Set Sail

Once upon a time, I committed a burglary.

It was a couple of years before Grandpa Gruff whisked me away to Princess Twilight’s Friendship School. I noticed that a window had been left unlocked in one of the local shops in Griffonstone. The shopkeeper, Ginger, was one of the less-awful griffons there. She even gave me a discount once. Griffons never gave discounts. Maybe she pitied me, maybe she could write it off as a tax deduction. I never asked.

Even though I liked her more than most other griffons, there was no loyalty in Griffonstone. I slipped through that open window at night and stole everything I could carry. Granted, it was in the middle of a snowstorm and I hadn’t eaten in two days, so who really needed those cans of beans more?

Stealing out of desperation wasn’t the same as stealing just because you could. That was just evil—and exactly what the two hooded hippogriffs standing in the doorway were here to do. I took a step back. The first one stalked straight at me, while the other took up the flank and went around the sofa.

Back home, this wouldn’t have surprised me. Thefts happened all the time there. As soon as anyone knew you had something, you could expect them to try taking it from you. I just didn’t think the same rules applied on Mount Aris.

“W-what do you want?” I said through the tightness in my throat, holding up my talons.

Without saying anything, the hooded figure pointed their knife at me, a universal signal to back up. I complied, backpedaling a step.

“I don’t want any trouble,” I said, though I tensed my talons. “If you’re trying to rob me, I’m about flat broke. You could use some work on picking targets, if you ask me. In fact, you—yipe!”

The second hooded figure slammed a vase on the end table, sending it flying across the room where it smashed against the wall. “Shut up and back up, griffon.” His voice was a deep and masculine growl.

My rump pressed against the rear wall of the den, but I didn’t surrender. “Get out of my house!” I shouted.

“This is ours now,” said the first one, whose voice was silvery and feminine. She stepped over to the pot of wine. “And if you even think about trying to get it back, you’ll regret it.”

The sheer amount of effort contained in that pot flashed before my eyes. All of the work I’d done; all of the money it would bring; all of the things I was going to get for Silverstream—and they were going to steal it. Anger clouded my vision. If they wanted to rob me, they wouldn’t get it without a fight.

Hackles raised, I pounced at the high-voiced hippogriff next to the pot, where she was busying herself with the payload and didn’t fully anticipate my attack. She saw me at the last moment and started to feint, the punch aimed at her face glancing off the side of her head. Still, it knocked her back a step, and I whirled around to make another run.

The second thief was already in motion, and he caught me as I tried to make my next attack. His talons locked around my outstretched forearms, and before I could register what had happened, I was yanked sideways and sent careening across the room, where I crashed into the wall back-first.

The wind knocked from my lungs in the impact, but griffon reflexes were fast. I flapped my wings hard to propel myself across the room before he could get a second hit on me. No time to grab a weapon. I was outnumbered in a confined space, so I needed to get outside and figure out where to go—Diamond. Oh no.

Loyalty may have been scarce in Griffonstone, but I had just spent an entire year learning about it directly from the source. I skidded, talons biting into the wood floor as I redirected myself away from the open doorway. Of course this had to happen when she was upstairs. I couldn’t just leave her to fend for herself. No telling what they would do to her if they found her alone.

Low Voice, the one who had thrown me, was hot on my tail while High Voice stood in the center of the room near the wine pot, watching the chase. She was probably more concerned with the payload than with me, which was a good thing. I turned away from her and did a quick loop through the kitchen, drawing Low Voice away. One attacker at a time was more manageable.

Or so I thought until something whizzed past my ear and thunked into the wall just in front of my face. High Voice had throwing stars. Great. That sent a lance of fear through my guts. I skidded to a halt and dove through the center of the den, snagging a loose pillow off the couch to hold between High Voice and myself.

Putting on another burst of speed, I completed my first lap around the den and went back to the kitchen. Low Voice had already wised up and switched directions, closing on me from the front of the room.

“Hold still!” Low Voice boomed.

If I wasn’t running for my life, I would have laughed. “Oh what, so you can murder me easier?” To avoid the throwing stars, I focused on making my path more erratic, using my wings to give me a boost and add a vertical dimension to the chase. I sailed over Low Voice as I rounded the corner toward the front of the room. His talons swiped at the space just behind me. Another projectile sliced through the air just below me as I leapt over the couch.

