“Well, at least they’ve got decent docking facilities,” Mal says, collapsing the spyglass with a snap. They’ve made good time from Drop, and it’s put him in a good mood. He tucks the spyglass in his belt before calling back down the ship. “Gunny, you alright sailing her in?”
“Got it, Captain!” she calls back. Alice turns to Mal.
“So what now?” she asks, picking herself up from where she’s leaning against the rail of the ship. “How’s Fahrn going to find us? Or do we find him?”
“It is most certainly his job to find us,” Mal says firmly. “I did as I was asked and ran off to this island in the middle of nowhere that no one’s ever heard of. If Fahrn wants the cargo now, he can hunt me down and pay me for it. In the meantime, I plan on finding out what this little nowhere island has in the way of entertainment. Care to join me?”
Alice glances back towards the aft deck. “And Gunny doesn’t mind watching the ship?”
“She knew what she was getting herself into when she agreed to take the ship into port,” Mal says. It’s not a very confident answer — he’s distracted, by the sight of a ship speeding towards them. “Hang on, what’s that?”
“What’s what?” Alice asks, even as she’s turning to look. “Is that — a ship?”
Mal pulls his spyglass back out of his pocket. “She’s smaller than the Nameless — speedy, too. Probably not meant for any real range, just shore-side patrols…”
Alice looks a little closer, and she can identify a small dark object that has pulled away from the main conglomeration of the island. As she watches, it appears to grow — it must be going incredibly fast.
“It looks like it’s running,” she says.
“Yes, I think so,” Mal says. He’s still got the spyglass plastered to his eye. “Gunny!”
“I see it!” she calls. “Not much I can do without turning around.”
He nods. He knows that much. What he can’t decide is whether it’s worth trying to run.
“Is it running to or from something?” Alice asks.
“To. To us.”
Alice’s breath catches in her throat suddenly. It’s just a tiny ship, she tells herself. It’s nothing important, it’s not going to hurt us—
But we’re still headed straight for it.
“Gunny, if anything abruptly changes, shout,” Mal says. “I’m getting our papers.”
He bolts for the ladder and then is gone for a minute or two. It takes long enough that Alice teases him when she sees him return. “What took you so long?”
“I had to put a few things away,” he says cryptically, but she never gets a chance to ask what.
“UNIDENTIFIED SHIP!”
Mal and Alice startle and together turn towards the distant shout. The ship is too far for it to be a natural shout — it’s too clear, and the ship too far. Which means the only reasonable explanation is some kind of amplified sound, but what could possibly—
“ATTENTION! UNIDENTIFIED SHIP! YOU WILL BE BOARDED!”
“Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Mal says.
Famous last words, Alice thinks ruefully, as the ship continues speeding towards them.
----------------------------------------
The ship’s crew makes good on their threat — or promise, depending on how you look at it. Minutes later, a crew of nearly a dozen has closed the distance between The Ship Without A Name and the patrol ship. Alice tries to spot some kind of label that would tell her who the ship belongs to, but none of the identifiers she sees are familiar. Even the crew’s uniform provides no insight, except to prove that Alice suddenly hasn’t gotten better at reading the subtler signs of rank.
Eventually, one of the faceless, nameless crew members comes up from the hold carrying a small crate of syringes. He heads straight for the apparent captain of the other vessel. The two men are muttering over the crate for a while before the captain gives an order that sends all the men within hearing below deck. Then, the captain comes over to them.
“My men have found some particularly interesting cargo in your hold,” the captain says. Alice can’t tell whether he’s trying to address her or Mal, since they’re standing side-by-side. He seems to be unable to decide whether a woman or an elf is more likely to be the captain. Alice isn’t entirely sure whether she should be insulted.
“Interesting,” Mal repeats. The other captain raises his eyebrows.
“Indeed,” he says. “Do you have any explanation for what you’re carrying?”
Mal shrugs. “An elf named Fahrn found out we had it and demanded we bring it to your island — assuming you are, in fact, from that island beyond us there. We haven’t managed to make it yet, so I couldn’t be sure—”
“That’s your excuse?” the captain interrupts. “’An elf named Fahrn’?”
Mal shrugs. “You said you wanted the truth.”
The foreign captain sighs. “Don’t play games with me, elf. I’ve had it up to here with liars and thieves and you’ve gotta be one of those, if not both. Right now my men are searching your ship for contraband, and let me tell you, once we find it, you’re going to be facing serious charges.”
“Oh? Against whom, exactly?” Mal asks. “I don’t suppose the Company ships this far out?”
The other man turns and spits his disapproval. “The glorious Piers & Son Company hasn’t graced the Tuanakis with their presence since they reduced Drop to the sand bar it is today,” the captain growls angrily.
This piques Alice’s interest. “What do you mean, ‘reduced’?”
