"I'm bored," Shell said.

Arai was not surprised, for he, too, was starting to get a little bored. It had been five days since they had left Addisport, and while their first few days aboard the ship had been full of wonder and excitement -- neither Shell nor Lillandra had ever been aboard a seagoing vessel, and Arai had never spent more than a day or two aboard one -- the novelty had quickly worn off. The sailors, at least, had their chores to attend to; as passengers, Arai and the others had no particular responsibilities, and so were obliged to spend most of their time just sitting around. Shell, still mildly seasick, read Plint's Travels for the third time; Lillandra spent most of her time at the railing, staring out to sea. Arai, meanwhile, got to know the crew, making friends with Captain Burt and with a redheaded young sailor named Twine. Twine was several years younger than him, closer to Shell's age than his own, but he was a friendly and talkative lad who seemed to know everything about the sailing life.

"How long have you been working for Captain Burt?" Arai had asked him one afternoon, while he was dangling from the rigging.

"Since I was eight," he said cheerfully. He said everything cheerfully; he was probably the sunniest kid Arai had ever met. "That would've been...six years ago? Something like that."

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Are you kidding me? There's no better life. It's always fun to visit a new port, but if I had to live in a city like Addisport for the rest of my life..." He shuddered.

"Is that where you're from? Addisport?"

"Nah, I'm from Phantros. My mother lives there, still, with my baby sister. I send them three-quarters of my earnings." He swung his way over to another rope. "We usually stop at Phantros on our way to Tax Trium, but I think we're skirting it this time; we might run into some summer gales around the Phantic Gates if we don't hurry."

"The Phantic Gates?"

"That's where the Bay of Vandals opens up to the Southern Ocean. I don't know why, but storms are common down there this time of year. It rains in Junglass almost every day in the summer."

Arai had heard of Junglass from Shell, who had pointed it out to him on the fold-out map enclosed within her copy of Plint's Travels. "That's an island city, isn't?"

"The capital of Azu," he acknowledged. "One of the Island Republics."

"Have you been there?"

"I've been everywhere," he said with a grin. "Ch'lan, Maho, Azu. I've seen Prestoris, Kingsaile, even Mar Citiai in Citias. Captain Burt sent me up there with a shipment of boca fruit."

"Hammersvik?"

The lad frowned at him. "Never heard of that one."

"I didn't think so," Arai said, grinning back. "You've been around, kid, but don't think you've been everywhere. The world is a very big place."

But Twine had work to do, and Arai didn't want to distract him. So he had gone back to his cabin, and that's where he had found Shell -- complaining, once again, about how bored she was. "What about your lessons?" Arai asked.

She frowned. "I still haven't figured out how to do calculations," she said. "And Lillandra hasn't been in a teaching mood lately. She spends all her time looking out to sea. Did you two have a fight or something?"

"No," Arai said truthfully. "But I think she's got a lot on her mind." A few days ago Lillandra had mentioned a man named Julien, referring to him as her "love", and ever since, she seemed to have gotten herself lost in the past. Arai wanted to ask her who this man was, and what had happened to him, and many other things, but Lillandra could be prickly about her past, and he didn't want to pressure her. Their relationship was in a new place now -- they were going to try to be friends from now on -- and he didn't want to risk jeopardizing that.

Several more days passed. They hugged the Addish coast for many miles, but did not stop in the large city of Phantros; they turned west and sailed immediately for the Phantic Gates instead, just as Twine had predicted they would. Unfortunately, despite this, they were unable to avoid the summer storms Twine had mentioned. At the end of a very hot and humid day, huge dark clouds began to gather in the south, piling up across the horizon, and the wind began to blow very strong.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I've never seen one like that this early in the season," Twine told Arai, his eyes on the sky. "We're in for it now."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"You can offer a prayer to Len, I suppose, or whichever god it is that you worship. Apart from that..." He shrugged. "We know what we're doing out here; we've been through bad blows before. It might be best if you went below, with your woman and your elf-girl."

"She's not my woman."

"Could've fooled me."

Captain Burt appeared. "He's right," he said. "The three of you will only get in the way up here."

He nodded. "Very well." He collected Lillandra and Shell and took them to their cabin. Shell climbed up into her hammock, while Lillandra settled herself down on a bench. Arai, too nervous to sit, began to pace.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?" Shell asked.

