The problem with Calnevari Bay is that it smells.

Oh sure, it may have an interesting history, some eye-catching architecture, a kind of seedy, metropolitan air about it. But it stinks like brackish water, rotten eggs, decaying plant matter, and every single dead fish in the Almara river delta. A hot, putrid stew undisturbed by anything resembling a breeze. Having sharp senses is a blessing, it really is.

I didn’t get much out of Arcadia over dinner. What little she said about the Candlebearers has me thinking they’re some kind of clandestine order of witch hunters. As for why their machines are so miraculous, and why Irvin isn’t the richest man in the world for inventing a chariot that flies through the air like a bird, their order swore only to use such tools in their secret war against the Magi of Telamon. Because people can’t be trusted with tools, apparently.

I don’t understand it. Nor do I understand her willingness to give them a chance for redemption. If it were up to me, I’d slit their throats and dump them in the water for fish food. They’re enemies. Unrepentant ones, at that.

I wanted to argue the point with her, try to convince her she was being naive, but she gave me a kiss for dessert and promptly shooed me out of our cabin. She’s in there by herself now, sinking her teeth into Jhekata’s Compendium. I’m out on the deck, pacing around. Bored. Fuck, it smells like ass in this lagoon.

I ask the crew for work, but there isn’t any at the moment. Posca is around here somewhere, but I don’t feel like talking to him. I imagine he doesn’t want to talk to me either. Old Gredder leans against the rail nearby, speaking with a green-scaled Keteltu who’s come aboard for a chat.

I’ll bother these people, why not.

Gredder smiles, raises a hand in greeting. “Hail, Rekka.”

I smile back, in an amicable but suspicious way. “Awfully friendly, for a man whose door I kicked in.”

The old man lets out a sheepish laugh. “These things happen. Just, ah, don’t go around telling people I got all blubbery about the Star.”

The Keteltu, who’s been watching me as I walked up on them, opens his maw and lets out a low gurgle from the back of his throat. Gredder turns to answer him with a birdlike warble and some clicking. I raise an eyebrow at them, and Gredder turns back to me with a smirk.

“He’s curious about you,” he says. “He heard word of that tussle up in the city.”

The lizard man extends a talon toward me. Then he points to himself with it. Then he waves it around in a circle slowly, finishes the gesture by making a fist and punching it into his other palm.

“He wants to spar?” I ask, an eyebrow raised.

Gredder chirps something at him, and the Keteltu nods and growls back.

“A friendly match,” he says. “No weapons, besides what nature gave you. The first one to be knocked off their feet is the loser.”

I grin at them both. “Finally, something to do.”

The corners of the Keteltu’s long, toothy mouth lift up, perhaps in imitation of a human smile. I shoot a grin back at him. Then I find a suitable patch of deck space in front of the cabins, saunter over to it and make a show of unclasping my sword belt and dropping it to the deck. The Keteltu comes along with me, standing a few paces away, flexing its long-taloned fingers.

The rest of the idle crew notices what we’re doing, and begins to gather around us. They’re all talking amongst themselves, grinning. I see coin changing hands already. I wonder how many are betting against me. I guess I’ll know by the disappointment on their faces when they lose.

I look around at everyone, grin at the lizard man, and begin to circle him casually. Arms down, relaxed. I already know what he’s going to try. That tail of his, he’ll swipe my feet with it. I imagine he’s caught more than one person by surprise that way.

I hit him with something basic. Jab, straight, hook to the body, kick to the leg. He isn’t ready for my speed. I beat him backward a few paces before he knows what’s hit him. I’m sure my leg kick will send him sprawling, but that tail makes him remarkably stable. He gives me a shove on the shoulders with those long arms of his, and I’m back where I started.

I lean away from a flurry of claws, and there’s the tail swipe. I see it an instant before it takes my legs out from under me. I hop backwards, and he rushes at me some more.

We play like that for a while, long enough to get my blood pumping. For a beast he shows good technique, though it’s a hodgepodge of many different styles thrown together. Plus a few moves he either invented, or are specific to fighters with claws and tails. Just when I think I have him figured out, he hits me with something new. I’m not great at reading his expression, but I think he’s just as impressed with me as I am with him.

The chance I’ve been waiting for arrives. I see another tail swipe coming my way. I’m going to jump it again, flip forward and kick him in the jaw. My legs flex and explode with power, sending me spinning into the air. The ball of my foot connects hard with the underside of his toothy snout.

I get the flip right. But I botch the landing. We both fall flat on our backs, at the same time, no less.

I guess I’ll never know who bet against me, because the whole crew breaks out into groans. Gredder, meanwhile, is laughing and clapping as he gets to his feet, waves his hands out to his sides.

“It’s a draw!”

My face is a little red. I don’t usually make mistakes like that. The Keteltu gets to his feet first, offers a taloned hand and I take it, letting him pull me up to his feet. I see something like happiness in his slitted yellow eyes, but I could be misinterpreting that.

He warbles something at me. Whatever it is, it makes Gredder smile.

“He gives congratulations,” says Gredder. “He’s never seen that move before.”

I smirk at them as I bend down and fetch my sword belt, fastening it back on. “He’s a good sport. Does he have a name?”

Gredder turns to the Keteltu and they chatter a moment. “Hook,” he says.

“Hook?”

“Well that’s not literally what it is. The real version would be unpronounceable in Ecean.”

