Dear Jven,
I moved in with Rhavin. The cabin is all yours!
Love,
Nikita
Dear Jveddek,
The return from Todstein Island was blessedly unremarkable. Once aboard, we took our leave of Stubbs and the others to discuss the events of the last day or so in the galley.
“Do you think you could help me work on those notes?” Nikita asked Rhavin, and he readily agreed. I'd asked her to organize the information about the ghosts for the meeting with Peregrine she'd suggested earlier.
“So, does this mean we have to set sail for Graben Island?” Kariya asked the group.
“I'd say we should,” Rhavin answered. “But we need to find out if this boat can sail through the waves. They said they sailed through the waves before.”
Certainly the ship's logs indicated that they had. We'd already decided that I would ask Peregrine if there was any special approach to getting through the circle of high seas surrounding Todstein.
“Of course, Jven and Peregrine will have lots of studying to be doing,” Ester grinned. I couldn't believe it. Even the giantess was teasing me about the handsome navigator and the kiss we'd shared on the ice. I could hardly protest, as our attraction couldn't have been made much plainer to everyone than that. Canliss cleared his throat loudly to hide his amusement.
“Watch it, Six-Fingers. She's too big to smack.” Implying, of course, that he wasn't, but I couldn't suppress a chuckle when I said it.
“So, you're going to check with the navigator to see how we get out of here?” Kariya asked me.
I was out of my seat in the galley and almost to the door before she finished the question. They could all plan without me. I welcomed any excuse to spend time with my normal (and incredibly handsome) friend, Peregrine, doing normal work like navigation. The familiar tools and calculations, done with a companion who doesn't care if I can cast spells or not, comforts me while we're surrounded by so much magic I don't understand.
I found Peregrine on deck, polishing the brass astrolabe we used for our measurements. Whatever polish he was using smelled terrible, and I hadn't even approached him yet. Behind me, I could hear the planks creaking in the way they did only when Ester was on deck or something heavy was breaking free of its moorings.
“Canliss! Wanna wrestle?” I heard Ester ask eagerly.
I laughed out loud at that, calling over my shoulder, “Yes! Yes, Canliss wants to wrestle.”
That would keep at least one of my two nosy friends busy while I talked with Peregrine. We hadn't really spent any time together since two—no, three--nights prior, when the ship sank. We'd had an audience then, too. I hoped he wouldn't crawl back into his shell now.
“H-hello,” he returned my cheerful greeting with a deep blush. He fairly glowed with pinkness from his hairline to his collar. Completely adorable. I glanced away to avoid staring, but it was too late to prevent my own cheeks from getting warm.
Behind us, Ester chuckled. I didn't hear Canliss' bones breaking, so I supposed he'd weaseled out of wrestling with the seven-foot woman.
I cleared my throat and tried to think of something businesslike to say. “Any breakage?”
Before he even had a chance to reply, we heard catcalls and whistles from the rigging.
“Peregrine! Go for it, lad!” someone called out. Poor, shy Peregrine. This wasn't doing anything for his blushing problem. Mine either, to be honest. I looked up after taking a deep breath to return my cheeks to a more normal hue.
“Gentlemen, if you please!” I chastised playfully. There was no point in making a serious effort to get them to stop. “We're at work here!”
More laughter from the rigging. The voice called down, “I never said I was a gentleman!”
We all laughed at that, even Peregrine.
“I-I thought I-I would do this u-up here,” he glanced down at the now-gleaming astrolabe, “because it-it was such a terrible smell…in the confined space…the polish…air…”
I nodded. “Yes, good idea.”
I felt a swish of air at my shoulder and turned. Ester had nearly taken off my arm with her swordplay. I scowled at her.
“Ester, do you want to…? I felt the breeze from that. Do you want to step back a little bit?” I waved for her to back up. Honestly, she was becoming as nosy as Nikita.
“Oops…sorry,” she apologized, but the giantess' eyes were laughing. Peregrine and I had become the best entertainment aboard ship, and even Ester knew it.
She obligingly moved off a couple of feet, and the sailors around her cleared a path for her automatically. She'd been practicing on deck enough for them to know how long her reach was. It was a bit inconvenient for them to work around her maneuvers, but none of them was about to ask the tough giantess to go elsewhere. Besides, the whole crew seemed to have warmed up to her playful, accepting nature. They loved having her around.
“I'm-I'm pretty sure that all the equipment is-is…that all the equipment is good,” Peregrine answered my original question. I'd almost forgotten about it in the midst of all the teasing. I turned back to him, noticing that his blush had finally receded.
“Well, that's a relief. I had no idea what to expect,” I confessed. “It isn't every day that a sunken ship bobs to the surface.”
“Well ac—“ he started as I was beginning to ask him another question about the equipment.
“Go on,” he encouraged.
“No…no…please,” I gestured for him to continue.
“N-no…go ahead…”
“Oh, come on!” I heard Ester mutter between pants. She was still close enough to follow our conversation.
I looked him in the eye and tried to smile reassuringly. “No, you were about to say something, and I suspect it was important.”
“N-no…” he started to say, but then his expression changed to something I couldn't quite read. “Important? I-I don't know if it was important.”
“Well, spit it out anyway, and I'll tell you if it was important.” Typically, anytime one of the officers on this ship dismissed information as unimportant, it was critical.
“Well, I was going to say…even though it doesn't h-happen every day, it…it h-has happened before.”
“Really?” Somehow, I wasn't as surprised by that revelation as he probably expected.
“Yes.” He resumed polishing the astrolabe vigorously. He was clearly uncomfortable with the topic.
“So, when was the last time that this, uh, happened?” I asked seriously.
He didn't look up to let me see his face. “Um…um…maybe a couple of weeks before you came on board. And, again, maybe a couple of months prior to that…several times.”
My eyes widened. That much I hadn't been expecting. Peregrine leaned closer to me so we wouldn't be easily overheard. Catcalls resumed—we were still being watched. Poor Peregrine! To have to live like that, knowing that there would always be another shipwreck, that he might not survive the next one--I wanted to touch him, at least take his hand, but we had too much of an audience for him to take comfort in such a gesture here. Instead, I asked quietly, “How many times have you been through this? It sounds like it goes on a few times a year!”
“Um…I think the captain…was…trying to…to break the curse…any way he could,” Peregrine confided very softly.
The suggestion was shocking, even having seen Garvyn in his hopeless condition a few days out from Sailor's End. I tried to hide my surprise, though, and closed the gap between us so we were almost touching. We definitely didn't want anyone overhearing such scandalous talk—Peregrine could be punished if that statement ever got back to the captain.
“You think he deliberately sank the ship?” I asked in a hushed tone.
“There are times when I…I know my courses weren't followed,” he answered quietly.
“Really?”
“But-but please, don't tell anyone that I said that,” he asked. His rich brown eyes were serious, fearful. Sharing this information had been hard for him, a very brave thing to do for someone who doesn't take risks as easily as my traveling companions. The grave nature of it sapped the pleasure out of knowing he trusted me so deeply. Instead, I felt profoundly protective of him.
“No, I—I won't discuss it with any of the sailors or the officers.”
“It's j-just speculation, n-not…fact.”
“I understand.”
Peregrine glanced back at Ester, who had paused in her drills to listen more closely. He leaned so close that my hair almost brushed his cheek.
“But…but I'm afraid that if your companions don't understand that…that if you would tell them that as well…they might act harshly…rashly.”
I guess Ester's conversation with Nathaniel after the zombie battle had gotten back to him. She'd scared the daylights out of poor Nathaniel after picking him up and shaking him, and now he shrank away from her when she came near. Nevertheless, I needed to tell my friends about what Peregrine had said, not just for the sake of their safety and the task before us, but I wanted to count on them to help protect him. How could I reassure him without losing his priceless trust in me? He'd been so slow to give it to me that I knew I'd never bring myself to lie to him, no matter how complicated it made things.
“I-I won't share anything with my companions that…that would make them do anything that…isn't thought out.” That, at least, was truthful. They never did anything without discussing it to death, and cautious Peregrine could respect careful planning. I'd be sure to stress to them how dangerous some of the traditional punishments aboard ships could be.
“Th-thank you,” he exhaled with relief.
“Speaking of my companions, we were discussing some of the behaviors of the ghosts since we've been aboard, and—“
“I-I'm afraid I don't know much about those,” he interjected.
“But you do know about the course we've been on, and the position—“
“Well, of course,” he grinned. I was momentarily distracted by its effect on his handsome features until I remembered to blink. What had we just been saying?…oh, right.