"Maybe. The crew looked pretty worried." He glanced at Lillandra. "Do you have any magic that might help us?"

She snorted. "Even I can't control the weather. Well, not without a zemi, anyway."

"You can control the weather with a zemi?" Shell asked.

"You can do anything with a zemi," she said. "A sorceress is limited only by her imagination, her skill at calculation, and the amount of magia she can gather." She frowned. "But I can't think of anything that might help us here. We'll simply have to trust the crew to do their jobs."

"What about the Mermaid's Glass?" Arai asked.

"What about it?"

"Didn't you say it would give us the power to breathe underwater? If the ship were to go down..."

"The magic would probably only last a couple of hours," she said. "And we're in the middle of the sea, beyond any hope of rescue. We'd just be delaying the inevitable."

She was probably right about that, but he told her to take it out anyway, just in case.

It didn't take long for the storm to arrive -- only a few minutes after this conversation, the wind and the waves began to batter the ship, and the crack of thunder overhead became constant. The ship was rocking so unsteadily that Arai had to give up his pacing and sit down on the bench, next to Lillandra, and grab hold of the side of it, to prevent his being thrown all over the cabin. Shell, in her swinging hammock, was not tossed about quite so much -- the hammock swung in concert with the motion of the ship -- but she looked absolutely terrified. "Are we going to die?" she asked, after a particularly nasty swell struck the ship.

"No," Arai said firmly.

"How do you know?"

"I just know. Dying at sea? After all we've been through?" He shook his head. "No."

Shell was not reassured, but she stopped asking questions after that.

An hour later, with the storm still raging, Arai decided to head up to the deck to see how the crew was faring. It was a difficult journey; he could barely make it up the steps for the rocking of the ship.

The storm proved to be even worse than he'd imagined it -- it was raining very hard, and the wind was so intense that it was impossible to move about without getting a grip on something first. The sky was pitch-black, but every few seconds it would light up with an incredible coruscating flash of lightning, which illuminated everything: the ship, the sea, and the shape of the clouds overhead.

Guided by the railing, and blinking the rain out of his eyes, Arai eventually managed to find his way to Captain Burt, who was standing in the middle of the deck, barking orders at his men. His expression was serious, but he did not look terribly worried. "I thought I told you to stay below," he growled at Arai.

"Just wanted to see how you were holding up," he said. He had to shout over the wind.

The captain shrugged his big shoulders. "It'll get worse before it gets better," he admitted.

"Are you sure there isn't anything I can do to help?"

"I suppose you could help man the pumps. I've got three men on 'em now, but I imagine we're taking on more than a bit of water."

Arai nodded. He stopped by the cabin to give Lillandra and Shell his report, then descended into the depths of the ship and spent the next hour helping the sailors fight the pumps. It was very hard work, pumping out the seawater, but it felt good to contribute.

The storm continued to rage, however, and around midnight the ship was struck by another huge wave, which threw them all off their feet. At the same moment, they heard a crack, followed by a tremendous boom -- the sound of something huge and heavy crashing into the deck.

"What the hell was that?" Arai asked.

"I think we've lost the mizzen-mast," Twine said, wincing.

"That doesn't sound good."

"It's not good. But there's nothing we can do about it now. Keep pumping!"

And so it went, on and on, throughout the night. Just before dawn, the storm finally began to weaken -- the rain stopped, the thunder rolled away, and the bright of the sky finally became visible overhead. Arai, completely exhausted, went up to the deck, where he found Captain Burt, grimacing. He could hardly blame him, for the ship was a mess -- the sails were ripped and ragged, the rigging was in total disarray, and worst of all, one of the three masts had broken off and crashed onto the deck. No one had been hurt, fortunately, but the damage to the ship was extensive.

"Well, this is a fine kettle of fish," the captain muttered, inspecting the damage.

"What's the plan?" Arai asked.

"We'll make for that island," he said, waving his hand in the direction of a small island, perhaps three miles across, that lay some distance to the west. It was the first land they had seen in several days. "There's more storms coming, and we'll never make it across the Phantic Gates in this shape. We'll have to make repairs." He gave Arai a kind of friendly smirk. "I hope you weren't in a hurry to get to Tax Trium."

"No," Arai sighed. "No hurry at all."