I had to get out of there. It was only a matter of time until one of those things found its mark, and then it was curtains for me. The only thing keeping me from bolting for the door was the thought of leaving Diamond by herself with those two. There had to be a way to win the fight.

The pillow. It was hardly a weapon, but it was a distraction. As I came face to face with Low Voice in the kitchen, I threw the pillow as hard as I could right at his head. It hit its mark with a muted whump and a confused grunt from the hench griff. That was the opening I needed. I charged and put the full force of my body weight into his wrist.

With a jerk, the knife clattered to the floor and skidded into the wall under the cabinets. I didn’t have time to dodge before Low Voice threw the pillow aside and clawed at me, skimming talons across my lower back but not connecting the blow with full force.

I lunged for the knife and snagged it, whirling around to face my attacker. “Get away from me!” I snarled with a warning slash through the air. I raised my wings to up my intimidation factor. “Leave. Now.”

Realizing he’d been disarmed, Low Voice took a step back but kept a ready stance. “Hey, Nephele?”

“Don’t use names, dumbass.” came the reply from the den.

“Oh, sorry.” Come to think of it, Low Voice did have a noticeably slow speech pattern.

“What do you want?”

“He got my knife.”

A pause, then a groan. “So take it from him.”

“Uh, I don’t think he’s gonna let me.”

“Do I have to do everything for you?” Before High Voice—Nephele—finished speaking, her hooded form stepped into view with a throwing star at the ready. I ducked as it whizzed through the air where my head had been, embedding itself in the wall over the stove. “Drop the knife, griffon. I won’t try to miss you with the next one.”

With projectiles back in the equation, my next move was to bolt toward the relatively free space of the den, then get outside and draw them to less-confined quarters. Or at least that’s what I would have done.

Unfortunately, dodging the throw took just enough of my speed away to let Low Voice dash forward and tackle me to the ground. He pinned me to the floor with his talons and stomped on my wrist with a hind hoof. I squawked in pain. The knife clattered to the ground. My wings were pressed out flat on the floor and my talons bound, and that was when the fear truly set in.

“I got him! Nice try, griffon,” shouted the hippogriff on my back, a cackle escaping his beak. He grabbed a towel off the counter and shoved it into my beak just before I could bite his talon off. “What do you think, Nephele? Broken wings for all the trouble?”

“I think you should stop using my name around a mark,” she scolded. “Now he knows who I am, Seastar.”

“Oh, I didn’t even think of that,” said Seastar.

“Thinking never was your strong suit.”

Utilizing the distraction of their bickering, I struggled against Seastar’s weight and managed to slip an arm free, clawing for the knife. I could just brush a talon against it. All I needed was one tiny little push…

Another painful stomp on my wrist from Nephele’s hind hoof clouded my vision with tears. “Feisty, aren’t you?” She knocked the knife to the other side of the room and leaned down into my face, fixing me with a glare. “The more you struggle, the worse this is gonna be.”

My heart raced, pounding in my ears as I awaited whatever they would do. I was trapped. Helpless. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I would have sobbed if not for the towel blocking my throat.

“What the hell is going on down here?”

Everyone’s heads snapped to the hallway entrance, where Diamond stood scowling.

With the diversion, I managed to wriggle another arm free and tear the gag out of my mouth. “Run!” I shouted, writhing to throw the hippogriff off my back with little success. My wing joints twisted painfully at awkward angles under the weight.

To my horror, Diamond didn’t run. She stood her ground, crouching low like she was ready to pounce. Nephele took a step forward, throwing star palmed and ready. I shut my eyes tight so I wouldn’t have to see—

“Diamond?”

I opened my eyes and looked up. Nephele had removed her hood. She was the blue hippogriff from the smugglers' den.

“Nephele?” said Diamond.

“Di!” Nephele cawed, her voice…joyful? “What are you doing here?”

“I should ask you the same thing.” Diamond pointed at me. “What’s the deal with him?”

“It’s business,” said Nephele. “You wouldn’t happen to be working with him, would you?”

Diamond made a significant glance down at me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You know this griffon?”

“He’s a friend.”

“And you’re not going into business with him?”

