but still quite golden sash, over that a rare and expensive Carnithian leather baldric and belt with two beautifully ornamented (but no less functional for that) wheel-lock pistols thrust through said belt. Hereward’s longer-barreled and only slightly less ornamented cavalry pistols were holstered on either side of his saddle horn, his saber with its sharkskin grip and gleaming hilt of gilt brass hung in its scabbard from the rear left quarter of his saddle, and his sighting telescope was secured inside its leather case on the right rear quarter.

Mister Fitz’s mount, of course, carried all the more mundane items required by their travels. All three feet six and a half inches of him (four-foot-three with the hat) was perched upon a yoke across his mount’s back that secured the two large panniers that were needed to transport tent and bedding, washing and shaving gear and a large assortment of outdoor kitchen utensils. Not to mention the small but surprisingly expandable sewing desk that contained the tools and devices of Mister Fitz’s own peculiar art.

“Shûme is a city, and rich,” said Fitz patiently. “The surrounding settlements are mere towns, both smaller and poorer, who are reportedly planning to go to war against their wealthy neighbor. You are obviously a soldier for hire, and a self-evidently expensive one at that. Therefore, you must be en route to Shûme.”

Hereward did not answer immediately, as was his way, while he worked at overcoming his resentment at being told what to do. He worked at it because Mister Fitz had been telling him what to do since he was four years old and also because he knew that, as usual, Fitz was right. It would be foolish to stop in Lettique.

“I suppose that they might even attempt to hire us,” he said, as they topped the low ridge, shale crunching under their mounts’ talons.

Hereward looked down at a wasted valley of underperforming pastures filled either with sickly-looking crops or passive groups of too-thin cattle. A town—presumably Lettique—lay at the other end of the valley. It was not an impressive ville, being a collection of perhaps three or four hundred mostly timber and painted-plaster houses within the bounds of a broken-down wall to the west and a dry ravine, that might have once held a river, to the east. An imposing, dozen-spired temple in the middle of the town was the only indication that at some time Lettique had seen more provident days.

“Do you wish to take employment in a poor town?” asked Mister Fitz. One of his responsibilities was to advise and positively influence Hereward, but he did not make decisions for him.

“No, I don’t think so,” replied the knight slowly. “Though it does make me recall my thought … the one that was with me before we were interrupted by that dismal apple seller.”

“You asked if I ever wondered at the nature of the world,” prompted Fitz.

“I think what I actually intended to say,” said Hereward. “Is ‘do you ever wonder why we become involved in events that are rather more than less of importance to rather more than less people?’ as in the various significant battles, sieges, and so forth in which we have played no small part. I fully comprehend that in some cases the events have stemmed from the peculiar responsibilities we shoulder, but not in all cases. And that being so, and given my desire for a period of quiet, perhaps I should consider taking service with some poor town.”

“Do you really desire a period of quiet?” asked Mister Fitz.

“Sometimes I think so. I should certainly like a time where I might reflect upon what it is I do want. It would also be rather pleasant to meet women who are not witch-agents, fellow officers or enemies—or who have been pressed into service as powder monkeys or are soaked in blood from tending the wounded.”

“Perhaps Shûme will offer some relative calm,” said Mister Fitz. “By all accounts it is a fine city, and even if war is in the offing, it could be soon finished if Shûme’s opponents are of a standard that I can see in Lettique.”

“You observe troops?” asked Hereward. He drew his telescope, and carefully leaning on his mount’s neck to avoid discomfort from the bony ridges (which even though regularly filed-down and fitted with leather stocks were not to be ignored), looked through it at the town. “Ah, I see. Sixty pike and two dozen musketeers in the square by the temple, of no uniform equipment or harness. Under the instruction of a portly individual in a wine-dark tunic who appears as uncertain as his troops as to the drill.”

“I doubt that Shûme has much to fear,” said Mister Fitz. “It is odd, however, that a town like Lettique would dare to strike against such a powerful neighbor. I wonder …”

“What?” asked Hereward as he replaced his telescope.

“I wonder if it is a matter of necessity. The river is dry. The wheat is very thin, too thin this close to harvest. The cattle show very little flesh on their ribs. I see no sign of any other economic activity. Fear and desperation may be driving this mooted war, not greed or rivalry. Also …”

Mister Fitz’s long, pale blue tongue darted out to taste the air, the ruby stud in the middle of what had once been a length of stippled leather catching the pallid sunlight.

“Their godlet is either asleep or … mmm … comatose in this dimension. Very strange.”

“Their god is dead?”

“Not dead,” said Mister Fitz. “When an other-dimensional entity dies, another always moves in quickly enough. No … definitely present, but quiescent.”

“Do you wish to make a closer inquiry?”

Hereward had not missed the puppet’s hand tapping the pannier that contained his sewing desk, an instinctive movement Mister Fitz made when contemplating sorcerous action.

“Not for the present,” said Mister Fitz, lifting his hand to grasp once again his mount’s steering chains.

“Then we will skirt the town and continue,” announced Hereward. “We’ll leave the road near those three dead trees.”

“There are many trees that might be fairly described as dead or dying,” remarked Fitz. “And several in clumps of three. Do you mean the somewhat orange-barked trio over yonder?”

“I do,” said Hereward.

They left the road at the clump of trees and rode in silence through the dry fields, most of which were not even under attempted cultivation. There were also several derelict farmhouses, barns, and cattle yards, the level of decay suggesting that the land had been abandoned only in recent years.

Halfway along the valley, where the land rose to a slight hill that might have its origin in a vast and ancient burial mound, Hereward reined in his mount and looked back at the town through his telescope.

“Still drilling,” he remarked. “I had half thought that they might dispatch some cavalry to bicker with us. But I see no mounts.”

“I doubt they can afford the meat for battlemounts,” said Mister Fitz. “Or grain for horses, for that matter.”

“There is an air gate in the northeastern temple spire,” said Hereward, rebalancing his telescope to get a steadier view. “There might be a moonshade roost behind it.”

“If their god is absent, none of the ancient weapons will serve them,” said Mister Fitz. “But it would be best to be careful, come nightfall. Lettique is reportedly not the only town arrayed against Shûme. The others may be in a more vigorous condition, with wakeful gods.”

Hereward replaced his telescope and turned his mount to the north, Mister Fitz following his lead. They did not speak further, but rode on, mostly at the steady pace that Hereward’s Zowithian riding instructor had called “the lope,” occasionally urging their mounts to the faster “jag.” In this fashion, several miles passed quickly. As the sun’s last third began to slip beneath the horizon, they got back on the old road again, to climb out of the wasted valley of Lettique and across yet another of the shale ridges that erupted out of the land like powder-pitted keloid scars, all grey and humped.

The valley that lay beyond the second ridge was entirely different from the faded fields behind the two travelers. In the warm twilight, they saw a checkerboard of green and gold, full fields of wheat interspersed with meadows heavily stocked with fat cattle. A broad river wound through from the east, spilling its banks in several places into fecund wetlands that were rich with waterfowl. Several small hillocks in the valley were covered in apple trees, dark foliage heavily flecked with the bright green of vast quantities of emerald fruit. There were citrus groves too, stone-walled clumps of smaller trees laden with lemons or limes, and only a hundred yards away, a group of six trees bearing the rare and exquisite blue-skinned fruit known as serqa which was normally only found in drier climes.

“A most pleasant vista,” said Hereward. A small smile curled his lip and touched his eyes, the expression of a man who sees something that he likes.

Shûme itself was a mile away, built on a rise in the ground in the northwestern corner of the valley, where the river spread into a broad lake that lapped the city’s western walls. From the number of deep-laden boats that were even now rowing home to the jetties that thronged the shore, the lake was as well stocked with fish as the valley was with livestock and produce.

Most of the city’s buildings were built of an attractively pale yellow stone, with far fewer timber constructions than was usual for a place that Hereward reckoned must hold at least five thousand citizens.

Shûme was also walled in the same pale stone, but of greater interest to Hereward were the more recent earthworks that had been thrown up in front of the old wall. A zigzag line of revetments encircled the city, with respectably large bastions at each end on the lakeshore. A cursory telescopic examination showed several bronze demicannon on the bastions and various lesser pieces of ordnance clustered in groups at various strong points along the earthworks. Both bastions had small groups of soldiery in attendance on the cannon, and there were pairs of sentries every twenty or thirty yards along the earthen ramparts and a score or more walked the stone walls behind.

“There is certainly a professional in charge here,” observed Hereward. “I expect … yes … a cavalry piquet issues from yonder orchard. Twelve horse troopers under the notional command of a whey-faced cornet.”

“Not commonplace troopers,” added Mister Fitz. “Dercian keplars.”

“Ah,” said Hereward. He replaced his telescope, leaned back a little and across and, using his left hand, loosened his saber so that an inch of blade projected from the scabbard. “They are in employment, so they should give us the benefit of truce.”

“They should,” conceded Mister Fitz, but he reached inside his robe to grasp some small item concealed under the cloth. With his other hand he touched the brim of his hat, releasing a finely woven veil that covered his face. To casual inspection he now looked like a shrouded child, wearing peculiar papery gloves. Self-motivated puppets were not great objects of fear in most quarters of the world. They had once been numerous, and some few score still walked the earth, almost all of them entertainers, some of them long remembered in song and story.

Mister Fitz was not one of those entertainers.

“If it comes to it, spare the cornet,” said Hereward, who remembered well what it was like to be a very junior officer, whey-faced or not.

Mister Fitz did not answer. Hereward knew as well as he that if it came to fighting, and the arts the puppet employed, there would be no choosing who among those who opposed them lived or died.

The troop rode toward the duo at a canter, slowing to a walk as they drew nearer and their horses began to balk as they scented the battlemounts. Hereward raised his hand in greeting and the cornet shouted a command, the column extending to a line, then halting within an easy pistol shot. Hereward watched the troop sergeant, who rode forward beyond the line for a better look, then wheeled back at speed toward the cornet. If the Dercians were to break their oath, the sergeant would fell her officer first.

But the sergeant halted without drawing a weapon and spoke to the cornet quietly. Hereward felt a slight easing of his own breath, though he showed no outward sign of it and did not relax. Nor did Mister Fitz withdraw his hand from under his robes. Hereward knew that his companion’s molded papier-mâché fingers held an esoteric needle, a sliver of some arcane stuff that no human hand could grasp with impunity.

The cornet listened and spoke quite sharply to the sergeant, turning his horse around so that he could make his point forcefully to the troopers as well. Hereward only caught some of the words, but it seemed that despite his youth, the officer was rather more commanding than he had expected, reminding the Dercians that their oaths of employment overrode any private or societal vendettas they might wish to undertake.

When he had finished, the cornet shouted, “Dismount! Sergeant, walk the horses!”

The officer remained mounted, wheeling back to approach Hereward. He saluted as he reined in a cautious distance from the battlemounts, evidently not trusting either the creatures’ blinkers and mouth-cages or his own horse’s fears.

“Welcome to Shûme!” he called. “I am Cornet Misolu. May I ask your names and direction, if you please?”

“I am Sir Hereward of the High Pale, artillerist for hire.”

“And I am Fitz, also of the High Pale, aide de camp to Sir Hereward.”

“Welcome … uh … sirs,” said Misolu. “Be warned that war has been declared upon Shûme, and all who pass through must declare their allegiances and enter certain … um …”

“I believe the usual term is ‘undertakings,’” said Mister Fitz.

“Undertakings,” echoed Misolu. He was very young. Two bright spots of embarrassment burned high on his cheekbones, just visible under the four bars of his lobster-tailed helmet, which was a little too large for him, even with the extra padding, some of which had come a little undone around the brow.

“We are free lances, and seek hire in Shûme, Cornet Misolu,” said Hereward. “We will give the common undertakings if your city chooses to contract us. For the moment, we swear to hold our peace, reserving the right to defend ourselves should we be attacked.”

“Your word is accepted, Sir Hereward, and … um …”

“Mister Fitz,” said Hereward, as the puppet said merely, “Fitz.”

“Mister Fitz.”

The cornet chivvied his horse diagonally closer to Hereward, and added, “You may rest assured that my Dercians will remain true to their word, though Sergeant Xikoliz spoke of some feud their … er … entire people have with you.”

The curiosity in the cornet’s voice could not be easily denied, and spoke as much of the remoteness of Shûme as it did of the young officer’s naïveté.

“It is a matter arising from a campaign several years past,” said Hereward. “Mister Fitz and I were serving the Heriat of Jhaqa, who sought to redirect the Dercian spring migration elsewhere than through her own prime farmlands. In the last battle of that campaign, a small force penetrated to the Dercians’ rolling temple and … ah … blew it up with a specially made petard. Their godlet, thus discommoded, withdrew to its winter housing in the Dercian steppe, wreaking great destruction among its chosen people as it went.”

“I perceive you commanded that force, sir?”

Hereward shook his head.

“No, I am an artillerist. Captain Kasvik commanded. He was slain as we retreated—another few minutes and he would have won clear. However, I did make the petard, and … Mister Fitz assisted our entry to the temple and our escape. Hence the Dercians’ feud.”

Hereward looked sternly at Mister Fitz as he spoke, hoping to make it clear that this was not a time for the puppet to exhibit his tendency for exactitude and truthfulness. Captain Kasvik had in fact been killed before they even reached the rolling temple, but it had served his widow and family better for Kasvik to be a hero, so Hereward had made him one. Only Mister Fitz and one other survivor of the raid knew otherwise.

Not that Hereward and Fitz considered the rolling temple action a victory, as their intent had been to force the Dercian godlet to withdraw a distance unimaginably more vast than the mere five hundred leagues to its winter temple.

The ride to the city was uneventful, though Hereward could not help but notice that Cornet Misolu ordered his troop to remain in place and keep watch, while he alone escorted the visitors, indicating that the young officer was not absolutely certain the Dercians would hold to their vows.

There was a zigzag entry through the earthwork ramparts, where they were held up for several minutes in the business of passwords and responses (all told aside in quiet voices, Hereward noted with approval), their names being recorded in an enormous ledger and passes written out and sealed allowing them to enter the city proper.

These same passes were inspected closely under lantern light, only twenty yards farther on by the guards outside the city gate—which was closed, as the sun had finally set. However, they were admitted through a sally port and here Misolu took his leave, after giving directions to an inn that met Hereward’s requirements: suitable stabling and food for the battlemounts; that it not be the favorite of the Dercians or any other of the mercenary troops who had signed on in preparation for Shûme’s impending war; and fine food and wine, not just small beer and ale. The cornet also gave directions to the citadel, not that this was really necessary as its four towers were clearly visible, and advised Hereward and Fitz that there was no point going there until the morning, for the governing council was in session and so no one in authority could hire him until at least the third bell after sunrise.

The streets of Shûme were paved and drained, and Hereward smiled again at the absence of the fetid stench so common to places where large numbers of people dwelt together. He was looking forward to a bath, a proper meal and a fine feather bed, with the prospect of well-paid and not too onerous employment commencing on the morrow.

“There is the inn,” remarked Mister Fitz, pointing down one of the narrower side streets, though it was still broad enough for the two battlemounts to stride abreast. “The sign of the golden barleycorn. Appropriate enough for a city with such fine farmland.”

They rode into the inn’s yard, which was clean and wide and did indeed boast several of the large iron-barred cages used to stable battlemounts complete with meat canisters and feeding chutes rigged in place above the cages. One of the four ostlers present ran ahead to open two cages and lower the chutes, and the other three assisted Hereward to unload the panniers. Mister Fitz took his sewing desk and stood aside, the small rosewood-and-silver box under his arm provoking neither recognition nor alarm. The ostlers were similarly incurious about Fitz himself, almost certainly evidence that self-motivated puppets still came to entertain the townsfolk from time to time.

Hereward led the way into the inn, but halted just before he entered as one of the battlemounts snorted at some annoyance. Glancing back, he saw that it was of no concern, and the gates were closed, but in halting he had kept hold of the door as someone else tried to open it from the other side. Hereward pushed to help and the door flung open, knocking the person on the inside back several paces against a table, knocking over an empty bottle that smashed upon the floor.

“Unfortunate,” muttered Mister Fitz, as he saw that the person so inconvenienced was not only a soldier, but wore the red sash of a junior officer, and was a woman.

“I do apolog—” Hereward began to say. He stopped, not only because the woman was talking, but because he had looked at her. She was as tall as he was, with ash-blond hair tied in a queue at the back, her hat in her left hand. She was also very beautiful, at least to Hereward, who had grown up with women who ritually cut their flesh. To others, her attractiveness might be considered marred by the scar that ran from the corner of her left eye out toward the ear and then cut back again toward the lower part of her nose.

“You are clumsy, sir!”

Hereward stared at her for just one second too long before attempting to speak again.

“I am most—”

“You see something you do not like, I think?” interrupted the woman. “Perhaps you have not served with females? Or is it my face you do not care for?”

“You are very beautiful,” said Hereward, even as he realized it was entirely the wrong thing to say, either to a woman he had just met or an officer he had just run into.

