Aisa cartwheeled onto the Mobius’ mainsail from the very top of the rope ladder that tied to the larboard mast, landing in a crouch that briefly dimpled the flame-coloured sailcloth. The fabric beneath her had a little spring to it, but remained taut. She was surrounded by thin white cloud, and she felt the cold moisture sink into her clothes immediately.

She pulled her hat down firmly over her dreadlocks with her upper left hand, took a flintlock pistol from it’s holster into her lower left hand, and took the cutlass from between her teeth into her upper right hand. Four arms made multi-tasking easy. The red voice was whispering to her as always, but she ignored it. The same three words, over and over.

It was waiting up ahead, whatever it was. Whatever had fallen out of Hell. An ill wind had blown them beneath the island just in time for… something to crash onto the sail. As captain of the Mobius, the safety of the ship and her crew fell to Aisa. She clutched the cutlass firmly.

As she strode quietly across the sail, the cloud cleared in front of her, opening up into a little hollow of empty air. A small dark figure was kneeling on the sail. A demon? She paced forward silently and levelled her pistol at the demon’s head, making sure to keep a little distance between them.

“Don’t tha be moving a muscle, now,” she growled. The figure froze. It had been rifling through a small satchel, which it quickly folded and placed on its hip. Though close, she still couldn’t see its face.

“Stand up, raise thy hands, an’ turn thyself nice and slow,” she said cautiously, making sure to keep a few feet of distance between them. The blue voice was murmuring, a low thrum beneath the red voice’s whisper. The same three words. Always. She winced and shook her head to quiet it. What she would give for a swig of something sharp and sweet right now.

The stranger stood up slowly and turned, raising his hands. So it wasn’t a demon, after all. A man, unarmed, standing at least a foot shorter than her. No, not even a man: just a boy. Seemed he was a primal, with his thick tufty hair. But a primal without a tail? Aisa looked him up and down, keeping the gun trained at his head. Why exactly had this primal fallen out of Hell?

"Whoa whoa whoa," shouted the primal, eyeing her gun. "Don't shoot!"

The voices in her head were multiplying: now there were dozens, chanting in different volumes and different cadences, speaking many words she couldn't understand and one command she could: "Kill him."

She really needed a drink.

Aisa tried to focus her mind amidst the mental clamour. No, don’t kill him yet. Find out what he knows.

"Who be tha, and what be tha doin' aboard my ship?"

The primal flinched. "I'm, uh... my name's Jayson," he said slowly. "And I fell from," he pointed upwards, "from up there. The island. An ogyr kind of, uh, smashed me off the side."

"Tha's from Hell?"

"Uh, well, no. I was just passing through."

Aisa had met primals in the lower isles before, though they weren’t as common as other clines. Like her own cline, most all primals still resided in the heavens - scarce few had chosen to Fall. This one wore a familiar looking, dark blue military longcoat that tapered before billowing out above torn grey breeches. The sleeves of the longcoat had been torn off, and the primal’s forearms were bound up in spirals of dark leather, which led down to two flat square devices secured against his palms. The bindings continued past his wrist, twisting around his hand and fingers.

Aisa narrowed her eyes. Something of him reminded her of someone, though she couldn’t place whom. Bedraggled wavy brown hair, a bunch of it tied in a top knot, the rest falling gently past his ears. Green eyes with a sparkle to them. Young. That was rare on TreArkh. Blood from his forehead had trickled down one side of his face. The stranger looked at her and raised his eyebrows. Aisa watched as his expression morphed from a frown into surprise.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Queen’s Fire! You think you’re armed quite well enough?”

Aisa glanced down, following the primal’s eyes. As usual, she had three of four loaded flintlock pistols strapped to her chest, the other now clutched in her upper left hand. This, along with the cutlass in her upper right hand, the sister swords on her hip, the two small throwing axes that hung beside, the daggers strapped to her legs and the dirks in her boots, along with, of course, the twin blunderbusses secured in an X shape, high on her back, meant that, yes, she was armed quite well enough.

Aisa’s philosophy on most martial matters could be summed up in one word. Firepower.

