The Blackwell sisters looked down at the dark side of a world unlike anything they’d ever seen before, because not only were they on the star-facing side of Taneas, but they were also in its shadow. The stars were more brilliant than they’d ever seen before, but that spectacle had totally failed to grasp their attention, because the surface of Taneas was glowing in the dark!

  Lines and dots of yellow-white light illuminated nearly every bit of land, almost like the points of light that picked out the cities of other moons, but the lights of Taneas were both brighter and more dense.

  “What is it?” Iris spoke the thoughts of everyone else.

  “Cities, I think, but I’m not sure.” Amelia shrugged.

  Marta balked, “So, these people have covered their world in cities? How can they grow enough food?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, how do we contact Queen Rowley?”

  Amelia shrugged, “We’ll have to observe the daytime side and see if we can find somewhere to land, because I wouldn’t dare land in that kind of urban environment at night. Failing that, we’ll have to hang about and hope she realizes we’re here. If she can communicate with her agents via magic, then she must surely employ remote-viewers, to watch the sky.”

  Despite the fact the sisters couldn’t hear her, Captain Edwina ‘Roaring’ Rowley commented “You may rest assured in that, Amelia Blackwell.”

  She sat on a throne of crystal set on a raised dais of the bridge of her ship, which was made of enchanted glass and crystal, much of it stained for the sake of beauty, but the bridge was clear, giving her an unparalleled ability to see the surrounding space, though new crewmen really hated it, because it made them feel like they were floating in space, without a pressure suit.

  Currently, however, the exterior of the ship was completely black, as if they’d entered a dark void. Facing outward in all directions, the other six bridge officers, faced away from the Captain’s throne, each of them tasked to observe the ship’s surroundings, in addition to other duties, such as piloting, navigation, sensory magic and handling the weapons.

  Seated in front of her was the first officer, Mr. Zindo, a man with a rather large nose and a set of ears that competed at being his most eye-catching features. Between his shaved head and no eyebrows, his skull was emphasized, making a viewer imagine themselves facing a skeleton, despite his nose and ears. Like the rest of the crew, he wore a black and red uniform that gave him a particularly sleek appearance and it was obvious he polished the gold buttons on a daily basis.

  Captain Rowley had deep-set, brown eyes, dark hair and rather defined cheekbones. She wore a white dress studded with rubies and sapphires that hung halfway down her calves. She idly tapped the armrest of her throne with the long fingernail of her index finger, which was painted red, producing a tapping sound. Her nails alternated between red and blue.

  Her eyes appeared glazed, because she used a remote-viewing spell to observe the Blackwell sisters, aboard their own ship, just as she’d been doing for days, despite some initial interference from a protective spell. She was fascinated by all she’d learned about Amelia, who seemed to have the navigation talents of a Newt Witch, without being one of them. Even better, she owned The Book, which had a place of honor in Amelia’s workshop.

  As a disgraced Newt Witch that had rebelled in the name of personal profit after a particularly bad argument with her peers, Rowley was fully aware of The Book of Newts and was extremely surprised to have stumbled upon it.

  Plans to obtain The Book unrolled in her mind, which only a Newt Witch or one of their descendants could use, though the family gift for mathematics was required to pierce the illusions The Book hid behind, to protect itself.

  The Book was the singular most powerful magic item ever constructed. It was also the most bizarre, because it used no runes and legend claimed it had a mind of its own. According to the stories, it hadn’t actually been lost and was officially recognized by The Order of Newts as having run away, as if it was a dog or child.

  Rowley looked forward to obtaining it, because in the hands of a trained Newt Witch, it would reveal all of its secrets, whether it wanted to or not, and it surely contained ancient spells of incredible power that would be enough to overcome even the Dead Queen.