“You mock me!” swore the woman. Her blue eyes shone more fiercely, but her face paled, and the scar grew more livid. She clapped her broad-brimmed hat on her head and straightened to her full height, with the hat standing perhaps an inch over Hereward. “You shall answer for that!”

“I do not mock you,” said Hereward quietly. “I have served with men, women … and eunuchs, for that matter. Furthermore, tomorrow morning I shall be signing on as at least colonel of artillery, and a colonel may not fight a duel with a lieutenant. I am most happy to apologize, but I cannot meet you.”

“Cannot or will not?” sneered the woman. “You are not yet a colonel in Shûme’s service, I believe, but just a mercenary braggart.”

Hereward sighed and looked around the common room. Misolu had spoken truly that the inn was not a mercenary favorite. But there were several officers of Shûme’s regular service or militia, all of them looking on with great attention.

“Very well,” he snapped. “It is foolishness, for I intended no offence. When and where?”

“Immediately,” said the woman. “There is a garden a little way behind this inn. It is lit by lanterns in the trees, and has a lawn.”

“How pleasant,” said Hereward. “What is your name, madam?”

“I am Lieutenant Jessaye of the Temple Guard of Shûme. And you are?”

“I am Sir Hereward of the High Pale.”

“And your friends, Sir Hereward?”

“I have only this moment arrived in Shûme, Lieutenant, and so cannot yet name any friends. Perhaps someone in this room will stand by me, should you wish a second. My companion, whom I introduce to you now, is known as Mister Fitz. He is a surgeon—among other things—and I expect he will accompany us.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Lieutenant,” said Mister Fitz. He doffed his hat and veil, sending a momentary frisson of small twitches among all in the room save Hereward.

Jessaye nodded back but did not answer Fitz. Instead she spoke to Hereward.

“I need no second. Should you wish to employ sabers, I must send for mine.”

“I have a sword in my gear,” said Hereward. “If you will allow me a few minutes to fetch it?”

“The garden lies behind the stables,” said Jessaye. “I will await you there. Pray do not be too long.”

Inclining her head but not doffing her hat, she stalked past and out the door.

“An inauspicious beginning,” said Fitz.

“Very,” said Hereward gloomily. “On several counts. Where is the innkeeper? I must change and fetch my sword.”

***

The garden was very pretty. Railed in iron, it was not gated, and so accessible to all the citizens of Shûme. A wandering path led through a grove of lantern-hung trees to the specified lawn, which was oval and easily fifty yards from end to end, making the center rather a long way from the lantern light, and hence quite shadowed. A small crowd of persons who had previously been in the inn were gathered on one side of the lawn. Lieutenant Jessaye stood in the middle, naked blade in hand.

“Do be careful, Hereward,” said Fitz quietly, observing the woman flex her knees and practice a stamping attack ending in a lunge. “She looks to be very quick.”

“She is an officer of their temple guard,” said Hereward in a hoarse whisper. “Has their god imbued her with any particular vitality or puissance?”

“No, the godlet does not seem to be a martial entity,” said Fitz. “I shall have to undertake some investigations presently, as to exactly what it is—”

“Sir Hereward! Here at last.”

Hereward grimaced as Jessaye called out. He had changed as quickly as he could, into a very fine suit of split-sleeved white showing the yellow shirt beneath, with gold ribbons at the cuffs, shoulders and front lacing, with similarly cut bloomers of yellow showing white breeches, with silver ribbons at the knees, artfully displayed through the side-notches of his second-best boots.

Jessaye, in contrast, had merely removed her uniform coat and stood in her shirt, blue waistcoat, leather breeches and unadorned black thigh boots folded over below the knee. Had the circumstances been otherwise, Hereward would have paused to admire the sight she presented and perhaps offer a compliment.

Instead he suppressed a sigh, strode forward, drew his sword and threw the scabbard aside.

“I am here, Lieutenant, and I am ready. Incidentally, is this small matter to be concluded by one or perhaps both of us dying?”

“The city forbids duels to the death, Sir Hereward,” replied Jessaye. “Though accidents do occur.”

“What, then, is to be the sign for us to cease our remonstrance?”

“Blood,” said Jessaye. She flicked her sword towards the onlookers. “Visible to those watching.”

Hereward nodded slowly. In this light, there would need to be a lot of blood before the onlookers could see it. He bowed his head but did not lower his eyes, then raised his sword to the guard position.

Jessaye was fast. She immediately thrust at his neck, and though Hereward parried, he had to step back. She carried through to lunge in a different line, forcing him back again with a more awkward parry, removing all opportunity for Hereward to riposte or counter. For a minute they danced, their swords darting up, down and across, clashing together only to move again almost before the sound reached the audience.

In that minute, Hereward took stock of Jessaye’s style and action. She was very fast, but so was he, much faster than anyone would expect from his size and build, and, as always, he had not shown just how truly quick he could be. Jessaye’s wrist was strong and supple, and she could change both attacking and defensive lines with great ease. But her style was rigid, a variant of an old school Hereward had studied in his youth.

On her next lunge—which came exactly where he anticipated—Hereward didn’t parry but stepped aside and past the blade. He felt her sword whisper by his ribs as he angled his own blade over it and with the leading edge of the point, he cut Jessaye above the right elbow to make a long, very shallow slice that he intended should bleed copiously without inflicting any serious harm.

Jessaye stepped back but did not lower her guard. Hereward quickly called out, “Blood!”

Jessaye took a step forward and Hereward stood ready for another attack. Then the lieutenant bit her lip and stopped, holding her arm toward the lantern light so she could more clearly see the wound. Blood was already soaking through the linen shirt, a dark and spreading stain upon the cloth.

“You have bested me,” she said, and thrust her sword point first into the grass before striding forward to offer her gloved hand to Hereward. He too grounded his blade, and took her hand as they bowed to each other.

A slight stinging low on his side caused Hereward to look down. There was a two-inch cut in his shirt, and small beads of blood were blossoming there. He did not let go Jessaye’s fingers, but pointed at his ribs with his left hand.

“I believe we are evenly matched. I hope we may have no cause to bicker further?”

“I trust not,” said Jessaye quietly. “I regret the incident. Were it not for the presence of some of my fellows, I should not have caviled at your apology, sir. But you understand … a reputation is not easily won, nor kept …”

“I do understand,” said Hereward. “Come, let Mister Fitz attend your cut. Perhaps you will then join me for small repast?”

Jessaye shook her head.

“I go on duty soon. A stitch or two and a bandage is all I have time for. Perhaps we shall meet again.”

“It is my earnest hope that we do,” said Hereward. Reluctantly, he opened his grasp. Jessaye’s hand lingered in his palm for several moments before she slowly raised it, stepped back and doffed her hat to offer a full bow. Hereward returned it, straightening up as Mister Fitz hurried over, carrying a large leather case as if it were almost too heavy for him, one of his standard acts of misdirection, for the puppet was at least as strong as Hereward, if not stronger.

“Attend to Lieutenant Jessaye, if you please, Mister Fitz,” said Hereward. “I am going back to the inn to have a cup … or two … of wine.”

“Your own wound needs no attention?” asked Fitz as he set his bag down and indicated to Jessaye to sit by him.

“A scratch,” said Hereward. He bowed to Jessaye again and walked away, ignoring the polite applause of the onlookers, who were drifting forward either to talk to Jessaye or gawp at the blood on her sleeve.

“I may take a stroll,” called out Mister Fitz after Hereward. “But I shan’t be longer than an hour.”

***

Mister Fitz was true to his word, returning a few minutes after the citadel bell had sounded the third hour of the evening. Hereward had bespoken a private chamber and was dining alone there, accompanied only by his thoughts.

“The god of Shûme,” said Fitz, without preamble. “Have you heard anyone mention its name?”

Hereward shook his head and poured another measure from the silver jug with the swan’s beak spout. Like many things he had found in Shûme, the knight liked the inn’s silverware.

“They call their godlet Tanesh,” said Fitz. “But its true name is Pralqornrah-Tanish-Kvaxixob.”

“As difficult to say or spell, I wager,” said Hereward. “I commend the short form, it shows common sense. What of it?”

“It is on the list,” said Fitz.

Hereward bit the edge of pewter cup and put it down too hard, slopping wine upon the table.

“You’re certain? There can be no question?”

Fitz shook his head. “After I had doctored the young woman, I went down to the lake and took a slide of the god’s essence—it was quite concentrated in the water, easily enough to yield a sample. You may compare it with the record, if you wish.”

He proffered a finger-long inch-wide strip of glass that was striated in many different bands of color. Hereward accepted it reluctantly, and with it a fat, square book that Fitz slid across the table. The book was open at a hand-tinted color plate, the illustration showing a sequence of color bands.

“It is the same,” agreed the knight, his voice heavy with regret. “I suppose it is fortunate we have not yet signed on, though I doubt they will see what we do as being purely a matter of defense.”

“They do not know what they harbor here,” said Fitz.

“It is a pleasant city.” said Hereward, taking up his cup again to take a large gulp of the slightly sweet wine. “In a pretty valley. I had thought I could grow more than accustomed to Shûme—and its people.”

“The bounty of Shûme, all its burgeoning crops, its healthy stock and people, is an unintended result of their godlet’s predation upon the surrounding lands,” said Fitz. “Pralqornrah is one of the class of cross-dimensional parasites that is most dangerous. Unchecked, in time it will suck the vital essence out of all the land beyond its immediate demesne. The deserts of Balkash are the work of a similar being, over six millennia. This one has only been embedded here for two hundred years—you have seen the results beyond this valley.”

“Six millennia is a long time,” said Hereward, taking yet another gulp. The wine was strong as well as sweet, and he felt the need of it. “A desert might arise in that time without the interference of the gods.”

“It is not just the fields and the river that Pralqornrah feeds upon,” said Fitz. “The people outside this valley suffer too. Babes unborn, strong men and women declining before their prime … this godlet slowly sucks the essence from all life.”

“They could leave,” said Hereward. The wine was making him feel both sleepy and mulish. “I expect many have already left to seek better lands. The rest could be resettled, the lands left uninhabited to feed the godlet. Shûme could continue as an oasis. What if another desert grows around it? They occur in nature, do they not?”

“I do not think you fully comprehend the matter,” said Fitz. “Pralqornrah is a most comprehensive feeder. Its energistic threads will spread farther and faster the longer it exists here, and it in turn will grow more powerful and much more difficult to remove. A few millennia hence, it might be too strong to combat.”

“I am only talking,” said Hereward, not without some bitterness. “You need not waste your words to bend my reason. I do not even need to understand anything beyond the salient fact: this godlet is on the list.”

“Yes,” said Mister Fitz. “It is on the list.”

Hereward bent his head for a long, silent moment. Then he pushed his chair back and reached across for his saber. Drawing it, he placed the blade across his knees. Mister Fitz handed him a whetstone and a small flask of light, golden oil. The knight oiled the stone and began to hone the saber’s blade. A repetitive rasp was the only sound in the room for many minutes, till he finally put the stone aside and wiped the blade clean with a soft piece of deerskin.

“When?”

“Fourteen minutes past the midnight hour is optimum,” replied Mister Fitz. “Presuming I have calculated its intrusion density correctly.”

“It is manifest in the temple?”

Fitz nodded.

“Where is the temple, for that matter? Only the citadel stands out above the roofs of the city.”

“It is largely underground,” said Mister Fitz. “I have found a side entrance, which should not prove difficult. At some point beyond that there is some form of arcane barrier—I have not been able to ascertain its exact nature, but I hope to unpick it without trouble.”

“Is the side entrance guarded? And the interior?”

“Both,” said Fitz. Something about his tone made Hereward fix the puppet with a inquiring look.

“The side door has two guards,” continued Fitz. “The interior watch is of ten or eleven … led by the Lieutenant Jessaye you met earlier.”

Hereward stood up, the saber loose in his hand, and turned away from Fitz.

“Perhaps we shall not need to fight her … or her fellows.”

Fitz did not answer, which was answer enough.

***

The side door to the temple was unmarked and appeared no different than the other simple wooden doors that lined the empty street, most of them adorned with signs marking them as the shops of various tradesmen, with smoke-grimed night lamps burning dimly above the sign. The door Fitz indicated was painted a pale violet and had neither sign nor lamp.

“Time to don the brassards and make the declaration,” said the puppet. He looked up and down the street, making sure that all was quiet, before handing Hereward a broad silk armband five fingers wide. It was embroidered with sorcerous thread that shed only a little less light than the smoke-grimed lantern above the neighboring shop door. The symbol the threads wove was one that had once been familiar the world over but was now unlikely to be recognized by anyone save an historian … or a god.

Hereward slipped the brassard over his left glove and up his thick coat sleeve, spreading it out above the elbow. The suit of white and yellow was once again packed, and for this expedition the knight had chosen to augment his helmet and buff coat with a dented but still eminently serviceable back- and breastplate, the steel blackened by tannic acid to a dark grey. He had already primed, loaded and spanned his two wheel-lock pistols, which were thrust through his belt; his saber was sheathed at his side; and a lozenge-sectioned, armor-punching bodkin was in his left boot.

Mister Fitz wore his sewing desk upon his back, like a wooden backpack. He had already been through its numerous small drawers and containers and selected particular items that were now tucked into the inside pockets of his coat, ready for immediate use.

“I wonder why we bother with this mummery,” grumbled Hereward. But he stood at attention as Fitz put on his own brassard, and the knight carefully repeated the short phrase uttered by his companion. Though both had recited it many times, and it was clear as bright type in their minds, they spoke carefully and with great concentration, in sharp contrast to Hereward’s remark about mummery.

“In the name of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, acting under the authority granted by the Three Empires, the Seven Kingdoms, the Palatine Regency, the Jessar Republic and the Forty Lesser Realms, we declare ourselves agents of the Council. We identify the godlet manifested in this city of Shûme as Pralqornrah-Tanish-Kvaxixob, a listed entity under the Treaty. Consequently, the said godlet and all those who assist it are deemed to be enemies of the World and the Council authorizes us to pursue any and all actions necessary to banish, repel or exterminate the said godlet.”

Neither felt it necessary to change this ancient text to reflect the fact that only one of the three empires was still extant in any fashion; that the seven kingdoms were now twenty or more small states; the Palatine Regency was a political fiction, its once broad lands under two fathoms of water; the Jessar Republic was now neither Jessar in ethnicity nor a republic; and perhaps only a handful of the Forty Lesser Realms resembled their antecedent polities in any respect. But for all that the states that had made it were vanished or diminished, the Treaty for the Safety of the World was still held to be in operation, if only by the Council that administered and enforced it.

“Are you ready?” asked Fitz.

Hereward drew his saber and moved into position to the left of the door. Mister Fitz reached into his coat and drew out an esoteric needle. Hereward knew better than to try to look at the needle directly, but in the reflection of his blade, he could see a four-inch line of something intensely violet writhe in Fitz’s hand. Even the reflection made him feel as if he might at any moment be unstitched from the world, so he angled the blade away.

At that moment, Fitz touched the door with the needle and made three short plucking motions. On the last motion, without any noise or fuss, the door wasn’t there anymore. There was only a wood-paneled corridor leading down into the ground and two very surprised temple guards, who were still leaning on their halberds.

Before Hereward could even begin to move, Fitz’s hand twitched across and up several times. The lanterns on their brass stands every six feet along the corridor flickered and flared violet for a fraction of a second. Hereward blinked, and the guards were gone, as were the closest three lanterns and their stands.

Only a single drop of molten brass, no bigger than a tear, remained. It sizzled on the floor for a second, then all was quiet.

The puppet stalked forward, cupping his left hand over the needle in his right, obscuring its troublesome sight behind his fingers. Hereward followed close behind, alert for any enemy that might be resistant to Fitz’s sorcery.

The corridor was a hundred yards long by Hereward’s estimation, and slanted sharply down, making him think about having to fight back up it, which would be no easy task, made more difficult as the floor and walls were damp, drops of water oozing out between the floorboards and dripping from the seams of the wall paneling. There was cold, wet stone behind the timber, Hereward knew. He could feel the cold air rippling off it, a chill that no amount of fine timber could cloak.

The corridor ended at what appeared from a distance to be a solid wall, but closer to was merely the dark back of a heavy tapestry. Fitz edged silently around it, had a look, and returned to beckon Hereward in.

There was a large antechamber or waiting room beyond, sparsely furnished with a slim desk and several well-upholstered armchairs. The desk and chairs each had six legs, the extra limbs arranged closely at the back, a fashion Hereward supposed was some homage to the godlet’s physical manifestation. The walls were hung with several tapestries depicting the city at various stages in its history.

Given the depth underground and the proximity of the lake, great efforts must have been made to waterproof and beautify the walls, floor and ceiling, but there was still an army of little dots of mold advancing from every corner, blackening the white plaster and tarnishing the gilded cornices and decorations.

Apart from the tapestry-covered exit, there were three doors. Two were of a usual size, though they were elaborately carved with obscure symbols and had brass, or perhaps even gold, handles. The one on the wall opposite the tapestry corridor was entirely different: it was a single ten-foot-by-six-foot slab of ancient marble veined with red lead, and it would have been better situated sitting on top of a significant memorial or some potentate’s coffin.

