I returned to the throne room at Stonekeep intent on finding the real villain behind Mira’s misfortune. Jamor. I remembered him very well, though I hadn’t lingered in my viewings of him before. The Unseen Blade was protected from scrying magic by the Pirate King, so I couldn’t see into it, nor could I find it by concentrating on the ship itself. In times past I had found it by scanning the areas I knew the ship was likely to be, like on the Deepflow River a day north of Mithram and places like that. It couldn’t hide from me forever, but it would take a long time to find if I couldn’t narrow down the search. Unless, that is, someone I knew of was on deck.

  As I sat in the Amber Throne, I focused my attention on Jamor. I was shown nothing. I then tried to find Shawna and Tibek with similar results. I clenched my fist. There was no way I was going to let this stand. They’d stolen everything Mira had, including the Unseen Blade, which I presumed they were using to plunder other ships. The longer it took to find them, the more misery they could spread. I also wanted to find them before they got the bright idea to sell all Mira’s spellbooks or the armor I made for her. They were worth a small fortune. That was an idea, though. I focused the Throne’s power on all the objects I knew of that Mira possessed. I couldn’t find any of them, so they must all still be in the Unseen Blade.

  My thoughts turned to Mira then, and the Throne showed me that she was sitting at the table in Bran and Elle’s new home in Mithram. Elle was there with her and there was a plate of food in front of Mira, but she wasn’t eating. Mira’s head was laid on her forearm, which was resting on the table near her plate, and she was softly crying while Elle sat next to her and rubbed her shoulder. Bran came into the room carrying the charred strongbox.

  “This appeared in the bedroom a short while ago, ladies,” he said.

  “Jeron,” Mira said. Her eyes were baggy and red-rimmed.

  “I’d say it’s a good bet,” Bran said. “If he was here, he didn’t stay. From the burns on this box, I’d say he’s taking matters into his own hands, too.”

  Far from making Mira feel better, she laid her head back on her arm and cried. My heart once again broke for her. I thought it over, and I knew of only one person who could cheer Mira up at a time like this.

  I focused my will on finding Bandit. The Throne showed me a view of a little cubby hole underneath a wooden structure with a tiny, little woman inside. Scanning around, I saw that it was a house she was underneath, and that it was high up in the branches of Havanalil. Bandit was sitting next to a cushion full of pins, which I knew from experience that she liked to place on people’s chairs. Currently she was working on a line of silk thread, tying it around a pin she had bent into a hook. Bandit was very inventive in the tricks she would play, so there was no telling what she was going to do with this lethal combination of items.

  Bandit was a pixie, and as such, she had curly red hair and a fair complexion. She was a foot tall and had butterfly wings that were almost clear but shimmered with a rainbow of colors. She wore a dress made of tulip petals that began as orange at her shoulders and darkened to a rich purple at her dainty, bare feet. I created a portal close to the cubby hole and cast a flying spell on myself. Slowly coming through the portal, I flew over to the cubby hole. She wasn’t there when I looked inside.

  “Bandit?” I asked.

  “Jeron?! You scared me to death!” Bandit replied in her little voice. “I didn’t recognize you in that helm.” Bandit came over to the edge of her little cubby hole and looked apprehensive suddenly. “Is everything all right?”

  “No. Mira’s been hurt,” I said, “but she’s all right now, physically at least. She’s suffered terribly, Bandit. I only found her today, and though she’s starving, she won’t eat. Can you help her?”

  “Well, you know, it’s Sevenday, and I was planning to sit around here all day and rest from my legendary exploits,” Bandit said sarcastically, then blew me a raspberry. “Of course, I will! Where is she?”

  “In Mithram in Bran and Elle’s new home,” I said. “I can get you there if you want to go through the portal.”

  To her credit, Bandit immediately zipped into the air with a trial of sparkling dust following her, abandoning her preparations. “Hurry up already, you oaf!”

