Chapter One Hundred and Seventy - The Pirate's Lair

I chomped my way through dessert, which, just like the main meal, was also fish. “This is delicious,” I tried to say. A word or two might have been mangled and some of my fish might have escaped my mouth to end up on the table, but I just had to speak up.

“You’re disgusting,” Amaryllis said.

“Worth it,” I said.

The pirates--actually, they weren’t really pirates just yet. They had a little ways to go, so they were more like scallywags--the scallywags smiled at our antics, having finished their meals first, second portions and all.

I swallowed a mouthful of fish, took a gulp of water, then grinned over at them. I was about to ask about what it was like living in such a neat city when three someones walked over to our table.

They stood tall above us, three men in clean tunics, with bandanas tied to their arms, and a really neat bicorn on the head of their leader. “Pardon me, sirs and misses,” he said with a faint accent that I couldn’t place. “But if you do not mind me asking, are you Miss Bristlecone, perhaps?”

The table tensed. The scallywags looked ready to bolt and I noticed Bastion lowering one arm under the table while the other shifted to hold his fork differently.

Awen stared at the man, wide-eyed. “Awa, uhm.”

“Ah,” the man said with a snap of his fingers. “That little noise. Your uncle told us about it. At great length, I might add.”

“You know my uncle?” Awen asked.

“We flew together, once,” he said. “Is the old bas--ah, the old man around here?”

Awen shook her head. “He’s not,” she said. “At least, I don’t think so. Uncle just shows up a lot.”

“That he does,” the man said. He doffed his hat and bowed slightly. “It was a pleasure meeting you at last. Alas, I have a few urgent matters to care for, or I’d stay and chat with your very peculiar friends here.”

“That’s okay?” Awen said. “Um, who are you?”

The man grinned, huge and charismatic and showing off a pair of golden teeth. “Rogers,” he said. “I’m Golden Rogers.”

“It was nice meeting you, sir,” she said in a sort of formal tone that didn’t quite sound like the Awen I knew.

The man replaced his hat--which if I were to judge, wasn’t quite as neat as my own--and waved us goodbye before heading off with his pals.

“That was something,” I said.

Awen nodded vigorously. “I was afraid that he’d try for my bounty,” she said.

I reached over and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “If he tried anything, the lot of us would teach him a lesson. And you’re not so bad in a scrap yourself.” I gave her a last pat. “Do you guys think we should head back? It would be a bit of a shame to end our exploration so early.”

“If you want to stick around,” Two-Eyed Joe said. “We could show you our hidden base.”

“You have a hidden base!” I said. I was instantly onboard to see the base. “Where is it?”

“Wouldn’t be very hidden if we told you,” Oda said. “Joe, you sure we should show them?”

“Ah, c’mon, they got us free lunch and didn’t sell us out to the guard for another beating,” Joe said. “They seem nice.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re super nice.”

Amaryllis pushed her plate forward and got up, which prompted the rest of us to do the same. It didn’t take much to get everyone heading over towards the sea-side part of the city. I let myself fall back a bit as we walked so that I was bumping shoulders with Awen.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

Awen nodded. “I am. I’m fine,” she said.

“Hmm, sometimes when people say they’re fine, they’re not actually all that fine deep down. I, ah, I know that we never got... you know, together or anything, and that now you’re with Rose, sorta, but I don’t want that to get between us?”

Awen looked over at me, then she started to giggle. I wanted to ask what was up when she pulled me into a sidelong hug and placed her head on my shoulder. “Thanks Broccoli,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “So, you’re fine?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I might not have been, a few weeks ago, but then a really nice girl, and also Amaryllis, kidnapped me, and now I’m a whole lot more confident than I was before. So, when I’m saying that I’m fine, I mean it.”

I wrapped an arm around her waist and returned the hug while bringing an ear down to pat her head. “Good,” I said. “You’re one of my best friends you know. When you’re happy, I’m happy.”

“You’re always happy,” she said.

“Not always. Sometimes my friends are sad, and that makes me sad. So you need to make sure that you’re always happy, for me, okay? And if you’re sad, you tell me so that I can be sad too until we both make whatever makes you sad regret it, okay?”

Awen snorted in a very unladylike way and nodded into my shoulder. “Okay. Promise,” she said before pulling back. “But one day, I’ll be really strong, just like you, and uncle, and Amaryllis, and then you’ll come to me to stop you from being sad.”

“Deal,” I said.

“Hey, you two coming?” Amaryllis asked from out ahead. I realized that we’d been slowing down a little as we talked and the others were waiting for us around an intersection.

Needleford was a pretty busy place, at least around the ship docks where we were. Sailors were moving about, some carrying things in groups, others just on their own, and there were plenty of hawkers and stalls with food that would have smelled great if my tummy wasn’t full to bursting.