Mister Fitz went to each of the carved doors, his blue tongue flickering in and out, sampling the air.

“No one close,” he reported, before approaching the marble slab. He actually licked the gap between the stone and the floor, then sat for a few moments to think about what he had tasted.

Hereward kept clear, checking the other doors to see if they could be locked. Disappointed in that aim as they had neither bar nor keyhole, he sheathed his saber and carefully and quietly picked up a desk to push against the left door and several chairs to pile against the right. They wouldn’t hold, but they would give some warning of attempted ingress.

Fitz chuckled as Hereward finished his work, an unexpected noise that made the knight shiver, drop his hand to the hilt of his saber, and quickly look around to see what had made the puppet laugh. Fitz was not easily amused, and often not by anything Hereward would consider funny.

“There is a sorcerous barrier,” said Fitz. “It is immensely strong but has not perhaps been as well thought-out as it might have been. Fortuitously, I do not even need to unpick it.”

The puppet reached up with his left hand and pushed the marble slab. It slid back silently, revealing another corridor, this one of more honest bare, weeping stone, rapidly turning into rough-hewn steps only a little way along.

“I’m afraid you cannot follow, Hereward,” said Fitz. “The barrier is conditional, and you do not meet its requirements. It would forcibly—and perhaps harmfully—repel you if you tried to step over the lintel of this door. But I would ask you to stay here in any case, to secure our line of retreat. I should only be a short time if all goes well. You will, of course, know if all does not go well, and must save yourself as best you can. I have impressed the ostlers to rise at your command and load our gear, as I have impressed instructions into the dull minds of the battlemounts—”

“Enough, Fitz! I shall not leave without you.”

“Hereward, you know that in the event of my—”

“Fitz. The quicker it were done—”

“Indeed. Be careful, child.”

“Fitz!”

But the puppet had gone almost before that exasperated single word was out of Hereward’s mouth.

It quickly grew cold with the passage below open. Chill, wet gusts of wind blew up and followed the knight around the room, no matter where he stood. After a few minutes trying to find a spot where he could avoid the cold breeze, Hereward took to pacing by the doors as quietly as he could. Every dozen steps or so he stopped to listen, either for Fitz’s return or the sound of approaching guards.

In the event, he was mid-pace when he heard something. The sharp beat of hobnailed boots in step, approaching the left-hand door.

Hereward drew his two pistols and moved closer to the door. The handle rattled, the door began to move and encountered the desk he had pushed there. There was an exclamation and several voices spoke all at once. A heavier shove came immediately, toppling the desk as the door came partially open.

Hereward took a pace to the left and fired through the gap. The wheel locks whirred, sparks flew, then there were two deep, simultaneous booms, the resultant echoes flattening down the screams and shouts in the corridor beyond the door, just as the conjoining clouds of blue-white smoke obscured Hereward from the guards, who were already clambering over their wounded or slain companions.

The knight thrust his pistols back through his belt and drew his saber, to make an immediate sweeping cut at the neck of a guard who charged blindly through the smoke, his halberd thrust out in front like a blind man’s cane. Man and halberd clattered to the floor. Hereward ducked under a halberd swing and slashed the next guard behind the knees, at the same time picking up one edge of the desk and flipping it upright in the path of the next two guards. They tripped over it, and Hereward stabbed them both in the back of the neck as their helmets fell forward, left-right, three inches of saber point in and out in an instant.

A blade skidded off Hereward’s cuirass and would have scored his thigh but for a quick twist away. He parried the next thrust, rolled his wrist and slashed his attacker across the stomach, following it up with a kick as the guard reeled back, sword slack in his hand.

No attack—or any movement save for dulled writhing on the ground—followed. Hereward stepped back and surveyed the situation. Two guards were dead or dying just beyond the door. One was still to his left. Three lay around the desk. Another was hunched over by the wall, his hands pressed uselessly against the gaping wound in his gut, as he moaned the god’s name over and over.

None of the guards was Jessaye, but the sound of the pistol shots at the least would undoubtedly bring more defenders of the temple.

“Seven,” said Hereward. “Of a possible twelve.”

He laid his saber across a chair and reloaded his pistols, taking powder cartridges and shot from the pocket of his coat and a ramrod from under the barrel of one gun. Loaded, he wound their wheel-lock mechanisms with a small spanner that hung from a braided-leather loop on his left wrist.

Just as he replaced the pistols in his belt, the ground trembled beneath his feet, and an even colder wind came howling out of the sunken corridor, accompanied by a cloying but not unpleasant odor of exotic spices that also briefly made Hereward see strange bands of color move through the air, the visions fading as the scent also passed.

Tremors, scent and strange visions were all signs that Fitz had joined battle with Pralqornrah-Tanish-Kvaxixob below. There could well be other portents to come, stranger and more unpleasant to experience.

“Be quick, Fitz,” muttered Hereward, his attention momentarily focused on the downwards passage.

Even so, he caught the soft footfall of someone sneaking in, boots left behind in the passage. He turned, pistols in hand, as Jessaye stepped around the half-open door. Two guards came behind her, their own pistols raised.

Before they could aim, Hereward fired and, as the smoke and noise filled the room, threw the empty pistols at the trio, took up his saber and jumped aside.

Jessaye’s sword leapt into the space where he’d been. Hereward landed, turned and parried several frenzied stabs at his face, the swift movement of their blades sending the gun smoke eddying in wild roils and coils. Jessaye pushed him back almost to the other door. There, Hereward picked up a chair and used it to fend off several blows, at the same time beginning to make small, fast cuts at Jessaye’s sword arm.

Jessaye’s frenzied assault slackened as Hereward cut her badly on the shoulder near her neck, then immediately after that on the upper arm, across the wound he’d given her in the duel. She cried out in pain and rage and stepped back, her right arm useless, her sword point trailing on the floor.

Instead of pressing his attack, the knight took a moment to take stock of his situation.

The two pistol-bearing guards were dead or as good as, making the tally nine. That meant there should only be two more, in addition to Jessaye, and those two were not immediately in evidence.

“You may withdraw, if you wish,” said Hereward, his voice strangely loud and dull at the same time, a consequence of shooting in enclosed spaces. “I do not wish to kill you, and you cannot hold your sword.”

Jessaye transferred her sword to her left hand and took a shuddering breath.

“I fight equally well with my left hand,” she said, assuming the guard position as best she could, though her right arm hung at her side, and blood dripped from her fingers to the floor.

She thrust immediately, perhaps hoping for surprise. Hereward ferociously beat her blade down, then stamped on it, forcing it from her grasp. He then raised the point of his saber to her throat.

“No you don’t,” he said. “Very few people do. Go, while you still live.”

“I cannot,” whispered Jessaye. She shut her eyes. “I have failed in my duty. I shall die with my comrades. Strike quickly.”

Hereward raised his elbow and prepared to push the blade through the so-giving flesh, as he had done so many times before. But he did not. Instead he lowered his saber and backed away around the wall.

“Quickly, I beg you,” said Jessaye. She was shivering, the blood flowing faster down her arm.

“I cannot,” muttered Hereward. “Or rather I do not wish to. I have killed enough today.”

Jessaye opened her eyes and slowly turned to him, her face paper white, the scar no brighter than the petal of a pink rose. For the first time, she saw that the stone door was open, and she gasped and looked wildly around at the bodies that littered the floor.

“The priestess came forth? You have slain her?”

“No,” said Hereward. He continued to watch Jessaye and listen for others, as he bent and picked up his pistols. They were a present from his mother, and he had not lost them yet. “My companion has gone within.”

“But that … that is not possible! The barrier—”

“Mister Fitz knew of the barrier,” said Hereward wearily. He was beginning to feel the aftereffects of violent combat, and strongly desired to be away from the visible signs of it littered around him. “He crossed it without difficulty.”

“But only the priestess can pass,” said Jessaye wildly. She was shaking more than just shivering now, as shock set in, though she still stood upright. “A woman with child! No one and nothing else! It cannot be …”

Her eyes rolled back in her head, she twisted sideways and fell to the floor. Hereward watched her lie there for a few seconds while he attempted to regain the cold temper in which he fought, but it would not return. He hesitated, then wiped his saber clean, sheathed it, then despite all better judgment, bent over Jessaye.

She whispered something and again, and he caught the god’s name, “Tanesh” and with it a sudden onslaught of cinnamon and cloves and ginger on his nose. He blinked, and in that blink, she turned and struck at him with a small dagger that had been concealed in her sleeve. Hereward had expected something, but not the god’s assistance, for the dagger was in her right hand, which he’d thought useless. He grabbed her wrist but could only slow rather than stop the blow. Jessaye struck true, the dagger entering the armhole of the cuirass, to bite deep into his chest.

Hereward left the dagger there and merely pushed Jessaye back. The smell of spices faded, and her arm was limp once more. She did not resist, but lay there quite still, only her eyes moving as she watched Hereward sit down next to her . He sighed heavily, a few flecks of blood already spraying out with his breath, evidence that her dagger was lodged in his lung though he already knew that from the pain that impaled him with every breath.

“There is no treasure below,” said Jessaye quietly. “Only the godlet, and his priestess.”

“We did not come for treasure,” said Hereward. He spat blood on the floor. “Indeed, I had thought we would winter here, in good employment. But your god is proscribed, and so …”

“Proscribed? I don’t … who …”

“By the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World,” said Hereward. “Not that anyone remembers that name. If we are remembered it is from the stories that tell of … god-slayers.”

“I know the stories,” whispered Jessaye. “And not just stories … we were taught to beware the god-slayers. But they are always women, barren women, with witch-scars on their faces. Not a man and a puppet. That is why the barrier … the barrier stops all but gravid women …”

Hereward paused to wipe a froth of blood from his mouth before he could answer.

“Fitz has been my companion since I was three years old. He was called Mistress Fitz then, as my nurse-bodyguard. When I turned ten, I wanted a male companion, and so I began to call him Mister Fitz. But whether called Mistress or Master, I believe Fitz is nurturing an offshoot of his spiritual essence in some form of pouch upon his person. In time he will make a body for it to inhabit. The process takes several hundred years.”

“But you …”

Jessaye’s whisper was almost too quiet to hear.

“I am a mistake … the witches of Har are not barren, that is just a useful tale. But they do only bear daughters … save the once. I am the only son of a witch born these thousand years. My mother is one of the Mysterious Three who rule the witches, last remnant of the Council. Fitz was made by that Council, long ago, as a weapon to fight malignant gods. The more recent unwanted child became a weapon too, puppet and boy flung out to do our duty in the world. A duty that has carried me here … to my great regret.”

No answer came to this bubbling, blood-infused speech. Hereward looked across at Jessaye and saw that her chest no longer rose and fell, and that there was a dark puddle beneath her that was still spreading, a tide of blood advancing toward him.

He touched the hilt of the dagger in his side, and coughed, and the pain of both things was almost too much to bear; but he only screamed a little, and made it worse by standing up and staggering to the wall to place his back against it. There were still two guards somewhere, and Fitz was surprisingly vulnerable if he was surprised. Or he might be wounded too, from the struggle with the god.

Minutes or perhaps a longer time passed, and Hereward’s mind wandered and, in wandering, left his body too long. It slid down the wall to the ground and his blood began to mingle with that of Jessaye, and the others who lay on the floor of a god’s antechamber turned slaughterhouse.

Then there was pain again, and Hereward’s mind jolted back into his body, in time to make his mouth whimper and his eyes blink at a light that was a color he didn’t know, and there was Mister Fitz leaning over him and the dagger wasn’t in his side anymore and there was no bloody froth upon his lips. There was still pain. Constant, piercing pain, coming in waves and never subsiding. It stayed with him, uppermost in his thoughts, even as he became dimly aware that he was upright and walking, his legs moving under a direction not his own.

Except that very soon he was lying down again, and Fitz was cross.

“You have to get back up, Hereward.”

“I’m tired, Fitzie … can’t I rest for a little longer?”

“No. Get up.”

“Are we going home?”

“No, Hereward. You know we can’t go home. We must go onward.”

“Onward? Where?”

“Never mind now. Keep walking. Do you see our mounts?”

“Yes … but we will never … never make it out the gate …”

“We will, Hereward … leave it to me. Here, I will help you up. Are you steady enough?”

“I will … stay on. Fitz …”

“Yes, Hereward.”

“Don’t … don’t kill them all.”

If Fitz answered, Hereward didn’t hear, as he faded out of the world for a few seconds. When the world nauseatingly shivered back into sight and hearing, the puppet was nowhere in sight and the two battlemounts were already loping toward the gate, though the leading steed had no rider.

They did not pause at the wall. Though it was past midnight, the gate was open, and the guards who might have barred the way were nowhere to be seen, though there were strange splashes of color upon the earth where they might have stood. There were no guards beyond the gate, on the earthwork bastion either, the only sign of their prior existence a half-melted belt buckle still red with heat.

To Hereward’s dim eyes, the city’s defenses might as well be deserted, and nothing prevented the battlemounts continuing to lope, out into the warm autumn night.

The leading battlemount finally slowed and stopped a mile beyond the town, at the corner of a lemon grove, its hundreds of trees so laden with yellow fruit they scented the air with a sharp, clean tang that helped bring Hereward closer to full consciousness. Even so, he lacked the strength to shorten the chain of his own mount, but it stopped by its companion without urging.

Fitz swung down from the outlying branch of a lemon tree, onto his saddle, without spilling any of the fruit piled high in his upturned hat.

“We will ride on in a moment. But when we can, I shall make a lemon salve and a soothing drink.”

Hereward nodded, finding himself unable to speak. Despite Fitz’s repairing sorceries, the wound in his side was still very painful, and he was weak from loss of blood, but neither thing choked his voice. He was made quiet by a cold melancholy that held him tight, coupled with a feeling of terrible loss, the loss of some future, never-to-be happiness that had gone forever.

“I suppose we must head for Fort Yarz,” mused Fitz. “It is the closest likely place for employment. There is always some trouble there, though I believe the Gebrak tribes have been largely quiet this past year.”

Hereward tried to speak again, and at last found a croak that had some resemblance to a voice.

“No. I am tired of war. Find us somewhere peaceful, where I can rest.”

Fitz hopped across to perch on the neck of Hereward’s mount and faced the knight, his blue eyes brighter than the moonlight.

“I will try, Hereward. But as you ruminated earlier, the world is as it is, and we are what we were made to be. Even should we find somewhere that seems at peace, I suspect it will not stay so, should we remain. Remember Jeminero.”

“Aye.” Hereward sighed. He straightened up just a little and took up the chains, as Fitz jumped to his own saddle. “I remember.”

“Fort Yarz?” asked Fitz.

Hereward nodded, and slapped the chain, urging his battlemount forward. As it stretched into its stride, the lemons began to fall from the trees in the orchard, playing the soft drumbeat of a funerary march, the first sign of the passing from the world of the god of Shûme.

Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe

“Remind me why the pirates won’t sink us with cannon fire at long range,” said Sir Hereward as he lazed back against the bow of the skiff, his scarlet-sleeved arms trailing far enough over the side to get his twice folded-back cuffs and hands completely drenched, with occasional splashes going down his neck and back as well. He enjoyed the sensation, for the water in these eastern seas was warm, the swell gentle, and the boat was making a good four or five knots, reaching on a twelve knot breeze.

“For the first part, this skiff formerly belonged to Annim Tel, the pirate’s agent in Kerebad,” said Mister Fitz. Despite being only three feet six and a half inches tall and currently lacking even the extra height afforded by his favorite hat, the puppet was easily handling both tiller and main sheet of their small craft. “For the second part, we are both clad in red, the color favored by the pirates of this archipelagic trail, so they will account us as brethren until proven otherwise. For the third part, any decent perspective glass will bring close to their view the chest that lies lashed on the thwart there, and they will want to examine it, rather than blow it to smithereens.”

“Unless they’re drunk, which is highly probable,” said Hereward cheerfully. He lifted his arms out of the water and shook his hands, being careful not to wet the tarred canvas bag at his feet that held his small armory. Given the mission at hand, he had not brought any of his usual, highly-identifiable weapons. Instead the bag held a mere four snaphance pistols of quite ordinary though serviceable make, an oiled leather bag of powder, a box of shot, and a blued steel main gauche in a sharkskin scabbard. A sheathed mortuary sword lay across the top of the bag, its half-basket hilt at Hereward’s feet.

He had left his amour behind at the inn where they had met the messenger from the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World and though he was currently enjoying the light air upon his skin, and was optimistic by nature, Hereward couldn’t help reflect that a scarlet shirt, leather breeches and sea boots were not going to be much protection if the drunken pirates aboard the xebec they were sailing towards chose to conduct some musketry exercise.

Not that any amount of leather and proof steel would help if they happened to hit the chest. Even Mister Fitz’s sorcery could not help them in that circumstance, though he might be able to employ some sorcery to deflect bullets or small shot from both boat and chest.