  I followed her through the still open portal and closed it once I passed through. I sat in the Amber Throne once again and asked, “Do you want to make a surprise entrance, or just have the portal appear in the room?”

  “This isn’t the time for surprises, you dolt! Just put me in the room. And clean the blood off your armor while you’re at it,” Bandit said.

  “Your wish is my command,” I said.

  I opened a portal to the common room in Bran’s house and watched as Bandit flew through. Not wanting to discuss the plans I had with anyone because they’d probably try to dissuade me, I closed the portal before anyone could come through. I only watched long enough to see Bandit land on the table next to Mira and reach out to touch her arm tenderly. Mira looked up with a face flooded with tears, and though she cried again, this time she was smiling as she did it. The view faded and my thoughts darkened.

  The day was approaching its end. There was only an hour or two left until the sun went down, and I was very hungry. I decided to see what was happening at the Smith house in Stonekeep. Fortunately for me, Dortham, Nora, Darek, Bethan and my nephew Berond were sitting around the table chatting after eating. There was still plenty of food left, so I thought I would eat while I could. I created a portal into my old bedroom and stepped through. I closed the portal as I used a little spell to clean my armor, then changed from the armor into my civilian clothes. It was time to give them the latest news, and I mentally braced myself to relive it again before going downstairs.

  -----

  Oneday had dawned as brightly as ever, I saw as I appeared in an alley close to Whizzbang’s shop. I went around the corner to the front door and entered. He was sitting in his customary place, a little stool behind a worktable littered with very small, complex parts and tools. He glanced up as I walked in, then flipped a lens attached to his headpiece higher so he could see me properly. We exchanged greetings.

  “Tea?” Whizzbang asked politely.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m here because Mira was hurt.”

  He looked very concerned and set his project aside. “Well? Are you going to tell me what happened or what?”

  “She was sold into slavery by her boyfriend, Jamor, then beaten beyond recognition. I found her near death and brought her to Elle yesterday, who healed her. Physically, she’s fine now, but she suffers greatly,” I said.

  “Oh, my poor girl,” Whizzbang said softly. He lowered his gaze as he took in the news.

  “Would you like to see her?” I asked.

  “Of course, I would, boy. Don’t be daft,” Whizzbang said. “I haven’t been to Bran’s new house yet, so I can’t teleport there. Oh. I suppose that’s what you meant.”

  “Yeah,” I said simply.

  He took off his headpiece and set it on the table. He locked the shop door, put out the “closed” sign and walked back to where I waited. “All right, then. I’m ready when you are,” Whizzbang said.

  We joined hands briefly and I teleported us to Bran’s back door. It was in a very small courtyard common to several houses on their block, and it didn’t get much traffic, so I knew it would be safe. I dropped his hand and stood still as he moved closer to the door.

  “You’re not staying?” Whizzbang asked, glancing back and up.

  “Not yet,” I said. “There are things I need to resolve.”

  I expected him to shrink back in alarm or disgust, but Whizzbang surprised me. He met my eyes with a very resolute gaze. He seemed to see right through me.

  “Show them no mercy, son,” he said. “Those who betray a lover are the very worst sort of people. I wouldn’t let this stand if it were me, and neither should you.”

  “I’ll do what must be done,” I said. “I don’t want Bran or Elle trying to dissuade me, so I’m going to take care of it before I come back. I think I’m going to have to sail the Blade to Mithram when I’m done, and I can only do that after I find the bastards. It’ll take a week or two, so please tell the others not to be worried for me.”

  “I will. Be careful,” Whizzbang said.

  I bowed to him, then teleported away with a whooshing sound.

  -----

  Before I could start my vigil, I had to finish what I had started with the pirate village. There could be more slaves there that needed my help. Before I appeared there, I switched into my armor and scouted it with the Throne. The town was a smoldering pile of ash. There were only the merest stubs of pilings poking through the gentle waves where the docks used to be, and there wasn’t a sail in sight. I took a portal there, then activated a flying spell and had a look around the town for myself. There was a group of people gathered at a derelict house near the palisade wall that had somehow escaped the fire. They seemed to be arguing. There were two men and a woman standing near the door, and one man was yelling obscenities at the small crowd. It appeared that the crowd consisted solely of thirteen women who all wore collars.

