Six months later...

  Starwitch had just launched from Ice Palace Three, in orbit of Usdal, which had been named for the god of mercy.

  Iris looked up from the witchpit at the garden world that produced food for most everyone living around Junas, which featured perpetual spring-like weather, interspersed with regular rain. Aside from the oceans, every inch of land was verdantly green with forests and farms. By all accounts, it was a beautiful place and Iris wanted to someday see the land for herself.

  Iris wore a thick coat, because the interior of the ship was a little colder than average.

  The elves of the port were relatively tall and slender, with angular features, pointed ears and a friendly demeanor. Port Commander Nyra Aspenvale, however, was always an interesting sight to behold. She looked slightly different at every meeting, because she was a fairy noble, with the power to shape-shift, who was perpetually on the leading edge of fashion, which extended not just to her clothes, but to her body.

  Iris wanted to stay longer, because the elves were such gracious hosts, but Starwitch had a tight schedule to keep.

  “We’re on our way. Thanks again for your hospitality.” Iris spoke to the Port Commander via bone transduction, which Iris had discovered would work on anyone with magic of their own, rather than just witches.

  “Safe travels. May you find the peace and prosperity you seek.” As ever, the fey woman’s response was calm, measured and serene, “And also love; you’ve held onto the pain of loss far too long. My brother is still very keen to meet you.”

  Iris smiled and blushed, grateful the fairy couldn’t see her face. Nyra fancied herself as a match-maker, a hobby she often indulged in, though Iris had been refusing the opportunity to avail herself of the fey woman’s skill in the matter, because she didn’t feel ready. However, in the moment, she finally changed her mind.

  Iris relented, “Next time.”

  “Nova will be pleased. He’s fascinated by the stories I tell about you.” Nyra’s voice betrayed a hint of emotion for once, namely a measure of contentment.

  “Thank you. I’ll be looking forward to it,” Iris sighed with a measure of her own contentment, “but for now, I’ve got to deploy our sails. Over and out.” She ended the spell.

  Unbuckling herself from the pilot’s seat, Iris worked for a time at the winches, watching through the windows and scrying crystals as the masts deployed to very precise angles, which Amelia had written down on a sheet of paper.

  With the masts in position, she headed backwards through the ship.

  The entry bay had been almost completely changed by Amelia, who’d installed racks for cargo. The room had been crammed from floor to ceiling with wooden crates that held oranges, which were famous for easily spoiling, the main reason the interior of the ship was currently so chilly; Amelia had adjusted the spell-core to keep the oranges fresh a bit longer and it was almost as cold as one of the Ice Palaces. There was barely any room to move around, and Iris had to turn sideways to walk between the crates.

  The oranges were a surprise gift from Nyra to the commander of another port, which demonstrated exactly how confident the fey woman was in Amelia’s ability to navigate without preset courses, since oranges were notorious for spoiling quickly.

  The Ice Palaces were largely numbered according to their altitude above Junas, and their destination was sixty-eight, making it one of the highest. There was no direct route there, according to the navigation tables and taking those routes was a grueling, nine-month trip, with far too many delays, but Amelia had performed the calculations herself and Iris had every confidence in her sister’s abilities.

  Iris passed into the crew quarters, where Amelia was fast asleep; she’d been up all night, preparing additional cargo racks, because the current shipment was the largest they’d ever taken on.

  Passing into the workshop, Iris found Marta busy in her personal corner of it, using a pottery wheel to turn a lump of moist clay into a large bowl. Amelia had been teaching Marta runes, who’d been incorporating them into pottery, for sale, a little side business that was nearly as profitable as their work as couriers.

  Aside from some basics, like lighting, Runic enchantments were mostly a lost art and the Newt Witches were one of the few groups with a full understanding of the runes, though they only rarely sold examples of their enchanting work, mostly using their talent to support the staff of the Ice Palaces, by providing mythril wands to perform the required heavy lifting. They also provided weak spell cores for ships, which were just enough for air purification and perhaps, a bit of artificial gravity.

  Iris exited the workshop and looked on the spell-core’s room, where the most recent wheel of cheese was nearly gone. After the first few weeks, the Brownies had significantly slowed down the rate at which they ate, which indicated they’d been rather hungry when they moved in.