Mister Fitz was currently dressed in the puffy-trousered raiment of one of the self-willed puppets that were made long ago in a gentler age to play merry tunes, declaim epic poetry and generally entertain. This belied his true nature and most people or other beings who encountered the puppet other than casually did not find him entertaining at all. While his full sewing desk was back at the inn with Hereward’s gear, the puppet still had several esoteric needles concealed under the red bandanna that was tightly strapped on his pumpkin-sized papier mâché head, and he was possibly one of the greatest practitioners of his chosen art still to walk—or sail—the known world.

“We’re in range of the bow-chasers,” noted Hereward. Casually, he rolled over to lie on his stomach, so only his head was visible over the bow. “Keep her straight on.”

“I have enumerated three excellent reasons why they will not fire upon us,” said Mister Fitz, but he pulled the tiller a little and let out the main sheet, the skiff’s sails billowing as it ran with the wind, so that it would bear down directly on the bow of the anchored xebec, allowing the pirates no opportunity for a full broadside.

“In any case, the bow-chasers are not even manned.”

Hereward squinted. Without his artillery glass he couldn’t clearly see what was occurring on deck, but he trusted Fitz’s superior vision.

“Oh well, maybe they won’t shoot us out of hand,” he said. “At least not at first. Remind me of my supposed name and title?”

“Martin Suresword, Terror of the Syndical Sea.”

“Ludicrous,” said Hereward. “I doubt I can say it, let alone carry on the pretense of being such a fellow.”

“There is a pirate of that name, though I believe he was rarely addressed by his preferred title,” said Mister Fitz. “Or perhaps I should say there was such a pirate, up until some months ago. He was large and fair, as you are, and the Syndical Sea is extremely distant, so it is a suitable cognomen for you to assume.”

“And you? Farnolio, wasn’t it?”

“Farolio,” corrected Fitz. “An entertainer fallen on hard times.”

“How can a puppet fall on hard times?” asked Hereward. He did not look back, as some movement on the bow of the xebec fixed his attention. He hoped it was not a gun crew making ready.

“It is not uncommon for a puppet to lose their singing voice,” said Fitz. “If their throat was made with a reed, rather than a silver pipe, the sorcery will only hold for five or six hundred years.”

“Your throat, I suppose, is silver?”

“An admixture of several metals,” said Fitz. “Silver being the most ordinary. I stand corrected on one of my earlier predictions, by the way.”

“What?”

“They are going to fire,” said Fitz and he pushed the tiller away, the skiff ’s mainsail flapping as it heeled to starboard. A few seconds later, a small cannon ball splashed down forty or fifty yards to port.

“Keep her steady!” ordered Hereward. “We’re as like to steer into a ball as not.”

“I think there will only be the one shot,” said the puppet. “The fellow who fired it is now being beaten with a musket stock.”

Hereward shielded his eyes with his hand to get a better look. The sun was hot in these parts, and glaring off the water. But they were close enough now that he could clearly see a small red-clad crowd gathered near the bow, and in the middle of it, a surprisingly slight pirate was beating the living daylights out of someone who was now crouched—or who had fallen—on the deck.

“Can you make out a name anywhere on the vessel?” Hereward asked.

“I cannot,” answered Fitz. “But her gun ports are black, there is a remnant of yellow striping on the rails of her quarter-deck and though the figurehead has been partially shot off, it is clearly a rampant sea-cat. This accords with Annim Tel’s description, and is the vessel we seek. She is the Sea-Cat, captained by one Romola Fury. I suspect it is she who has clubbed the firer of the bow-chaser to the deck.”

“A women pirate,” mused Hereward. “Did Annim Tel mention whether she is comely?”

“I can see for myself that you would think her passing fair,” said Fitz, his tone suddenly severe. “Which has no bearing on the task that lies ahead.”

“Save that it may make the company of these pirates more pleasant,” said Hereward. “Would you say we are now close enough to hail?”

“Indeed,” said Fitz.

Hereward stood up, pressed his knees against the top strakes of the bow to keep his balance, and cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Ahoy Sea-Cat!” he shouted. “Permission for two brethren to come aboard?”

There was a brief commotion near the bow, most of the crowd moving purposefully to the main deck. Only two pirates remained on the bow: the slight figure, who now they were closer they could see was female and so was almost certainly Captain Fury, and a tub-chested giant of a man who stood behind her. A crumpled body lay at their feet.

The huge pirate bent to listen to some quiet words from Fury, then filling his lungs to an extent that threatened to burst the buttons of his scarlet waistcoat, answered the hail with a shout that carried much farther than Hereward’s.

“Come aboard then, cullies! Port-side if you please.”

Mister Fitz leaned on the tiller and hauled in the main sheet, the skiff turning wide, the intention being to circle in off the port side of the xebec and then turn bow-first into the wind and drop the sail. If properly executed, the skiff would lose way and bump gently up against the pirate ship. If not, they would run into the vessel, damage the skiff and be a laughing stock.

This was the reason Mister Fitz had the helm. Somewhere in his long past, the puppet had served at sea for several decades, and his wooden limbs were well-salted, his experience clearly remembered and his instincts true.

Hereward, for his part, had served as a gunner aboard a frigate of the Kahlian Mercantile Alliance for a year when he was fifteen and though that lay some ten years behind him, he had since had some shorter-lived nautical adventures and was thus well able to pass himself off as a seaman aboard a fair-sized ship. But he was not a great sailor of small boats and he hastened to follow Mister Fitz’s quiet commands to lower sail and prepare to fend off with an oar as they coasted to a stop next to the anchored Sea-Cat.

In the event, no fending off was required, but Hereward took a thrown line from the xebec to make the skiff fast alongside, while Fitz secured the head- and mainsail. With the swell so slight, the ship at anchor, and being a xebec low in the waist, it was then an easy matter to climb aboard, using the gun ports and chain-plates as foot- and hand-holds, Hereward only slightly hampered by his sword. He left the pistols in the skiff.

Pirates sauntered and swaggered across the deck to form two rough lines as Hereward and Fitz found their feet. Though they did not have weapons drawn, it was very much a gauntlet, the men and women of the Sea-Cat eyeing their visitors with suspicion. Though he did not wonder at the time, presuming it the norm among pirates, Hereward noted that the men in particular were ill-favored, disfigured, or both. Fitz saw this too, and marked it as a matter for further investigation.

Romola Fury stepped down the short ladder from the forecastle deck to the waist and stood at the open end of the double line of pirates. The red waistcoated bully stood behind, but Hereward hardly noticed him. Though she was sadly lacking in the facial scars necessary for him to consider her a true beauty, Fury was indeed comely, and there was a hint of a powder burn on one high cheek-bone that accentuated her natural charms. She wore a fine blue silk coat embroidered with leaping sea-cats, without a shirt. As her coat was only loosely buttoned, Hereward found his attention very much focused upon her. Belatedly, he remembered his instructions, and gave a flamboyant but unstructured wave of his open hand, a gesture meant to be a salute.

“Well met, Captain! Martin Suresword and the dread puppet Farolio, formerly of the Anodyne Pain, brothers in good standing of the chapter of the Syndical Sea.” Fury raised one eyebrow and tilted her head a little to the side, the long reddish hair on the unshaved half of her head momentarily catching the breeze. Hereward kept his eyes on her, and tried to look relaxed, though he was ready to dive aside, head butt a path through the gauntlet of pirates, circle behind the mizzen, draw his sword and hold off the attack long enough for Fitz to wreak his havoc …

“You’re a long way from the Syndical Sea, Captain Suresword,” Fury finally replied. Her voice was strangely pitched and throaty, and Fitz thought it might be the effects of an acid or alkaline burn to the tissues of the throat. “What brings you to these waters, and to the Sea-Cat? In Annim Tel’s craft, no less, with a tasty-looking chest across the thwarts?”

She made no sign, but something in her tone or perhaps in the words themselves made the two lines of pirates relax and the atmosphere of incipient violence ease.

“A proposition,” replied Hereward. “For the mutual benefit of all.”

Fury smiled and strolled down the deck, her large enforcer at her heels. She paused in front of Hereward, looked up at him, and smiled a crooked smile, provoking in him the memory of a cat that always looked just so before it sat on his lap and trod its claws into his groin.

“Is it riches we’re talking about, Martin Sure … sword? Gold treasure and the like? Not slaves, I trust? We don’t hold with slaving on the Sea-Cat, no matter what our brothers of the Syndical Sea may care for.”

“Not slaves, Captain,” said Hereward. “But treasure of all kinds. More gold and silver than you’ve ever seen. More than anyone has ever seen.”

Fury’s smile broadened for a moment. She slid a foot forward like a dancer, moved to Hereward’s side and linked her arm through his, neatly pinning his sword-arm.

“Do tell, Martin,” she said. “Is it to be an assault on the Ingmal Convoy? A cutting- out venture in Hryken Bay?”

Her crew laughed as she spoke, and Hereward felt the mood change again. Fury was mocking him, for it would take a vast fleet of pirates to carry an assault on the fabulous biennial convoy from the Ingmal saffron fields, and Hryken Bay was dominated by the guns of the justly-famous Diamond Fort and its red-hot shot.

“I do not bring you dreams and fancies, Captain Fury,” said Hereward quietly. “What I offer is a prize greater than even a galleon of the Ingmal.”

“What then?” asked Fury. She gestured at the sky, where a small turquoise disc was still visible near the horizon, though it was faded by the sun. “You’ll bring the blue moon down for us to plunder?”

“I offer a way through the Secret Channels and the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe,” said Hereward, speaking louder with each word, as the pirates began to shout, most in angry disbelief, but some in excited greed.

Fury’s hand tightened on Hereward’s arm, but she did not speak immediately. Slowly, as her silence was noted, her crew grew quiet, such was her power over them. Hereward knew very few others who had such presence, and he had known many kings and princes, queens and high priestesses. Not for the first time, he felt a stab of doubt about their plan, or more accurately Fitz’s plan. Fury was no cat’s-paw, to be lightly used by others.

“What is this way?” asked Fury, when her crew was silent, the only sound the lap of the waves against the hull, the creak of the rigging, and to Hereward at least, the pounding of his own heart.

“I have a dark rutter for the channels,” he said. “Farolio here, is a gifted navigator. He will take the star sights.”

“So the Secret Channels may be traveled,” said Fury. “If the rutter is true.”

“It is true, madam,” piped up Fitz, pitching his voice higher than usual. He sounded childlike, and harmless. “We have journeyed to the foot of the sea gate and returned, this past month.”

Fury glanced down at the puppet, who met her look with his unblinking, blue-painted eyes, the sheen of the sorcerous varnish upon them bright. She held the puppet’s gaze for several seconds, her eyes narrowing once more, in a fashion reminiscent of a cat that sees something it is not sure whether to flee or fight. Then she slowly looked back at Hereward.

“And the Sea Gate? It matters not to pass the channels if the gate is shut against us.”

“The Sea Gate is not what it once was,” said Hereward. “If pressure is brought against the correct place, then it will fall.”

“Pressure?” asked Fury, and the veriest tip of her tongue thrust out between her lips.

“I am a Master Gunner,” said Hereward. “In the chest aboard out skiff is a mortar shell of particular construction—and I believe that not a week past you captured a Harker-built bomb vessel, and have yet to dispose of it.”

He did not mention that this ship had been purchased specifically for his command, and its capture had seriously complicated their initial plan.

“You are well-informed,” said Fury. “I do have such a craft, hidden in a cove beyond the strand. I have my crew, none better in all this sea. You have a rutter, a navigator, a bomb, and the art to bring the sea gate down. Shall we say two-thirds to we Sea-Cats and one-third to you and your puppet?”

“Done,” said Hereward.

“Yes,” said Fitz.

Fury unlinked her arm from Hereward’s, held up her open hand and licked her palm most daintily, before offering it to him. Hereward paused, then spat mostly air on his own palm, and they shook upon the bargain.

Fitz held up his hand, as flexible as any human’s, though it was dark brown and grained like wood, and licked his palm with a long blue-stippled tongue that was pierced with a silver stud. Fury slapped more than shook Fitz’s hand, and she did not look at the puppet.

“Jabez!” instructed Fury, and her great hulking right-hand man was next to shake on the bargain, his grip surprisingly light and deft, and his eyes warm with humor, a small smile on his battered face. Whether it was for the prospect of treasure or some secret amusement, Hereward could not tell, and Jabez did not smile for Fitz. After Jabez came the rest of the crew, spitting and shaking till the bargain was sealed with all aboard. Like every ship of the brotherhood, the Sea- Cats were in theory a free company, and decisions made by all.

The corpse on the forecastle was an indication that this was merely a theory and that in practice, Captain Fury ruled as she wished. The spitting and handshaking was merely song and dance and moonshadow, but it played well with the pirates, who enjoyed pumping Hereward’s hand till his shoulder hurt. They did not take such liberties with Fitz, but this was no sign they had discerned his true nature, but merely the usual wariness of humans towards esoteric life.

When all the hand-clasping was done, Fury took Hereward’s arm again and led him towards the great cabin in the xebec’s stern. As they strolled along the deck, she called over her shoulder, “Make ready to sail, Jabez. Captain Suresword and I have some matters to discuss.”

Fitz followed at Hereward’s heels. Jabez’s shouts passed over his head, and he had to weave his way past pirates rushing to climb the ratlines or man the capstan that would raise the anchor.

Fury’s great cabin was divided by a thick curtain that separated her sleeping quarters from a larger space that was not quite broad enough to comfortably house both the teak-topped table and the two twelve-pounder guns. Fury had to let go of Hereward to slip through the space between the breech of one gun and the table corner, and he found himself strangely relieved by the cessation of physical proximity. He was no stranger to women, and had dallied with courtesans, soldiers, farm girls, priestesses and even a widowed empress, but there was something about Fury that unsettled him more than any of these past lovers.

Consequently he was even more relieved when she did not lead him through the curtain to her sleeping quarters, but sat at the head of the table and gestured for him to sit on one side. He did so, and Fitz hopped up on to the table.

“Drink!” shouted Fury. She was answered by a grunt from behind a half-door in the fore bulkhead that Hereward had taken for a locker. The door opened a fraction and a scrawny, tattooed, handless arm was thrust out, the stump through the leather loop of a wineskin which was unceremoniously thrown up to the table.

“Go get the meat on the forecastle,” added Fury. She raised the wineskin and daintily directed a jet of a dark, resinous wine into her mouth, licking her lips most carefully when she finished. She passed the skin to Hereward, who took the merest swig. He was watching the horribly mutilated little man who was crawling across the deck. The pirate’s skin was so heavily and completely tattooed that it took a moment to realize he was an albino. He had only his left hand, his right arm ending at the wrist. Both of his legs were gone from the knee, and he scuttled on his stumps like a tricorn beetle.

“M’ steward,” said Fury, as the fellow left. She took another long drink. “Excellent cook.”

Hereward nodded grimly. He had recognized some of the tattoos on the man, which identified him as a member of one of the cannibal societies that infested the decaying city of Coradon, far to the south.

“I’d invite you to take nuncheon with me,” said Fury, with a sly look. “But most folk don’t share my tastes.”

Hereward nodded. He had in fact eaten human flesh, when driven to extremity in the long retreat from Jeminero. It was not something he wished to partake of again, should there be any alternative sustenance.

“We are all but meat and water, in the end,” said Fury. “Saving your presence, puppet.”

“It is a philosophic position that I find unsurprising in one of your past life,” said Fitz. “I, for one, do not think it strange for you to eat dead folk, particularly when there is always a shortage of fresh meat at sea.”

“What do you know of my “past life’?” asked Fury and she smiled just a little, so her sharp eye teeth protruded over her lower lip.

“Only what I observe,” remarked Fitz. “Though the mark is faded, I perceive a Lurquist slave brand in that quarter of the skin above your left breast and below your shoulder. You also have the characteristic scar of a Nagolon manacle on your right wrist. These things indicate you have been a slave at least twice, and so must have freed yourself or been freed, also twice. The Nagolon cook the flesh of their dead rowers to provide for the living, hence your taste—”

“I think that will do,” interrupted Fury. She looked at Hereward. “We all need our little secrets, do we not? But there are others we must share. It is enough for the crew to know no more than the song about the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe and the dangers of the waters near their isle. But I would know the whole of it. Tell me more about these Scholar-Pirates and their fabled fortress. Do they still lurk behind the Sea-Gate?”

“The Sea-Gate has been shut fast these last two hundred years or more,” Hereward said carefully. He had to answer before Fitz did, as the puppet could not always be trusted to sufficiently skirt the truth, even when engaged on a task that required subterfuge and misdirection. “The Scholar-Pirates have not been seen since that time and most likely the fortress is now no more than a dark and silent tomb.”

“If it is not now, we shall make it so,” said Fury. She hesitated for a second, then added, “For the scholar-pirates,” and tapped the table thrice with the bare iron ring she wore on the thumb of her left hand. This was an ancient gesture, and told Fitz even more about the captain.

“The song says they were indeed as much scholars as pirates,” said Fury. “I have no desire to seize a mound of dusty parchment or rows of books. Do you know of anything more than legend that confirms their treasure?”