  Yes, the Dead Queen would soon bow and pledge her fealty to Edwina Rowley, lest she lose her life, once and for all! Edwina despised that old bag of bones, but she’d been forced to serve the rotting woman, lest she lose her life, because the Queen’s blood, bone and spirit magic were formidable and they grew with every witch she consumed. Considering her knack for runes, plus exceptional skill with mathematics and the sum was a terrifying force to be reckoned with. The only thing that kept her from ruling the entire system was The Order of Newts, though Rowley knew they privately doubted their odds against the undead pirate.

  Rowley took a deep breath to calm herself, because she dare not act with haste. Even a lowly witch with little power, like Amelia, could produce surprises beyond expectation, at least with The Book in their possession and a pair of fairly powerful witches, as sisters.

  Nonetheless, Rowley had the advantage. Her ship was currently bending all light around itself, for the sake of invisibility, which was why nothing could be seen outside and if she waited until their orbit brought them back into direct sun, then every weapon of Glass House could be brought to bear, including her dreaded Light Cannon, which very few had survived, let alone witnessed, because it tended to bore holes clean through ships.

  Rowley performed the calculations for their current orbit, then refined them, until she had a definite figure: two minutes, forty-seven seconds until they left the shadow of Taneas.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “All hands: prepare for combat!” Captain Rowley ordered, “We’ll end the light-bending spell on my mark, then I want a warning shot. Make sure you clip their lower mast badly enough to disable it, but don’t cut it off, because I’d like to capture that ship mostly intact. That should do enough damage to slow them down. Meanwhile, I’ll deliver my roar.”

  Various crewmen reported readiness, then the first officer requested, “How long?”

  The Captain was quiet for a time, then said, “It will be one minute, on my mark…” She was silent for a few seconds, before declaring, “Mark!”

  “Very good, ma'am, thank you.”

  “Now, someone bring me my axe!”

  Dawn from orbit was a sight Amelia had seen many times, but it was special every time, because it never lost its allure.

  As it was ending and she turned her attention back to the surface, she heard the most unusual sound, like a mixture of screaming cat and a guitar, which was almost musical, though it was too harsh for her tastes. Her mind immediately went to work on a mathematical analysis of the strange harmonics, causing her to conclude the guitar had steel strings and a body of glass.

  After a moment, Iris commented, “That’s bone transduction!”

  “Why would someone use that to deliver really awful guitar music?” Marta asked.

  “The better question would be who.” Amelia pointed out, “I think-”

  She was interrupted by the progression of the song, which had previously been relatively tame, but as the slower introduction transitioned to full tempo and volume, the cat screech became urgent and painful, fresh notes coming at incredible speed! The first guitar was joined by a second, which was much deeper than the first. All three sisters screamed and instinctively covered their ears as they lost balance, due to the sound interfering with their inner ear, but that did no good, because the sound was coming from the vibration of their own skulls!

  Amelia struggled to crawl back to the pilot’s seat, just as the hostile magic alarm rang far too late to do any good, only adding to the painful cacophony!

  Captain Rowley strummed her heart out with her eyes closed, because her full attention was on the music as she played about fifteen different notes a second! Her head violently bobbed up and down, causing her hair to fly everywhere as she danced around the bridge, as if she were on stage.

  She could see the obvious, elegant, mathematical beauty of her music and her bridge crew, at least, seemed to appreciate it, since most of them were tapping their toes to the beat, but Rowley had effectively been forced out of The Order of Newts for her music, which the others had constantly complained about.

  As Amelia had reasoned, the pirate captain’s guitar had a body of glass and steel strings, though it was stained blue on the inside, for the look of things. There were also a few small, mythril parts mounted to the body, which altered and amplified the sound, on top of allowing her to project the music via bone transduction at much higher volume than was normally possible.

  Standing beside her was Mr. Zindo, who held a guitar of his own, though it was a red bass variation of the one Rowley used and he played it more slowly. Though he was contributing to the song, his primary purpose was to keep the beat, to allow his captain to fully focus her mind.

  “One warning shot, as ordered!” Zindo shouted to be heard over the music!

