2022

Ellison took off his assassin jacket, rolled it up and poked it out from the boulder he’d been hiding behind. A volley of gunfire immediately followed and he jerked the jacket back.

Finnbogi moaned slightly and his eyes flittered open then closed again. Good, he was starting to come to. Wynefrede scooted closer to him and poked at him with one of her feet, then looked around. The two commandos who were guarding them had automatic rifles in their hand, and were scanning the compound for threats.

“If you spot any of our Royal Season participants, shoot them on sight,” Clinio Lind reminded half of his security team. The other half was circling the compound through the forest, and got the same warning earlier. “We can’t afford to lose them again.”

Wynefrede wasn’t a tiny woman, but she felt like a doll as the commando carried her up the mountain slung over his shoulder. But then again, if their gate allowed them to bring in weapons and military uniforms, then it probably didn’t have any constraints on body types, either. The main Krim entrance gate had a complicated point system for choosing bodies that forced users to make trade-offs between, say, strength and endurance. The commando carrying her didn’t seem to be operating under any physical constraints at all.

“What the hell is this thing?” Ellison weighed the orange plastic gun in his hand. He was standing on the sandy beach, surrounded by Clinio’s security team, the bodies of four of the commandos at their feet. Two were still alive, but wounded.

The commando walking in front of Wynefrede stopped and dropped her down onto the wet rocks. They’d gotten tired of watching her stumble along in her sandals and started carrying her about an hour ago. A rock stabbed her in the side and she cried out, but the commandos ignored her.

“There are six of them,” said Cleeve Freer as the lights on the shore got a little closer. “Or, at least, six of them who are carrying lights.” “Can you guys take them?” Ellison asked.

The Storm Bug sailed into Lamacoln’s protected bay just before a cloud bank rolled in, blocking the light of the moon. The ship’s captain dropped anchor. Ellison had been up on the deck since they first caught sight of the island.

Finnbogi stood up. “We have to get off Krim right this minute,” he said. He and Wynefrede had been sitting behind a rock outcrop, hidden from view, looking at the stars above them and the ocean in front of them. Now his head was visible to anyone who might be looking for them. Wynefrede tried pulling him back down.

Shortly after Wynefrede was in the woods, running away from the compound, she heard the bell ring behind her and froze in panic. Then she slowly turned around and dropped to the ground and crawled behind the nearest tree and waited for the ringing to stop. Was this a signal for the cult members to assemble in order to chase after her?

Wynefrede tried to make herself as small as possible inside the crate and held her breath as someone opened the lid of the crate next to her.

“If they zombify you, I’ll kill you myself, I promise,” said George. They hid their stolen food under a decomposing log a nice safe distance away from the compound, then George led Wynefrede back to the main cluster of buildings.

Wynefrede watched as George and Torralei — Temeliel? — neither was probably their real name — pulled Elyon out of the cart and dumped him on a flat rock near the top of the waterfall.

The cart was lighter with just the tools and Elyon’s body in it, but Temeliel didn’t think he could push it through the jungle. The path back led up to the compound, where he could easily be spotted. He didn’t want to think about what would happen to him if the Powers found him with Elyon unconscious and bleeding in the cart.

The toilets were on the back side of the building. It was normally dark at night, but Temeliel had a small lantern hanging from his cart. Another hung in the small doorway, about waist high, that opened into the building’s cesspit. Temeliel’s job was to use a long-handled shovel to scoop the waste out then pile it into a two-wheeled wooden cart. An angel named Elyon supervised from a few feet away.

“Why does everyone hate me so much?” Temeliel asked Ninlein. “I haven’t done anything.” But as soon as he said it, Temeliel realized that this wasn’t true. He had done bad things. They were just things that nobody knew about. He had talked to a stranger, and was considering conspiring with them to leave the compound. He had lied directly to the lord god Avourel’s face. He had listened to the stranger — George — when he’d told him that Avourel wasn’t a god at all, but a faker.

Temeliel was on his hands and feet, weeding at the end of a row of potatoes when one of the Powers came over. The slightly bigger, scarier one. “You probably don’t remember me,” the Power said in a low voice. “But I’ve got my eye on you. You’re a trouble maker.”