“What I mean is, once — before you were born, I’m sure — Drop was a reasonable island. Not large, mind you, but big enough, big enough you could store things on it. And regularly visited enough that there was actually someone there who could help you if things went awry. A first defense, as it were. And then the Company bombarded it, reduced the protective fleet stationed there to a bunch of driftwood and ash. No, fuck the Company. And fuck you, if you’re working for them. All we got out here is ourselves, and it’s just ourselves what’s gonna get yourselves arrested. Branson! Throw them all in the brig!”
----------------------------------------
Alice paces one corner of the cell anxiously. She, Mal, Gunny, and Den are all crammed into a cell really meant for one or maybe two people, and Alice wants to scream. Den is fairly agitated, which Alice finds unsurprising given that this is the first time she’s seen him get off the ship. Mal and Gunny, however, seem resigned to their fate, and are calmly resting in different corners of the cell. Unfortunately, Alice can’t relax in a space like this. It’s far too close and she has no room to move and yet there’s still a guard watching their every move, and how are they supposed to get out of a situation like this, and—
“Can you stop moving around so much?” Mal asks.
“Excuse me for not being able to sleep,” Alice snaps.
“You’re excused,” Mal mutters. “The rest of us are trying it though, so—”
“How can you really be thinking of sleep? We’ve been jailed!”
“Yeah, and unless you not only have lock picks but also some secret weapon that allows us to take back our ship hidden in that blouse of yours, there’s not much we can do about it. So we might as well take the chance to rest, while we can.”
“You say this like getting imprisoned is a part of your everyday schedule.”
“Well, I tend to only save it for a special occasion, and if it were up to me I’d do it after lunch, not before, but—”
“You can’t be serious.”
Mal shrugs. “You’d be surprised how many times I’ve been jailed for having false papers.”
“You have false papers?”
“No,” Mal says. He shifts a little, trying vainly to get comfortable. Now would be a great time to pull a hat down over his eyes and make it clear to certain individuals that he’s not really in the mood for talking. Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought ahead enough to realize that would require him actually having a hat to wear when he got jailed, but then again, there’s only so much any one person can predict. “But too many people look at me and see elf and think thief. I’m sure you know what it’s like.”
Alice can’t say she does, but she’s not sure that’s the wisest thing to say, at a moment like this. She’s certainly angry enough to snap at Mal over stupid things like — not wanting to pace, when they’re cooped up.
Abruptly, Alice sits down on the ground. Mal cracks an eye open to look at her. “Finally given up?” he asks.
“I, just… what do we do, now?”
“We wait,” Mal says. “And we hope that Fahrn springs us — or at the least that the Tuanakis have a sense of justice we can appeal to. Surely someone is gonna care that this crazy captain arrested us for nothing.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“And what if no one cares?”
Mal shrugs. “Fahrn’ll want the cargo. I’m certain of that. Now, do you have anything you actually want to add to the conversation, or are you just gonna complain some more about the fact that we’re jailed? Because, I heard the complaints the first hundred times, and I’d really appreciate it if I could at least do something productive with my time.”
“Sleeping is productive now?” Alice angrily retorts, but Mal just makes a non-committal noise. She can’t begin to tell whether it’s agreement or not, but the truth is it doesn’t really matter. They are where they are, and all that’s left to do is spend the time thinking about it. Or sleeping. She can hardly begrudge Mal choosing one, even if she’s steadfastly sticking to the other.
----------------------------------------
After a short trip by airship, the prisoners are shuffled off on a small, clearly private dock. The last Alice catches a glimpse of her, the Nameless is being sailed in right behind their captor ship. With luck it’ll be docked nearby, so that when they get out they can easily pick it up.
If they get out.
But all too quickly, they’re shuffled off into awaiting cells. The women get one to themselves, and Mal and Den are together in another. The good news is that they all end up close enough that they can talk to each other. The bad news is the first time they start talking a guard at the end of the corridor shouts out that they won’t get supper if they don’t shut up, so that rather abruptly curtails any hope of plotting an escape together.
For two long days, all Alice and Gunny do is stare at each other. They’d both inspected the lock on the way in, out of nearly equal habit, but neither was able to keep her picks. Alice can’t really say she’s surprised but she’s rather annoyed. She’s got just the thing for this kind of false gate setup, but there’s no way she’s fashioning something good enough out of a spoon. And the one pick she still has tucked away under multiple layers of clothing won’t be nearly enough for this kind of lock.
So she and Gunny spend the rest of their time just staring at each other. Neither of them has much of anything to say, to start with, and anyway Alice at least is a bit concerned about the threat of missing supper. Missing a meal isn’t the biggest concern in the world, but all of a sudden she’s no longer sure when her next one will be. She never remembered being hungry growing up, but that didn’t stop her from feeling like she was dying the first time she didn’t eat for a week. She’d thought it had been a test, some kind of trick by Piers — something she had to prove herself against, which would lead her back to the Pierson estate. So she’d done everything she could to avoid succumbing to the mounting desire to just go home… until she’d passed out in an alley and nearly gotten herself killed for her troubles.