  “I don’t care what you harlots do!” the man shouted. “Ye can all starve!”

  I flew around and gently landed to the side of the confrontation. Those present noticed my arrival immediately. Wide eyes greeted me as they all turned to face me, and they shrank back in fear.

  “I can free you of your shackles,” I said gently to the women. I held my right hand out plaintively so they could see I wasn’t holding a weapon.

  The women looked at one another uncertainly for a moment, as if surprised that I would help them. They chatted with each other in low tones. I stood calmly as one of the men and the woman close to the house slowly backed inside. The obscene man stood defiantly outside.

  “Please help,” one of the women said, stepping forward.

  I nodded and stepped forward slowly. Conjuring a tiny flame, I popped the rivet that held her collar shut, then bent it backwards with my hands and tossed it to the ground. Her hands went to her neck as she stepped back, and the others eagerly stepped forward. In a few moments, all of their collars were laying in the dirt road.

  “You seem surprised that I would help,” I said.

  “Didn’t you kill everyone else here yesterday?” a woman asked.

  “No. I brought all the children and the older remaining slaves back to their hometowns. I only killed the pirates who enslaved you,” I said.

  “Oh. Once, I lived at Dawn’s Peak. Can you get me there?” she asked.

  “Sure can. Anyone else?”

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  It took a few minutes, but I brought all the remaining women to their home towns. I felt a little guilty at first that I didn’t give them anything from the strongbox I retrieved from the jeweled lady, but then I realized that these women were not chained to beds. If they were trusted enough to roam free then they were at least a bit complicit in all of this, reason told me. Maybe they didn’t start out that way, though, I rationalized. I went back to the street outside the one derelict house to be sure no one else had approached to be taken home. Only the defiant man was there, still standing outside his door.

  “What about me?” he asked.

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “I’m just a herder. I didn’t do anything.”

  I paused for a moment to think about it. “You’re right. You didn’t. You were unwilling to help those who needed it. Not just now, but during the time the pirates ruled this place, also. You could’ve helped someone, but you did nothing as little children were being sodomized twenty times a day right under your nose.”

  The farmer adopted an even more defensive posture when I said this. His frown deepened. The way it was etched onto his face, the man must have never smiled in his life.

  “Hell, you probably joined in. Because you didn’t help anyone else, I’m not going to help you. In fact, I’m going to burn what you have left. Maybe being in need yourself will soften your heart to those who were less fortunate than you.”

  With that, I channeled flame from my outstretched palm and set his house on fire. The other man and the woman came running out the back door when they saw what I did. He looked upset, and I couldn’t blame him. Well, I did blame him, but I didn’t want to kill him in a fight. He hung his head and cursed me under his breath. I simply disappeared with a whoosh, teleporting back to the roof of Stonekeep Castle.

  -----

  Returning to the Throne room, I brought a book to help pass the time. I was reading a book on Arborean vocabulary, trying to improve my language skills. Though I’d studied the language for years, I was still learning some things, but it was slow going. Being so angry, it was a useless endeavor to try to learn something at the time, and I ended up reading the same passages over and over again because I was so distracted by violent thoughts.

  I took a break once an hour or so to try to find Jamor, Shawna or Tibek, but I didn’t really know them well, and at that time, I didn’t even know their names. I thought a long while about what I did know about them, though. They enjoyed drinking and debauchery, so I could eventually find them at a port somewhere. It would take them a while to get to one, though, and I wanted badly to find them right away. Mira had some nice things, which they may not sell off. Maybe I could focus on Mira’s finer possessions, like her armor. Or the mithril bracelet. How many people owned a bracelet like that? Shawna was probably a very vain woman, so I thought it likely that she’d keep that piece of jewelry, probably savoring it more as a trophy than for its monetary value.