“Exactly,” I said. “We were wondering if there was any correlation between the position and their behavior at the time they appear…if they act differently depending on where we are.”
“W-why would they?” he looked puzzled.
“We don't know. But, we're just trying to find out something about them without directly relying on everything they tell us.”
“Well, I can see…I could see that,” he nodded thoughtfully. “I-I would be suspicious, too.”
“Would there be some time when you could help us? It would be me and probably Nikita or Kariya.”
“Yes, I suppose. I'm just about finished cleaning things. We could meet in-in a few minutes in-in my cabin.”
With that, we parted temporarily so I could find Nikita and Kariya. Hopefully, they were still in the galley, not off grooming—Kariya is a complete knockout, especially after Nikita finishes with her, and Nikita you know about already. Even though neither of them understands what I see in Peregrine, I still hate to invite a comparison of me to them.
When I arrived in the galley, only Marius and Kariya were still seated there. Basil bustled around them, humming a drinking song I'd taught the boys several nights ago. Ester had abruptly finished her workout when I'd headed below decks, so she was right behind me. I didn't see Rhavin, Nikita or Canliss.
“Peregrine agreed to meet with us in his cabin to discuss the behavior of the ghosts as it correlates to position,” I told Kariya.
Both Kariya and Marius got up, ready to go. I wasn't so sure Peregrine would feel comfortable around the bard, but there was no polite way to prevent him from coming along. Besides, if he was really going to help, we would have to include him in our efforts.
“Do you know where Nikita went?” I asked the mage.
Kariya shrugged. “Probably back to her cabin. We can knock on the door on the way.”
“I'll wager five gold pieces he doesn't tell us anything useful,” Marius yawned.
I glared at him. He had a lot of damn nerve!
“You know, Jven, we're getting low on ale,” Marius held out his tin cup expectantly.
I took a deep breath and counted to ten, like Mom used to tell me to do. “I'm a priestess, not a tap.”
Fortunately, we ran into Nikita and Rhavin outside the cabins before he could piss me off any more. I thought bards were supposed to be charming.
Nikita had a mischievous smile on her face when we approached. She and Rhavin were moving Canliss' few articles that he didn't keep on his person into another cabin. By the odor rolling out to greet us, I was guessing Stinky Pete was Canliss' new roommate.
“We're on our way to talk with the navigator,” Kariya said, pointedly ignoring Nikita's prank.
“Oh,” Nikita looked around for a not-too-stinky place to put down one of Canliss' books. “Let me put this down, and I'll be right with you. Did you want us all to come, or do you think he'll get too nervous?”
I smiled gratefully. Leave it to Nikita to understand. I looked around at the crowded space outside Canliss' new cabin. “The thing is, I can't really ask anyone not to come.”
“Yes, but I understand that he is very shy,” she answered.
“I wouldn't be much help,” Rhavin conceded.
“As long as one or two of us do most of the talking…” I started.
Before I could finish, Nikita thrust a huge sheet of paper with an enormous grid on it into my hands. At a glance, I could see that each box of the grid contained information about date, time and ghosts' behavior. There was one column left to fill in with the position on our course at the time of their appearance.
“Wow,” Kariya peered over my shoulder. “Gosh, Nikita, I didn't think you were that organized.”
Rhavin stepped out of the way as more of Nikita's copious notes came out.
“Now if only your room were this organized,” the mage teased.
“I'm going to move into Rhavin's cabin,” Nikita said simply. Taken aback, I stared wide-eyed at Rhavin. She must have been more upset about her dreams than I thought for him to agree to such an improper-looking arrangement. Normally, he cares about things like propriety. Later, Nikita told me that the move had been Rhavin's idea. He must really be worried about her.
“Actually,” Nikita changed the subject before we could ask questions, “if you don't want us to come, I was thinking of seeing if Ralfeo was awake because I have a few questions for him. But if you want me there to talk to Peregrine…”
“Probably best to keep the numbers down,” I admitted.
“That's what I was thinking,” she said.
Rhavin looked at her. “Nikita, you should go.”
“Up to you,” I said.
“I'll come,” she decided. “I can explain the spreadsheet.”
Relieved that explaining the elaborate grid wouldn't fall to me, I thrust the paper back into her hands. Nikita, Kariya and I set off for Peregrine's cabin, Marius and Ester in tow.
“Jven, this isn't going to work,” Nikita looked pointedly at Marius and Ester. “We can't all go.”
“I'm bored,” Ester whined.
“Um, why don't you go see if Rhavin wants to wrestle?” Nikita suggested. Now why hadn't I thought of that?
“So, Marius,” I turned to the bard. “Do you know how to wrestle?”
“Want to learn?” Kariya asked.
Nikita chimed in, “Why don't you teach Marius how to wrestle, Ester?”
Ester straightened up into her academy-instructor posture. “It's a very important skill, especially for an innkeeper.”
I had no idea what Ester meant by that last remark, and I doubted Marius was going to go for it. He was already assessing the giantess' height and weight, by the alarmed look on his face.
“Why don't we find the captain and see why we aren't going on our way yet?” Marius suggested instead.
Nikita nodded. “That's a good idea.”
That was the point where Nikita stopped helping, I think. I groaned at the thought of the two of them having an unsupervised discussion with Garvyn.
“We're going back to Graben Island, right?” Ester asked, at least having the sense to check the plan before setting off. Marius had been ready to charge up to the wheel on his own.
“Marius is going to go talk to the captain, but you could go see if Rhavin wants to wrestle,” Nikita suggested. I wasn't sure how turning Marius loose on Garvyn would be an improvement over Ester, but I held my tongue.
“Well, does Marius know what to tell the captain?” Ester asked doubtfully.
“I'm sure he can handle it. He's a bard, after all,” Nikita reassured the giantess. The last bit hardly reassured me. The only bard I knew of was Temmer Longfellow, and he was a lunatic. Hardly spoke well for the profession.
“Well, you could help him if you want,” Kariya countered, a subtle note of impatience in her voice. She wanted to get on with the task of talking to Peregrine.
I rolled my eyes without thinking. “I'm sure the captain would like that.”
Nikita barely suppressed a giggle, but Ester set off with Marius. What had we unleashed on Garvyn? Well, it was sure to get back to us sometime, I thought with resignation. Kariya laughed.
Now that we'd pared down the number of people arriving at Peregrine's cabin door to just me and the two beautiful women, I knocked on his door. Koresh was rubbing his eyes drowsily in the background when Peregrine answered and invited us inside. The gunner regarded us, three of the four women aboard, then looked back at the navigator, who'd shown no surprise at our arrival. His face registered first astonishment, then a certain grudging respect for his shy bunkmate—I struggled not to laugh at his reaction, but even biting my lip didn't prevent the corners of my mouth from twitching up. Too bad Peregrine missed it, since he'd been facing us.
“Are we bothering you?” Nikita politely asked Koresh.
He sighed and sat up completely. “No, not at all.”
I looked at the giant piece of paper in Nikita's hand. “Why don't you show Peregrine your notes?”
“Oh, yes,” she snapped back to attention. I think she'd been watching for me to leap into Peregrine's arms or something. She spread out the huge sheet over the chart and several instruments on the navigator's desk.
“But…” the navigator started to protest her disregard for the order of his desk, but she ignored him.
“What we're trying to figure out is…you see…we've made a list of when the ghosts came to visit us and how they were behaving,” Nikita explained, oblivious to Peregrine's exasperation. “We're trying to figure out where we were at each of these times.”
She began proudly pointing out several features of her elaborate notes. Peregrine tried to listen politely, but I could tell he was really trying to look through Nikita's paper to see if she'd jarred anything out of place. “This column is for their names, this is what time of day they appeared…”
“Well,” Peregrine piped up, “the only…the only, um, times that we really know where we are…are when we take our measurement three times a day: at sunrise, at noon and at sunset. A-a-and other than that it's sort of connecting the dots.”
“But we can interpolate,” I suggested.
“I have a question,” Kariya was looking at the edge of the chart just visible under Nikita's paper. “Do you know—do we sail among different realms here? Different areas?”
Peregrine gave me a sly wink. “Well, of course we sail to different areas. That's the whole point, is it not?”
I started to laugh, even though businesslike Kariya wasn't amused. He'd made a joke with someone he didn't know very well, and Kariya's serious demeanor could be intimidating. I was proud of him.
“Um, well,” Nikita brought us back to business. “We were just wondering if…Jven said sometimes you move from one chart to another?”