Finally, on the third day of their imprisonment, something different happens. Someone comes down and talks to the guard for a while, drawing both women to the cell door to listen. The door is simply wrought iron set into the stone walls of the prison, so it’s not like listening is difficult. It’s seeing that’s difficult, because there’s no way to get themselves at the right angle to see who’s at the end of the corridor.
Then, suddenly, there’s an audible jangle of keys and the sound of the guard grumpily getting to his feet. A moment later, Fahrn appears outside the women’s cell, with the guard behind him. The guard unlocks their cell door and then moves on to the one next to them, containing Mal and Den.
“Come, quickly,” Fahrn says. The four are more than willing to exit the prison with all due haste, though Gunny steals a careful glance towards Mal on the way out. He notices it, and returns it with only a shrug.
“Will we be getting our things back?” Alice asks Fahrn before they’ve made it down the length of the corridor. Fahrn sighs, turns around, and calls to the guard, “Their effects?”
The guard doesn’t answer at first.
“I would really appreciate it if you wouldn’t waste my time,” Fahrn says. “I have no great love in my heart for people who get in the way of me doing my job.”
Under his breath, the guard mutters something undoubtedly insulting. However, he is wise enough to follow it up with, “Store room. Second door on your right on the way out.”
“There you are, Alice,” Fahrn says. “Now come along, everyone. You’re already rather late to your own hearing.”
----------------------------------------
“—incredibly improper, and I must say that I simply cannot stand for it. I will not stand for it. Continue in this vein, my lord, and you will not have the support of the regulars for your rule!”
Fahrn clears his throat. The very same captain who’d arrested the crew of the Nameless — and Alice — is pacing angrily in front of a desk, gesticulating wildly. His eyes finally land on the group in the doorway. He seems to grow even more furious at the sight of Fahrn — and his eyes nearly bug out of his head when he realizes there are four more people behind him.
“You’ve released them?” he exclaims, practically accosting Fahrn.
“Johnson, for the last time, sit down,” says a commanding voice from behind the stately desk. Alice shifts a little so she can see around Fahrn and the captain — Johnson — to who has spoken. It’s a well-dressed, older man, wearing the garb of a statesman — or at least, similar to what all the statesmen who visited Piers looked like, when they were visiting on official business. Since she’d left the estate, Alice hasn’t had many run-ins with statesmen, and it distracts her for a moment, trying to figure out whether she’s finally coming back up in the world — and whether that’s even something she wants.
Johnson stiffly settles into one of the chairs in front of the desk. Two more remain empty, and the man behind the desk looks over the motley crew arrayed in front of him.
“I see you’ve rustled up quite a crew this time, Fahrn,” he says. “I wish you’d said something, I could have scrounged up some more chairs.”
“George, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Alice. Alice, this is George Karon, mayor of Headstone.”
Alie freezes for a moment — should she bow or curtsy? — but eventually returns the polite nod that the mayor offers in her direction. Thankfully, the polite words for this situation come to her tongue easily enough. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” she says demurely.
George raises his eyebrows. “A daughter who looks human, and who speaks like a Pierson?”
He leaves out the implied There must be a story there but everyone in the room hears it anyway. All Fahrn says, though, is, “Indeed.” Then, he turns to the other three. “This is the crew of the Nameless — Mal, the captain; the others I have not yet been introduced to myself.”
“I’m Gunny and this is Den,” Gunny says.
“The man Fahrn just introduced as Mal?” George asks.
“No,” Den says. His gruff, accented voice makes George start. Alice can’t entirely blame him; she was a bit surprised to see a dwarf out of mountains they’re said to exclusively inhabit. “Down here.”
The mayor leans forward in his chair until he sees Den clearly enough. He begins stroking his lightly-bearded chin, clearly thinking hard. Then his expression changes to a sudden smile. “A pleasure,” he says, his attention turning back to Mal. “I apologize for not having enough chairs, but ladies, if you’d like…?”
Alice immediately flops into the chair furthest from Captain Johnson. Gunny, leaning back against the wall beside the door, says, “Thanks, but I’ll just stay out here.”
It makes Alice feel a bit foolish for taking the seat so quickly, but then Mal comes to stand behind her chair, his hands resting on the back. Den slides over by Gunny, taking the wall on the other side of the door frame. Glancing back at them, Alice has a sudden memory of that last, fateful conversation she had had with Piers, where she’d had to justify something as simple as owning a pistol. She’d expected him to have body guards backing him up as he accused her of all of the other extravagant adventures she was wasting her time with.