“I have seen inside their fortress,” said Fitz. “Some four hundred years past, before the Sea Gate was … permanently raised. There very few true scholars among them even then, and most had long since made learning secondary to the procurement of riches … and riches there were, in plenty.”

“How old are you, puppet?”

Fitz shrugged his little shoulders and did not answer, a forbearance that Hereward was pleased to see. Fury was no common pirate, and anyone who knew Fitz’s age and a little history could put the two together in a way that might require adjustment, and jeopardize Hereward’s current task.

“There will be gold enough for all,” Hereward said hastily. “There are four or five accounts extant from ransomed captives of the Scholar-Pirates, and all mention great stores of treasure. Treasure for the taking.”

“Aye, after some small journey through famously impassable waters and a legendary gate,” said Fury. “As I said, tell me the whole.”

“We will,” said Hereward. “Farolio?”

“If I may spill a little wine, I will sketch out a chart,” said Fitz.

Fury nodded. Hereward poured a puddle of wine on the corner of the table for the puppet, who crouched and dipped his longest finger in it, which was the one next to his thumb, then quickly sketched a rough map of many islands. Though he performed no obvious sorcery, the wet lines were quite sharp and did not dry out as quickly as one might expect.

“The fortress itself is built wholly within a natural vastness inside this isle, in the very heart of the archipelago. The pirates called both island and fortress Cror Holt, though its proper name is Sarsköe, which is also the name of the entire island group.”

Fitz made another quick sketch, an enlarged view of the same island, a roughly circular land that was split from its eastern shore to its centre by a jagged, switchbacked line of five turns.

“The sole entry to the Cror Holt cavern is from the sea, through this gorge which cuts a zigzag way for almost nine miles through the limestone. The gorge terminates at a smooth cliff, but here the pirates bored a tunnel through to their cavern. The entrance to the tunnel is barred by the famed Sea-Gate, which measures one hundred and seven feet wide and one hundred and ninety-seven feet high. The sea abuts it at near forty feet at low water and sixty-three at the top of the tide. The gorge is narrow, only broad enough for three ships to pass abreast, so it is not possible to directly fire upon the Sea-Gate with cannon. However, we have devised a scheme to fire a bomb from the prior stretch of the gorge, over the intervening rock wall and into the top of the gate.

Once past the gate, there is a harbor pool capacious enough to host a dozen vessels of a similar size to your Sea-Cat, with three timber wharves built out from a paved quay. The treasure- and store-houses of the scholar-pirates are built on an inclined crescent above the quay, along with residences and other buildings of no great note.”

“You are an unusual puppet,” said Fury. She took the wineskin and poured another long stream down her throat. “Go on.”

Fitz nodded, and returned to his first sketch, his finger tracing a winding path between the islands.

“To get to the Cror Holt entry in the first place, we must pick our way through the so-called Secret Channels. There are close to two hundred islands and reefs arrayed around the central isle, and the only passage through is twisty indeed. Adding complication to difficulty, we must pass these channels at night, a night with a clear sky, for we have only the dark rutter to guide us through the channels, and the path contained therein is detailed by star sights and soundings.

We will also have to contend with most difficult tides. This is particularly so in the final approach to the Sea-Gate, where the shape of the reefs and islands—and I suspect some sorcerous tinkering—funnel two opposing tidewashes into each other. The resultant eagre, or bore as some call it, enters the mouth of the gorge an hour before high water and the backwash returns some fifteen minutes later. The initial wave is taller than your top-masts and very swift, and will destroy any craft caught in the gorge.

Furthermore, we must also be in the Cror Halt gorge just before the turn of the tide, in order to secure the bomb vessel ready for firing during the slack water. With only one shot, He … Martin, that is, will need the most stable platform possible. I have observed the slack water as lasting twenty-three minutes and we must have the bomb vessel ready to fire.

Accordingly we must enter after the eagre has gone in and come out, anchor and spring the bomb vessel at the top of the tide, fire on the slack and then we will have some eight or nine hours at most to loot and be gone before the eagre returns, and without the Sea Gate to block it, floods the fortress completely and drowns all within.”

Fury looked from the puppet to Hereward, her face impassive. She did not speak for at least a minute. Hereward and Fitz waited silently, listening to the sounds of the crew in deck and rigging above them, the creak of the vessel’s timbers and above all that, the thump of someone chopping something up in the captain’s galley that lay somewhat above them and nearer the waist.

“It is a madcap venture, and my crew would mutiny if they knew what lies ahead,” said Fury finally. “Nor do I trust either of you to have told me the half of it. But … I grow tired of the easy pickings on this coast. Perhaps it is time to test my luck again. We will join with the bomb vessel, which is called Strongarm, by nightfall and sail on in convoy. You will both stay aboard the Sea-Cat. How long to gain the outer archipelago, master navigator puppet?”

“Three days with a fair wind,” said Fitz. “If the night then is clear, we shall have two of three moons sufficiently advanced to light our way, but not so much they will mar my starsights. Then it depends upon the wind. If it is even passing fair, we should reach the entrance to the Cror Halt gorge two hours after midnight, as the tide nears its flood.”

“Madness,” said Fury again, but she laughed and slapped Fitz’s sketch, a spray of wine peppering Hereward’s face. “You may leave me now. Jabez will find you quarters.”

Hereward stood and almost bowed, before remembering he was a pirate. He turned the bow into a flamboyant wipe of his wine-stained face and turned away, to follow Fitz, who had jumped down from the table without any attempt at courtesy.

As they left, Fury spoke quietly, but her words carried great force. “Remember this, Captain Suresword. I eat my enemies—and those that betray my trust I eat alive.”

That parting comment was still echoing in Hereward’s mind four days later, as the Sea-Cat sailed cautiously between two lines of white breakers no more than a mile apart. The surf was barely visible in the moonlight, but all aboard could easily envision the keel-tearing reefs that lay below.

Strongarm wallowed close behind, its ragged wake testament to its inferior sailing properties, much of this due to the fact that it had a huge mortar sitting where it would normally have a foremast. But though it would win no races, Strongarm was a beautiful vessel in Hereward’s eyes, with her massively reinforced decks and beams, chain rigging and of course, the great iron mortar itself.

Though Fury had not let him stay overlong away from the Sea-Cat, and Fitz had been required to stay on the xebec, Hereward had spent nearly all his daylight hours on the bomb vessel, familiarizing himself with the mortar and training the crew he had been given to serve it. Though he would only have one shot with the special bomb prepared by Mister Fitz, and he would load and aim that himself, Hereward had kept his gunners busy drilling. With a modicum of luck, the special shot would bring the Sea-Gate down, but he thought there could well be an eventuality where even commonplace bombs might need to be rained down upon the entrance to Cror Holt.

A touch at Hereward’s arm brought his attention back to Fitz. Both stood on the quarterdeck, next to the helmsman, who was peering nervously ahead. Fury was in her cabin, possibly to show her confidence in her chosen navigator—and in all probability, dining once more on the leftovers of the unfortunate pirate who had taken it on himself to fire the bowchaser.

“We are making good progress,” said Fitz. He held a peculiar device at his side that combined a small telescope and a tiny, ten line abacus of screw-thread beads. Hereward had never seen any other navigator use such an instrument, but by taking sights on the moons and the stars and with the mysterious aid of the silver chronometric egg he kept in his waistcoat, Fitz could and did fix their position most accurately. This could then be checked against the directions contained with the salt-stained leather bindings of the dark rutter.

“Come to the taffrail,” whispered Fitz. More loudly, he said, “Keep her steady, helm. I shall give you a new course presently.”

Man and puppet moved to the rail at the stern, to stand near the great lantern that was the essential beacon for the following ship. Hereward leant on the rail and looked back at the Strongarm again. In the light of the two moons the bomb vessel was a pallid, ghostly ship, the great mortar giving it an odd silhouette. Fitz, careless of the roll and pitch of the ship, leaped to the rail. Gripping Hereward’s arm, he leaned over and looked intently at the stern below.

“Stern windows shut—we shall not be overheard,” whispered Fitz.

“What is it you wish to say?” asked Hereward.

“Elements of our plan may need re-appraisal,” said Fitz. “Fury is no easy dupe and once the Sea Gate falls, its nature will be evident. Though she must spare me to navigate our return to open water, I fear she may well attempt to slay you in a fit of pique. I will then be forced into action, which would be unfortunate as we may well need the pirates to carry the day.”

“I trust you would be ‘forced into action’ before she killed me … or started eating me alive,” said Hereward.

Fitz did not deign to answer this sally. They both knew Hereward’s safety was of almost paramount concern to the puppet.

“Perchance we should give the Captain a morsel of knowledge,” said Fitz. “What do you counsel?”

Hereward looked down at the deck and thought of Fury at her board below, carving off a more literal morsel.

“She is a most uncommon woman, even for a pirate,” he said slowly.

“She is that,” said Fitz. “On many counts. You recall the iron ring, the three-times tap she did on our first meeting below? That is a grounding action against some minor forms of esoteric attack. She used it as a ward against ill-saying, which is the practice of a number of sects. I would think she was a priestess once, or at least a novice, in her youth.”

“Of what god?” asked Hereward. “A listed entity? That might serve us very ill.”

“Most probably some benign and harmless godlet,” said Fitz. “Else she could not have been wrested from its service to the rowing benches of the Nagolon. But there is something about her that goes against this supposition … it would be prudent to confirm which entity she served.”

“If you wish to ask, I have no objection …” Hereward began. Then he stopped and looked at the puppet, favoring his long-time comrade with a scowl.

“I have to take many more star-sights,” said Fitz. He jumped down from the rail and turned to face the bow. “Not to mention instruct the helmsman on numerous small points of sail. I think it would be in our interest to grant Captain Fury some further knowledge of our destination, and also endeavor to discover which godlet held the indenture of her youth. We have some three or four hours before we will reach the entrance to the gorge.”

“I am not sure—” said Hereward.

“Surely that is time enough for such a conversation,” interrupted Fitz. “Truly, I have never known you so reluctant to seek private discourse with a woman of distinction.”

“A woman who feasts upon human flesh,” protested Hereward as he followed Fitz.

“She merely does not waste foodstuffs,” said Fitz. “I think it commendable. You have yourself partaken of—”

“Yes, yes, I remember!” said Hereward. “Take your star sight! I will go below and speak to Fury.”

The helmsman looked back as Hereward spoke, and he realized he was no longer whispering.

“Captain Fury, I mean. I will speak with you anon, Mister … Farolio!”

Captain Fury was seated at her table when Hereward entered, following a cautious knock. But she was not eating and there were no recognizable human portions upon the platter in front of her. It held only a dark glass bottle and a small silver cup, the kind used in birthing rites or baptismal ceremonies. Fury drank from it, flicking her wrist to send the entire contents down her throat in one gulp. Even from a few paces distant, Hereward could smell the sharp odor of strong spirits.

“Arrack,” said Fury. “I have a taste for it at times, though it does not serve me as well as once it did. You wish to speak to me? Then sit.”

Hereward sat cautiously, as far away as he dared without giving offence, and angled his chair so as to allow a clean draw of the main gauche from his right hip. Fury appeared less than sober, if not exactly drunk, and Hereward was very wary of the trouble that might come from the admixture of a pirate with cannibalistic tendencies and a powerfully spirituous drink.

“I am not drunk,” said Fury. “It would take three bottles of this stuff to send me away, and a better glass to sup it with. I am merely wetting down my powder before we storm the fortress.”

“Why?” asked Hereward. He did not move any closer.

“I am cursed,” said Fury. She poured herself another tot. “Did you suppose “Fury” is my birth name?”

Hereward shook his head slowly.

“Perhaps I am blessed,” continued the woman. She smiled her small, toothy smile again, and drank. “You will see when the fighting starts. Your puppet knows, doesn’t it? Those blue eyes … it will be safe enough, but you’d best keep your distance. It’s the tall men and the well-favored that she must either bed or slay, and it’s all I can do to point her towards the foe …”

“Who is she?” asked Hereward. It took some effort to keep his voice calm and level. At the same time he let his hand slowly fall to his side, fingers trailing across the hilt of his parrying dagger.

“What I become,” said Fury. “A fury indeed, when battle is begun.”

She made a sign with her hand, her fingers making a claw. Her nails had grown, Hereward saw, but not to full talons. Not yet. More discolored patches—spots— had also appeared on her face, making it obvious the permanent one near her eye was not a powder-burn at all.

“You were a sister of Chelkios, the Leoparde,” stated Hereward. He did not have Fitz’s exhaustive knowledge of cross-dimensional entities, but Chelkios was one of the more prominent deities of the old Kvarnish Empire. Most importantly from his point of view, at least in the longer term, it was not proscribed.

“I was taken from Her by slavers when I was but a novice, a silly little thing who disobeyed the rules and left the temple,” said Fury. She took another drink. “A true sister controls the temper of the beast. I must manage with rum, for the most part, and the occasional …”

She set her cup down, stood up and held her hand out to Hereward and said, “Distraction.”

Hereward also stood, but did not immediately take her hand. Two powerful instincts warred against each other, a sensuous thrill that coursed through his whole body versus a panicked sense of self-preservation that emanated from a more rational reckoning of threat and chance.

“Bed or slay, she has no middle course,” said Fury. Her hand trembled and the nails on her fingers grew longer and began to curve.

“There are matters pertaining to our task that you must hear,” said Hereward, but as he spoke all his caution fell away and he took her hand to draw her close. “You should know that the Sea Gate is now in fact a wall …”

He paused as cool hands found their way under his shirt, muscles tensing in anticipation of those sharp nails upon his skin. But Fury’s fingers were soft pads now, and quick, and Hereward’s own hands were launched upon a similar voyage of discovery.

“A wall,” gulped Hereward. “Built two hundred years ago by the surviving Scholar-Pirates … to … to keep in something they had originally summoned to aid them … the treasure is there … but it is guarded …”

“Later,” crooned Fury, close to his ear, as she drew him back through the curtain to her private lair. “Tell me later …”

Many hours later, Fury stood on the quarterdeck and looked down at Hereward as he took his place aboard the boat that was to transfer him to the Strongarm. She gave no sign that she viewed him with any particular affection or fondness, or indeed recalled their intimate relations at all. However, Hereward was relieved to see that though the lanterns in the rigging cast shadows on her face, there was only the one leopard patch there and her nails were of a human dimension. Fitz stood at her side, his papier mâché head held at a slight angle so that he might see both sky and boat. Hereward had managed only a brief moment of discourse with him, enough to impart Fury’s nature and to tell him that she had seemed to take the disclosure of their potential enemy with equanimity. Or possibly had not heard him properly, or recalled it, having been concerned with more immediate activities.

Both Sea-Cat and Strong-Arm were six miles up the gorge, its sheer, grey-white limestone walls towering several hundred feet above them. Only the silver moon was high enough to light their way, the blue moon left behind on the horizon of the open sea. Even so, a bright three-quarters of the disc shone down, and the sky was clear and full of stars, so on one score at least the night was ideal for the expedition. But the wind had been dropping by the minute, and now the air was still, and what little sail the Sea-Cat had set was limp and useless. Strongarm’s poles were bare, as she was already moored in the position Fitz had chosen on their preliminary exploration a month before, with three anchors down and a spring on each line. Hereward would adjust the vessel’s lie when he got aboard, thus training the mortar exactly on the Sea-Gate, which lay out of sight on the other side of the northern wall, in the next turn of the gorge.

In consequence of the calm, recourse had to be made to oars, so a longboat, two gigs and Annim Tel’s skiff were in line ahead of the Sea-Cat, ready to tow her the last mile around the bend in the gorge. Hereward would have preferred to undertake the assault entirely in the small craft, but they could not deliver sufficient force. There were more than a hundred and ninety pirates aboard the xebec, and he suspected they might need all of them and more.

“High water,” called out someone from near the bow of the Sea-Cat. “The flow has ceased.”

“Give way!” ordered Hereward and his boat surged forward, six pirates bending their strength upon the oars. With the gorge so narrow it would only take a few minutes to reach the Strongarm, but with the tide at its peak and slack water begun, Hereward had less than a quarter hour to train, elevate and fire the mortar. Behind him, he heard Jabez roar, quickly followed by the splash of many oars in the water as the boats began the tow. It would be a slow passage for the Sea-Cat, and Hereward’s gig would easily catch them up.

The return journey out of the gorge would be just as slow, Hereward thought and entailed much greater risk. If they lost too many rowers in battle, and if the wind failed to come up, they might well not make it out before the eagre came racing up the gorge once more.

He tried to dismiss images of the great wave roaring down the gorge as he climbed up the side of the bomb vessel and quickly ran to the mortar. His crew had everything ready. The chest was open to show the special bomb, the charge bags were laid on oil-cloth next to it and his gunner’s quadrant and fuses were laid out likewise on the opposite side.

Hereward looked up at the sky and at the marks Fitz had sorcerously carved into the cliff the month before, small things that caught the moonlight and might be mistaken for a natural pocket of quartz. Using these marks, he ordered a minor adjustment of the springs to warp the bomb vessel around a fraction, a task that took precious minutes as the crew heaved on the lines.