Peregrine shrugged, still smiling. “Because you can't put everything on one chart. It's too much…it's…everything…or everywhere. Once you get to the edge of the chart, where do you go?”
“Oh,” Nikita replied, disappointed. “So there's really no significance to that?”
Although I was still suppressing giggles, Kariya had taken a breath and was ready to try talking with the navigator again. “When you picked us up in Sailor's End, we were in this realm where magic wasn't working, and then we got out of it. So, are there different areas like that around?”
Before Peregrine could answer that question, Kariya elaborated. “I mean, look at this. We're surrounded by waves, and then they end. Is that on your chart?”
“Well, yes,” Peregrine replied a bit impatiently. He lifted up Nikita's notes to point to the perfect circle of waves carefully documented on the underlying chart.
“It's not just marked with latitude and longitude,” I broke in, “but also depth.”
“Yes,” Peregrine nodded. “The plumb.”
“You need to have that marked so you know if you're going to bottom out as you approach things,” I added, pointing to the two numbers separated by a slash to indicate high tide and low tide.
At that, Peregrine pulled out another chart—perhaps with a clearer example of what I'd been trying to explain, and rolled it over Nikita's notes. Nikita didn't mind a bit.
“Peregrine?” Kariya tried to direct his attention away from the chart, but it was a losing battle. He seems very attached to his charts.
“You see, here we are…and then here are the waves,” he pointed out.
“Uh-huh,” Kariya nodded, anxious for him to get on with it so she could get to her point. “How do we get out of here?”
“What would be the best course through the waves to minimize chance of damage?” I rephrased her question.
“Well, usually, j-just as quickly as possible,” he answered with a hint of a frown, plainly thinking of previous rough seas.
“You've done this before?” the mage asked.
Peregrine nodded. “Um…yes. It's not fun, but it's…th-the ship can sail through storms…so…it-it's like a storm without the rain.”
“And the wind,” put in Koresh. I'd almost forgotten he was there. He'd been trying to nap in spite of our presence.
“So we just grit our teeth and go for it,” I sighed, trying to eye up the shortest distance through the ring of high seas from where
I stood.
Kariya thought for a moment. “I think we need to sail back to Graben Island. Should we get underway?”
“I-it's your choice,” Peregrine deferred.
Nikita and I agreed that it was time to head for our next port of call, Graben Island. With that, Nikita gathered up her enormous grid of notes and thrust it into my hands.
“We'll leave you to it, then,” she said, preparing to leave with Kariya. “If you can figure anything out, we'll talk about it
later.”
“Find out if Marius talked to the captain,” I charged. Nikita has a gift for smoothing things over with people, so she was an ideal choice for this task. “A little damage control might be in order.”
Nikita's face fell. “Did Ester go with him? Oh dear.”
I nodded.
“Thank you, Peregrine. Sorry to wake you up, Koresh,” she said politely before hurrying off with Kariya to find Ester and the bard.
I stayed behind with Peregrine to work on our calculations. Unfortunately, I had to behave since Koresh was reclining not four feet away. I didn't believe for a minute that his pillow was pulled far enough over his eyes to completely obscure his vision.
“Batten down the hatches!” I heard from above, along with the sound of the anchor. Peregrine and I looked up at each other from our calculations, and began stowing loose gear. My own stuff was all in my backpack in my cabin, so I wasn't worried about stowing it. Koresh made no move to help us, but it was just as well, considering how tight the accommodations were. I thought I heard screaming on deck for an instant, but dismissed it as my imagination (Stubbs told me later that Canliss had shifted into a giant spider to climb the rigging—glad I wasn't there). We managed to just finish before the ship lurched into thirty-foot waves.
We braced ourselves in the cabin for the slow progress through the high seas—there had been little wind that afternoon, so we couldn't make very good time.
“I don't mind navigating, but-but I don't like the sailing bit sometimes,” Peregrine confessed. I smiled back at him. That attitude was understandable, since for him “the sailing bit” entailed having the ship sink a few times a year.
In retrospect, reaching for his hand was probably a mistake. I had thought I might make it, since our fingertips almost touched from where we'd braced ourselves. However, when I shifted position to close my hand on his, the wave action threw me out of my perch between Peregrine's desk and the hull. I stumbled gracelessly and landed squarely on my handsome friend, knocking the wind out of him.
“Oof!” Peregrine managed to catch me, just preventing us both from hitting the floor.
Naturally, I clung to him while I tried to regain my footing. There was a long moment when I gazed helplessly into the bottomless dark brown of his eyes. Our lips part as we drew closer, and…wham! Another particularly rough wave threw me against the hull. I slid down to the floor of the cabin, rubbing my head. Better to just stay there until we were out of the high seas; I sighed as Koresh started to laugh (I told you that pillow he'd pulled over his head earlier hadn't obscured his vision).
It was a three-day trip to Graben Island from Todstein, which meant that we had three time pool spells or genius questions we could come up with before our arrival on Graben Island. Breakfast, of course, consisted of oatmeal and the usual debate over which divinations Nikita should do and for what purpose. She never seems to be upset that we decide how to use her spells by committee. Maybe she appreciates not having the whole burden of figuring out things fall to her.
That first morning of the Todstein-Graben Island leg of our travels, we eventually decided on another time pool spell, the moving pictures Nikita could call forth from a barrel of water. In the process, we reviewed what we'd seen in the time pool spell to that point, including the theft of Madeleine's ring.
Conversation around the next meal focused on Charlotte, however. Someone suggested that we use the time pool spell to view the theft of Charlotte's body. We still weren't clear on how the child fit into the puzzle of curses and grave-robbing for “self-preservation.” Had anything been stolen from her? A legitimate question, to be sure, but rather than deciding anything, we simply added it to the growing list of unanswered legitimate questions. I contributed little to debates about which spells to use, preferring to listen instead. Marius seemed to adopt the same course, saying remarkably little for a bard. Perhaps he was still trying to digest everything he'd seen and heard since his arrival on Kariya's ice a few days ago. It was a lot to take in.
Even though we'd settled on using a time pool spell, we still toyed with possible genius questions when we gathered in the galley for meals. Rhavin suggested asking how moving the bodies was an act of “self-preservation” for the Grabens (yes, Old Man, a divination to find out what a prior divination meant—Jveltoans have teased the Torodinites about it for ages, and now there was a serious suggestion that Nikita try it). There was also some talk of finding out if the Sterns, Charlotte's parents, could help us.
That first evening, after we'd done our calculations from the sunset measurement, I asked Peregrine to walk me back to my cabin. He agreed, as he had in several evenings past. We paused outside my door to say goodnight, but I wasn't ready to let him go. We hadn't really been alone—or at least, unobserved—for days, and I'd been struggling to stay on my best behavior. Hoping for a goodnight kiss, I asked him if he wanted to come in for a few minutes. He looked around to see if we had an audience, then followed me in.
I was shocked to see the floor of my cabin. None of Nikita's usual clutter could be seen anywhere—not the floor, not the upper berth (which had been hers, since she's taller and has better balance), nowhere. All I saw was a note in Nikita's neat, feminine hand. I picked it up and read the following aloud:
I shook my head and smiled. She really had moved out, then. I hoped that Nikita would sleep better with Rhavin close by to comfort her if she had nightmares. He has a wonderful way of buoying up her faith when she is upset or feeling defeated. Well, Peregrine and I would finally have some privacy. As much as I wanted him to stay the night, I was afraid to ask. What if my shy new friend thought I was being too pushy?
He was smiling when I put down the note and turned back to face him.
“I will spend the night with you if you do not protest,” he said simply, but my astonishment was complete. I'd expected to have to extend the invitation if it was going to happen.
“No protests,” I murmered, still trying to master my surprise. “Fair warning, though: the ghosts have been known to knock on
this cabin's door.”
By way of an answer, he brushed aside my hair to kiss my neck.
“Of course…could be persuaded…ignore visitors…” I managed.
I missed breakfast the next morning. The whole morning was a bit of a blur, actually. I vaguely recall taking the daily measurements with the astrolabe and doing the appropriate calculations. I know I went to my prayers with particular gratitude. Afterward, I headed to the galley to find my friends. The morning was well advanced by that time. They'd either be busy with the usual breakfast conference or getting ready for lunch (it was that late).
“I'm not sure that's a spell I want to cast in Ravenloft,” Nikita was saying to the group. “I feel a little bit nervous about that.”
Well, that statement alone was enough to jar me out of my afterglow. I sat down to get serious again with a sigh. No one said anything to me, although Canliss looked like he was dying to.
Nikita moved on to another topic. “So, we might want to hold off on the genius spell until after we've had a chance to snoop around the island.”
