I wasn't the daughter of a Meribian merchant prince for nothing. It was self-evident that I had no chance of stopping Mel and Dyne from going on with their duel if they really wanted to, but this wasn't some epic struggle between good and evil or a deeply personal act of vengeance. If I could keep them off-balance with a bit of humor combined with serious questions I stood a good chance of getting answers. The strategy had been effective enough on the island, so why not here?
Dyne's eyes swept me up and down assessingly. There was nothing sexual about it, just taking my measure.
"Your captain and I have an agreement on how to settle our differences fairly. What makes you think that you can intervene now?"
"Because it isn't fair."
"Amelie," Mel said, putting a hand on my shoulder from behind, "he ain't using his Dragon Magic or even wearing the armor, but is fighting me man-to-man. Ya can't ask fer fairer than that."
"Men!" I snorted in a voice women have used for centuries. "I'm not saying that the fight isn't fair. I'm pointing out that a fair fight isn't necessarily a fair solution to the issues at hand."
They both looked at me curiously, and the amused curl of Dyne's lip was fading. Good. He was starting to take me seriously.
"That's an interesting statement, Miss de Alkirk. Go ahead and explain yourself."
"I'm trying to learn for myself why you're here, Dragonmaster. Why do I justify a rescue mission from Lunar's greatest champion. I'm not personally special, and while yes, I was kidnapped by pirates, you yourself have been willing to trust Mel's sword word. You must have known, then, that when the ransom was paid I would be released unharmed. There must be dozens of people across Lunar in far more danger than I was, so you should have been rescuing them instead if general heroism was your motive. Yes, my family is rich and powerful, but I still have faith that to you and the Goddess at least that wouldn't matter. So why did you sail off with a magician from Vane and several priests and a small army of guardsmen? I'm just not that important." I turned my head and looked up at Mel with a smile. "At least, not to most people."
To look at Mel, though, my head had to turn so that the Fancy and its crew were in my line of sight, and another piece fell into place..
"You're not even interested in the pirates, are you, Dragonmaster? If this was about stopping particularly vicious buccaneers--which they aren't--you'd never have agreed to let the crew go free as a term of the duel. Besides which, the Goddess has never interfered in petty crime; if she had there wouldn't even be a town of Reza!"
Dyne nodded.
"You're right on all counts, Miss de Alkirk."
"Har, hold it a minute there!" Mel burst out. "Do ya mean we've been doing our level best to kill each other fer the better part o' two hours fer the fun o' it?"
"No, we've been doing our level best to kill one another for the better part of two hours because rescuing Miss de Alkirk is an important step on a greater mission given to me by the Goddess."
"My biology tutor once told me that when two packs of Albino Baboons start competing for territory, the lead males will fight to the death and the winner will become the alpha for the combined pack," I observed. Mel and Dyne looked sheepishly at one another.
"Do you think she means us?" Dyne asked conversationally.
"I'm thinking it'd be better not to think too much about that."
"Probably not," Dyne said. He sheathed his sword, then unclipped it from his belt and dropped it along with his nearly-ruined shield. Incandescent white fire swirled around him, and he was once again bearing the arms and armor of the Dragonmaster right down to the silly fur-trimmed helmet. "I presume we can consider the duel over? By the time your boss here gets done washing our heads, mine will probably start in."
"Harr, I'm thinking ya probably can skip that part."
"No use," he sighed. "That 'all-seeing, all-knowing' bit doesn't really give a man much room for hiding his stupidity."
"At least you can hope for 'all-merciful,'" I noted.
"After suitable atonement and repentance."
"No wonder ya never married," Mel chuckled.
Dyne glanced from Mel to me and grinned. All right, I supposed I could allow the man one.
"Seriously, though, Dragonmaster, what is it the Goddess wants of you?"
"She wasn't specific, only that your kidnapping would be part of a chain of events leading to the rising of a great darkness and that I should follow to be on hand to prevent it."
I glanced at Mel; our eyes met and we both burst out laughing.
"Did I miss something?"
"Only that ya be about a week late, matey!" Mel guffawed.
My laughter, I had to admit, had a touch of hysteria to it. We had, after all, been chased down by the Dragonmaster, nearly involved in a mass battle, and Mel had been caught up in an epic duel, all as a silly postscript to what we'd gone through on the island.
Dyne sighed.
"I think that we'd better have the whole story before anything else happens."
"Grimzol, you say?"