  About three hours later, I finally got the break I was looking for. A view of Shawna came into focus. She was on the observation deck above the command room on the Unseen Blade, and there was no land in sight. Shawna’s clothes were in a pile next to her, wearing only the bracelet, and she was looking over the rail at the ocean, clearly enjoying herself. She stretched in the sunlight, arching her back and raising her arms above her head. There was no one on the fore or aft decks.

  As angry as I was, she was still very beautiful. I shook my head to get my mind right. This woman was complicit in hurting Mira. It reminded me that great wrong can be done by someone beautiful, and I would never judge a person based on their looks again, that much was certain. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I switched into my armor, drew my mace, and activated a portal to the observation deck. Shawna whirled around when she heard me step through the portal. Her eyes went wide in disbelief.

  “Who… What are…” Shawna said in confusion. Then her face changed to one of hatred and she said some pretty vile words. “You’re the husband.”

  “Yep.” I closed the portal.

  “That bitch.” She looked at me with dawning comprehension, then panic.

  I took a step forward, putting me into arm’s reach. She adopted a crafty, but seductive smile and posed with a hand on her bare hip. She was going to try to tempt me, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I circled her a bit to my right, which forced her to turn her left side to the railing to face me.

  “We could…”

  That was all I let her say before I smashed her head with my mace, ruining her beauty forever. It was a hard hit, and her body skidded a dozen feet across the deck, such that she ended up on her back in the center of the observation deck. Perfect. I set my mace down, then awkwardly unclasped Mira’s bracelet. I put it in a belt pouch for safe keeping.

  Her body twitched as I was moving toward the hatch down to the command deck. Using the command word and opening it with telekinetic magic so I didn’t have to set my mace down, I hopped into the open hatch and dropped straight down without using the ladder. Flexing my knees a little bit, I was able to land without crouching clumsily, which put me in a balanced fighting stance immediately upon entry. I quickly glanced around. Tibek was lounging on the leather seats that ringed the command room under the windows and Jamor was seated in the captain’s chair piloting the ship.

  “Damn,” Jamor said when he saw me.

  Tibek, drunk as he was, still had the presence of mind to throw his goblet at me, then tried to draw his cutlass as he hurriedly stood. Jamor was still too stunned to act at the helm. I took two fast strides toward Tibek as he drew his cutlas, then struck him down with one blow to the top of his head, caving in his skull. He fell like a sack of potatoes and would never stand again.

  Jamor spun the wheel to the rudder violently to the left, trying to knock me off balance. The ship lurched suddenly, and I skidded against the couch at the window as Jamor tried to run to the stairway. Where was he going to go? I was no novice sailor anymore, so the sudden change of direction didn’t cause me too much trouble. When he saw that I was still on my feet and could strike him before he got to the stairs, Jamor pulled up short and drew his shortsword.

  “I don’t suppose we can talk this over,” Jamor said as he faced off against me. He tried to smile disarmingly.

  “Nope,” I said as I advanced.

  “You’re the husband Mira left behind, aren’t you?” Jamor asked. He seemed to be trying to get a better position as he sidestepped closer to the chair.

  “Yep,” I said, moving to give myself a clear line of attack.

  I sprang forward, aiming a strong blow at his shoulder. Jamor tried to block it with his shortsword as I’d predicted, and he was surprised to find how quickly I changed my target. His weapon went clattering off across the room when I struck his sword out of his hand. His eyes sprang wide with surprise at the strength of the blow. I followed up with an overhand strike that he reflexively tried to block with his right forearm. Again, a very predictable move. I smashed the arm, breaking the bones with a loud crack. Jamor cried out in pain and fear and cradled his broken arm with his good one.

  “Please don’t,” Jamor began to say.

  He turned his wounded side away and tried to backpedal, but the pitch of the deck was not helping him. I delivered a strong blow to him as he cringed back, breaking his left upper arm. Both useless arms dropped to his sides, and he fell backward to hit the deck in agony. I let him struggle backwards. Even at the time I knew I shouldn’t, but there was a big part of me that was enjoying his torment.