The dots were connecting in Di’s eyes. “I hadn’t planned on it, no.”

“Well, that makes this a lot more complicated.” Nephele tucked her throwing star under her robe. “I’ve got orders.”

Diamond raised an eyebrow. “To do what, exactly?”

“I can’t tell you. You’re not part of the organization anymore.”

That got a laugh out of Diamond. “Listen to you, all serious. Are you some kind of secret agent now?”

“I’m an operative,” she said, her voice tinged with a bit of acid at Diamond’s condescension.

“Cuda must have made some big changes,” Diamond said with another dry chuckle. “He’s still in charge, right?”

“He is,” Nephele deadpanned.

Diamond’s joviality dropped away like a sandbag from a hot air balloon. “Then I know it isn’t that serious. Are you really about to kill him? What did he even do?”

“He’s competition,” Seastar piped up. I got a look at the pink feathers on his wrist. He was the other griff I’d given the sample to.

Nephele whipped her head around to glare at him. “Shut up, Seastar.”

“What? I thought that was vague enough.”

Diamond held out her wings and shushed the two. “I think I get it now,” she said. “Trying to force out the competition. I just didn’t think Barracuda had it in him to order something like…this.”

“We were just supposed to scare him and steal his supply. Then he started putting up a fight.”

“I said shut your mouth,” Nephele growled, smacking him in the side of the head with a wing. She blew out a tense breath. “It wasn’t supposed to get this messy, but someone decided to make things difficult,” she said, glancing down at me.

Diamond nodded and fixed a stern glare on Nephele. “Look, I don’t know what he did, but he’s my friend. I can’t just let you do whatever to him.”

“And how are you gonna stop us?” said Seastar with what I could only assume was a filthy smirk, though I couldn’t see his face.

“You don’t want to find out,” said Diamond, her face darkening as her hackles bristled. I’d never seen her look so scary.

Nephele held out her wings and stepped between the other two. “There’s no need for that,” she said. “Diamond is an old friend—” she looked at Seastar “—and quite frankly, you’d lose that fight.” She then turned to Diamond. “If you have a problem with the way we conduct our business, you can take it up with Barracuda.”

“All you have to do is leave the griffon alone,” Diamond said. “I’m sure he won’t be any more trouble for you. Right, Gallus?”

“Right, no trouble here,” I croaked against the weight of the hippogriff standing on my back. It was getting difficult to breathe.

“It’s that or we fight it out,” said Nephele with a shrug. “I’d rather not do that, but two against one isn’t the best odds for you, Diamond.”

“Two on two,” Diamond snorted with a nod at me.

“Oh no, he’d be unconscious if it went that route.” Nephele nodded at Seastar, who raised a fist over my head. I gulped. “Maybe dead,” she continued, “depends on how hard we hit him.”

I shook my head in a silent plea to Diamond, and she sighed. “Fine. We’ll go talk to Barracuda.”

Heavy silence felt even more unnerving in a place usually so deafening. It was well past midnight, and Meistra’s had closed for the night—at least the public-facing parts of it were. The back rooms where I thought I had secured a business deal hours before still hummed with muffled voices behind a closed door.

I sat and stared at that door with my head hanging low. I felt like an idiot. Had a year in Equestrian friendship school really made me that naive? Did every lesson learned over a lifetime of fending for myself go by the wayside the moment I felt like I had friends I could trust?

I should have checked to make sure I wasn’t followed home. One of the oldest tricks in the book, and I fell for it.

Now, Diamond was on the other side of that door saving my hide. I couldn’t make out what was being said, nor could I try to eavesdrop with two scowling hippogriff toughs sitting on either side of me to ensure I behaved myself. I had to sit still and wait. It was over half an hour before the door opened and Nephele waved me in. The two goons flanking me nodded, and I entered the closet.

My clay pot was the new centerpiece of the closet, surrounded by Diamond and Seastar on the right, Nephele on the left, while the red-feathered ringleader, Barracuda, leaned casually in the far corner swishing around a cup full of wine. My wine. I wanted to swat it out of his hand, but I diplomatically took a seat near the door.