And now it’s her — well, Mal — who has the backup. She can’t say she dislikes it being there, even if it isn’t strictly hers. Because her backup is Mal, standing right behind her. And that certainly feels good.
“Sir,” Johnson says. “This — this elf has claimed that he owns this ship. The Nameless.”
“Yes, I’ve heard you the first hundred times,” George says. “Fahrn, why did you think it would be a good idea to send strangers to Tuanaki without a proper escort? Or at least a proper writ?”
Fahrn, to Alice’s surprise, looks uncomfortable. “I didn’t expect they’d get here so fast,” he says. Alice grins privately.
Mayor Karon frowns at Fahrn. “That’s really the best excuse you could come up with?” he asks. The elf just shrugs.
“I was in a bit of a hurry. Rhai needed care…”
“Is she alright?” Alice asks. Fahrn glances at her with a strange look on his face, and the worst part is Alice can’t tell whether she’s just earned herself brownie points, or wasted those that she’s earned.
“She’s with some of the best doctors in Tuanaki,” Fahrn says. Which doesn’t really answer Alice’s question, except for the bit where it tells her that it’s a bit more serious than she had thought.
“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s illegal in all the islands for an elf to own a named ship.”
Alice bristles. It’s illegal for Mal to own the ship? she wonders. Why didn’t he say it was mine, then? Oh, Mal, you stupid—
“She’s not named,” Mal says.
Four heads turn quickly in his direction, including Alice who simply tilts her head back to look at him. She’s also the one who figures out what to say first. “She’s not?”
“The law states this: ‘No elf may own a ship but one without a name.’ The Nameless is simply a nickname.”
Captain Johnson sputters indignantly. “But your papers here, they identify her as—”
“As The Ship Without A Name, yes. However, I do believe that the law would allow me to own such a ship, as she is, in fact, nameless.”
Johnson lets out an inarticulate exclamation. Alice grins broadly, and she’s rewarded by Mal sparing a small glance down at her. Then she glances at Fahrn and Mayor Karon — Fahrn is shaking his head, but the mayor seems to be considering the situation.
“Sir!” Johnson says. “I really must protest—“
“Yes, yes, I know. You must protest the elves getting too much power, because wasn’t it their rebellion that condemned Tuanaki to the state it’s in. And yes, that’s true — to an extent. But what you’re forgetting is that this is no native elf rebelling against being enslaved who is sitting in front of you, but a good businessman who is making the best of what is indeed an unfortunate situation for those cursed to find themselves born into it.”
“I’m only half elf, if it makes things any better,” Mal offers helpfully. He seems incredibly nonchalant about the whole situation, which makes Alice suspect this isn’t the first time he’s found himself in a situation like this.
She wonders whether they’ll keep happening if she sticks around long enough.
“I believe that just may be in your favor in this instance, Captain Mal,” George says. “I’m not sure I could let a full elf get away with it — but I’m inclined to give a pass to someone who has managed to find a way to work within a law that doesn’t particularly work for them. It’s something you’ll find rather a lot of, in this lovely little chain of islands of ours.”
Mal grins. “Thank you, sir,” he says. “Now, as for the matter of the cargo—”
“Yes, it’s been confiscated. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to turn it over to you, simply because of what it is.”
“Could you turn it over to Fahrn instead?”
“And what advantage would that pose to you?”
“I was simply tasked with bringing it here,” Mal says. “I wouldn’t want to end up in jail for taking cargo that wasn’t really mine. Fahrn said he’d buy it from me. I’m just looking for payment, really, and then we’ll be on our way.”
“And never come back to the Tuanakis?” Johnson says, not bothering to disguise the hope in his tone.
“Not unless I have a good reason to. But I won’t be kicked out, either. I’ll leave of my own free will — on my ship.”
George nods, thinking. “Yes, I suppose that will do. Fahrn, get the elixir off my island. The rest of you are free to go — except you, Johnson, you and I need to have a bit of a chat.”
Johnson doesn’t look very happy about that. Fahrn and Alice get to their feet, and then those who are leaving quickly file out of George’s office. Fahrn is last out and closes the door behind him, but he’s not remotely surprised to see the others milling in the hallway.
“Come with me,” he tells the others. “We’ll need to recover the Nameless and the cargo. Then, I’ll need to hunt you down a map — I’d like you to take the cargo to a deeper island. My ship isn’t big enough to carry it all.”
“Will there be payment?”
The corner of Fahrn’s mouth quirks a little at Mal’s question. “Yes, there will be payment. Not sure if it’ll be what you’re expecting, though.”
Mal narrows his eyes. “What will it be, then?”
“You’ll see,” Fahrn says. “It’ll be worth the trip. Come on, the docks aren’t far.”