“I'm a bit concerned that you say it's so small and we're going to stick out,” Kariya replied. “What are we going to do? Who are we going to be, and why are we going to be there?”
I'd seen Graben Island on the charts. The port in Graben Village was quite small, so I was pleased to see that they were thinking about an excuse for us to be there as strangers among the Graben Island locals.
“They need a cooper?” Nikita suggested with a giggle. Once we stopped laughing, she made a different proposal. “We're sailors?”
Kariya looked over at me. “Are we sailors?”
I counted three of us dressed head to toe in expensive black silk, two or three more of us armed to the teeth with expensive or magical weapons, four of us female--one of whom was seven feet tall with a tentacle—any need to go on?
“You guys are so not sailors,” I shook my head with a chuckle. That idea was almost as funny as the cooper thing.
“Excuse me?” Canliss spoke up indignantly. He's been trying to learn the skills of a seaman while aboard Endurance. Actually, I have little doubt that he is doing well, since he is quite agile.
“I was addressing the group,” I muttered to my six-fingered friend.
Kariya nodded. Evidently, she'd been expecting that answer from me, and she had another idea ready to go. “We were rescued? We were shipwrecked or something?”
That sounded more like it. We had the look of people likely to get into a certain amount of trouble at sea, not sailors. We all agreed on that story.
“Do you all agree that Canliss and I should not be a part of the group?” Nikita asked. Apparently, this notion had come up in my absence. I assumed they were talking about arriving on Graben Island in shapeshifted or invisible form, rather than proposing that we throw the two of them overboard for some reason. Everyone seemed to feel that keeping the Torodinite and the mage's presence a secret would facilitate snooping.
That all settled, we returned to our standard debate about how to best use Nikita's divinations. Should we watch a funeral with the time pool spell, as Ester had advocated? Or should we view that initial meeting when Captain Garvyn had taken the job to transport the bodies, as Kariya suggested?
“What if I could ask to see the death of the person who became the Ghost Dancer?” Nikita asked so softly it was almost a
whisper.
Canliss looked pointedly at me with a wicked grin. “I have some ideas about what we could use the time pool for.”
“How about seeing Garvyn being cursed?” Rhavin suggested.
“I don't know that…see, unless someone cast a curse spell, I don't know that we could see that,” Nikita shook her head. So a curse wasn't necessarily a spell? More spell theory, so of course I was confused again. Now I understand why divination is a very minor part of service to Jvelto—too much fussing with diction and detail. When we create ale, we know we're going to get ale. Nothing to discuss or fret about, it's just there.
“How about the action that caused the curse?” Rhavin countered.
“Then we'd see them dumping the bodies,” Nikita frowned.
“Or the curse being placed by someone?”
“No, it's too vague. What about Lucretia and the baby? Maybe we can find out more about that.”
We struggled with that for a bit, but we couldn't come up with a specific enough question pertaining to that. Did Lucretia give the baby to someone? Did she speak to anyone about the birth? Instead, we returned to the idea of watching an exhumation, but we realized that the spell wouldn't last long enough for the process to be completed.
Basil turned and waggled his cleaver at us. “I say—“
“Yes?” Nikita encouraged.
“Huh? Right,” he grunted, evidently surprised that we'd taken notice. “You know what you should do?”
We all looked at him.
“Well, you know what you should do?” he repeated.
We kept looking, expectantly.
“Yes?” Nikita asked. “We thought you were going to make a suggestion.”
“Isn't that what you guys do?” Basil grinned at his own joke. I started to chuckle, too. Basil definitely had our number.
“What was your suggestion?” Nikita persisted, still not getting it.
“'You know what you should do?'” Basil repeated. Rhavin was starting to laugh, too. “That's all you prattle on about! You never come up with anything.”
Some of the others also started laughing, but Nikita looked a little bit pissed off by our jovial cook's implication that we never got anywhere with out interminable mealtime conferences.
“You sit here for hours,” Basil went on. “Don't get me wrong, I like the company. But I'm a man of action, not a man of talk. I cook, I clean, I feed people…”
“Right,” Nikita snapped as she leapt to her feet, still looking ready to spit nails. “Let's go cast that time pool.”
“That's it! Action!” Basil nodded with satisfaction.
“Do you have a big pot?” Rhavin asked the cook. To Nikita, he said, “Let him watch.”
“Wanna see something cool?” Ester piped up to ask Basil.
Basil indicated a large pot that had a few cut-up potatoes resting on the bottom. Nikita fished out the potatoes.
“What are you doing?” Basil asked indignantly.
“I need to use the water for a spell,” Nikita replied, as if using potato-flavored water for divinations was the most natural thing in the world.
“It doesn't do anything to the water,” Kariya assured the cook, who still didn't look too comfortable with letting us near his pots. Seeing his uncertainty, she asked Nikita if removing the potatoes was really necessary. “The picture's on the top, right?”
“The spell requires a clear pool of water,” she sniffed. “Not a clear pool of water with potatoes in it.”
The water was a bit cloudy from the soaked potatoes at the heart of the controversy anyway, so she used a different pot offered by Basil. We all huddled around the pot, which made things more crowded than usual, since we had become accustomed to using a barrel. They had to stop Basil from boiling the water. He'd just been trying to help…I think. He does seem to have a bit of an ornery streak, though, now that I think about it.
“How about some salt?” He offered instead. He was running out of suggestions for things to do with pots full of water, so Nikita's divination would be an eye-opening experience for him.
“Just watch the pot,” Rhavin and Kariya said in unison.
“Salt's good,” the cook muttered, almost pouting, but no one paid any attention.
“Show me the death of the woman who haunts my dreams as the Ghost Dancer,” Nikita commanded the water.
A shadowy wooden floor gradually came into focus. A woman, alive, was silently dancing before us…in the middle of a stage? She was very pale, and her hair must have been very light blonde. It was impossible to be sure, however, since the image was in shades of gray. That was odd, actually. The other times Nikita has cast the time pool spell, we were able to see colors of things (except Kariya, of course, who is colorblind). And why was it silent? Surely the woman had been dancing to music. I'd never seen anyone dancing in that manner, making graceful leaps and twirling, all the while on her toes in what looked like slippers…ouch! That had to hurt. The woman wore a very pale outfit with a deeply scooped neckline and several skirts of gauzy fabric. As we peered into the barrel, even Basil said nothing. In fact, the cook appeared transfixed by this startling image in what was otherwise an ordinary barrel. Suddenly, the view shifted wildly, shaking as if losing the focus on the woman. A jumble of images followed: flashes of large, masculine gloves closing on the woman's neck; pale limbs thrashing; nearly-white hair spraying in all directions as her head bobbed wildly; the gauzy fabric of her skirts obscuring our view of the violence. Thick, dark liquid splattered the skirts from an unseen source and she lay lifeless, her face turned away from us.
We were all too stunned, I think, particularly after we saw the look on Nikita's face. Rather than talk about it, we all just staggered off to bed in silence.
That night, I awakened from a dreamless sleep to a soft knocking at my door. I looked over at Peregrine, relieved that he was still sleeping peacefully beside me. Careful not to wake him, I slid off the bunk and fumbled for enough clothing from the floor to answer the door adequately dressed. I opened the door a crack to see Madeleine's ghostly face before me.
“Madeleine?” I said softly.
“Hello,” she answered. “I'm concerned that-that…Jacob and I think it's very important that we are there to help you and see that revenge is…is revenged.”
I was pretty sure “revenged” wasn't a word, but I got the idea. Here we were with the “r”-word again.
“Promise you'll take us?” she pleaded.
“How will we do that?” I asked. It was a fair question.
“Our bodies,” she answered.
I told her that the others were trying to figure out how we could take the bodies with us. Fortunately, she isn't as pushy as Jacob (just louder), so it was easier to get out of promising anything without upsetting her. If I'd been clever, or even just more awake, I might have tried to ask if “revenge” was really what she wanted for herself, or if she was letting Jacob bully her into going along with his demands. However, at that hour, I wanted nothing so much as for her to go away and leave me to my warm (and pleasantly crowded) bunk.
The next day, we arrived at Graben Island. Rather than bring Endurance into Graben Village's port, however, we boarded the longboat for Stubbs and company to row us ashore. The island's terrain bore some resemblance to Todstein Island, except of course that Graben Island was much larger. The village, which was of fair size, lay between steep cliffs. Despite the obvious habitation, I couldn't claim to be much happier to be there than Todstein Island.