“You know, if we’d skipped the sailing trip, we’d be home by now,” said George. “Last night would have been the last Royal Season event.” The four Singleton were sitting on the bank of the stream, eating stolen bread. The day before, they’d given up on the idea of heading down to the coast when they got too hungry.

The Royal Season had managed to convince the Krim Chamber of Commerce to lend them the Storm Bug, a man-of-war with gunports set low in ship’s broadsides. The Chamber had probably added up how much money the Royal Season had spent on Krim over the past few months and calculated the odds of them coming back if their clients were never recovered.

When they heard the bell ringing, Wynefrede stopped rubbing her chain between two rocks on the floor and stared at Benedicta and Margarett, shackled next to her in the back corner of a small, stone room with a gate taking up most of one wall. “What now?”

“And then I slit my own throat,” said Matilda. “Literally? Or metaphorically?” asked Ellison.

Port Royal was adorable. Unlike Krim City. Here, residents seemed to have pride in their town. Port Royal was cheerful and spotless, the air was fresh and fragrant, and everyone smiled when they saw her. Matilda hated it. It was almost as though nobody realized all the different ways she could kill them.

“Look, I’m just trying to find somebody,” said Matilda, edging away from the side of the boat. “To talk to them, just to talk to them, not to stab them.”

The area north of the commercial gate was mostly industrial. The buildings were squat, with bomb-proof stone walls and heavy iron doors secured with multiple padlocks. Any of them would be a cinch to rob, Matilda thought.

What if the three women from the ship were wrong? What if the gate did lead to an eternal hell? Maybe the women themselves were demons sent to corrupt them. Maybe there were rival gods. Torralei remembered the look on Heifiel’s face as she herself had been dragged towards the gate. Heifiel was a Seraphim. She was close to Avourel. If there were any secrets about the gate, Heifiel would know them, wouldn’t she?

The first signs of light were just starting to appear in the sky ahead when they got to the top of the mountain. The road approached Avourelpolis from a different direction and there was a large gate that Torralei had never seen before. It was as tall as two people, heavily ornate. Two Seraphim, Heifiel and Elnaril, were waiting for them and swung the gate open when the Powers approached with the four prisoners.

“I don’t think you’re going to need me for this,” Matilda said before Chambrs starting telling the story of how Elea Carlyle got her hands on the list of Royal Season participants. “It sounds boring, and I’ve got a lead on some gun runners I want to follow up on. Besides, I already got everything I needed.” Chambrs jerked her damaged hands off the table and hid them on her lap. Matilda started to push her chair away from the table when she saw Quimby approaching with a full tray. “On the other hand, you never know, I might learn something.”

Ellison walked into the Barley Mow Inn, greeted Quimby Plummer, the owner, who was doing some paperwork at the front desk. Then, before Quimby could remind him about his bill, he turned left and walked into the dining room. Clinio Lind was waiting for him at table by the window.

Even if she hadn’t been tied to the other captives, Torralei wouldn’t have run. She was too tired from her attempted escape, and too dejected to find out that she was on an island and that there was nobody she could turn to for help. But also, she was finding out a lot of interesting things from the new prisoners.

“I’m being held against my will,” Ellison told Mike the bartender as he was dragged through the King’s Armpit to a booth in a back corner.

Ellison struggled and screamed out for help. Local residents ignored him, but a couple of noobs stopped to watch.

“I’ve always wondered what a private investigator’s life was like,” said Mad Eyed Brendon after he and Ellison dropped Matilda off in the center of Krim to go bar-hopping. “I didn’t expect it to be mostly driving around.”

The pirates sailed around the island and it was well into night by the time they anchored in the middle of a small lagoon. Here, the volcano loomed closer, the smoke rising ominously above the peak.

Earlier that same day, while Torralei was fighting her way through the Lamacoln jungle, Wynefrede Aumberden waited in Fishlips’ cabin for whatever horrible thing was going to happen to her next.

“For the glory of Avourel?” Torralei repeated. “If Avourel wanted me to sing he should have given me perfect pitch. Maybe he doesn’t want me to sing. Have you thought of that?”

“It’s feast day,” said Elyon, the angel who threw out Alosrin’s toothbrush. Torralei didn’t know why, but she still held a grudge against him for doing that. The new toothbrush she got looked identical but she liked the old one better. Which was odd, because she’d never used it before.