  “You should know, Jamor, that when I found Mira, she’d been beaten badly,” I said. I followed that statement with a crushing blow to his right thigh. “Very badly.”

  Jamor screamed. The look in his eyes was wild. “It wasn’t personal!” Jamor shouted as he squirmed on the floor.

  I took that moment to break his other leg at the knee. Jamor screamed again.

  “In fact, someone had broken her right arm and leg badly enough that the entire limb was like jelly,” I said casually. The expression on my face was anything but casual, not that he could see it. “In fact, her limbs looked a lot like malformed sausages.”

  I began pummeling his arms and legs, and I didn’t stop until every bone in every limb was broken and he lay there like a slug. He couldn’t scream anymore.

  “Someone had also broken her ribs on the right side,” I said as I circled him.

  Knowing what was coming, he twitched and cried, trying to curl up into a ball. With several sharp blows I smashed his ribs, breaking them like kindling. Jamor coughed up blood, which dribbled from his mouth to his chin. He was gasping, trying to say something, but I was not in a listening mood.

  “Then the bastards had left her there to rot on a dirty pallet, probably in a dungeon, until she was on the verge of death. For weeks,” I said, letting that information sink in. “I hate the very sight of you, so I’m not going to keep you around that long. I just wanted you to know what you did to someone who loved you.” I paused, letting my words sink in and prolonging his death. “I think you have a very special fate awaiting you in the afterlife, and it’s about time you found out what it is.”

  Jamor let out one last groan of pain and despair as I crushed his skull. I was breathing hard with the emotional stress of the moment, but I forced myself to watch until he stopped bleeding. It didn’t take long.

  He wasn’t so handsome now, I thought grimly.

  The Unseen Blade was still circling in a tight turn. When I looked up to see the ship’s course, I saw we were still out in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight, so there was no danger of running aground imminently. I also saw that there was a crew of pirates on the aft deck looking up to the command room windows. Some of whom had loaded crossbows. Typical. I straightened the Blade’s course, locked it in place, and pulled the lever for speed until it was at a full stop. Then I went down to the officers’ quarters. I checked every room to make sure no one could sneak up on me, but the rooms were empty.

  I cast a spell of shielding on myself, then opened the door to the deck. As expected, a volley of four crossbow bolts were fired at me, but they hit the invisible shield in front of me and fell clattering to the deck. After closing and magically locking the door behind me, I drew my mace again. The larger door to the lower decks was open, and I left it that way after glancing inside and seeing no one. The pirates stood in a line on the deck with weapons drawn, and they didn’t look too sure of themselves as they noticed the blood all over me. In fact, one of them calmly looked at me, knowing his fate was sealed. To his credit, he didn’t jump overboard.

  The crossbowmen had dropped their weapons and pulled some form of bladed weapons from their belts. I didn’t want to damage the ship with destructive magic, so I channeled concussive force into my mace and fought them the Terran way. After several seconds of intense fighting, the deck was covered in blood and bodies. It was therapeutic.

  Pragmatically, I then systematically searched the lower decks and killed the cowards. The threat of the pirates of Kraken’s Rock had ended. There may still have been some ships at sea when I found the place, but that was a problem for another day.

  All that was left to do now was to clean up the mess.

  -----

  The room was quiet. Elle and Whizzbang sat next to Mira on the sofa of Bran and Elle’s new house, and Bandit was curled up in her natural pixie form on the blanket that lay in Mira’s lap. The floorboards creaked a little as Bran crossed the room to see if there was any food left from their last meal. Mira covered her mouth with a hand and sniffled a little as more tears came out. Elle put an arm around her shoulders to give her comfort. A few moments went by as Mira wept silently on Elle’s shoulder.

  “You know it had to be done, don’t you, Mira?” Whizzbang asked.

  Mira sat more upright and rubbed at her eyes. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “But it still hurts.”