There was one inn, The Black Sheep Inn, according to Stubbs. He pointed to the main road, which led away from the docks and indicated that we should simply follow it. Kariya called Ulfie to heel as soon she set foot on the shore. No sooner had we arrived than Marius eyed up one of the locals and announced that he would find out something about the local customs before we approached anyone.
Kariya didn't look too sure about bard magic, but this was his first opportunity to really demonstrate a willingness to help the group, so she let it go. Marius began singing a strange song about the comforts of familiar greetings and manners, and being among one's own kind. It seemed an odd selection for this strange place, but his rich baritone voice, even unaccompanied by his harp, was so pleasant that I enjoyed the brief performance despite the peculiar lyrics.
When he finished, he advised us that people here were wary of strangers who try to talk with them for more than five minutes without some specific business. We did seem to be attracting some suspicious looks already, although none very close, and my boots hadn't even dried. Mostly, people gave us a glance and returned to their routine.
Now that we were ashore, we made for The Black Sheep Inn, not far up the main road at all. Although the wattle-and-daub houses were in reasonable repair and not chock full of people with plague, I found the place to have a certain dismal quality. Perhaps it was just me, though. I caught Marius assessing the surroundings, too.
“Now, I'm sure your inn is nicer, but please be nice to the innkeeper,” I charged. Ideally, he wouldn't even mention being an innkeeper himself, since that would provoke the natural question of where his inn was. Lying about geography was something none of my companions was equipped to do adequately in this realm. I'd scrutinized charts all day for a couple of weeks, and I still wasn't comfortable with my ability to drop names of places into conversation.
There was a moment of discussion before we arrived at The Black Sheep about how to secure accommodations for all of us, given that two of our number were invisible.
“Canliss can sleep in the stable,” I shrugged. That was about the time I felt the sharp claws of Canliss the Invisible Cat dig into my leg.
I grit my teeth and tried not to look down or shake my leg. “Canliss, get the fuck off my leg. That's starting to sting.”
Other buildings along the main street consisted of typical shops. I thought I saw shingles for a weaver, a miller and a bakery. The bakery was where Canliss got off. I checked for my leg for bleeding and frowned.
The inn was small by Istur's standards, but probably very adequate for this small town. It certainly smelled promising in terms of dinner. I couldn't identify the menu, but my companions, sick to death of Basil's cooking, all inhaled and sighed with delight.
“Excuse me,” Kariya addressed the man busily cleaning up the bar.
“Eh?” The man startled at the sight of a stranger. “How y'doing?”
“Good. We're interested in some rooms,” she answered.
“Rooms?”
“Yes.”
He paused to count our number. “I have yust enough rooms.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yust enough rooms,” he repeated.
“How much?”
“One plank piece each.” What the hell was a “plank?”
Rhavin stepped up to join Kariya in making room arrangements. “Would you take pieces of eight?”
Canliss the Cat dropped his invisibility as he sauntered into the kitchen to beg for scraps. Totally shameless.
“One plank?” Rhavin held up one of our pieces of eight.
“Na, but it'll do f'you,” came the reply. For all we knew, we could be completely overpaying, but Nikita wasn't visibly present to bat her eyelashes and bargain for our rooms. Rhavin handed him the remaining coins needed to secure room and board for each of us—well, each of us the innkeeper could count. We'd slip some of our food to Canliss and Nikita as the opportunity presented itself.
Ester was eagerly eyeing up the kitchen. “Is lunch included?”
There came a surprised cry of “ungrateful thing!” from the kitchen, followed by a crash and a meow. Canliss returned, tail proudly in the air as if the encounter had gone entirely as planned. I swear, Old Man, sometimes I think he's really a cat who shapeshifts into human form.
The innkeeper indicated that we had rented all of the rooms at the top of the stairs. We helped ourselves to them. There were five rooms, each with a double bed and plenty of warm wool blankets. I called dibs one of the two rooms with an ocean view.
“I get my own room,” Ester grinned. Poor Ester was still going to have to curl up to fit into the double bed, or her feet were going to stick out. She seemed so happy, though, I couldn't bring myself to mention it.
Room assignments completed, Ester bounded down the stairs to dinner. The creaking of the stairs as she descended excitedly made me cringe. I hoped we wouldn't have repairs to the inn to pay for.
“Can I help with dinner?” I could hear her ask the innkeeper as I started down the stairs. Apparently, he accepted her help because she was setting our table for five when we arrived at the bottom.
The food the innkeeper brought out for us included stew, meat pies and scalloped potatoes, along with some adequate wine and ale. We fell on the repast as if we hadn't eaten proper food for months—no slight intended toward Basil, but from my friends' point of view, that was pretty much the case. When I noticed Kariya feeding some of her food to Ulfie, I paused long enough to offer a few bites to Canliss the Cat. It seemed too cruel to eat all of this in front of him without sharing, and my kindness was rewarded with some purring and rubbing against my legs. I'd quite forgiven him for sinking his claws into me earlier (funny how it's much easier to overlook things like that when he's in cat form).
Some of the villagers also dined at the inn that evening, and we quickly attracted stares. The locals turned away as soon as we caught them looking at us. I think their curiosity might have been piqued by our seemingly outlandish mode of dress in addition to simple unfamiliarity. After all, Rhavin's purple and gold color scheme and the rich black silk I was sporting hardly blended in with the muted woolens of the locals. Of course, differences in fashion drew much less attention than Ester, who is seven feet tall and formidable-looking, even with her tentacle disguised as an amputated limb.
Rhavin got up to take his plate to his room, no doubt planning to feed some of his share to Nikita. She'd been hiding in one of our rented rooms through dinner. Before he went, though, he paused to say a few words to Canliss the Cat.
“Nikita would like to meet you upstairs when you're done,” he whispered.
At the conclusion of that delicious meal, Ester stretched and sighed contentedly. After a moment, she scratched her full belly and asked, “Hot bath?”
Oh, what a glorious suggestion! As grateful as I am for clean cantrips, nothing feels quite so right as a good, hot bath. The two of us got up to ask about bathing, and Kariya took Ulfie out for some exercise.
“Hot bath?” Ester asked the innkeeper. He looked a bit confused.
“Would it be possible for us to have a hot bath?” I echoed the giantess.
He motioned toward the rear of the common room. “Oh, ya, there's a stream behind the inn.”
“A ´streamen'?” she asked.
“A stream,” I translated.
Well, that wasn't quite what we had in mind. I could handle the chill, but neither of us would really relax without some heat. Ester tried to ask about a steam room or a sauna, but the innkeeper was entirely puzzled by the question—I suspected that the accent and Ester's limited vocabulary weren't the sole source of the confusion there. Ester was talking about the sort of luxury found at Jveltoan temples.
“Oh…night,” the innkeeper nodded when Ester mentioned steam.
“What?” It was Ester's turn to be puzzled.
“Steam rises.”
“Right. Room full of steam.”
“No? No.”
“Where?”
He was referring to the weather, of course. I couldn't take it anymore. I sighed, “Just around, outside. He's talking about fog. It's not what you're after, Ester.”
Our irrepressible giantess shrugged and changed the subject. “Breakfast? First meal of the day? Morning meal?”
The innkeeper took a moment to decipher her question. “Ah! Morning r'past?”
“Morning wha--?”
“Morning r'past.”
“Huh?”
“Morning repast,” Kariya and I fairly shouted in unison. Kariya added, “Breakfast.”
“Yes, when is it?” Ester asked. “Is it included?”
The harried innkeeper nodded, clearly not quite knowing what to make of our giantess. Thinking to let him be about his business (to his immense relief, I'm sure), Kariya and I bid him thanks and good night. Fortunately, Ester took the hint and came with us.
There wasn't anything useful for me to do while Nikita and Canliss scouted around town, so I headed to the stream for a bath. I waded into the icy water, but a foot or so away from the shore, the river rock under my feet began to feel warm. Uncomfortably hot, actually, once I got to the center, but the stones warmed the water flowing over it nicely. I sank into it with a contented sigh. Ester, too, had joined me. I luxuriated in the bath until the water began to cool. I made a mental note to thank Canliss as I wrung out my hair—that warm water had to be his doing.
Cleaner and more content, I strolled back into the common room as the fog rolled in. Marius had pulled out his harp, and he was in excellent voice. His repertoire is impressive, I'll give him that much. He sang several songs about long journeys and the ocean, and I didn't know all the words to some of them. He cheerfully played “The Song of the Couronne Boatman” for me when I requested it, and he even knew a verse I hadn't heard before. I tried to relax, but The Black Sheep Inn's patrons hardly created a welcoming atmosphere. When Marius finished one of his wonderful songs, they only nodded in satisfaction and returned to talking among themselves.