  She laid hold of the core and concentrated on a sail spell, then turned back around. Next, she made a small adjustment to the internal gravity spell, to prepare it to compensate for additional forward thrust in the next few minutes, to avoid Amelia sliding off her bed.

  “Remember, we’ve got an engine burn coming in a moment.” Iris warned as she passed back through the workshop.

  Marta nodded and stopped what she was doing, letting the wheel spin down, saying, “Ready when you are.”

  When Iris reached the witchpit, she confirmed the rainbow and strapped herself into the pilot’s seat again, to watch the clock. After two minutes, she pushed the throttle handle to the one-fifth mark. Gravity shifted slightly for a brief moment as they accelerated.

  Iris kept an eye on the clock for twenty minutes, then cut the engines at a precisely-calculated moment. With that, the work was largely done for the next few days, aside from an occasional adjustment to the masts, every hour, on the hour.

  Marta yawned. It had been a long evening, but she felt excitement as a red moon loomed ever closer on the rear-view scrying crystal. They’d recently turned in preparation to slow down and she was waiting for the right moment to start the engines for their deceleration burn.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Amelia poked her head into the witchpit, asking, “How we doing?”

  “Engine burn in three…two…one…” Marta spoke with deep concentration, then pushed the throttle to one-fifth power. With that task complete, she turned to her sister, “Just fine.”

  “Do you want me to handle docking maneuvers this time? You look pretty tired.”

  Marta considered for a moment, then shook her head, “I’ll do it.”

  “Okay.” Amelia wandered off.

  Half an hour later, they passed though the open door of Ice Palace Sixty-Eight, which looked much like the first the sisters had seen, aside from the fact it was completely crammed full of ships, in every shape, size and color.

  Marta pushed the lever for the landing gear and nodded with satisfaction at the completion of her work for the day. She yawned, stood and peered out the window at the other ships, most of which bore a gleaming circle on a black background, which marked their loyalty to the largest merchant house, The Silver Circle. The next most common were marked with an orange circle surrounded by stylized flames, for their allegiance to The Twilight Flame, another prominent merchant house. Marta knew both primarily sold metal goods and their ships were probably in port to obtain steel for their factories. There were also a few other couriers mixed in, which was always a welcome sight.

  When the ship set down under control of the Docking Witch, Marta squeezed through the cargo bay and into crew quarters, where Amelia and Iris were having a meal of cheese and scrambled eggs at the table they used for everything from meals to family discussions.

  “We’re landed,” Marta yawned, “but it will be at least two hours before the dock workers seal the bay.”

  Amelia nodded, “Plenty of time for breakfast.”

  Marta grabbed herself a bowl and joined her sisters.

  “I can’t wait to see Orgic’s face when we present him with those oranges.” Iris grinned.

  Marta agreed, “Yeah, they never get fresh fruit up here. He always complains about getting only dried fruit, because it isn’t the same.”

  “And he’s always telling that story of the first time he bit into an orange, back when he was a lad.” Amelia nodded and quoted, turning her voice more deep and husky to imitate the dwarf, ” ‘Me was in heaven, it was so juicy and sweet! Me hardly noticed the skin was still on, because me didn’t know better!’ ”

  Iris and Marta chuckled at the impression.

  As expected, Port Commander Orgic Whitjaw’s eyes practically glowed with excitement and enthusiasm at the prospect of having fresh fruit. The dwarf was muscular and tall for his kind, with a long and bushy blond beard. He wore a heavy, black coat. As he smiled down at the crate of oranges Amelia had just set on top of his desk made of ice, his three gold teeth sparkled. One tear rolled down his cheek, out of sheer happiness, which was an incredibly rare sight, because most dwarves were far too macho to cry.

  “Ye brought me an entire crate of fresh oranges?” He spoke with great emotion, “Thank ye so much!”

  “No.” Marta shook her head, “We brought you ninety crates of fresh oranges, a gift from Commander Aspenvale, so you can share the experience with your men. Your men are unloading them as we speak, we felt the very best should be personally delivered.”

  The dwarf burst into a veritable flood of happy tears as he smiled form ear to ear, his tears freezing before they even hit the icy floor of his office.

  Without any hesitation, the dwarf grabbed an orange and shoved it in his mouth, despite the outer skin. He bit into it and sucked on it as he squeezed.