While they heaved, Hereward laid the carefully calculated number and weight of charge bags in the mortar. Then he checked and cut the fuse, measuring it three times and checking it again, before pushing it into the bomb. This was a necessary piece of misdirection for the benefit of the pirates, for in fact Fitz had put a sorcerous trigger in the bomb so that it would explode exactly as required.

“Load!” called Hereward. The six pirates who served the mortar leaped into action, two carefully placing the wadding on the charge-bags while the other four gingerly lifted the bomb and let it slide back into the mortar.

“Prepare for adjustment,” came the next command. Hereward laid his gunner’s quadrant in the barrel and the crew took a grip on the two butterfly-shaped handles that turned the cogs that would raise the mortar’s inclination. “Up six turns!”

“Up six turns!” chorused the hands as they turned the handles, bronze cogs ticking as the teeth interlocked with the thread of the inclination screws. The barrel of the mortar slowly rose, till it was pointing up at the clear sky and was only ten degrees from the vertical.

“Down one quarter turn!”

“Down one quarter turn!”

The barrel came down. Hereward checked the angle once more. All would depend upon this one shot.

“Prime her and ready matches!”

The leading hand primed the touch-hole with fine powder from a flask, while his second walked back along the deck to retrieve two linstocks, long poles that held burning lengths of match cord.

“Stand ready!”

Hereward took one linstock and the leading gunner the other. The rest of the gun crew walked aft, away from the mortar, increasing their chances of survival should there be some flaw in weapon or bomb that resulted in early detonation.

“One for the sea, two for the shore, three for the match,” Hereward chanted. On three he lit the bomb’s fuse and strode quickly away, still chanting, “four for the gunner and five for the bore!”

On “bore” the gunner lit the touchhole.

Hereward already had his eyes screwed shut and was crouched on the deck fifteen feet from the mortar, with his back to it and a good handhold. Even so, the flash went through his eyelids and the concussion and thunderous report that followed sent him sprawling across the deck. The Strongarm pitched and rolled too, so that he was in some danger of going over the side, till he found another handhold. Hauling himself upright, Hereward looked up to make sure the bomb had cleared the rim of the gorge, though he knew that if it hadn’t there would already be broken rock falling all around. Blinking against the spots and luminous blurring that were the after-effects of the flash, he stared up at the sky and a few seconds later, was rewarded by the sight of another, even brighter flash and hard on its heels, a deep, thunderous rumble.

“A hit, a palpable hit!” cried the leading gunner, who was an educated man who doubtless had some strange story of how he had become a pirate. “Well done, sir!”

“It hit something, sure enough,” said Hereward, as the other gunners cheered.

“But has it brought the Sea-Gate down? We shall see. Gunners, swab out the mortar and stand ready. Crew, to the boat. We must make haste.”

As expected, Hereward’s gig easily caught the Sea-Cat and its towing boats, which were making slow progress, particularly as a small wave had come down from farther up the gorge, setting them momentarily aback, but heartening Hereward as it indicated a major displacement of the water in front of the Sea-Gate. This early portent of success was confirmed some short time later as his craft came in sight of the gorge’s terminus. Dust and smoke still hung in the air, and there was a huge dark hole in the middle of what had once been a great wall of pale green bricks.

“Lanterns!” called Hereward as they rowed forward, and his bowman held a lantern high in each hand, the two beams catching spirals of dust and blue-grey gunsmoke which were still twisting their way up towards the silver moon. The breach in the wall was sixty feet wide, Hereward reckoned, and though bricks were still tumbling on either side, there were none left to fall from above. The Sea-Cat could be safely towed inside, to disgorge the pirates upon the wharves or if they had rotted and fallen away, to the quay itself.

Hereward looked aft. The xebec was some hundred yards behind, its lower yardarms hung with lanterns so that it looked like some strange, blazing-eyed monster slowly wading up the gorge, the small towing craft ahead of it low dark shapes, lesser servants lit by duller lights.

“Rest your oars,” said Hereward, louder than he intended. His ears were still damped from the mortar blast. “Ready your weapons and watch that breach.” Most of the pirates hurried to prime pistols or ease dirks and cutlasses in scabbards, but one woman, a broad-faced bravo with a slit nose, laid her elbows on her oars and watched Hereward as he reached into his boot and removed the brassard he had placed there. A simple armband, he had slid it up his arm before he noticed her particular attention, which only sharpened as she saw that the characters embroidered on the brassard shone with their own internal light, far brighter than could be obtained by any natural means.

“What’s yon light?” she asked. Others in the crew also turned to look.

“So you can find me,” answered Hereward easily. “It is painted with the guts of light-bugs. Now I must pray a moment. If any of you have gods to speak to, now is the time.”

He watched for a moment, cautious of treachery or some reaction to the brassard, but the pirates had other concerns. Many of them did bend their heads, or close one eye, or touch their knees with the backs of their hands, or adopt one of the thousands of positions of prayer approved by the godlets they had been raised to worship.

Hereward did none of these things, but spoke under his breath, so that none might hear him.

“In the name of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, acting under the authority granted by the Three Empires, the Seven Kingdoms, the Palatine Regency, the Jessar Republic and the Forty Lesser Realms, I declare myself an agent of the Council. I identify the godlet manifested in this fortress of Cror Holt as Forjill-Um-Uthrux, a listed entity under the Treaty. Consequently the said godlet and all those who assist it are deemed to be enemies of the World and the Council authorizes me to pursue any and all actions necessary to banish, repel or exterminate the said godlet.”

“Captain Suresword! Advance and clear the channel!”

It was Fury calling, no longer relying on the vasty bellow of Jabez. The xebec was closing more rapidly, the towing craft rowing faster, the prospect of gold reviving tired pirates. Hereward could see Fury in the bow of the Sea-Cat, and Fitz beside her, his thin arm a-glow from his own brassard.

Hereward touched the butts of the two pistols in his belt and then the hilt of his mortuary sword. The entity that lay in the darkness within could not be harmed by shot or steel, but it was likely served by those who could die as readily as any other mortal. Hereward’s task was to protect Fitz from such servants, while the puppet’s sorcery dealt with the god.

“Out oars!” he shouted, loud as he could this time. “Onwards to fortune! Give way!”

Oars dipped, the boat surged forward and they passed the ruins of the Sea-Gate into the black interior of Cror Holt.

Out of the moonlight the darkness was immediate and disturbing, though the tunnel was so broad and high and their lantern-light of such small consequence that they had no sense of being within a confined space. Indeed, though Hereward knew the tunnel itself was short, he could only tell when they left it and entered the greater cavern by the difference in the sound of their oar-splashes, immediate echoes being replaced by more distant ones.

“Keep her steady,” he instructed, his voice also echoing back across the black water. “Watch for the wharves or submerged piles. It can’t be far.”

“There, Captain!”

It was not a wharf, but the spreading rings of some disturbance upon the surface of the still water. Something big had popped up and sank again, off the starboard quarter of the boat.

“Pull harder!” instructed Hereward. He drew a pistol and cocked the lock. The Sea-Cat was following, and from its many lanterns he could see the lower outline of the tunnel around it.

“I see the wharf!” cried the bowman, his words immediately followed by a sudden thump under the hull, the crack of broken timber and a general falling about in the boat, one of the lanterns going over the side into immediate extinguishment.

“We’ve struck!” shouted a pirate. He stood as if to leap over the side, but paused and looked down.

Hereward looked too. They had definitely hit something hard and the boat should be sinking beneath them. But it was dry. He looked over the side and saw that the boat was at rest on stony ground. There was no water beneath them at all. Another second of examination, and a backward look confirmed that rather than the boat striking a reef, the ground below them had risen up. There was a wharf some ten yards away but its deck was well above them, and the harbor wall a barrier behind it, that they would now need to climb to come to the treasure houses.

“What’s that?” asked the gold-toothed pirate uncertainly.

Hereward looked and fired in the same moment, at a seven foot tall yellow starfish that was shuffling forward on two points. The bullet took it in the mid-section, blasting out a hole the size of a man’s fist, but the starfish did not falter.

“Shoot it!” he shouted. There were starfish lurching upright all around and he knew there would be even more beyond the lantern-light. “Sea-Cat, ware shallows and enemy!”

The closer starfish fell a second later, its lower points shot to pulp. Pirates swore as they reloaded, all of them clustering closer to Hereward as if he might ward them from this sudden, sorcerous enemy.

Louder gunfire echoed in from the tunnel. Hereward saw flashes amid the steady light of the xebec’s lanterns. The Sea-Cat’s bow-chasers and swivel guns were being fired, so they too must be under attack. He also noted that the ship was moving no closer and in fact, might even be receding.

“Cap’n, the ship! She’s backing!” yelled a panicked pirate. He snatched up the remaining lantern and ran from the defensive ring about the boat, intent on the distant lights of the Sea-Cat. A few seconds later the others saw pirate and lantern go under a swarm of at least a dozen starfish, and then it was dark once more, save for the glow of the symbols on Hereward’s arm.

“Bowman, get a line over the wharf!” shouted Hereward. The mortuary sword was in his hand now, though he could not recall drawing it, and he hacked at a starfish whose points were reaching for him. The things were getting quicker, as if, like battlemounts, they needed to warm their blood. “We must climb up! Hold them back!”

The six of them retreated to the piles of the wharf, the huge, ambulatory starfish pressing their attack. With no time to reload, Hereward and the pirates had to hack and cut at them with sword, cutlasses and a boarding axe, and kick away the pieces that still writhed and sought to fasten themselves on their enemies. Within a minute, all of them had minor wounds to their lower legs, where the rough suckers of the starfish’s foul bodies had rasped away clothing and skin.

“Line’s fast!” yelled the bowman and he launched himself up it, faster than any topman had ever climbed a ratline. Two of the other pirates clashed as they tried to climb together, one kicking the other in the face as he wriggled above. The lower pirate fell and was immediately smothered by a starfish that threw itself over him. Muffled screams came from beneath the writhing, yellow five-armed monster, and the pirate’s feet drummed violently on the ground for several seconds before they stilled.

“Go!” shouted Hereward to the remaining pirate, who needed no urging. She was halfway up the rope as Hereward knelt down, held his sword with both hands and whirled on his heel in a complete circle, the fine edge of his blade slicing through the lower points of half a dozen advancing starfish. As they fell over, Hereward threw his sword up to the wharf, jumped on the back of the starfish that was hunched over the fallen pirate, leaped to the rope and swarmed up it as starfish points tugged at his heels, rasping off the soles of his boots.

The woman pirate handed Hereward his sword as he reached the deck of the wharf. Once again the surviving quartet huddled close to him, eager to stay within the small circle of light provided by his brassard.

“Watch the end of the wharf!” instructed Hereward. He looked over the side. The huge starfish were everywhere below, but they were either unable or unwilling to climb up, so unless a new enemy presented itself there was a chance of some respite.

“She’s gone,” whispered one of his crew.

The Sea-Cat was indeed no longer visible in the tunnel, though there was still a great noise of gunfire, albeit more distant than before.

“The ground rising up has set her aback,” said Hereward. “But Captain Fury will land a reinforcement, I’m sure.”

“There are so many of them evil stars,” whispered the same man.

“They can be shot and cut to pieces,” said Hereward sternly. “We will prevail, have no fear.”

He spoke confidently, but was not so certain himself. Particularly as he could see the pieces of all the cut-up starfish wriggling together into a pile below, joining together to make an even bigger starfish, one that could reach up to the wharf.

“We’ll move back to the quay,” he announced, as two of the five points of the assembling giant starfish below began to flex. “Slow and steady, keep your wits about you.”

The five of them moved back along the wharf in a compact huddle, with weapons facing out, like a hedgehog slowly retreating before a predator. Once on the quay, Hereward ordered them to reload, but they had all dropped their pistols, and Hereward had lost one of his pair. He gave his remaining gun to the gold-toothed pirate. “There are stone houses above,” he said, gesturing into the dark. “If we must retreat, we shall find a defensible position there.”

“Why wait? Let’s get behind some walls now.”

“We wait for Captain Fury and the others,” said Hereward. “They’ll be here any—”

The crack of a small gun drowned out his voice. It was followed a second later by a brilliant flash that lit up the whole cavern and then hard on the heels of the flash came a blinding horizontal bolt of forked lightning that spread across the whole harbor floor, branching into hundreds of lesser jolts that connected with the starfish in a crazed pattern of blue-white sparks.

A strong, nauseatingly powerful stench of salt and rotted meat washed across the pirates on the quay as the darkness returned. Hereward blinked several times and swallowed to try and clear his ears, but neither effort really worked. He knew from experience that both sight and sound would return in a few minutes, and he also knew that the explosion and lightning could only be the work of Mister Fitz. Nevertheless he had an anxious few minutes till he could see enough to make out the fuzzy globes that must be lanterns held by approaching friendly forces, and hear his fellows well enough to know that he would also hear any enemy on the wharf or quay.

“It’s the Captain!” cried a pirate. “She’s done those stars in.”

The starfish had certainly been dealt a savage blow. Fury and Fitz and a column of lantern-bearing pirates were making their way through a charnel field of thousands of pieces of starfish meat, few of them bigger than a man’s fist.

But as the pirates advanced, the starfish fragments began to move, pallid horrors wriggling across the stony ground, melding with other pieces to form more mobile gobbets of invertebrate flesh, all of them moving to a central rendezvous somewhere beyond the illumination of the lanterns.

Hereward did not pause to wonder exactly what these disgusting starfish remnants were going to do in the darker reaches of the harbor. He ran along the wharf and took Fitz’s hand, helping the puppet to climb the boarding nets that Fury’s crew were throwing up. Before Fitz was on his feet, pirates raced past them both, talking excitedly of treasure, the starfish foe forgotten. Hereward’s own boat crew, who might have more reason than most to be more thoughtful, had already been absorbed into this flood of looters.

“The starfish are growing back,” said Hereward urgently, as he palmed off a too-eager pirate who nearly trod on Fitz.

“Not exactly,” corrected Fitz. “Forjill-Um-Uthrux is manifesting itself more completely here. It will use its starfish minions to craft a physical shape. And more importantly—”

“Captain Suresword!” cried Fury, clapping him on the back. Her eyes were bright, there were several dark spots on her face and her ears were long and furred, but she evidently had managed to halt or slow the full transformation. “On to the treasure!”

She laughed and ran past him, with many pirates behind her. Up ahead, the sound of ancient doors being knocked down was already being replaced by gleeful and astonished cries as many hundredweight of loose gold and silver coinage poured out around the looter’s thighs.

“More importantly, Um-Uthrux is doing something to manipulate the sea,” continued Fitz. “It has tilted the harbor floor significantly and I can perceive energistic tendrils extending well beyond this island. I fear it is raising the tide ahead of time and with it—”

“The eagre,” said Hereward. “Do we have time to get out?”

“No,” said Fitz. “It will be at the mouth of the gorge within minutes. We must swiftly deal with Um-Uthrux and then take refuge in one of the upper buildings, the strongest possible, where I will spin us a bubble of air.”

“How big a bubble?” asked Hereward, as he took a rapid glance around. There were lanterns bobbing all about the slope above the quay, and it looked like all two hundred odd of Fury’s crew were in amongst the scholar-pirates’ buildings.

“A single room, sufficient for a dozen mortals,” said Fitz. “Ah, Um-Uthrux has made its host. Please gather as many pirates as you can to fire on it, Hereward. I will require some full minutes of preparation.”

The puppet began to take off his bandanna and Hereward shielded his face with his hand. A terrible, harsh light filled the cavern as Fitz removed an esoteric needle that had been glued to his head, the light fading as he closed his hand around it. Any mortal that dared to hold such a needle unprotected would no longer have hand or arm, but Fitz had been specifically made to deal with such things.

In the brief flash of light, Hereward saw a truly giant starfish beginning to stand on its lower points. It was sixty feet wide and at least that tall, and was not pale yellow like its lesser predecessors, but a virulent color like infected pus, and its broad surface was covered not in a rasping, lumpy structure of tiny suckers but in hundreds of foot-wide puckered mouths that were lined with sharp teeth.

“Fury!” roared Hereward as he sprinted back along the wharf, ignoring the splinters in his now bare feet, his ruined boots flapping about his ankles. “Fury! Sea-Cats! To arms, to arms!”

He kept shouting, but he could not see Fury, and the pirates in sight were gold-drunk, bathing uproariously in piles of coin and articles of virtu that had spilled out of the broken treasure houses and into the cobbled streets between the buildings.

“To arms! The enemy!” Hereward shouted again. He ran to the nearest knot of pirates and dragged one away from a huge gold-chased silver cup that was near as big as he was. “Form line on the quay!”

The pirate shrugged him off and clutched his cup.

“It’s mine!” he yelled. “You’ll not have it!”

“I don’t want it!” roared Hereward. He pointed back at the harbor. “The enemy! Look you fools!”

The nearer pirates stared at him blankly. Hereward turned and saw … nothing but darkness.

“Fitz! Light the cursed monster up!”

He was answered by a blinding surge of violet light that shot from the wharf and washed across the giant starfish, which was now completely upright and lifting one point to march forwards.