The captain's cabin of the Swallow was even more handsomely outfitted than the Black Fortune's. Mel and I, together with Morgan, Ace, and Jack, had plenty of room at the table together with Dyne, Eryx, two of the priests, an armored guardsman who'd been called Captain (presumably his military rank rather than his position on the ship) and a fellow dressed as a sailor who likely was the ship's captain when he hadn't been demoted on account of the Dragonmaster's presence. Refreshments had been served, ranging from a first-class Meribian red wine to an equally excellent (as such things went) dark rum for the sea-dog types and the first cup of tea I'd had since leaving Meribia.
"That be what Van Dierken's ghost called it," Mel agreed. "Grimzol, the Plague-Bringer... and something else, besides."
"Black Wind of the Prairie," Ace supplied. He was grinning broadly--and pretty much had been the whole time. Apparently there'd been a betting pool on the outcome of the duel and he'd had fifty silver on "Amelie stops it before anyone gets killed."
The elder cleric, a green-haired priestess with a sharp-featured, almost cruel face but kind and gentle eyes, snapped her fingers loudly.
"I've heard that name. Or, rather I've seen it in the archives. Grimzol was a kind of god-king who ruled the Prairie centures, maybe even millennia ago."
"Is that 'maybe' because you don't remember or because they records are uncertain?" asked Eryx.
The second priest, a rotund little man with a mop of curly black hair, chuckled and said, "If you knew Jenna at all, Eryx, you'd know that she never forgets anything."
"It was from before the last expansion of the Vile Tribe from the Frontier," Jenna explained, apparently not offended. "The archives aren't very precise about Lunar's history from that period."
"The Library of Vane has the same problem," Eryx observed, "although of course Vane didn't come into being until shortly after that."
"Perhaps cross-checking between the Shrine archives, the Magic Library, and Damon the Keeper of Knowledge could fill in some of those gaps?" the male priest suggested.
"We're wandering a bit," Dyne said. "You can solve the library problems later. Jenna, could you finish telling us about Grimzol?"
"There isn't much to tell. He, or it, was a fiendish tyrant that ruled for a couple of centuries, demanding tribute and blood sacrifice from its followers. When it didn't get what it wanted--or when it just was in the mood--it would sweep the Prairie with plague winds. The story goes that the people of Pao at last prayed to Althena for help and the Goddess sent the Dragonmasters--"
"Plural?" Dyne asked.
"It was the twins, Alicia and Laticia."
"Now that should give us a date, or at last narrow it down to a couple of decades."
"Hush, Cheb. Anyway, the Dragonmasters destroyed Grimzol's undead slaves and defeated the demon in battle, and Althena sealed it away in an idol so that it could no longer spread sickness and death."
"Why not just kill the thing?" Jack asked.
"Any kind of clash between powerful magical forces can be cataclysmic," Eryx observed. "More than likely, the energies required would have been far too destructive. Instead, it was weakened in battle, made vulnerable by its defeat, and sealed away so it could no longer harm anyone. Consider also that demonic creatures of that sort generally require some external source of power to sustain themselves in this world, usually the sacrificed lives of others."
"I see," I exclaimed. "So, after Althena sealed Grimzol away, it grew weaker and weaker over the centuries until it could be destroyed by the kind of power Mel had."
"That sums it up quite nicely," Eryx concluded.
"So, the Cape Matapan expedition found the Grimzol idol during its looting of the Prairie," Dyne pulled it all together. "No one knew that specifically because the details had been lost over the centuries. Even written history tends to do that, and the Prairie Tribe primarily hands down its traditions and lore in story and song."
"Morgan, you mentioned that there was a pagan idol in the treasure when you told the story in Pegleg Pete's."
"The log was found, if you'll remember, Amelie. The merchants probably kept an exact tally of the loot for accounting purposes. Grimzol stuck in the story because an idol was a colorful detail, much more interesting treasure than just another sack of silver."
"All things considered, I'll take the silver," Ace decided. No one seemed inclined to disagree.
"So, when the Balthasar sank, Van Dierken was desperate enough, and evil enough, to give the demon his soul--and the lives of his first mate and anyone else they hadn't killed yet--in exchange for power and continued existence. However, they were still stuck on an island no one had any reason to visit, so they reached out to Teach to lure in victims."
"Only," Dyne finished up, "the victims turned out to have the will and courage to face down the demon and the dead alike, and the strength and wits to win the battle."
There were any number of embarrassed blushes and schoolchild grins--sometimes both--on our side of the table. Compliments on one's heroic qualities from the Dragonmaster himself weren't something pirates (or heiresses) received every day.
"So the question then becomes," he continued, "where do we go from here? My mission has been accomplished, and Miss de Alkirk isn't being held prisoner by anyone at this point, and as has been pointed out to me any number of times, the Dragonmaster isn't supposed to be stamping out petty crime and hunting pirates, particularly as a fair number of you will likely be retiring on your shares of the Cape Matapan treasure.