When I couldn't control my yawns any longer, I staggered upstairs. I'd decided against partaking of any more of the wine or ale in case there was some sort of emergency during the night, but I wasn't about to stay up all night. The bed seemed unnaturally still after being lulled to sleep by the roll of the waves for so many nights. I fell asleep wondering how many years had passed since Peregrine last slept a night ashore.
Before breakfast, most of us gave Canliss our weapons before he polymorphed, so they disappeared into his shapeshifted form. He'd simply drop the spell if we needed to fight, but I sincerely hoped we wouldn't have to…at least, not our first morning here. Marius had wanted to keep his longsword with him, and he resisted arguments against traipsing through the otherwise peaceful-looking village with an enormous weapon in hand.
“Heavens' sake, man, how do you ever blend?” I cried, exasperated.
Marius gave me a toothy, good-ol'-boy kind of grin. “People just like me. They don't care.”
I wasn't buying his charming smile. Seriously, Old Man: how does a bard come to need quality metal armor, including a helm, and resist the idea of being separated from his sword? He'd definitely been in some kind of trouble, and he may still be in it for all we know.
I rolled my eyes. “I can't imagine why.”
“I think you'd better give your weapons to him,” Kariya interjected, anxious for us to have breakfast and be on our way.
“Oh, all right,” the bard grunted his concession. He handed Canliss the longsword…then pulled out a bow and a quiver of arrows! Yep, he was not your typical tavern act. I didn't know of any harpers in Istur who would hack up the audience if there wasn't enough coin in the tip jar at the end of the night. He seemed to notice us all staring at him.
“I've still got my throwing knives,” he assured us. Somehow, knowing he was still armed to the teeth didn't make me feel better about him.
My companions rejoiced to see eggs and toast set before us at breakfast the next morning. There was also some kind of organ meat that I wasn't about to touch. I tried to sneak Canliss the Cat some table scraps, but evidently I wasn't giving him enough food to suit him. The “ungrateful thing” hopped up onto the table to help himself. Rhavin took his plate to one of our rooms to share his breakfast with Nikita, who had gone back into hiding there. After breakfast, the rest of us joined them there.
“We should check out the graveyard,” Kariya proposed.
Nikita nodded and said, “I don't think walking up to the Graben house is such a good idea…visibly.”
The Graben estate had been on our list of places to scout out, along with the graveyard. I could only guess why the Torodinite suggested that visibly approaching the Graben house would be a bad idea, since she hadn't really told us much about what she and Canliss had seen during the night. I was disappointed: I hadn't expected Canliss to give us any sort of disclosure, but Nikita is usually pretty quick to share information.
I watched the morning drizzle while talk turned to the possibility of talking to Carl and Luisa Stern. As interested as we were in what they might have to say, none of us could come up with a delicate way of introducing ourselves and stating our purpose for seeking them.
Instead, we returned to Kariya's original suggestion that we explore the graveyard. We all planned to go except Nikita. She'd offered to stay behind in mouse form, listening and lip-reading here in the common room while the rest of us looked around the graves. Rhavin didn't look too sure about leaving Nikita behind.
“I'll be fine,” she assured him.
He frowned. “You'll stay here?”
“If you put me on the mantel, then I won't have any choice but to stay here,” she replied. Unable to argue that point, he conceded with a dissatisfied sigh.
At the conclusion of our meal, Rhavin surreptitiously tucked Nikita, a visible mouse, behind a rough wooden…thing…I think it was meant to be decorative, but it didn't really succeed in improving the décor. While he was doing that, Kariya paid in advance for another night at the inn. Then the graveyard party, including Canliss the Cat, prepared to head out.
We all trekked up the steep, muddy hill to the graveyard. Periodically, Kariya threw a stick for Ulfie to fetch, and the Hurvan shepherd reveled in the exercise. I'd taken my gear with me in my backpack, so eventually my chest tightened and I broke a light sweat. Most of the others seemed fine, except for our stout bard and his freaking metal armor. Marius had turned bright red from exertion and was panting loudly.
“Stop for a break!” he wheezed.
Kariya looked over her shoulder without breaking stride. “Keep moving, man!”
“What's your hurry?” the bard panted back in reply. He bent over to relieve a stitch in his side and reached for his flask. Well, he probably thought he had a point. I mean, usually a funeral marks the end of a body's travels, but the local dead didn't have a great track record for staying put. For all we knew, latecomers to Graben Island's graveyard might miss something.
“Take all the time you need,” Kariya she called back to him. “We'll see you at the top.”
Canliss began rubbing my legs to indicate that he wanted to be carried. I picked him up just in time for the rain to give way a thick ground mist. We'd have lost track of him in the mist if I hadn't.
At the top, a graveyard full of rough prairie grass and various kinds of grave markers awaited us. Once inside, Kariya abruptly turned in one direction.
“Where you going, Kariya?” Rhavin asked.
She paused to open her belt pouch. Had I heard a soft thumping? Yes, that was definitely thumping from inside the box, and it was getting louder. It turns out that my companions had placed the coffins inside Kariya's magical folding box sometime before disembarking (I guess I'd been busy elsewhere). Our unflappable mage pursed her lips in momentary irritation.
“Okay, let's open the damn box,” she muttered.
Marius leaned over toward the box as Kariya began unfolding. “Alright! This is exciting!”
Judging by the looks that comment drew, I wasn't the only one questioning the bard's sanity.
The box nearly jumped out of Kariya's hands as she unfolded. It took all or us to eventually get to the largest space in the box.
“Open the lid,” she said to Rhavin, who obliged.
Kariya leaned over the edge and peered in with an exasperated expression. “What?”
Jacob's fist was still raised from pounding when he looked up at her. Madeleine lay on the bottom of the box with sleeping Charlotte. It was daylight. Overcast, to be sure, but daylight nonetheless, and the ghosts were visible and active.
“Thank goodness!” he cried, stepping out of the box. He looked a bit distressed. Claustrophobia? Or just creeped out by the presence of the coffins they'd asked us to bring? I honestly didn't care whether Jacob was comfortable or not, since he'd become such a pain in the ass.
“Stuffy in there, huh?” Ester tried to sympathize. Of course, stuffiness only matters to people who still breathe, so the point should have been moot.
Ignoring the giantess for once, Jacob said to Kariya, “You've gotta get us out of there.”
“Oh,” Kariya shrugged. “Sorry.”
I didn't think she sounded any more sorry about it than I was.
“I can't get you out of there right this instant,” Kariya started to explain.
Ignoring the mage, he looked around at all of us and rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Well, here we are. Let's do it.”
“Well, where we going to--? We're just going to put you guys on the ground?” Kariya waved at the ground in front of her. Her fingertips were obscured by the waist-high fog.
“Well, no,” Jacob conceded, looking at the box in disgust. “But just not in this…in that...that…whatever that is. That's just confined.”
Since when is a coffin more roomy? I held my tongue so we could just get on with it.
“Can you find where you were buried?” Kariya asked, trying to make some use of the ghosts now that they were out of the box.
Madeleine and Jacob looked at each other, as if silently communicating. I hate it when they do that. What was it they couldn't say in front of us?
Well, the good news was that Madeleine and Jacob could show us where they'd been buried. The bad news was that they'd been buried in completely different parts of the graveyard. Naturally, they took off immediately before we could organize how to split up.
“What's going on?” Charlotte poked her head up. “Where are we?”
In Nikita's absence, we all looked at Kariya. “We're just trying to find where you all were buried. We're at the graveyard on Graben Island. Do you know where you were buried?”
About that time, Rhavin and I realized that someone should be going after Jacob, so we took off in his direction. Ester and Marius went the other direction after Madeleine. Kariya stayed with the box, but assigned Canliss to Charlotte, who was getting out of the box when Rhavin and I ran after Jacob. Hearing that, Canliss leaped out of my arms to follow the girl. With all the weapons.
Jacob was walking right through the tombstones, of course. To almost catch up, Rhavin and I had to run at top speed, leaping over grave markers as we spotted them through the ground fog. The mud made it impossible to get any kind of traction before attempting to hurdle the stone and wooden tombstones that lay in our path. In front of me, Rhavin stumbled. He disappeared into the fog, but I didn't stop to help him up for fear of losing Jacob. Eventually, my least-favorite ghost stopped and waited for me. I'd quite lost track of Rhavin.