“No!” Pleasance Pratt rushed through the door, knocking a surprised pirate out of the way. “Get your hands off my customer!” She beat the pirate holding George with her tiny fists.

“People die on Krim all the time,” said Benedicta. “It’s no big deal.” She sat on one of the two lower bunks in a four-bunk stateroom on the pirate ship Queen’s Revenge. With Wynefrede, Margarett, George and Pleasance in the same room, it was crowded. And, with one more person than bunks, there was going to be an awkward moment when it came time to decide sleeping arrangements.

Clinio Lind, accompanied by five of his fighters, Ellison, and Matilda, crossed Banking Street and headed down Delves of the Golden Dragon, which was just a narrow alley connecting Banking and Knots Hollow Way. It was lined with three- and four-story apartment buildings, a few with shops on the ground floor offering take-out or laundry services.

The pirates moved everyone down to the mess, located down below the officers’ quarters. It was towards the back end of the ship — the stern — and was right in front of the galley, where the meals were cooked. A couple of captured sailors had been ordered to make lunch for everyone and Wynefrede watched closely each time someone went through the galley door. Maybe there was a knife in there that one of the sailors could steal while the pirates weren’t looking, and free them all.

“We’re royally screwed,” said one of the Royal Season guards. There were about a dozen in the room. Ellison had interviewed all of them before, when looking into the kidnapping of one of the Singletons earlier that season. Now many more of them had been taken, and he still had no clue about who was behind it, or why.

Clinio Lind, the Royal Season security chief, was holding an emergency war meeting at the temporary office on Banking Street. Ellison Davo was supposed to be there, but he was running late. He had a good reason.

George Bedgbery was forced to give his sword. Pleasance Pratt, her lamp and her handbag with its collection of writing supplies. “She could stab someone with a pen,” said the sailor who searched them. And Wynefrede? She had to give up her shoes. Did they think she was going to whack someone over the head with a flat heel? Maybe. She had been thinking about it.

Wynefrede peered down the companionway to the deck below. “They can’t all be dead.”

Wynefrede Aumberden rose from her bunk trying not to wake up either of her friends. She couldn’t sleep and still felt queasy. Her cotton nightgown wouldn’t be much protection against the chill of the night, so she pulled the wool blanket from her bed and wrapped it around herself before she unlatched the cabin door, eased it open, and stepped out into the hallway.

“I don’t like the funny looks that the sailors are giving us,” Margarett Pennebrygg whispered to Wynefrede Aumberden as they were getting a tour of the Santa Marina.

Ellison Davo sat at a small bistro-style table at an outdoor balcony overlooking the docks. The Crow’s Nest Cafe was his favorite dining establishment in this part of town.

“I didn’t do anything, I swear!” Heifiel struggled against the two Powers who held her arms. Snot ran from her nose, mixing with tears. It was ugly and terrifying. Torralei looked away.

A thin bell clanged and Ninlein dropped dropped the wet sheet she was holding back into the large wicker basket full of wet laundry. “We have to go back to Avourelpolis,” she told Torralei. The two of them carried the basket away from the clothes lines back to the laundry room, then continued up the hill.

In the morning when she woke up, Torralei’s bed was comfortable and familiar. Why wouldn’t it be? She was created to exist on Lamacoln. She stretched under her thin wool blanket and the bed felt larger than it should have been. She was up early and headed straight for the bathroom. She was still unsteady on her feet. Her center of balance seemed off. But that was understandable. She was only born yesterday, after all.

Benedicta Bernewelt twirled around, holding up the skirts. “The dressmakers are getting really good,” she said. “I can barely feel the corset.”

Matilda stabbed Ellison’s steak with her knife and pulled the entire plate over to her side of the table. Ellison grimaced but instead of saying anything to her personally he just looked towards the entrance to the dining room. From where Ellison was sitting, he could see inn owner Quimby Plummer at the front desk. Quimby nodded at him. A second steak should be on its way soon.

First it was dark, then there was a light, so bright that it hurt the eyes, and voices sing out in the distance. “Come, come, come…” One step. Then another. The ground becomes uneven. Slabs of stone, stretching out ahead.