Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Three - Just Remember: Everything is Illegal

Amaryllis stepped up before her sisters and raised an arm as if to silence them and everyone else. She looked around, taking in all the Sylph nobles and inquisitors and military people, then she turned towards me. “What did you do?” she asked.

I took a moment to respond. “I didn’t do anything?” I hazarded.

“That’s highly unlikely. When I left you, you were helping Awen clean out her dress because some jerk acted like a jerk. Now I find you here, surrounded by some of the most important sylph diplomats around, and some of them are bearing steel.”

A glance over my shoulder showed that Bastion still had his sword by his side. “I really didn’t do anything?” I tried. “Um. I was talking about our trip over to Sylphfree later, and the Commodore and Miss Sunshrike and Miss Storm suggested that we take Bastion along with us.” I gestured to the sylph boy behind me.

“So they want you to carry a spy over to Sylphfree in order to... what, make sure you’re not a spy yourself?” she asked.

Evalyn bristled at that. “A Paladin is hardly something so crass as a spy,” she said.

Amaryllis snorted. “If it quacks like a duck and flaps like a duck, then it’s probably a sylph spy in disguise,” she said. “But... it’s not an entirely terrible idea. Broccoli really doesn’t have anything to hide, least of all on the Beaver.”

The sylphs really didn’t look fond of Amaryllis, but they were also giving me suspicious looks. “Um, ah,” I went on. “Everything was fine until Mister Bastion shook my hand. Then he accused me of being a criminal.”

“Oh, for the love of the World,” Amaryllis said with a huge eye roll. “Of course he did.” She glared at Bastion and then Miss Storm. “You two are aware that sylph law doesn’t apply outside of sylph territories, right? I don’t know what ‘crime’ you think she committed, but I can assure you it’s likely something that anyone from a civilised country would overlook.”

“Are you implying that Sylphfree isn’t civilised?” Evalyn asked.

“That was the implication, yes,” Amaryllis said.

Bastion shook his head. “We’re aware that our laws, blessed as they may be, do not apply elsewhere. Were she merely... paying a dragon’s tax for the right to fly, then while that would be unlawful over sylph skies, we’d overlook it. But the level of criminality she has, even after Inquisitor Storm has verified it... what have you done, Captain Bunch?”

“Uh,” I said. I tried to think back to anything that I’d done that was criminal. “Well, I kidnapped Awen here. But that was for a good cause. And... Amaryllis, did we do anything else that was criminal?”

Amaryllis sighed. “You fought those cervid mercenaries sneaking across the Deepmarsh border. I’m certain that violates some laws. You also participated in a non-sylph sanctioned tournament, which is also against their laws.”

“But it was in Rosenbell?”

“That doesn’t matter to them,” she said. “And you consorted with dragons.”

The sylph all pulled away from me. “Please explain, Lady... Albatross,” Inquisitor Storm asked.

“The town of Rosenbell was going to be attacked by a dragon. Broccoli here intimidated it. It didn’t attack the town,” Amaryllis said.

The sylph were pretty expressive at times, they had a very strong confused face.

“It’s okay? I helped try and reform Rhawrexdee a little. He’s much nicer now? Or, uh, at least less likely to try and eat people?”

“Awa, you took out the, um, underworld in Port Royal,” Awen said.

I shook my head. “That was a group effort.”

“You’re not a sanctioned law enforcement officer,” Bastion said. “By what right did you take apart this underworld?”

“Uh. They weren’t a sanctioned criminal organization?” I let out a big sigh. “Look, I’m sorry I did a bunch of things you guys think are crimes, but I promise I was only ever doing what I thought was right at the time.”

Evalyn and Miss Storm looked at each other, but it was Lord Winterfall that spoke first. “I think,” he began. “That the rather obvious solution is very simple. Seeing as we have no rights here, we can hardly detain Captain Bunch. Nor would I approve of it if we could. If and when the good Captain comes to Slyphfree, we can keep an eye on her until she leaves, as we would do to any foreigner. And if the Captain wants to extend a helping hand and allow Paladin Bastion to use her services regardless, then he can at least verify that she does nothing suspicious between here and our fair lands.”

Amaryllis looked to her sisters and received a shrug from Rosaline and a small nod from Clementine. “We’ll see,” she said. “Goodness knows now of all times we should be trying to reconcile our two nations.”

“But you were mean a minute ago,” I said.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said. “I wasn’t being mean, I was mocking their inadequacies as a nation.”

“Amaryllis!” I said.

“Are you well acquainted with miss Albatross?” Evalyn asked.

“Of course, she’s one of my best friends,” I said.

“I see... then perhaps you should rejoin your friends? We can continue our chat some other day, when tensions aren’t running so high. And you should be enjoying the ball, this kind of thing is perfect for a young thing like you.”

I smiled at her. It was a tiny bit of a sad smile. The tension and the whole thing with the crimes was a bit of a downer. “Okay,” I said. I stepped up to the little sylph lady and swept her up in a tight hug. The other sylph all went wide-eyed at that. “I’ll talk to you again!” I said before moving over to Awen and sliding an arm up around hers.