There was silence for several seconds, the silence of the shocked. Then a calm, carrying voice snatched order from the closing jaws of panic.

“Sea-cats! First division form line on the quay, right of the wharf! Second to load behind them! Move you knaves! The loot will wait!”

Fury emerged from behind a building, a necklace of gold and yellow diamonds around her neck. She marched to Hereward and placed her arm through his, and together they walked to the quay as if they had not a care in the world, while pirates ran past them.

“You have not become a leoparde,” said Hereward. He spoke calmly but he couldn’t help but look up at the manifested godlet. Like the smaller starfish, it was becoming quicker with every movement, and Fitz stood alone before it on the end of the wharf. There was a nimbus of sorcerous light around the puppet, indicating that he was working busily with one or more energistic needles, either stitching something otherworldly together or unpicking some aspect of what was commonly considered to be reality.

“Cold things from the sea, no matter their size, do not arouse my ire,” replied Fury. “Or perhaps it is the absence of red blood … Stand ready!”

The last words were for the hundred pirates who stood in line along the quay, sporting a wide array of muskets, musketoons, blunderbusses, pistols and even some crossbows. Behind them, the second division knelt with their own firearms ready to pass on, and the necessaries for reloading laid out at their feet.

“Fire!” shouted Fury. A ragged volley rang out and a cloud of smoke rolled back across Hereward and drifted up towards the treasure houses. Many shots struck home, but their effect was much less than on the smaller starfish, with no visible holes being torn in the strange stuff of Um-Uthrux.

“Firsts, fire as you will!” called Fury. “Seconds, reload!”

Though the shots appeared to have no affect, the frantic movement of the pirates shooting and reloading did attract Um-Uthrux’s attention. It swiveled and took a step towards the quay, one huge point crashing down on the middle wharf to the left of Mister Fitz. Rather than pulling the point out of the wreckage it just pushed it forward, timber flying as it bulled its way to the quay. Then with one sweep of a middle point, it swept up a dozen pirates and, rolling the point to form a tight circle, held them while its many mouths went to work.

“Fire and fall back!” shouted Fury. “Fire and fall back!”

She fired a long-barrelled pistol herself, but it too had no effect. Um-Uthrux seized several more pirates as they tried to flee, wrapping around them, bones and bloody fragments falling upon shocked companions who were snatched up themselves by another point seconds later.

Hereward and Fury ran back to the corner of one of the treasure houses. Hereward tripped over a golden salt-boat and a pile of coins and would have fallen, had not Fury dragged him on even as the tip of a starfish point crashed down where he had been, flattening the masterwork of some long-forgotten goldsmith.

“Your sorcerer-puppet had best do something,” said Fury.

“He will,” panted Hereward. But he could not see Fitz, and Um-Uthrux was now bending over the quay with its central torso as well as its points, so its reach would be greater. The quay was crumbling under its assault, and the stones were awash with the blood of many pirates. “We must go higher up!”

“Back Sea-Cats!” shouted Fury. “Higher up!”

The treasure house that had sheltered them was pounded into dust and fragments as they struggled up the steep cobbled street. Panicked pirates streamed past them, most without their useless weapons. There was no screaming now, just the groans and panting of the tired and wounded, and the sobbing of those whose nerve was entirely gone.

Hereward pointed to a door at the very top of the street. It had already been broken in by some pirate, but the building’s front appeared to be a mere façade built over a chamber dug into the island itself, and so would be stronger than any other.

“In there!” he shouted, but the pirates were running down the side alleys as one of Um-Uthrux’s point slammed down directly behind, sending bricks, masonry and treasure in all directions. Hereward pushed Fury towards the door, and turned back to see if he could see Fitz.

But there was only the vast starfish in view. It had slid its lower body up on to the quay and was reaching forth with three of its points, each as large as an angled artillery bastion. First it brought them down to smash the buildings, then it used the fine ends to pluck out any pirates, like an anteater digging out its lunch.

“Fitz!” shouted Hereward. “Fitz!”

One of Um-Uthrux’s points rose up, high above Hereward. He stepped back, then stopped as the godlet suddenly halted, its upper points writhing in the air and lower points staggering. A tiny, glowing hole appeared in its middle, and grew larger. The godlet lurched back still farther and reached down with its points, clawing at itself as the glowing void in its guts yawned wider still. Then, with a crack that rocked the cavern and knocked Hereward over again, the giant starfish’s points were sucked through the hole, it turned inside out and the hole closed taking with it all evidence of Um-Uthrux’s existence upon the earth and with it most of the light.

“Your puppet has done well,” said Fury. “Though I perceive it is called Fitz and not Farolio.”

“Yes,” said Hereward. He did not look at her, but waved his arm, the brassard leaving a luminous trail in the air. “Fitz! To me!”

“It has become a bloody affair after all,” said Fury. Her voice was a growl and now Hereward did look. Fury still stood on two legs, but she had grown taller and her proportions had changed. Her skin had become spotted fur, and her skull transformed, her jaw thrust out to contain savage teeth, including two incisors as long as Hereward’s thumbs. Long curved nails sprouted from her rounded hands, her eyes had become bright with a predatory gleam, and a tail whisked the ground behind.

“Fury,” said Hereward. He looked straight at her and did not back away. “We have won. The fight is done.”

“I told you that I ate my enemies,” said Fury huskily. Her tail twitched and she bobbed her head in a manner no human neck could mimic. Hereward could barely understand her, human speech almost lost in growls and snarls. “You did not tell me your name, or your true purpose.”

“My name is Hereward,” said Hereward and he raised his open hands. If she attacked, his only chance would be to grip her neck and break it before those teeth and nails did mortal damage. “I am not your enemy.”

Fury growled, speech entirely gone, and began to crouch.

“Fury! I am not your—”

The leoparde sprang. He caught her on his forearms and felt the nails rake his skin. Fending her off with his left hand, he seized hold of the necklace of yellow diamonds with his right and twisted it hard to cut off her air. But before he could apply much pressure, the beast gave a sudden, human gasp, strange and sad from that bestial jaw. The leoparde’s bright eyes dulled as if by sea-mist, and Hereward felt the full weight of the animal in his hands.

The necklace broke, scattering diamonds, as the beast slid down Hereward’s chest. Fitz rode on the creature’s shoulders all the way down, before he withdrew the stiletto that he had thrust with inhuman strength up through the nape of her neck into her brain.

Hereward closed his hand on the last diamond. He held it just for a second, before he let that too slip through his fingers.

“Inside!” called Fitz and the puppet was at his companion’s knees, pushing Hereward through the door. The knight fell over the threshold as Fitz turned and gestured with an esoteric needle, threads of blinding white whipping about faster than any weaver’s shuttle.

His work was barely done before the wave hit. The ground shook and the sorcerous bubble of air bounced to the ceiling and back several times, tumbling Hereward and Fitz over in a mad crush. Then as rapidly as it had come, the wave receded. Fitz undid the bubble with a deft twitch of his needle and cupped it in his hand. Hereward lay back on the sodden floor and groaned. Blood trickled down his shredded sleeves, bruises he had not even suspected till now made themselves felt, and his feet were unbelievably sore.

Fitz crouched over him and inspected his arms.

“Scratches,” he proclaimed. He carefully put the esoteric needle away inside his jerkin and took off his bandanna, ripping it in half to bind the wounds. “Bandages will suffice.”

When the puppet was finished, Hereward sat up. He cupped his face in his hands for a second, but his rope-burned palms made him wince and drop them again.

“We have perhaps six hours to gather materials, construct a raft and make our way out the gorge,” said Fitz. “Presuming the eagre comes again at the usual time, in the absence of Um-Uthrux. We’d best hurry.”

Hereward nodded and lurched upright, holding the splintered doorframe for support. He could see nothing beyond Fitz, who stood a few paces away, but he could easily envision the many corpses that would be floating in the refilled harbor pool, or drifting out to the gorge beyond.

“She was right,” he said.

Fitz cocked his head in question.

“Meat and water,” replied Hereward. “I suppose that is all we are, in the end.”

Fitz did not answer, but still looked on, his pose unchanged.

“Present company excepted,” added Hereward.

A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet

Sir Hereward licked his finger and turned the page of the enormous tome that was perched precariously on a metal frame next to his sickbed. It was not a book he would have chosen to read—or rather to fossick through like a rook searching for seed in a new-sown field—but as it was the only book in the lonely tower by the sea, he had little choice. Having broken two small but important bones in his left foot, he could not range farther afield for other amusements, so reading it had to be. This particular book was entitled The Compendium of Commonplaces and presented itself as a collection of knowledge that should be at the command of every reasonably educated gentleman of Jerreke, a country that had ceased to exist some thousand years before, shortly after the book was printed.

The demise of Jerreke and the publication of the book were not likely to be connected, though Sir Hereward did notice that the pages were often bound out of order, or the folios were incorrect, and that there was a general carelessness with numbers. Together, these might be symptomatic of the somewhat unusual end of Jerreke, a city-state which had defaulted on its debts so enormously that its entire population had to be sold into slavery.

The finger-licking was required by the book’s long, dark hibernation inside a chest up in the attic of the tower. A thoroughly damp finger was a necessary aid to the separation of the sadly gummed-together pages.

Sir Hereward sighed as he turned another page. His enthusiasm for reading had diminished in the turning of several hundred pages, with its concomitant several hundred finger lickings, for he had found only two entries worth reading: one on how to cheat at a board game that had changed its name but was still widely played in the known world; and another on the multiplicity of uses of the root spice cabizend, some surprising number of which fell into Hereward’s professional area of expertise as an artillerist and maker of incendiaries.

In fact, Hereward was about to give up and bellow to the housekeeper who kept the tower to bring him some ale, when the title of the next commonplace caught his eye. It was called “On the Propitiation of Sorcerous Puppets.”

As Sir Hereward’s constant companion, comrade-in-arms, and one-time nanny was a sorcerous puppet known as Mister Fitz, this was very much of interest to the injured knight. He eagerly read on, and though the piece was short and referred solely to the more usual kind of sorcerous puppet—one made to sing, dance, and entertain—he did learn something new.

According to Doctor Professor Laxelender Prouzin, the author of this particular, far-from-commonplace entry, all sorcerous puppets shared a common birthday, much in the manner of the priests of a number of particularly jealous godlets, who allowed no individuality among their chosen servants (some of them even going as far as the Xarwashian god of bookkeeping and warehouses, who not only refused his servants individual birthdays but referred to them all by the same name).

Sir Hereward quickly calculated this shared birthday of the puppets, transposing the Tramontic calendar that had been used in Jerreke with the more modern Adjusted Celestial, and discovered that it would occur in a matter of days, depending on whether it was currently the first or the second day of what the Adjusted Celestial calendar prosaically called “Second Month” and the Tramontics had termed “Expialomon.”

As Sir Hereward had been laid up for a week already, and had no urgent matters to attend to, he had rather lost track of the date.

“Sister Gobbe!” called out Sir Hereward. “Sister Gobbe!”

Sister Gobbe was the priestess-housekeeper who looked after the tower and its guests as a representative of the Cloister of Narhalet-Narhalit. Colloquially known as Nar-Nar, it was a gentle and kindly deity whose slow but potent healing powers had aided tens of thousands of petitioners over the last several millennia. This particular tower was one of the more remote bastions of Nar-Nar’s presence upon the earth, and likely to be abandoned in the not too distant future. Hence it was staffed only by Sister Gobbe and an as yet unseen novice Sir Hereward believed might be called “Sisterling Lallit”—a name he had overheard being hissed by Sister Gobbe outside his door the previous evening. There was also a guard, a small but broad-shouldered fellow with a very large axe, who doubtless could call upon Nar-Nar’s rather less well-known powers to open wounds that hadn’t even happened yet, rather than heal ones that had.

Fortunately for all concerned, Narhalet-Narhalit was far from a proscribed entity, but a welcome extrusion into the world, so the god and its followers were not an item of business for Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz. Consequently, their discovery of the tower en route from Tar’s End to Bazynghame had been a welcome opportunity for the lame and hobbling knight to rest up and let the bones in his foot knit faster than they would anywhere else.

Mister Fitz had also taken their forced rest as an opportunity to engage in some activity that he said had hitherto been impracticable on their travels, though Sir Hereward was not entirely sure what that meant. The sorcerous puppet was up to something. He had taken to exploring the sea caves that ate into the cliffs near the tower, and he returned each evening covered in a layer of what looked like salt, suggesting immersion in the ocean and subsequent drying. This was odd in a creature who usually avoided complete submersion, being made of papier-mâché and carved timber, albeit sorcerously altered, but Sir Hereward had not made enquiry. He knew that Mister Fitz would tell him of his activities in due course, if there was any need for Sir Hereward to know.

“Sir?”

It was not Sister Gobbe who appeared in the doorway, red-faced and puffing as she always was from the tightly spiraling stair, but a considerably younger and far more attractive attendant, who might have wafted her way upstairs on a beam of sunlight, for she was neither out of breath, nor was her habit or broad-brimmed hat in any disarray.

“I am Sisterling Lallit,” said the vision. “Sister Gobbe has had to go into the village, to speak to Boll about the veal to go with the crayfish sauce for Your Honor’s dinner. Is there anything you need?”

Sir Hereward continued to stare and failed to answer. It had been some months since he had even the slightest conversation with a beautiful woman, and he was both surprised and sadly out of practice. But as she continued to stand in the door, with her head down and her face shadowed by her hat, he recovered himself.

“My companion, Mister Fitz,” he began. “The puppet, you know…”

“Yes, sir,” said Sisterling Lallit. “A most wondrous puppet, and so wise.”

“Yes… just so,” said Sir Hereward. He wondered what Mister Fitz had been talking about with Sisterling Lallit, but pressed on. “It is his birthday on the fourth of Second Month—”

“Tomorrow!” exclaimed Lallit, proving Sir Hereward had been even more careless about the passage of time than he’d thought. She raised her hands and inadvertently looked up, to show Hereward a face of great charm and liveliness, though sadly marred by the lack of the old and faded facial scars he had been brought up to regard as necessary to true beauty. “You should have said! It will be a doing to manage a feast—”

“Mister Fitz does not eat, so a feast is superfluous,” said Sir Hereward, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “However, I wish to give him a present. Given that we are leagues from any shop or merchant, and in any case, I cannot for the moment leave my bed… I wondered if there might be something suitable in the tower that I might purchase for Mister Fitz.”

“Something suitable?” asked Lallit. She tugged her earlobe and frowned, a gesture Sir Hereward found irresistible. “I don’t know…”

“Come and sit by me,” said Sir Hereward. He slid over and patted the mattress by his side. “To begin with, you can tell me what is in the attic above. Most particularly, a musical instrument would meet the need.”

Doctor Professor Laxelender Prouzin had written that musical instruments were the usual gift to an entertainer puppet, and Sir Hereward supposed that one might be of interest to Mister Fitz, who was quite capable of appearing to be an entertainer puppet. He could sing most sweetly and seemingly play any musical instrument, and dance fascinatingly as well. But Mister Fitz was not an entertainer puppet, and usually only deployed these talents as a ruse or deception, shortly before unleashing his other, even more greatly developed skills as a practitioner of arcane arts that were not generally the province of puppets. Or of people, for that matter.

“Oh, I’m not allowed to come into your room, sir,” exclaimed Lallit. “Sister Gobbe is most strict about who may handle patients, and Mister Fitz told me of your vow, and I would not wish to accidentally—”

“My vow?” asked Sir Hereward suspiciously. He thought for a moment, then asked, “Ah, which one? I have… made several.”

“To not share the breath of a woman, by intent or accident—save a consecrated priestess of course—till you have finished your pilgrimage to the Rood of Bazynghame,” said Lallit innocently. “Don’t worry, I shall breathe ever so softly, and stay in the doorway.”

“I am grateful,” said Sir Hereward, though he felt quite the opposite emotion.

“About this present for Mister Fitz…”

“Perhaps it is all too difficult,” said Sir Hereward, whose affection for the puppet had encountered a sudden reverse. He turned his head to the side and sighed heavily. “I shall simply wish him a happy birthday and leave it at that.”

“But there is an instrument in the attic,” said Lallit. “In the same chest your book came from, there is a mandora… or a gallichon… of five strings, such as my uncle plays. Though it is perhaps too large and heavy for Mister Fitz.”

Sir Hereward thought of several occasions when Mister Fitz had shown his true strength. He remembered those spindly wooden puppet arms inside Mister Fitz’s thin coat, the cuffs sliding back as he lifted the Arch-Priest of Larruk-Agre above his bulbous head and threw him into the mouth of the volcano; or the time when Fitz had beheaded a slave gladiator below the arena pits of Yarken. The look of surprise on the fellow’s face had matched Sir Hereward’s own expression, for Mister Fitz had been standing on the gladiator’s head at the time, and had pulled the tip of the man’s own blade back…

“I can fetch it down,” said Lallit, interrupting his reminiscences. “Sister Gobbe would set a fair price, I’m sure.”

“Very well,” said Hereward. “A fine mandora might be the very thing. If it is not too much trouble, I would like to see it. When is Sister Gobbe returning?”