  “It’s a good thing I never saw that dimperkadoodle,” Bandit said in her little voice. She was shockingly stern right now, and even slapped her little fist into her palm. “That stupid Jamor would rue the day he met me. The first thing I’d do would be to fill his underwear with sand.”

  Mira stopped crying.

  “Then I’d eat a bunch of hot peppers and relieve myself in his boots. I’d make sure he didn’t suspect a thing until his feet went all the way in,” Bandit said with a diabolical grin.

  The seemed to brighten Mira’s expression a little bit. She sniffled and wiped her eyes. Bran sensed the mood change, and he brought the plate of food he was about to eat over to the sofa where Mira could see it.

  “Then I’d get a pail of horse urine and douse him with it while he slept!” Bandit said.

  “Then you’d begin the one thousand and one pixie tortures?” Mira asked with a sidelong glance.

  “Oh, yeah!” Bandit said, nodding her head vigorously. “But the one thousand and one pixie tortures are just the beginning! When I was done with him, he’d curse the day he was born!”

  “If he still had the mental capacity to do such a thing,” Whizzbang said with a little grin.

  Mira actually laughed a little bit. It was just a little bit, but it was there. Bran lowered the food almost to right under Mira’s nose. She flashed a thankful smile at Bran and accepted the plate. The healing process had begun.

  “What about Jeron?” Mira asked. “Does he deserve your special attention?”

  Bandit was quiet for a moment. “Nah. I think I’ll give him a pass this time. I think he’s trying to do what’s right. Not just for you, but for everybody.”

  Mira nodded. “I worry about him too,” she said.

  “You don’t need to worry about Jeron,” Bandit said. “He’s one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met. He didn’t even yell when I put the tack in his chair. Remember?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Mira said. She chuckled a little at the memory as she chewed.

  “Right now, he probably has the wind in his hair and a nice, sunny day of sailing ahead of him. He’s fine,” Bandit said. “I’ll bet he’s sailing full speed for Mithram with your ship.”

  “I don’t want it,” Mira said. “It’s because of that ship that everyone wanted to take advantage of me.”

  “Well, then what are you going to do with it when Jeron gets here?” Bandit asked.

  “I dunno,” Mira said glumly. She sat up straighter as she thought about it.

  “I may have a suggestion,” Whizzbang said.

  All eyes turned to him with interest.

  “As you know, I was exiled from Goldsprocket some time ago. Fifty-two years ago, to be exact. I could return right now if I wanted to, as my exile was only supposed to last for fifty years, but I’ve been waiting to see how things developed here. It’s been very interesting lately, you know. You may not be aware that we Seekers of Goldsprocket were ourselves exiles from our ancestral home, Seekershome. It was overrun with evil centuries ago, which we call the Great Mistake. Since Jeron gave me access to Stonekeep’s library, I’ve been copying everything I can find on the creation of glass steel, the making of the Unseen Blade, the golems and other Seeker inventions that have been lost to time. Or accidents. I can’t tell you how much knowledge has been lost due to accidents. Anyway, Jeron may not remember, but he’s on his way here right now with a treasure trove of information. We have the Pirate King’s personal notes! Remember when you told me he was involved in the creation of the Adamantine Legion? Well, he oversaw the creation of the few remaining golems of Goldsprocket, too. If we brought that knowledge back to Goldsprocket with the Unseen Blade, I bet we’d be welcomed with open arms. Beyond that, I think that we can make what we need to reclaim our homeland.”

  “That’s a really good idea,” Mira said. “What do you think?” she asked Elle.

  “I liked sailing, but I’ve always thought having the Blade was unduly risky,” Elle said. She turned to look at Bran, who was standing close by.

  “I’m surprised that no king has tried to commandeer the vessel yet. Give it to the Seekers,” Bran said. “They’d have to be crazy to try to take something from a group of Seekers.”

  “All right, then. It’s settled,” Mira said. “To the Seekers it’ll go.”