Dean stood in front of five unhappy looking men. One of them was holding a knife to this throat. He tried not to swallow.

"Sorry Emma" he said in a calming voice, not wanting to alarm his captors, "they got through the hatch."

Jeremiah sighed. "Should I just hop back through the door to my cell, or is there a second part to this rescue plan? Good to see you alive though, Dean."

"Nope, this is all I had" said Emma, staring at the knife. "Jeremiah, can you communicate with them?"

"Communicate? I don't really know the language. I've leaned little more than a few simple words over the last few days. Insults, exhortations to walk faster, that sort of thing. Nothing useful right now."

One of the men shouted. They didn't look quite human, Emma thought. There was something around the eyes that was subtly wrong. An alien tightness. She raised her hands slowly, raising Jeremiah's arm along with hers. "We surrender."

----------------------------------------

After their hands and feet had been bound, they were thrown back in the cell where they found Jeremiah, they were sat on the floor, back to back. Before long, the boat creaked and rolled and they were underway.

"It appears that I am not saved, in fact the situation is somewhat worse than before you intervened." said Jeremiah. "However! I am glad you tried, at least."

Dean struggled to half turn his neck to look at the others, Jeremiah's breath was sour this close, his body stinking of dried urine. He had clearly not been allowed to wash since being taken captive. "What happened to you after the thing in the classroom?" he asked.

"Well, the same as you, it seems. I tried to reduce the range of the banishment, but there was simply too much power. Even using the orb to amplify my own strength I wasn't able to shrink it fully. The backlash when I tried to compress it further threw me around a little, and I brushed the edge of the bubble with my leg, resulting in this." he shook his empty trouser leg.

"We arrived in a desert." said Emma.

"Yes, yes! Me too. Not far from the cliff. I crawled for a day, looking for you, water, people. Then this lot found me. I'm sure they were looking for the classroom -- they have a way of tracking where things arrive in hell -- I was not a very exciting catch for them, to be sure!"

"I'm glad they didn't find us, we weren't ready for that." said Dean. He tried to see Emma behind him, "Em, are you OK?"

"Yeah." she said, "winging it didn't go so great, huh?"

"Well, we found Jeremiah, so we somewhat succeeded." he said. He felt her back shake against his, laughter or tears? he wondered.

Something thunked against the hull of the ship. There was a bang. Shouts. A splash. More banging on the hull. They heard running feet on the deck above them and more shouting. A scream.

"Oh, what now." said Jeremiah in a weary voice, "can I not rest for a few hours before we are once again disturbed?"

Outside the cell, they heard the loading doors swing open with a crash. There were footsteps and muttered talking. Dean rolled onto his side and wriggled over to the grate on the door, tried to push it open with his nose so he could see what was going on. The door swung open before he could see anything, smacking him painfully in the face.

"Wait, wait, stop!" he shouted in pain.

The door stopped moving. "Dean?" it was Wilbur's voice.

"Wilbur?" said Dean.

He wriggled away from the door and Wilbur pushed it open carefully and peered inside. "Hi guys." he said, "we're here to save you, I guess. Trix and Salome are on deck somewhere, still. Is everyone alright?"

Dean stared at him from the floor. "I guess so, better now..."

Wilbur cut their bonds and they stood, rubbing their hands. He ushered them out and they hurried from the cell into the hold. As they entered, someone tumbled down the stairs from the deck, collapsing in a heap at their feet. Trix walked down behind him. Salome was perched neatly on her shoulder.

"Trix!" said Dean. He trailed off when she looked at him: her eyes were wild, staring, pupils dilated. She was breathing heavily, a bloody rock clutched in her good hand. "Dean." she said flatly. Dean glanced at Wilbur who shrugged back with a worried expression.

Trix kicked the man on the floor. "He's the captain. We locked the others in a cabin upstairs. Salome set the fear on them." She saw Dean staring at her blood soaked sleeve and added "One resisted."

"How did you find us?" said Emma to Wilbur.

"We floated into the net, some otter things picked us up. They freaked out when they saw Salome there, were going to kill us all I bet, throw us over the edge, in the end we had to give them the books, and they let us go, told us about you. We got a boat off them too, this old guy was really excited about all your books in different languages, Jeremiah."

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"Oh my, I'm sure he was." said Jeremiah, "those are worth as much as his village, I'd say."

"Yeah, Trix seemed to know it was worth showing them, that they'd be interested, somehow. She's ah, started being able to, like, understand people, know what they're thinking."

Jeremiah shuffled over, "oh, how fascinating, you have felt your power emerging since you arrived here -- I had the same feeling, a sense that the magic was more intense here. Empathy, eh? That sort of thing? Did that bastard cat teach you a few things?" He seemed half back to his old self, excited about this new puzzle.

Trix shrugged. "Started happening on the raft. We were stuck on it for days. Had nothing else to focus on. Salome explained a little."

"It was sure an exciting thing to discover while drifting aimlessly on a raft, yeah" said Wilbur

Trix turned on him. "I didn't use it on you on purpose, Wilbur. Stop fucking complaining. It saved us, didn't it, be grateful."