“Oh, I will fetch it for you now,” said Lallit. “Sister Gobbe won’t be back for hours yet.”

“My thanks,” said Sir Hereward. “But how will you hand it to me, if we must not share our breath?”

“Oh, I can hold my breath for ages,” said Lallit innocently. She demonstrated, taking a deep breath that thrust out her chest. Sir Hereward watched in admiration, tempered by his annoyance at Mister Fitz. It was uncharacteristic of the puppet to preemptively meddle in Hereward’s amorous affairs, and it galled no less to know it was almost certainly for a good reason.

Lallit held her breath for quite some time, before suddenly exhaling, turning her head so her breath went up the stairs. She smiled and followed it up to the attic. A minute later, Hereward heard her footsteps as she looked around, the oak-planked floor of the attic being the ceiling of his room.

The novice returned a few minutes later, carrying a stringed instrument that looked to Sir Hereward like an oversize lute. He could play the lute somewhat, and sing passably, as Mister Fitz graded his voice, but the knight had done neither for some years.

Lallit paused for an intake of breath and the resultant inflation of her habit at the door, then nimbly crossed the room, deposited the mandora on the end of Hereward’s bed, and retreated as swiftly back to the stair.

Hereward leaned forward and took up the instrument. The mandora was made of ash with an open rose of ebony inlaid around the sound hole. It was still strung, which surprised him, for it had presumably been there for some lengthy time, and the strings were of a material other than gut, one that he could not immediately recognize.

He was about to pluck a note when he saw that the sound hole was obstructed, and that there was something inside the body of the mandora. Closer investigation revealed it to be a parchment folded into a triangle, which was sealed with wax at each corner. It could not be removed without de-stringing the instrument, which meant that it had been put there on purpose, and the mandora strung thereafter.

“Aha,” said Sir Hereward. “A mystery within the mandora.”

“What is it?” asked Lallit. The novice stood on tiptoe, craned her elegant neck, and took several steps closer.

“A parchment,” said Sir Hereward. He held the mandora up to the nearer window, so the light fell more clearly through the sound hole. “Sealed three ways, and stuck to the body with a red tape and three further seals… I think perhaps this is a matter for…”

He had been going to say “Mister Fitz,” for the sealed parchment smacked of sorcery, but as the true nature of the puppet was best not revealed even to the servants of friendly gods, he fell silent.

“Oh, it is exciting!” said Lallit. She clapped her hands together and took a further step toward him. “What is written on the parchment?”

Sir Hereward carefully rested the mandora across his knees, and thought. There was something not quite right about Lallit’s enthusiasm, the parchment, and the mandora. He noticed that the instrument’s strings were humming slightly, though he had not struck them. They appeared to be aping Lallit’s enthusiasm, and Sir Hereward did not like this at all.

Nor on closer examination was he sure that it was the same Lallit who had returned from the attic. She looked a little taller, and thinner, and now that he studied her, he could see that her eyes were too far apart, and her hat was on backward.

“I shall have to remove the strings,” said Sir Hereward. “To get the parchment out. I believe there is a spanner in my saddlebag… I shall just fetch it.”

Sir Hereward’s saddlebags were propped against the far wall, under the shuttered window on that side, as were his saber and two holstered wheel-lock pistols, though unfortunately these were neither primed nor loaded.

“Allow me,” said Lallit.

Sir Hereward held up his hand as he swung his legs off the bed. “No, no, remember my vow.”

He hopped over on his right foot, and caught hold of the shutter bolt.

“Might as well have a little more sunshine, while the weather holds,” said Sir Hereward. He did not think that the thing that had assumed the shape of Lallit would be deterred by sunlight, given that the other window was already open, but more might help. He opened the shutter, knelt down by his saddlebag, and cast a smiling glance back over his shoulder.

The light from the second window had no visible effect upon his visitor, but it did allow him to see very clearly that the woman in the door was neither Lallit, nor actually a woman. It was some kind of other-dimensional entity that had assumed the shape of Lallit, and stolen her clothes. Hereward hoped Lallit was still alive in the attic, just as he hoped he would live through whatever was about to occur.

“It’s very good of your god Narhalet-Narhalit to look after me so well,” added Sir Hereward. He leaned into the window alcove, and looked out as if idly surveying the ground beneath. Saying the god’s name might help bring its attention to this intruder in its temple. “Narhalet-Narhalit is good to look after my companion, Mister Fitz, as well.”

He said “Mister Fitz” quite loudly, for the puppet’s senses were extraordinarily sharp. If he was anywhere nearby, he would be alerted. But he was probably off in his sea cave, which meant Sir Hereward must manage on his own.

“The spanner,” said Lallit. The thing was having trouble keeping its voice human. “The strings. The parchment.”

“Ah yes,” said Sir Hereward. He bent down to his saddlebag, and began to rummage through it, removing items as he went, as if to make it easier.

“Let me see. A dagger, needs a bit of sharpening… another dagger, this one’s not too bad… where is that—”

He sensed a sudden movement behind him, and spun about on his good foot, the daggers in his hands. The thing was in front of him, losing its human form as it moved, its claws reaching for his arms. Hereward parried with the daggers, felt the shock of impact, and was borne back to the window and almost thrown out of it.

“You will get the parchment for me!” shrieked the thing. Flesh was melting off it, revealing the scaly, skeletal beast within, a creature not wholly present on the earth, for Hereward’s daggers, ensorcelled as they were, were slowly sinking through its wrists, the scales reforming behind the passage of the steel.

“Never!” shouted Hereward, quickly followed by, “Mister Fitz! To me! Narhalet-Narhalit, aid me!”

“You will obey!” shrieked the beast, and bit at Hereward’s shoulder. He twisted away, but its teeth raked through his nightshirt and tore flesh. At the same time, his daggers lost all purchase on the creature’s wrists. Instantly, it went for him again, and he only managed to avoid its grasp by suddenly slipping down the wall and sliding between the creature’s legs. He was attempting to roll away when it latched on to his back, dragged him up, and threw him on the bed.

“Remove the strings and open the parchment,” it instructed him. “Or you shall be hurt, and hurt again, until you obey!”

Hereward gaped. It was not in response to the creature’s command, but an inadvertent reaction to the sudden arrival of a completely naked yet literally radiant Lallit. Surrounded by a nimbus of the violet hue favored by her god, she burst into the room and made a swatting motion in the air, as if crushing a mosquito.

A hole appeared in the creature’s chest, followed by a geyser of greenish ichor that splashed the end of Sir Hereward’s bed, the stained linen immediately beginning to send up small tendrils of evil-smelling smoke.

Despite what would be a mortal injury to a human, the beast was not distressed. It turned away from Sir Hereward and tensed to spring at Lallit.

Before it could do so, Hereward jumped up and smashed it on the head with The Compendium of Commonplaces, it being the only makeshift weapon close at hand. The huge, brass-and-leather-bound book boomed like a gong as it struck the monster, and most of the tome turned to ash in Hereward’s hands, leaving him clutching a ragged folio of loosely bound pages, without any binding or brass accoutrements.

Hereward dropped the newly slim volume and dove for his saber. He drew it and spun about, ready to slash, but there was nothing there to hit. The creature had also turned to ash, had been picked up by a doubtlessly divine wind, and was being carried out the closest window, to be spread to the four corners of the earth.

The nimbus around Lallit faded, her knees buckled, and Hereward was just able to hop forward and catch her as she fell. However, he could not hold her weight with his injured foot, so both of them toppled back into the bed, just as Mister Fitz peered cautiously around the doorway, a sorcerous needle held in his cupped hand, its inhuman brilliance quickly dulled as he took in the situation.

But as the puppet replaced the needle inside his pointy hat, the small guard with the large ax leapt up the last step, his weapon held ready to use on anyone who violated the purity of the temple’s novices.

“But I haven’t…” protested Sir Hereward. He reluctantly released Lallit, and started patting out the incipient fire at the end of the bed. “We didn’t…”

“What am I doing here?” asked Lallit wonderingly. She had the look of someone still waking from a dream. “I felt the god…”

“Narhalet-Narhalit has been here,” confirmed Mister Fitz. He looked at the guard, his little blue-painted eyes sharp on his papier-mâché head. “This is the god’s business, Jabek, however it may appear.”

“Aye, I feel it so,” said Jabek. He smiled, and added, “But I’ll ask you to explain it to Sister Gobbe.”

“Oh, the mandora is broken!” exclaimed Lallit. She picked up the instrument, whose neck was broken, and cradled it to her. “Sir Hereward wanted to give it to you for your birthday, Mister Fitz.”

“A birthday present?” asked Mister Fitz. “For me?”

“According to the book I was reading, sorcerous puppets have a common birthday,” said Sir Hereward. “The fourth day of the Second Month.”

“But I am not a common puppet,” said Mister Fitz. “Nor can it be said that I was born on any particular day, given my gradual ascent to full sentience over the course of my making. Besides, those other puppets have their birthday on the fifth day of the Second Month.”

Hereward shrugged, grimacing as he felt a pang from the wound in his shoulder and a renewed ache in his foot.

“I appreciate the thought,” said Mister Fitz. “Now tell me. This broken mandora doubtless figures in the strange events that have just come to pass?”

“There is a triangle-folded thrice-sealed missive inside,” said Hereward. “Which is strange enough, and stranger still when you consider yonder book, which until I hit that shade-walker, or whatever it was, was a much larger volume.”

“I remember opening the chest to pick up the mandora, and nothing since,” said Lallit. “Perhaps I may take your second blanket for a robe, Sir Hereward?”

“Pray do not cloak your beauty on my account…”  began Sir Hereward, then, as Jabek of the Ax shifted noisily behind him, hastily added, “I mean, please do.”

Mister Fitz crouched over the remnants of the book, flipping the pages with one of Sir Hereward’s daggers. He then examined the mandora.

“It is simple enough,” he said. “The book—which I am surprised you did not note is set in that type called Sorcery and thus highly suspect—is part of the revenge upon their creditors set in play by the sorcerer-merchants of Jerreke. Forced into slavery by their own economic ineptitude, they contrived to bind twinned otherworldly entities to their service. One would be constrained within a book or some such household item, the other in an instrument, or perhaps a game set. The items would be sent separately to the chosen target, in the hope that this would enable them to bypass any sorcerous protections. When both were in proximity, the bonds would release the entities, who would slay everyone within reach.”

“But only one entity came forth,” said Sir Hereward. “And it didn’t try to kill me, at least not at first. It wanted me to open the parchment that was inside the mandora.”

“The sorcerer-merchants of Jerreke were famous as inept merchants and ineffective sorcerers,” sniffed Mister Fitz. “In this case, the spell was set off long ago, but due to the botched execution, only one entity was released. Realizing its twin was still entrapped within the mandora, it had to wait inside the chest for the opportunity to make someone else release its companion. Neither Sister Gobbe, who initially brought you the book, nor Lallit, both being in the eye of her god, would be suitable persons to release the twin, so it came down to you. However, by breaking the item that had once held it in bond—the book, or rather the outer pages bound around these remains—you immediately banished it.”

“But the twin is still trapped inside the mandora?” asked Sir Hereward.

“Indeed,” said Mister Fitz. “And as, of course, it is a listed entity, albeit a minor one…”

“Yes,” said Sir Hereward. “Lallit, Jabek, if you would excuse us for a few minutes?”

“Certainly, Sir Hereward,” said Jabek. He turned and left at once. Hereward helped Lallit to stand, holding her perhaps a little closer than was necessary. She looked him in the eye as she stood up, and smiled.

“I am sorry about your vow, Sir Hereward,” she said. Her breath was very sweet, and the blanket very loose upon her body. “I have a vow also, as do all the novices of Narhalet-Narhalit… that until we are consecrated, we shall not…”

“I know,” said Sir Hereward, with a glance at Mister Fitz. “I mean, I know now. Best you be going, Lallit.”

“If it were not for the god’s presence, reminding me of what I will become, I might have forgotten that vow,” whispered Lallit. Then she was gone, wafting past him.

Hereward sighed, hopped over to his saddlebag, and got out a silk armband, a brassard embroidered with sorcerous symbols that shone with their own light, though this was faint under the sun’s bright shaft that came in through the northern window.

“Should I fix your shoulder first?” asked Mister Fitz, as he took his own brassard out from under his hat, and slid it up his arm.

“It’s only a trifle. I think that Nar-Nar has already stopped it bleeding,” said Sir Hereward. He gave a grunt of pain that lessened the effect of this statement, twitching his shoulder as he settled the brassard above his elbow. “I may well get another wound in the next few minutes, to keep you busy. Now, will you open the parchment and I shall strike it on the head with the mandora?”

“Yes,” said Mister Fitz, his slim puppet fingers reaching in through the now-slack strings to pull out the sealed triangle. He held it ready, and looked at Sir Hereward. “But first…”

“I know, I know,” grumbled Sir Hereward. “What’s the thing’s name? Or do I just say ‘Summoned Antagonist’?”

Mister Fitz looked at the parchment for a long second. His painted eyes could see many more things than any human gaze, both in and beyond the ordinary world.

“Hypgrix the Second.”

“Right.”

Sir Hereward picked up his saber and set it ready on the bed, just in case, before holding the mandora high above the parchment. Then he spoke, the words coming as they always did, familiar and strong, the symbols on his and Mister Fitz’s brassards growing brighter with every word.

“In the name of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, acting under the authority granted by the Three Empires, the Seven Kingdoms, the Palatine Regency, the Jessar Republic, and the Forty Lesser Realms, we declare ourselves agents of the Council. We identify the godlet manifested in this parchment of Jerreke, as Hypgrix the Second, a listed entity under the Treaty. Consequently, the said godlet and all those who assist it are deemed to be enemies of the World and the Council authorizes us to pursue any and all actions necessary to banish, repel, or exterminate the said godlet.”

Mister Fitz broke the seals on the parchment of “godlet,” and even as the creature within boiled up like smoke and began to coalesce into something resembling flesh, Sir Hereward brought the mandora down upon it. Both beast and instrument immediately turned to dust, Mister Fitz gestured, and the dust blew out the window and was gone.

Sir Hereward winced as he sat back down on the bed, and looked at Mister Fitz.

“Now, tell me,” he said. “Why are you covered in salt?”

“Salt?” asked Mister Fitz. “It is not salt, but powdered bone and chalk. I have been digging in the tomb of some ancient, vasty creatures. It has been most interesting. Though not, it is clear, as exciting as your reading.”

“Perhaps not,” said Sir Hereward. He lay back on the bed, and pointed at a long wooden case that lay on the floor near his saddlebag. “If you can spare yourself from your digging, what say you to a game of kings and fools?”

Mister Fitz’s pumpkin-size head slowly rotated on his ridiculously thin neck, and his blue eyes peered at Sir Hereward’s face.

“So soon after your last defeat? You are transparent, Hereward, but I doubt you have found some real advantage. The better player always wins.”

“We shall see,” said Sir Hereward. “Please lay out the set, and if you would be so kind, call down for ale.”

“Oh, and put this back in its place,” said Sir Hereward, stripping the brassard from his arm. “I trust that I will not need it, at least until we reach Bazynghame?”

“Best keep it near,” said Mister Fitz, as he picked up the game box. “There is the small matter of what I was digging for—and what I have found…”

This collection copyright © 2011 by Garth Nix

All rights reserved.

If you have illegally downloaded or copied this ebook, you are stealing directly from me, the author, not some faceless giant corporation. Please think about that.

‘Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go To War Again’ © 2007 by Garth Nix

‘Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe’ © 2009 by Garth Nix

‘A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet’ © 2010 by Garth Nix

Cover illustration by Jonathan Nix © 2011 Jonathan Nix

www.themissingkey.com

Published by Nix Entertainment Pty Ltd

PO Box 2308

Clovelly NSW 2031

AUSTRALIA

www.garthnix.com

ISBN 978-0-9870965-0-0

‘Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go To War Again’ was first published in ‘Jim Baen’s Universe’, April 2007, edited by Eric Flint.

‘Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe’ was first published in Fast Ships, Black Sails edited by Jeff Vandermeer and Ann Vandermeer, published by Nightshade Books.

‘A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet’ was first published in Swords and Dark Magic, edited by Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan, published by HarperCollins.

Sir Hereward. Knight, artillerist, swordsman. Mercenary for hire. Ill-starred lover.

Mister Fitz. Puppet, sorcerer, loremaster. Practitioner of arcane arts now mostly and thankfully forgotten. Former nursemaid to Hereward.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz. Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, charged with the location and removal of listed extra-dimensional entities, more commonly known as gods or godlets.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz.

Travellers. Adventurers. Godslayers …

For the first time, the two award-winning novellas and a short story featuring Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz’s exploits are gathered together in a single volume. From the New York Times-bestselling writer Garth Nix, author of The Abhorsen Trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen), Shade’s Children, The Seventh Tower series, The Keys to the Kingdom series and Troubletwisters (with Sean Williams).

Reader Advisory: Though some of Garth Nix’s books and stories are for children, this one is not. It is for adult readers.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Table of Contents

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again

Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe

A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet

Copyright