Three to Disembark (1/2)

Threadbare took the stairs two at a time, hopping and bounding with all the strength of his fuzzy golem legs. He bypassed the cannon deck and went straight up top...

...pausing as he heard Renny cry, “wait!” behind him.

Illusions, he remembered. Renny had to be in sight to make sure the illusions were at their best. The beastkin were perceptive, and he was playing a dangerous game.

There was enough going on that hopefully nobody had heard Renny speak up. Threadbare waited until he heard the patter of felt fox paws on the stairs behind him, then emerged out onto the main deck.

“Stay below!” Stormanorm III bellowed the second Threadbare's head poked out of the hold. “We have no time for you, Lady! And I can't guarantee your—”

A javelin whistled down out of the sky and missed Threadbare by inches.

“—safety,” Stormanorm finished, then hauled out a pistol and blasted a shot upward. There came a distant cry and feathers drifed downward, pale in the moonlight. “Damned harpies!”

“Where are the others?” Threadbare called out.

“Mom went in to talk to the town. Then Karey took four crew and Gaston and went after her. Then all hell broke loose. If you're smart you'll stay here... and out of it,” Stormanorm said, reloading his pistol and fixing his eyes on what he thought was Celia's gaze.

Then he swore and pulled his cutlass, laying about him as a trio of feathery shapes blurred out of the darkness.

For a second Threadbare was worried. But only a second. One died immediately, and the other two disengaged and fled. Stormanorm's robes were a bit torn, but aside from that he looked fine.

Threadbare considered his options, and headed back down into the hold.

“Are we going to stay out of it, then?” Renny asked. “I'm fine with that. I have some cards. We could play cripple mister onion to pass the time.”

“No, we won't stay out of it,” Threadbare said. “But there's someone I need to speak with first.”

And with that, Threadbare made his way down past the gun deck, to the cargo hold. To Jean's cage.

She lay on the floor of it, holding her ears twisted together with both hands. But nonetheless, her hearing was sharp enough that she glanced up at him as he entered past the last row of crates.

Jean spoke as she sat up and studied him. “Read the Scene,” she announced, then nodded as if in satisfaction. “I should have guessed. The job went too easy. You are not her, are you?”

“I'm not.”

Jean sagged back against the bars. “Oh thank gods.”

“We have no time—” Threadbare started to say, and the cannons thundered again. Somewhere in the distance something large and by the sound of it wooden crashed to the ground. “We have no time,” he continued. “Tell me about the Phantom of the Lop Ear.”

“Free me and I shall.”

“Done,” Threadbare said, and pointed at the locks. “Animus, animus, animus. Command animi, open please.”

And with a clicking and a clacking and a clattering, the cage swung open.

“I'll talk quickly then,” Jean said, gathering to her feet, and glancing around the hold. “II need to gather supplies, too.” She spoke as she moved to the various crates, popping them open and rummaging around. “The Phantom was the one the church couldn't kill. He was the one hero who never became a martyr. The lop invisible, the hidden hare. And when the dragons came, he knew what to do.

“The bells tolled in the middle of the night. And it was he who roused the serfs, and brought them to the ancient warrens. He who had dug out around the molten stone that the crusaders had used to seal them. He who led us down into the catacombs, as the world burned around us... and he who sealed the doors once more before our 'governors' could follow.

“We dwelled down there among the dead. The bones of those who had been sealed in and left to rot. And we lived... my grandmother among them, we lived as the screaming and pleading just audible through the stone turned to coughing and weeping. He'd slain their earth Elementalists before sealing us away. They were soft and unused to working earth without magic. And in time, there was silence.”

She had been gathering things as she spoke. Clothing, a backpack, rations, and a crowbar that she flipped in one hand, and weighed before sliding into the back of her shirt. “Even then he did not reveal himself to us,” she said. “He was simply a voice in the darkness. He spoke of rebuilding once we were out. Of reforming the guard. Of forging the old nation anew, and conquering what remnants we could before they could come for us again. And when he deemed it safe to leave we did. But...”

The cannons shuddered again, and Jean used the opportunity to head to the door, and peer out the stairwell. Threadbare followed.

“But what?” Threadbare asked.

“But all of them had perished. Or drawn back so far behind their borders that our scouts could not find them. We were alone, among the ash. It was hard times then. There were entire years without males. He came to a few in the night, my grandmother among them. And gave them children, in return for a price. And that price was servitude unto death. His or ours.”

“That doesn't seem very fair,” Threadbare said, after considering it. “You didn't have a choice in the matter.”

“No. But we would not exist if she hadn't agreed.” Jean shrugged. “In time, we rebuilt. And in time, we thought he would die. But the voice still whispers in the darkness. A forgotten piano plays a melody sad and wrathful. And while we do not seek conquest any more, we cannot given the length of the lands between us and our old foes, I do not believe he has forgiven or forgotten. And that is why he wants your princess Celia.”

“We weren't one of the lands oppressing Belltollia, were we?” Threadbare asked. “It's not vengeance against us, is it?”

“No, you were innocent of that. But in you he sees an opportunity, I think. The very day that your scouts were welcomed into our capitol was the day he spoke again. Two years of silence broken, and new hope in his voice... his terrible, dark, beautiful voice.” She shuddered. “Like an angel fallen past hell and deep into the void.”

“It's something about our kingdom, then?” Threadbare asked. “Maybe our legal necromancy, or our golemcrafting?”

“Perhaps. But whatever it is to do with, it is Princess Cecelia that we were asked to investigate. And when we had learned all we could in Belltollia, we traveled as Actors. And we were that, too. But me... I am also a Spy.”

“I've only heard legends of those,” Threadbare said. “I suppose we should get some at some point. Grifter and Scout, right?”