“There!” Jacob shouted, pointing to an unremarkable headstone. I couldn't read the letters. I had no chance of finding it again without some kind of marker, so I opened my backpack to take out the most useless item I had. I settled on the one remaining healing pod for poor One of Five—I'd carried it all the way from Firestorm Peak. I plopped it on top of Jacob's grave and turned to look for the paladin.
“Rhavin!” I called. First I let him get completely trashed, and now I'd just plain lost him. The others weren't going to let me play with him anymore if I couldn't be more responsible with the paladin. “Rhavin!”
I saw him head toward me with a strange look on his face. He handed me my cutlass. “Here's your sword.”
“Uh, thanks,” I replied, trying to gauge his expression. “Am I going to need it?”
Rhavin explained that Canliss had dropped the polymorph, but he didn't say why. He looked like he wanted to tell me something, but he didn't quite know where to start.
“Did Nikita tell you anything about the Vistani?” Rhavin asked abruptly.
“What are those?” I blinked.
“We should go back and talk,” he nodded, then he turned to the impatient ghost. “Jacob, what would you have us do?”
“It is time for revenge,” Jacob replied. There we went again with the damn revenge.
“Would you have us bury you?” Rhavin asked, not wanting to touch the “revenge” business just at that moment.
“Then I can't see the revenge.”
“So why did you bring us here?”
“Who brought whom?” Jacob asked rhetorically.
“We were coming to investigate, but you forced us to run over here. What did you want to show us?”
“You're right. It's difficult though, you know,” Jacob gave a curt nod. That response made no sense whatsoever. It certainly wasn't contributing to our body of knowledge about what the hell was going on.
“I can imagine,” Rhavin tried to empathize. “Well, I would like to understand.”
I just stared at Rhavin. I certainly hope he never understands what Jacob was going through.
“Let's return,” Rhavin said after a moment, “let's get Madeleine and get back so we can actually find out who did this. We can't learn anything here.”
Rhavin noticed One of Five's pod resting on Jacob's tombstone and suggested that we take it with us. I was surprised that he didn't want to leave the marker behind.
“We don't know a lot about it. It's now exposed to the air here…the rain, the elements,” he said.
After a bit more convincing on Rhavin's part, I supposed he was right. The last thing we needed was something else to worry about, like seven-foot mushrooms taking over the local plant life. Personally, I wasn't bothered by the idea of a bed full of giant fungi growing over Jacob's grave, except that it would make putting the coffin in the grave that much harder. Reluctantly, I slid the (now slightly damp) pod back into my backpack.
Our return trip to where Kariya was waiting with the box was much slower going. Jacob walked right through the solid objects we had to go around, of course, so he went ahead while Rhavin and I picked our way back.
“Don't make me go back in there,” Jacob was pointing at the box, still open to its largest section, when we arrived.
“If we close the box, can you stay out?” Kariya asked.
“Or do we need to bury your body right now?” Canliss followed up. I was with Canliss: better to plant Jacob now. I was certain he'd annoy me less with at least six feet of soil between him and us.
“You have two options,” Kariya said to the ghost. “We can't really carry your bodies through the streets. We have to close them back up into this box.”
“Well, I'm not going back in there.”
“Well, can you stay out here if we close the box?”
“Dunno.”
“Do you want to try?”
“Dunno.”
“Jacob,” Rhavin interjected, “it's the only way.”
“Or we can bury you now,” Canliss put in.
“No!” Jacob objected firmly. He'd already said that burial would prevent him from seeing “the revenge.” If we weren't sure who we needed to unleash all this revenge upon, all the better if Jacob wasn't around to coach us.
“We can't carry these coffins through the streets. Our hands are tied,” Canliss argued.
“Yeah,” Ester chimed in. “How are we supposed to sneak up on the Grabens?”
“Sneaking up on the Grabens might be a problem,” Canliss said quietly. I don't think my friends heard him. Even if that had been the moment to ask why he thought so, I doubted we'd get a useful answer out of the mage.
“Not ´the Grabens'” Rhavin corrected the giantess, “'the people responsible'.”
“Let's close one section and see what happens,” Kariya suggested, but Jacob still didn't look too sure.
“Come on, man. It's time to be buried,” Marius insisted, puffing just a bit. He'd finally made it back from the Madeleine chase.
We all grabbed a side of the box to close it. The largest section folded shut with a thunk, and all three ghosts winked out. Jacob's loud knocking was the immediate consequence of closing the box. That would never do. How was carrying a pounding box through Graben Village any less conspicuous than dragging around coffins containing the Graben Islanders' neighbors? Kariya peeked into the box just a bit, and met with Madeleine's screams in reward. I guess that's why Jacob hadn't been so keen on the box—just thinking about Madeleine doing her stuff inside that confined space made my head hurt. Jacob and Madeleine rushed out before Kariya could snap the box shut.
“Please do not put me back in with her,” he pled.
“Can you stand it in there until we get back to our room?” Kariya asked.
They shook their heads.
“Well, then, we're going to have to take you out in the sacks,” Kariya replied.
They weren't too keen on that idea, either, but it was the only alternative to the box we were offering them. With their remains in the sacks instead of the coffins, Canliss would polymorph with the sacks so we could carry them back to the inn with us.
There was a brief discussion about burying Charlotte since we were here, but Rhavin felt strongly that we should keep the ghosts together, and Kariya thought we should talk with her parents first.
“Bird?” Charlotte popped up to ask Ester. Ester obliged the girl's request before we set out with Canliss the Cat.
Madeleine turned to me to ask if we could put some flowers on her grave. I don't know what made her think I was the person to ask, but in the interest of preventing (or at least limiting) the amount of screaming from her, I agreed to pick some flowers for her. Knowing my luck with the ghosts, I'd probably pick something I was allergic to and get a rash.
“You're so sweet,” she said gratefully. She was looking right at me, so I couldn't roll my eyes. Instead, I did a blessing on her, which seemed to settle her down.
Canliss asked if he should take the swords back with him in addition to the sacks, or would we put them in the box? I deferred to Rhavin, who announced that he was keeping his weapon, so I strapped on mine, too. Kariya gave him hers, though, after which he shifted back into cat form and headed for the inn.
Before he left, Canliss said quietly to me, “The Vistani are no threat to us, but they are very powerful.”
I guess everyone knew about the Vistani except me.
“What happened?” Jacob was asking Rhavin when I looked up from where Canliss had been.
“We met someone who travels the mists,” Rhavin replied.
“What kind of malarkey is that?” Jacob exclaimed. I'd had the same reaction.
Ignoring Jacob's outburst, Rhavin straightened up. “We should get back to the inn as quickly as possible.”
“Let's go,” Jacob started off, calling over his shoulder, “Madeleine, come on!”
We all looked at each other, then back at the ghosts, already on their way to the graveyard's gate. Parading down the main thoroughfare of Graben Village with two of its dead citizens was hardly the way for us to keep a low profile.
Kariya called out, “Uh, guys, can you meet us at the inn?”
I didn't think our request for them to lay low, so to speak, was likely to be honored, but they winked out just as they crossed the threshold of the graveyard. Thus relieved of their presence for now, we made it back to the inn without incident. Well, I did grudgingly pick some flowers for Madeleine, but I stopped when I realized that they wouldn't be fresh by the time we made it back to their gravesites.
“Let's go upstairs and talk,” Rhavin appeared to say to the mantel on the way through the common room. He'd actually scooped up Nikita in mouse form so she could talk with us.
Upstairs, Nikita promptly shifted back into human form and sat down on the bed. “Oh my gods, these people are so boring.”
“We met one of the Vistani,” Rhavin told her immediately.
Nikita perked up at that. “Really? When? Who?”
“I know you're going to back up and tell me who the Vistani are,” I sat down on the floor.
“The Vistani are very powerful gypsies who can travel from one realm in Ravenloft to another,” Nikita explained. “We met one named Madame Hyskose in Souragne who could read our fortunes, and she was completely accurate.”
“Unfortunately,” Canliss muttered, but as usual, I had no idea what he meant.
“Hopefully, this one will be as accurate,” said Rhavin. “She gave us warning and advice.”
“What was her name? What did she say?” Nikita asked, trying to rush Rhavin's disclosure.
No one remembered her name. My Torodinite friend, who has a head for detail, seemed a bit disappointed, but she said nothing.
“She warned us that the evil we're facing is far worse than we've imagined,” Canliss informed Nikita grimly.
“We won't solve it on this island…and, we all have individual paths…as a group we are much better…I don't know how…our paths are…fate will pull us back along the path…we should not let the greater evil divide us, that was very important,” Rhavin struggled to remember what had been said. Nikita was clearly struggling to control her disappointment in his memory.