The scallywags brought us past the docks, and into a part of the town that looked a bit rough. Not slums, exactly, but a bit seedier, with older homes and streets that didn’t look quite as maintained.

“It’s in here,” Joe said as he gestured to a brick wall between two tenements.

“That’s a wall,” Amaryllis said.

Sally pushed past us all and pressed a hand against the wall, then grunted as she pulled up. A segment of bricks about two feet wide shifted, then swung in, leaving an entrance just big enough for someone small to squeeze through.

“Head first is easiest, but feet first is faster and safer on the other side,” Joe said.

Sally moved in first, then Oba hopped through, followed by Joe.

“I’ll take the vanguard,” Bastion said, his wings beat a couple of times and he darted in through the hole in a lunge.

“Easy for him to say,” Amaryllis muttered. “Sylphs are sneaky enough to fit into any hole. I bet he’s done this before.”

“If you want,” I said. “I could carry you and jump over the wall. It’s not that high.”

Amaryllis huffed and scrambled through. I heard her squawk as she fell on the other side. Awen went next, moving through with careful, methodical motions. It was pretty obvious she wasn’t used to climbing or sneaking around.

Finally, when it was my turn, I hopped up, grabbed the upper edge, and slid in feet-first. I patted down my skirt when I landed on the other side, and took a moment to look around.

The door into the alley was made from a heavy, rusted fixture screwed into a sort of mesh that held a bunch of bricks together. Other than that, the wall was a normal wall. The alley wasn’t exactly dirty, but it had rotting leaves in the corners and a faint stench that I associated with water left out for too long.

“Oda made the door,” Joe said as he smacked his friend on the shoulder. “He works for a mason sometimes, and sometimes for a local smith. He’s good with his hands. Our future ship mechanic!”

Oda flushed and nodded. “I like making things. Sometimes I draw too.”

“He’s going to chronicle all of our adventures as pirates,” Joe said. He waved us over. “Come on.”

The alley led onto a very narrow street that we crossed right away to step into the backyard of an old church with boarded up windows. “Who was this church for?” Bastion asked.

“Dunno,” Joe said.

Sally shook her head. “The Void God, of the Empty Sea. The church was abandoned when Needleford became bigger.”

“I’m not familiar with that one,” Amaryllis said.

“It’s a Pyrowalkian religion, at least originally,” Bastion said. “I can’t say much about what they worship. I know that they became very unpopular a few decades ago. They're mostly found in any port city past the Grey Wall now. They never had a presence in Sylphfree or the Harpy Mountains. Rare to worship a sea that’s not even in sight.”

“It’s here,” Sally said as she moved ahead of us. The back of the church was on the dilapidated side of things, with broken windows and peeling paint. Sally tugged out a step ladder from next to a little shed and placed it against the wall right under a little window.

“Oh great, another tiny hole to squeeze into,” Amaryllis muttered. “You kids really didn’t plan this with adults in mind, did you?”

“Hey, we’re not kids,” Joe said.

“He’s right. They’re pirates,” I corrected Amaryllis. “Scallywags like them have no age.”

Joe didn’t look reassured by my standing up for him. “Come on, it’s not hard to get in.”

Sally climbed up first while pulling out a bit of wire from a pocket to slide it between the shutters of the window. It opened outwards and the girl squeezed in. And then it was time for the rest of us to do the same.

As it turned out, the window led into a tiny little room with a ladder at the back and a bunch of very old cleaning supplies laying around and collecting dust. We went up the ladder and ended up in a loft above the main floor of the church.

A look down revealed rows of chairs where I might have expected pews. Which was really too bad because ‘pews’ was more fun to say than ‘chairs.’

“Careful with this bit,” Sally said, she crossed the entire church by walking across a wooden beam with her arms outstretched. It was only a two meter drop to the floor below, but it was still a bit creepy to pass.

And then, at the very end of the church, Sally opened up a small sliding door that led right into the church’s bell tower.

It was a cozy space. Made more so by having seven people in it. They had a little cot to one side, with some blankets, and next to that some thread and knitting needles. A few little boxes held tools, and there was a stack of old newspapers and books at the back next to an unlit candle.

The bell was gone, but parts of its mechanism remained. It gave the room a strange sort of feeling, like being somewhere you weren’t supposed to. I had once been in the corridors behind the shops at a mall, and it felt the same there that it did in the bell tower.

Joe moved to the far end of the room and, with a bit of smacking, opened a pair of shutters.

“Whoa,” I said as I moved closer.

The entirety of Needleford, or at least the half near the sea, stretched out below. Ships were coming into the docks, and the air that wafted in and kicked up the layer of dust on everything smelled like salt and fish.

In the distance, I could make out the airship docks, looking tall and proud with stately airships parked in them. The Beaver Cleaver was easy to make out, what with his yellow hull.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I can see why someone would want to be free, with a view like this before them every day.”