  “Sweet, juicy heaven!” He commented when he finally pulled it out of his mouth.

  The Blackwell sisters laughed and turned toward the door, since they had plans to visits some of the shops of the port.

  “Wait!” Orgic called out, “Before ye goes, me has something for ye.” He fumbled in his jacket, until he produced a sealed envelope, which he handed to Amelia, “It’s a job offer from a small merchant house. They asked for ye, specifically, claiming ye are the only ones that could do the job.”

  As they walked the halls of the port, Amelia examined the envelope. The wax seal bore a stamp she’d never seen before, which looked like a pair of crossed cutlasses.

  She cracked the seal, withdrew a folded page and read aloud, “To the Blackwell sisters:

  “I am Edwina Rowley, Queen of the Astorene Empire, the largest Kingdom on Taneas, and I am in need of your unique skills.

  “In brief, Taneas is in an eccentric orbit of Junas, which makes trade with other worlds nigh impossible. The only course in the navigation tables of the Ice Palaces that allows reaching our world only comes into alignment once every three-hundred years, which will not occur for another fifty-three years. I’m also tired of working via distant agents of questionable reliability, since I can only pay them with information.

  “Having observed your exploits from a distance for some months, I would like to initially employ you to make a few deliveries on my behalf, for which I will gladly pay you in gemstones of great value. If we both find this arrangement pleasing, then more work will follow, possibly in the form of calculating courses for entire merchant convoys, a task I can assure you will be extremely lucrative, including five percent of all sales made. Ultimately, I would like to find a more reliable way to travel and I believe you may be vital to the prosperity of my world.” Amelia finished and commented, “Those poor people.”

  Water was the basis of currency in space, but gemstones were also quite valuable. It sounded like a really wonderful opportunity.

  “What’s Taneas the goddess of?” Marta asked, “I can never remember.”

  “Commerce.” Iris supplied, “There isn’t much about her in the scriptures, just a single line, though the merchant houses all venerate her.”

  “I think we should help them.” Amelia cast her vote.

  Marta nodded, “This really sounds like a good cause. I’m in.”

  “So am I.” Iris agreed, “It’s nice that we earn so much money, but I’d like to help people, too. It sounds like we can do both with this job.”

  Amelia led them to the main hall of the port, where a granite tablet had been set into the wall, displaying the navigation tables for Junas. She’d previously seen the orbit of Taneas depicted, but had never paid attention, because it wasn’t in alignment for travel and according to the tables, it even lacked an Ice Palace. She brushed some frost off the stone and examined the figures describing the eccentric orbit of the distant world, which was actually the moon furthest out. It came closer to Junas about every three months, but the next lowest orbit only aligned every three-hundred-twelve years, roughly matching what Queen Rowley’s letter claimed and there were two transfer orbits described, one for sending and another for receiving, with a brief window of opportunity for a round trip.

  Even Vanenta was easier to reach, which was a gas giant that had been named after the mother of the gods, which featured thirty more inhabited worlds, though they were said to be a little on the cold side. Vanenta came into alignment every few thousand days, but rumor said the Newt Witches always took a personal hand in the matter, preparing temporary navigation tables to enable multiple transfer orbits for sending and receiving.

  Amelia was lost in thought for some time, as she worked the numbers in her head and her sister waited patiently.

  “It’s possible,” she eventually declared, “but it will take us at least three weeks to get there by sail.”

  “Good. When do we leave?” Marta asked.

  “Next time the dock opens. For now, we can do our shopping.”

  There was a figure in a heavy, fur-lined, hooded parka that had been following the sisters since they left the port commander’s office, who appeared uncomfortably cold, despite the heavy coat.

  Her face was pale and her breath clouded in the air as she muttered, quite softly, “Captain, the fish have taken the bait, hook, line and sinker. Looks like our intel was right, because they’re real eager to help out ‘Queen Rowley’, may she reign forever. The youngest sister says they’ll arrive in three weeks.”

  Her skull vibrated via bone transduction, to produce a wicked, little laugh, followed by a woman’s voice, “Good. Fishing is always better from a well-stocked pond. Continue to observe from a safe distance.”

  “Will do, Captain. Over and out.” The witch finished, then grumbled to herself, “Just so long as I don’t freeze to death. I hate Ice Palaces!”