Salome raised a paw, lazily: "Perhaps we could all chat and catch up at some later date? I started a small fire in one of the cabins and I'd hate for everyone to burn alive down here after I spent so much effort finding you all."

"Yes." said Trix, she looked down at the captain who was still groaning on the ground where he had fallen. "Should I kill him?" she said, under her breath. Dean thought she was talking to herself until he noticed her glance at the cat on her shoulder.

"No!" Dean said quickly, "we shouldn't!"

Jeremiah was silent, looking grimly at the man who had been his captor for the last few days. "I can't say I'd miss him".

"Forget it" said Trix suddenly, "Our boat is attached to this one, let's go before it burns." She turned and stalked up the stairs. Wilbur followed behind, turning as he left to shoot them a glance, a look of we'll talk about this later!

Dean, Emma and Jeremiah followed in silence, emerging into the chaos of the deck. The brake had been pulled when the boat was attacked, but Dean's sabotage meant that only one of the waterwheels had stopped. The boat was now spinning in place, just in sight of the cliff-folk village. Fire and black smoke was pouring out of one cabin, a mad knocking and banging coming from the cabin next to it. This must be where the crew had been confined. In the middle of the deck a man's body, leaking blood onto the wet planks.

Trix and Wilbur headed for the side of the boat where a rope ladder had been attached. Trix threw her leg over and began to descend.

"Wait, Trix! We can't let these people burn to death" Dean shouted.

"They'd have done it to you. They'd have done worse to Emma." said Trix, already out of sight over the edge of the ship.

"We're better than them, Trix." she was already gone. "Bloody hell, Trix" he muttered, "Emma, you agree right?".

She nodded firmly. "If we loosen the rope holding that door closed a little, just before we go, we should give them a chance to escape without letting them get too close."

"Let's do it" said Dean, then stopped, "Wait! The slaves!"

"What slaves?" said Jeremiah, "I didn't see any but myself on the boat."

"How do you think the boat moves? They must be using slaves, down under the deck. I heard sounds down there, someone was startled when I dropped a pole. I'm going to check."

Dean ran back the way they had come and into the hold. The captain was no longer there. He searched the area with his eyes. The only other entrance he could see was the door next to the cell. It wasn't locked. He pushed it open. A short corridor lead to another room that seemed to be directly below the cabin that had been set on fire. The room was covered in straw. Cinders had fallen through the planks above, smouldering and filling the room with smoke.

"Hello?" Dean shouted into the smoke, "Is there anyone here?". He heard a frantic banging noise. "Are you tied up?" he shouted.

Through the smoke he could see the outline of a great cog, mounted horizontally on the floor of the ship. Turning the cog must cause the wheels to turn, he thought. He pushed into the room, holding his shirt up over his face to protect himself from the smoke. Suddenly his vision filled with sparks as something hit his head from behind. He fell to his knees. The captain had returned and was brandishing a heavy looking stick in one hand. He raised it again, ready to smash it into Dean's face, when the cog spun. A shape burst from the smoke and bowled into the man. A huge, four legged creature with long slender limbs. It pushed the captain to the ground, slamming at his head with its wide webbed feet, stamping again and again while bounding in place and honking excitedly. Finally it turned to Dean. It's long face looked like an especially forlorn platypus: small eyes and a wide break for a mouth.

Dean tried to thank it, but coughed as he inhaled the smoke. He pulled himself to his feet. He could see a yoke on the creature, attaching it loosely to the cog on the ground. He felt for a buckle, eyes stinging in the smoke, fumbling along the animals' body. It had thick brown fur, dirty and matted, patchy where the leather harness had rubbed it away. He found the buckle and pulled it back, levering the cracked leather belt away from the thing's body. It honked again, deafeningly loud in the tiny space, then fled the room, its webbed feet making a slapping noise as it ran.

Dean followed behind, head still spinning from the smoke and the impact, following the creature up onto the deck. Emma was busy at the door, working the rope loose a little.

"Let's go!" said Dean as he ran "we're taking that thing with us". Emma looked around in shock as the creature emerged onto the deck ahead of Dean, veered away from the fire in terror and honked loudly.

"Must we?" said Jeremiah, unsure.

"It saved my life just now. Yes, we take it." Dean took Jeremiah's arm and helped him over the edge of the boat. Emma followed, then Dean tried to convince the creature to come down with them.

"It's not going to climb down a ladder, Dean. It's not got hands." said Wilbur, from below.

"I know, Wilbur, it can jump down."

"I'm not sure that would be good for the boat, Dean." said Emma.

Salome peered up at the thing. "Absolutely not, I refuse to share this already overcrowded boat with that wretched stinking--"

Dean gave the creature a hard slap on the rump, and it finally leapt off the boat to land in the water where it happily paddled around for a while before slithering into the boat like a seal.

"You saved an aquatic mammal from drowning, Dean. Well done." said Emma, patting its side absent mindedly.

"Which way?" said Wilbur, who was already heaving at the oars, taking them to a safe distance from the ship.

Dean watched the stricken ship, now powerless, spinning slowly in place, billowing smoke. Soon those scavengers would escape, and find their dead captain, their ruined boat.

"Away" he said.