  “Yes, sir!” The weapons witch responded as she adjusted a few levers, bringing distant steam engines to life, “Setting range!” To the pilot, she ordered, “Bring us about, on my mark! Three…two…one…mark!”

  Glass House was an incredible sight to behold, though Amelia and her sisters were in no position to appreciate it. Between the glittering of the raised command tower and the multicolored, stained main body of the ship, it was definitely one of a kind. Glass and crystal weren’t the usual choice of materials for a star ship, but great pains had been taken to etch every part of it with runes to strengthen it and protect those living inside from the rays of the sun. As a result, the portions that weren’t stained had darkened and looked smoked.

  The main body of the ship was a long tube, which came together at the front around a circular pane of glass that just might have been a lens. Along the top of the front end was a huge room with a hinged door, which included rubber gaskets. Inside it were smaller ships in various shapes and sizes, including a squadron of small, sleek craft that were all of the same design, likely short-range, because none of them had masts for sails.

  Along the outer hull, sixteen relatively small mirrors set into the hull popped up and reflected the light of the sun toward the slots they’d appeared from, where arrays of extremely thin and flexible filaments of glass had originally been hidden beneath the mirrors. The filaments were arranged in grids of sixteen by sixteen, their flattened ends catching the light reflected by the mirrors.

  Light struck the filaments and followed the path of the glass, to the interior of the ship, where it was released at precise angles into a set of lenses designed to combine the many beams of light into one, coherent whole, which was further focused by the main lens, at the front of the ship, into a beam of terrifying power, which had four-thousand-ninety-six times the power of the sun!

  Aside from the hinges on the mirrors, the weapon was utterly silent as Glass House pivoted to face both the sun and Starwitch. With the skill of an expert, the pilot of the pirate ship carefully aimed the deadly ray of sunlight, using it like a sword of exceptional length, to precisely cut halfway through the lower mast of Starwitch, causing the rigging cables inside to tear themselves apart as they softened in the heat!

  As the terrible song progressed, Amelia barely noticed as the rigging of the lower mast screamed out in the key of A at an octave higher than normal, which was strange, because there was no sail spell to put a strain on it! Over the course of half a second, the pitch rose a note at a time, until it reached a G-sharp, indicating increasing strain, until the notes ended with a terrible release of cables under strain snapping, which left a metallic ring running through the entire hull, bouncing back and forth through the steel structure!

  The awful song finally came to an end, with a cataclysmic crescendo that left Amelia and her sisters moaning. The hostile magic alarm ended at the same time.

  “To the Blackwell sisters: stand to and prepare to be boarded! You and your ship are now property of the Pirate Captain ‘Roaring’ Rowley! Resist at your peril, because we can burn a hole clean through your ship in an instant, even from extreme range.” The voice was almost as loud as the music had been and was coming from a woman with a lovely voice, who probably had a talent for singing.

  Amelia used the reprieve to climb into the pilot’s seat, while Iris muttered under her breath. Amelia barely made out the words for ‘distance’ and ‘sense’ in the witch’s tongue. Marta used the back of the pilot’s seat to lift herself up and stand beside her sister.

  She commented and pointed at the rear-view crystal, “There’s a ship behind us.”

  Marta caught the attention of her sisters with a silent wave of the hand, followed by putting it over her mouth. She tapped the crystal showing the enemy ship, then her ear.

  Amelia nodded, as did Iris. Bone transduction spells were quite often two-way and if they spoke their plans aloud, the enemy was likely to hear.

  Marta unsteadily left the witchpit, headed toward the back of the ship, presumably to reach the spell-core, which was a good idea.

  Amelia glanced at Iris, confirming her sister was looking at her. Amelia formed a fist, slapped it into her open hand, then pointed at the rear-view scrying crystal. Iris nodded and rose to her feet, taking a posture they’d all learned during their hand to hand training, back in Dugaria.