Dennis McKiernan: City of Jade

As Aravan leaned down and took hold of an end handle and hauled the chest adeck, “King Ryon,” blurted Pipper.

Binkton sighed in exasperation, and Pipper said, “What I mean, Bink, is that the High King must have cleaned out Rivers End, else we wouldn’t have our chest.”

“Ah,” said Binkton.

“The High King did at that,” said Tanner, climbing aboard. “Cleared out Rackburn and the mayor and most of the city watch. Kingsmen now run the government there.”

“What about that rat-eating Tark and his toady Queeker?”

“Sorry, but it seems they escaped,” said Tanner.

“What?” demanded Binkton. “What Ruck-loving idiot let them get away?”

“I think they were elsewhere when the High King led the raid,” said Tanner.

“I wouldn’t call the High King a Ruck-loving idiot if I were you, Bink,” whispered Pipper.

“Ah. Well.” Binkton took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

Tanner and Aravan laughed.

“Wull, they’re on wanted posters, right?” blustered Binkton.

“Indeed,” said Tanner, controlling his mirth.

Binkton turned to Pipper and said, “When we get back from this voyage, Pip, we’ll run them down ourselves, if they are still on the loose. After all, they tried to kill us.”

Pipper sighed and said, “Oh, Bink.”

“Wouldst thou have a brandy?” asked Aravan.

“Indeed,” said Tanner.

As they started for the Captain’s Lounge, Pipper turned to Binkton and said, “Come on, Bink, empty though it is, let’s get our chest below.”

Late the next afternoon the crew returned, a few carrying others over their shoulders. The ladies of the Red Slipper, some weeping, came down to the docks as well, for they would see the crew off. Long Tom and his family were there, Little Tom with his eyes agog at the magnificence of the ship. Long Tom gave Little Tom a hug and a kiss; then he scooped up his tiny wife, Larissa, in his arms and kissed her long and deeply. He set her afoot and turned and boarded the Eroean , last of all of the crew.

As the sun set and dusk drew down and the tide began to flow outward, “Get us under way, Tom,” said Aravan, when the big man reported in.

“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” replied Tom.

He turned to Noddy and Nikolai. “Cast off fore, cast off aft, hale in the gangplank, and rowers row.”

These two called out orders, and dock men waiting on the pier cast the hawsers from the pilings, while crewmen drew the large mooring lines up and in and coiled them on the deck, as others pulled up the footway and stowed it in its place below. Rowers in the dinghies haled the ship away from the quay and turned her bow toward the mouth of Arbalin Bay.

Even as the dinghies were lifted up to the davits, Noddy piped the crew to raise the staysails, and on these alone did the craft get under way; and in the deepening twilight, folk on the piers called out farewells and blew heartfelt kisses, some on the Eroean returning the sentiments in kind.

As the Elvenship cleared the mouth of the harbor and rode out on the ocean prime, “Where to, Captain?” asked Fat Jim, steersman again, his arm no longer in a sling. “What be our heading? Where be we bound?”

Aravan looked out across the broad Avagon Sea, the cool night air filling the silks above. Then he stepped up behind Aylis at the aft starboard rail and pulled her close and she leaned back into him. With men standing adeck and looking up at the captain embracing his lady, he reached ’round and cupped her right hand in his and pointed her finger and raised her arm and aimed at a bright gleam in the western sky. “Set our course on the evening star yon, all sails full, for we go to the rim of the world and beyond.”

The bosun then looked at Long Tom, and at the big man’s nod he piped the orders, and sailors scrambled to the ratlines and up to the yardarms, where they unfurled silks, the great sails spilling down in wide cascades of cerulean, while others of the crew stood ready at the halyards and sheets; and as this was done, Noddy strode along the deck and called out, “Look smart, men. You heard th’ cap’n. Set those sails brisk, f’r surely we’re bound on a venture grand th’ loiks o’ which th’ w’rld has ne’er seen.”

And with all silks flying in a following wind and filled to the full-mains and studs, jibs and spanker, staysails, topsails, gallants and royals, skysails and moonrakers and starscrapers-and with a luminous white wake churning aft in the night-dark Avagon Sea, her waters all aglimmer with the spangle of light from the stars above, westerly she ran, the Elvenship Eroean , the fastest ship in all the seas.

She was bound for the rim of the world and beyond. .

. . the rim of the world. .

. . and beyond. .

DARK DESIGNS

SPRING, 6E10

In a tall tower hidden deep in the Grimwall, that long and ill-omened mountain chain slashing across much of Mithgar, a being of dark Magekind sat in his dire sanctum and brooded about retribution.

A single thought occupied all of his waking hours. .

. . Aravan must die.