“Formation is strong,” Ester was nodding.
“Which means we can't have any petty bickering and infighting,” Canliss explained.
“Didn't she also say that the greater evil would try to deceive us?” Kariya put in.
Rhavin nodded at her. “Yes, the greater evil is already trying to separate us. So, it's not our own internal fighting. It's to be wary of external things.”
“So practical jokes are still okay,” Canliss exhaled, relieved. “Thank heavens.”
Nikita looked terribly vexed, and I couldn't blame her. None of what Rhavin was spouting made sense in any concrete way. The only thing I believed for sure was that nothing would be solved on the island.
“So, what was the woman's name?” she asked, incredulous that no one could recall it.
For what seemed like several minutes, my friends looked at each other, scratched their heads, pursed their lips…until Canliss sat up straight and exclaimed, “Vincenzia!”
From what they recalled, Vincenzia had essentially said that we didn't even need to be on Graben Island, and she seemed wholly unwilling to talk about the ghosts.
“'That's your task,' she basically said,” Kariya summarized with regard to the current problem of how to put the ghosts to rest.
“So, basically, she's saying we don't even need to be on this island?” Nikita asked in disbelief.
“No,” Kariya and Rhavin said in unison. Kariya added, “The greater evil is bigger than our current task.”
“Was she referring to the prophecies?” Nikita speculated aloud. Rhavin and Kariya seemed to think so.
“What can you get out of Vistani?” Rhavin shrugged. “She did her little twirl in the mist and vanished.”
Great. That was what Rhavin had to say about the helpful nature of these people? Well, thank goodness they had so much information we could use, I thought acidly.
Nikita sat up to think aloud. “Well, maybe she's trying to say that…we want to stop The Fall of the Night of Evil…maybe the greater evil, whoever is behind that and wants it to happen, has noticed us and is trying to stop us now.”
Kariya sat back and murmured, “That could be…that could be. And is trying to divide us.”
“Already trying to deceive us?” Nikita looked at Rhavin.
He winced slightly. “Not verbatim. I'm sorry, I really wish you'd been there.”
“Nobody remembers what she said?” Nikita looked from Rhavin to Kariya in disbelief.
“I'm thinking we need to put the ghosts to rest now,” Canliss said suddenly.
Rhavin turned to him. “I really don't want to do that until we have more information.”
That put Canliss back on the subject of the Vistani. Now that he thought about it, he didn't think she'd actually used the word “deceive”…but what had she said? After a moment, he recalled to us that her words had been “divide and destroy”, neither of which sounded better to me. It was unclear whether the evil had already achieved any measure of success in that regard, but based on what the six-fingered mage remembered, the evil was still trying. There was also some advice to the effect of “don't be fooled by tricks.”
Seeing Nikita's frustration, Rhavin tried to make sense of their recollections. “The tense…it just seems like some outside force is trying to divide us. Whether or not it happened yesterday or tomorrow…”
“…They are seeking to divide us,” Kariya nodded.
“We haven't really seen any attempts to do that,” Nikita gently challenged their hypothesis.
Kariya turned to face her directly. “Unless you look at the Ghost Dancer.”
At the same time, I muttered to Canliss, “But we're sitting here arguing about diction.”
“You're surprised why?” came the whispered reply from my six-fingered friend.
“We also have those little figurines,” Rhavin pointed out. His eyes flicked to Marius for just an instant before retraining on Nikita. “We should be wary of outside influences.”
There was a momentary lull in the conversation while pretty much everyone tried not to look at the bard. Polite Nikita was the first to speak up.
“I wonder if we should destroy those figurines,” she said to the group.
Rhavin asked, “How?”
“That would be an awfully bold action when we don't know much about them,” I spoke up. Just to put that statement in context, Old Man, Kariya has a whole compartment of her folding box dedicated to storing evil magic items simply because we don't know how to destroy them properly.
“I don't want to leave those in the ethereal plane,” Kariya countered.
“I didn't mean just chuck them in the fire,” Nikita defended. “I assumed we would do some divination first to make sure it's a good idea.”
“We could,” the cool-headed mage considered the idea more carefully.
“Although I couldn't dispel them with magic even after several tries,” the Torodinite admitted. “They might be strong enough to resist attempts to destroy them.”
Nikita suggested a simple augury to see if destroying the figurines would harm us. A basin and an urn for washing sat on a somewhat shabby table nearby. When the augury revealed that the figures' destruction would not cause harm to us, Rhavin volunteered to throw his representation into the bowl first to burn it.
Rhavin picked up his figure and a strange look passed across his face. He shook it off after a long pause and threw the thing into the bowl with probably a bit more force than absolutely necessary.
“Rhavin? What's wrong?” Nikita asked gently.
“What happened?” Kariya sat forward, keen eyes trained on the paladin's expression.
“You can tell us,” Nikita assured him.
Rhavin mumbled something about a “seed of doubt” and insisted, “We must destroy these things.”
With a nod from Rhavin, Canliss used “fire finger” to light up the figure made of kindling. We watched Rhavin, sitting in silence, flames engulfed the purple and gold thing.
“What's wrong, Rhavin?” Nikita repeated her question softly. “You're scaring me.”
While the thing burned, Rhavin explained that he'd seen a vision implying that Nikita had lied about the result of her augury. The Torodinite was silent; dumbstruck probably.
“You would never do that,” Rhavin said with confidence while the thing tried to burn to ash.
“Let me guess,” Canliss looked at Kariya. “You saw me doing something.”
“I saw you poisoning our drinks, and you would never do that,” she answered.
“No,” Canliss assured us. “I would do it as a joke, but it wouldn't hurt anyone. It would just put you to sleep.”
We all gazed at the smoking cinders in the wash basin. I felt strangely better after seeing the figures' destruction, but I couldn't put my finger on why.
“Those things that they were trying to make us believe…they're not really terribly realistic,” Nikita summarized what we'd all been thinking.
“If we didn't trust each other as well…” Kariya nodded. “It's putting seeds of doubt, and I don't think anyone else needs to experience that.”
“Formation is strong,” Ester nodded. She'd adopted the phrase as a motto back in Firestorm Peak, when Kariya had tried to discourage the giantess from wading too far into battles by herself.
Rhavin straightened up to address the group. “We have…and I am probably the person who does this the most, and I'm sorry for it…but, we have to be as open with each other as we can. There are going to be a variety of things that will test us.”
The talk of openness and sharing made me think about Peregrine's disclosure to me, and what it might mean if Garvyn found out that my quiet lover had told me that secret. Yet, I didn't think I could preserve everyone's safety, including his, if we weren't all on guard for Garvyn to imperil us again. I wanted my friends' help, and I wasn't exactly lying to Peregrine. I had carefully promised that I wouldn't tell my companions anything that would make them behave rashly, and they always discuss things to death. Still, I winced to cut the truth so finely: it had the stabbing feel of a lie.
“Actually,” I started, “I haven't been meaning to hold out…but…”
Nikita gave me a congratulatory smile. “We already know about Peregrine.”
Oh gods, this was going to be hard. I felt myself start to sweat.
“This is serious,” I answered.
“Oh, we approve,” Nikita nodded, still smiling warmly. I suddenly wished I hadn't eaten quite so much meat pie.
“I found out from Peregrine that the ship has gone down, in fact, more than once, and it's been, like, every couple of months,” I forced out. Nothing for it now except to spit everything out. “In fact…in fact…and he asked me, please, not to say anything to anybody, so I'm trusting you guys to keep your mouths shut…he's suspicious that Garvyn may have tried deliberately to sink the ship to break the curse because he knows that the course plotted has not always been followed…he really doesn't want that discussed.”
Everyone allowed as how they could believe Garvyn might try something like that, and they seemed to understand my reluctance to share that information while aboard the ship. I had been sure that they would, of course, or I wouldn't have told them in the first place.
My friends had voiced their understanding of the situation, but their understanding was limited to the immediate threat to everyone's safety. I had another bitter taste in the back of my throat as complement to those revelations: perhaps my failure to keep Peregrine's confidence meant I couldn't be trusted with anything better than a one-night stand.
I've tried to convince myself that I did the right thing by telling my friends, but the idea of soiling my shy lover's hard-won trust still disgusts me, Old Man. How is it that you and I never discussed such things? If we had, I'm sure I would have known exactly what to do about Peregrine's secret. But everyone, including Peregrine, is safer now that my observant friends know that we need to monitor Garvyn's behavior…right?
Pray long for me,
Jven