He stroked his chin thoughtfully, a gesture that worked better if one had a beard.
I'm partial to you letting go with a smile and a friendly wave," Ace observed, "but I'm guessing that's too easy."
"Particularly with House de Alkirk out for blood," Morgan noted.
"And there is a difference," the guard captain spoke up for the first time, "between it not being our job to hunt pirates and letting one go once he's in custody."
"There's a fine reward for destroying an evil demon," Cheb observed dryly. "Or are you feeling snarky because you were looking forward to fighting the undead hordes of evil, Captain?"
He shrugged, the gesture making his mail coat rattle.
"Just thought I'd toss law and order out there on the table, us being the good guys and all."
"I'd say that the first thing would be to return to that island and verify that Grimzol is indeed destroyed," Eryx pointed out. "No offense intended, but none of you is an expert in dealing with magical forces."
"None taken," said Mel. "I can't say I'd want to be."
"I have a suggestion for dealing with my family," I put in.
"Oh?"
"Yes." I took a deep breath, not sure if I was more nervous because of what I intended to say or because I was about to say it in front of a crowd. "My family is angry about a kidnapping: stealing what is theirs, the loss of face--maybe even some personal concern for me. If, on the other hand, what happened was an elopement... well, that would be scandalous, but not in a send-out-the-navy kind of way. Especially as it removes the financial risk."
"But it weren't no elopement," Mel said.
Ace groaned.
"We're pirates, Captain. We lie about it."
"Or do you just not want to marry me, Mel?" I tried to keep my voice light, but it cracked on the last word, curse it.
"Marry? Yer asking me ta marry ya?"
"Odd. Usually beastmen have better hearing than humans," Cheb observed to Ace.
"Should gone into the priesthood, Ace," Jack said. "There's the place for smart-mouths."
"Ran out of insulting things to call the nobility, so you've moved on to the servants of the Goddess, have you?"
Their chatter, though, was scarcely background noise to me. Room full of people or not, for all I was paying attention to the rest of them Mel and I might have been alone on an iceberg.
"Yes, Mel," I said, "I'm asking if you will marry me. I know that we're a mismatched pair if there ever was one, but I also know that I'll be happier working with you daily to fit our lives together than I could ever be in any life that didn't have your love in it. I only hope that you feel the same."
His eyes were wide with bewilderment and joy all in one, as if Althena had just walked up and dropped his heart's desire in his lap. Maybe she had.
"I don't understand," he said slowly, "why a fine lady such as yerself as would want ta be shackled ta an old sea-dog like me. But if that be what ya want, then I'll not be such a fool as ta say no, fer I love ya too, Amelie de Alkirk."
There were tears in his eyes as he said it, and the biggest smile on his face I'd ever seen. It struck me than even when Mel had suffered the most brutal injuries, he'd never shed a tear, and I never saw him weep again until the day you were born.
Applause burst out then, reminding me that we were not, in fact, alone, and this time I joined Mel in the blushing--and in the gigantic smile.
"'Mel de Alkirk'...I like the sound of that," Morgan decided.
"What d'ya mean?" Mel asked, confused.
"You're marrying into the nobility, Captain. Since you are, shall I say, not exactly of noble birth, that means you'll be joining Amelie's family."
Dyne burst out laughing.
"Ho ho ho! I'd forgotten about that. I can't wait to see her uncle's face!"
I could have taken offense, but then, I knew my uncle.
"I think you're going to have to give up piracy, Captain," Ace noted. "Well... unauthorized piracy, at least. You'll probably steal more as a merchant lord."
"Or, you could find honest work," Dyne suggested, "since you're acquiring a wife and a fortune. Become a pillar of the community. Impress the in-laws--or at least annoy them."
Mel laughed.
"What, me a merchant?"
"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of getting into the Questing Hero business. As you've already seen, the work is hard and the pay scale slides a bit--dung one day, Dragon dung the next--but it has its good points. Of course, I'm only saying that so you'll come along and let somebody besides me handle some of the hack-and-slash routines. I swear that most magicians' knowledge of weapons begins and ends with 'don't hold the pointy end.'"
"So now that ya toss around magic o' yer own ya find yerself slipping, har?" Mel quipped. I will never understand how two men can pound each other flat and immediately start acting like they're been best friends for years.
"Exactly. It spoils a man, wearing this silly hat into battle. So are you in?"
"O' course," he said, then reached out and took my hand in his, "but yer gonna have ta wait a few months before ya get ta dragging me off anywhere. I've gotta make sure the most important things get started out right."
I couldn't have agreed more.