“I meant your weapons, not, uh, your actual arms,” said Jayson.

“Arr, tha reckon tha’s a funny one, do tha? Last I checked, I be th' one with a gun, an’ it be pointed,” she cocked the pistol with a chunky click, “at thy head.”

“I really wasn’t talking about your arms,” said the stranger, gesturing at her. “You’re a melian, right? I haven’t seen a melian before. I mean, up close. In person. On the vaults doesn’t really count.”

The primal grinned at her, but his eyes still looked afraid. Aisa cocked her head and frowned. A primal who had never met a melian? The two clines shared an island. Had he been living under a rock?

“The way you talk,” said the stranger. “And the eyepatch. Are you… a pirate? I didn’t know we had pirates here...”

“Arrr…” Aisa drawled, less confidently than she had before. “Tha’d be mistaken t' reckon a patch makes my pistol any less dangerous t' a monkey like thee. Least of all a monkey missin' its tail.”

“Oh,” said the stranger, glancing behind him. “My tail? Yeah, I lost it a while ago.” He gave her a strange smile. "Maybe it'll grow back."

A primal without a tail was like a melian missing an arm. A cripple. Aisa wondered idly how he might have lost it. Perhaps he was hiding from Heaven? Another renegade. Then again, it could be one of those rare permanent injuries that recurrence didn’t fix. The stranger fidgeted under her gaze.

“So are we good? You're not going to shoot me? I don't want any trouble.”

The right thing to do was to shoot him, roll his body off the sail into the mists and be done with it. But something was giving Aisa pause, though she couldn't say quite what. Why did he seem so damn familiar?

“Arrr. Keep still now, I be in charge. Tell me, what be those bands on thy forearms?” She motioned with her pistol.

“My four arms? I’ve only got two,” the primal said, and started chuckling.

Aisa scowled. “Y’aharr. Tha keep makin' light, I’ll bring thee th' dark.”

“Ah! I’m sorry. I make jokes when I’m nervous. Really bad jokes." The stranger gulped. “Look, I was just about a hundred percent sure I was going to die just now. Until you broke my fall with this… orange thing. Is this an airship? Whatever it is, it saved my life. Anyway, my point is -” The primal sighed deeply. “I’m having a really, really bad day, but somehow I’m still alive. So if you could just not shoot me, I’d be -.”

“Don’t tha dare tell me what t' do on my own ship,” Aisa countered, fire in her eye. “Tha be the one trespassin’. So tha’ll listen t' me, not the other way round. Unless tha be wantin’ another hole in thy head t' keep the one that’s yammerin’ at me company.”

The primal opened his mouth and then closed it again a few times. Like a goldfish. Something sparked in Aisa's brain and all of a sudden she realised something. It was like a firework going off in her mind. A divine moment of revelation. The voices in her head swelled to a chorus, chanting and singing in complex harmonies. She could smell the sea, and her tongue tingled with the taste of salt.

He knows, said a voice, quite clearly. He knows where it is.

In an instant, she knew what he was hiding. She could sense it. She knew why he had fallen here, at this exact place, at this exact time. It was fate. It was destiny. He knew where it was hidden. She threw her head back and laughed.

“Arr, now I see it," she said. "Why tha’s fallen here, on this very day. So don't tha lie to me. An’ tell me where it is.”

He looked at her with a mix of surprise and fear on his face. He knew.

“Where it is?" repeated the primal, feigning confusion. "Uh, where what is?”

“The treasure,” Aisa intoned, deadly serious. She could see it in his eyes: the unmistakable glitter of gold. And he knew all about it. He knew where it was hidden.

“The w-what?" Jayson stammered. "Look... I have no idea what you’re -”

Liar.

“Three,” said Aisa calmly, raising her pistol once more to aim at his head. “I’ll give tha three seconds.” She could see through his lies now, his feigned ignorance. If the boy wasn’t going to tell her, she’d kill him and find out what she could from his corpse.

“Wait, I think you’ve got -”

“Two.”

“- the wrong person or something but, listen, I -”

“One.”

“- really don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Aisa fired.