Amaryllis nodded to the sylph as she spun around and led the charge back towards the stairs leading down.

Rosaline slowed down so that she was on Awen’s other side. “You know, I’m going to get jealous if you spend the evening hanging off another girl’s arm,” she said to Awen.

“Ah, awa?”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Awen has two arms.”

“Oh, how daring!” Rosaline said before she grabbed onto Awen’s other side and pressed up against her.

I giggled at Awen’s steaming face. It was nice to be with friends who could help me release some tension. Still, I had some questions.

“Amaryllis? What was all that back there?”

She huffed. “That was the sylph being themselves. Their nation is very law-minded. They have rules for everything, and the idea that someone can be free from that kind of thing just rubs them wrong.”

“They seemed nice,” I said.

“Oh, sure, they’re civilised when they want to be. They have some of the best medical facilities on Dirt and I hear that their cities are impeccably clean and orderly. But they’re super uptight about everything and have problems when it comes to anything that isn’t traditional.”

“Hmm.” I scratched at my cheeks as I thought. “What about the focus on dragons?”

She barked a laugh. “They hate dragons. Most other races have some issues with them, of course, but dragons are the apex predator and we all understand that. The sylph though? They can’t wrap their minds around it.”

“It’s worse than that,” Clementine said. Her first words in a while. “The sylph have control over some of the largest gold deposits on Dirt. It’s one of the sources of their immense wealth. Dragons, as you likely well know, are rather fond of gold and wealth.”

“Oh no,” I said.

“Indeed. They’ve been invaded... four times? Five since they started mining the gold they have. Some of those were smaller, juvenile dragons that they were able to kill or scare off, but they’ve had elder dragons show up in the past too. It’s why they have such a strong military presence, that and the golden peak.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

She looked at me for a moment before nodding. “I forget that you’re not from around these parts. The Golden Peak is a mountain. It’s part of the Harpy Mountain chain. The topmost part of the mountain has, as you can guess from the name, a lot of gold. The harpy claimed it first, but the sylph stole the land.”

“They did?” I asked.

“We, of course, reclaimed it later, only to be pushed back again,” Clementine said. “Then a dragon settled on the mountain for a few decades before a joint harpy-sylph force killed it. A year later the war was restarted.”

“Um, who has the mountain now?” I asked.

“No one. The base of the mountain has forts belonging to both nations. Sometimes a scout will mysteriously disappear from one side or another, or something will get sabotaged in a fort, but it’s been pretty quiet for the last twenty or so years.”

I frowned. “Wait, when did this war start?”

“Over the Golden Peak? Some three hundred years ago? Two? It’s not quite one war. For the most part, it’s been a series of skirmishes between the sylph and harpy, with a new incident every generation.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“What’s awful,” Amaryllis said. “Is arriving at our table late and making a scene.” She flapped an arm across the second balcony and towards an empty table way off in the corner.

I looked around, noting for the first time the number of people around. While there had been a few harpies around before, mostly in little pockets and groups, now the entire floor was full of people, all in pretty dresses. Most of them were obviously making their way to some tables, and quite a few were sitting already.

“Looks like people are looking forward to the speeches. I hope they’re fun.”

All three Albatross sisters groaned.

“No, no they won’t be,” Amaryllis said. “When we were trekking in the woods and prairies alone, with nothing for company but ourselves and a constant fear of being devoured, and when the only thing we had to look forward to was sleeping on the cold hard ground, I just had to tell myself that at least I wasn’t listening to a speech put on by some old bird.”

“Amy,” Clementine hissed before looking around to see if anyone heard. “You might be right, but it’s not the kind of thing you just say.”

I giggled at their antics until we got to the table at the far corner. It had little plaques before each seat with our names written in fancy calligraphy. Rosaline moved two of them so that she was sitting next to Awen, which prompted Amaryllis to shift two more so that I was between her and Clementine.

Once they’d finished bickering over where who sat down, we plopped ourselves in our new places. “So, did you discover any sort of conspiracy?” I asked.

Clementine’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “We did. The Owl clan is trying to pull in a much bigger contract than expected. It would mean that the military would buy all of their tug ships and supply craft from them instead of us.”

“That’s not good,” I said.

“It wouldn’t be that bad,” Rosaline said as she leaned forward, and a bit over Awen, to talk. “We can barely meet demand as it is. Getting them to make a few ships would alleviate some of the stress on the yards. The problem is that they’re refusing to switch over to our engines, which means that every new ship they make will be an outdated mess.”

“More repair time, and costs, more downtime, higher fuel costs. And less reliability. That would all fall on the Owl’s back, but they’re being clever,” Clementine said.

“How so?”

“As it stands, we’re probably going to win the bid to maintain all military ships for the foreseeable future. If the Owl push out an entire fleet that will need constant repair and retrofitting, at our expense... it’ll bog everything down. Our berths will be filled with their junkheap ships and we’ll be the ones holding the eggshells.”

“Ah,” I said. Further questions were put off as a big harpy man standing atop a floating platform cleared his throat into a microphone, and the band playing down below slowed to a stop.

It was time for the boring speeches.

***