The crowd disperses, leaving Hook, Gredder and I to our own devices. We spend a while leaning against the rail of The Dove in a row, talking about whatever comes to mind. Gredder plays interpreter for us, translating Hook’s questions to me, and my answers back at him. He’s a curious one. At one point he asks something that makes Gredder’s eyebrows shoot up.

“He wants to know if you and your ladyfriend would consider taking him along on your journey.”

That takes me by surprise too. “Really? And leave his homeland?”

They chirp and bleat at each other for a moment, like demented songbirds. “He says he’s always been curious about the world. Seems as good a time as any to get out and see it.”

“I’ll… I’ll ask Arcadia about it. Though Posca’s likely to be the one who disapproves.”

“Just put him in his place,” says Gredder, grinning at me. “You’re pretty good at that.”

I am about to agree wholeheartedly, but I hear something that makes me smile. It’s the pitter-pat of familiar footsteps heading my way. I don’t look, but I know Arcadia is running at me from behind. A moment later she leaps, all her limbs latch around me, and I feel her face against the side of my neck, gently nibbling on the exposed skin there as she makes a little adorable growling sound under her breath.

"Mmm. Hey muscles,” she half whispers. “I figured out something with the book, we should talk to an old friend."

I’m too busy basking in her touch to catch all of what she said. But the part about an ‘old friend’ makes me give her a sidelong look, an eyebrow raised.

“Old friend? Who?”

Her mysterious smile is extra cute while we’re nose to nose. “Come find out.”

“Right, good talking to you fellows,” I say to Gredder and Hook, pushing off the rail with Arcadia still wrapped around me. “I think it’s time we turned in.”

Gredder chuckles, and waves after us. Hook gurgles something and waves as well. I walk over and push the cabin door open with my foot, and inside I find Arcadia’s book open on the middle of the bed. Next to the bed, she’s set a half-full bowl of water on a wooden stool.

“What’s the bowl for?” I ask.

Arcadia smiles. “It’s how I’ve spoken with our friend, all these years.”

That confuses me more. Apparently the look on my face makes it plain, because Arcadia laughs and kisses me on the cheek. She has me sit on the bed, in front of the book, and when I do so I swing her around to sit on my lap. Once we’re situated she produces a small, dark rock, barely more than a pebble. All of its surfaces have little runes carved into them. She reaches over and drops the rock into the bowl, and it sinks right to the bottom.

When the stone touches the bottom of the bowl, the water inside begins to glow an incandescent green. It gets brighter and brighter, and I almost have to shield my eyes, but before it gets quite that bright the glow begins to subside. I look down at the surface of the water again, noting that the reflection on its surface is no longer our own. It’s some other ceiling, elsewhere in the world.

“Hello?” Arcadia calls out. “Are you there?”

At first no one answers. She calls out once more, and again, and on the third try we hear an answer.

“Eh? Arcadia?”

The sound of the voice makes me grin. I’d recognize it anywhere.

Sigrun’s wrinkled face comes into view, peering down into what I presume is her bowl, wherever she may be in far off Norgard. The moment she sees Arcadia sitting on my lap, she lets out a bark of a laugh.

“That was quick,” she says.

Arcadia’s eyes widen and, predictably, her cheeks begin to burn red. “Sh-shut up!”

It may be predictable. But it never gets old.

I grin and squeeze her, planting a big kiss on her cheek in front of Sigrun, which only makes the glow on her face more vivid. “Nice to see you again, Sigrun,” I say.

“Aye, likewise. I trust the search goes well. Did you burgle that book I sent you after?”

Arcadia grins, her blush beginning to fade. "Yes! We got the book, and I've been reading it. I found out what the keys are. They're the Paths themselves."

She bends forward, picks the book up off of the bed and shows Sigrun the page she has it open to. “It’s as you said, partly. Jhekata writes that the Door is in ‘The Low Places of Turim,’ which I’m guessing is Ghordos Cleft.”

Then she puts her index finger to the page, upon which an image of a great stone door is drawn. There are runes inscribed along the upper part of its archway, but they don’t look like Norgardian rune magic. It’s another style of script entirely, one I’ve never seen.

“The Door has Seven Keys, and the Names of the Keys are—”

The sound of shouting in Norgardian distracts us. Sigrun most of all. She looks off to the left in surprise, then back at us with a wry smile.

“We may have to speed this up a bit,” she says.

Arcadia’s eyes grow wide. Mine do too. I don’t know what’s happening over there, but it seems urgent. The shouting in the background keeps getting louder.

“Ah, right,” says Arcadia. “What it seems to say is that if one seeks passage to Amoraketh, proficiency in all of the Paths must be demonstrated at the Door. But Jhekata doesn’t write where the Paths themselves can be learned.”

“I can help with that,” says Sigrun, who is now looking off to the left with a growing look of alarm. Or irritation. Or both. “We’ll do an augury together.”

The sounds outside Sigrun’s abode are unmistakable now. I hear bellowed orders, the clash of steel on steel. Wherever she is, a battle is upon her. Sigrun looks down into her bowl at us once again. “Meet me in Kellheim,” she says. “We can go from there.”

Then she disappears from view. A moment later there’s a bright flash of red and orange, the sound of an explosion, and the bowl tips over and spills out onto the floor, making the magic image blur away into nothing.

For a moment we just sit there, in stunned silence. Then Arcadia inhales sharply, looks at me with wide eyes.

“We have to get to Norgard,” she says. “Now.”

 

Hey Readers!

Today marks one month we've been doing this. And what a month it's been! FIVE TIMES on Trending, whew! From CatgirlWitch and I both, thank you very, very much for enjoying our story.

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