“Okay, I’ll start with an apology,” said Barracuda, looking at Diamond and then to me. “I apologize for trying to steal your product. It was unprofessional, and you should have been treated with more dignity,” he said, with a glare each for Seastar and Nephele. “That said, look at this from my point of view. I don’t know you, and you come in here wheeling and dealing, acting like you own the place. I can’t trust just anybody, and when you walked out that door, I was halfway convinced you were undercover for the naval police. Call it a big misunderstanding.”

So you commit more felonies by breaking and entering to make off with the booze I was supposedly trying to entrap you with? That’s almost so dumb that it’s smart—I wanted to say. Diamond’s stern gaze convinced me to keep the snark to myself. “Okay,” I said.

Barracuda took a swig of the wine and continued. “See, this is good stuff. A little unrefined, but it’s got real potential.” As if he knew anything about quality hooch. He pointed to Diamond. “Glitzy here is sticking her neck out to convince me that I should take you seriously. She thinks you’re pretty special.”

Wait, really? I tried to read her expression at a glance, but she kept her face flat.

“Special enough to put herself between you and Nephele, that’s saying something,” Barracuda continued. “Maybe I’m going soft, but her word is good enough for me. If you want a deal, you got a deal. As we discussed.” He clicked his talons at Seastar, who produced a small cloth pouch that jingled as he passed it to me. “That covers this batch plus a little extra for the trouble these two caused you. Going forward, I’ll take a batch per week at the previously agreed rate.”

Judging by the heft, it was easily a couple hundred bits. The pouch was easily triple my usual salary from the navy. For one batch. It was more money than I had ever made in a week—money that would make me a good boyfriend for Silverstream. Barracuda watched me with a smirk and appraising eyes. Despite the urge to be spiteful, it was hard to argue with talons full of gold. “Okay.”

“Good,” said Barracuda, standing up to signal the end of the meeting. He offered me a handshake, which I obliged quickly and wasted no time getting out of there. He brushed a wing against Diamond’s as she headed for the door, and I thought I saw the faintest flash of discomfort in her eyes. “Good to see you again, Glitzy. Don’t be a stranger.”

The trip back to the apartment passed in tense silence, Diamond walking alongside me through the deserted streets of Mount Aris. The faint rattle of my payment was the only sound between us. Up until tonight, I knew little about Diamond outside of the few times we had talked, but now it was like I was walking next to an entirely different hippogriff. I could infer a lot of things from what I had seen, but there were so many things I wanted to ask now.

But when I looked over to her, with her eyes locked forward and jaw clenched tight, I could tell that she didn’t want to answer any questions. But after nearly getting my wings broken or worse, she didn’t get to stonewall me this time. I needed answers. Once we had privacy, I had to ask.

As the apartment door closed behind me, I opened with: “What was all that about?”

“Really, Gallus?”

“What?”

“You could start with thank you,” she deadpanned. “‘Thank you, Diamond, for stopping those two-bit smugglers from breaking my wings and turning me into a flightless bird.’ Something to that effect.”

“Thanks,” I said, hoping that would fulfill the obligation.

Diamond scoffed. “Your grateful voice could use some work. Seriously, what were you thinking? Selling liquor to a bunch of thugs? Do you know anything about who you were trying to sell to?”

I flared my wings indignantly. “Whoa, hey, you seemed to know those thugs.”

She leaned against the door and rolled her eyes. “That’s not the issue here.”

“How did you know them?” I pressed.

“Nuh-uh, you’re not turning this around on me. Seriously, Gallus. Do you know how close you came to getting yourself hurt, maybe kidnapped or killed?

My face heated up a bit. “But I didn’t though. Everything worked out.”

“If I hadn’t been here, they could have done anything to you. You would have been helpless.”

Thinking back to the panic of being pinned down and gagged, I shuddered. “I would have figured my way out of it.”

She paused for a moment, fixing me with a deeply analytical stare. “What would Silverstream think if you disappeared without a trace?”

The bubble popped. I pictured Silverstream frantically searching the house for any sign of where I’d gone, tears staining her cheek feathers. Even if I had been kidnapped, it would look like I’d run away to her—just like I had threatened right up to the moment she kissed me. “She’d be devastated,” I admitted, the last of my defiance leaving with the words.

“Yeah, she would be. Gallus, you are dealing with criminals. They only want two things: money, and staying out of jail. If you look like you might jeopardize either, then you’re going to get dealt with.”

“It was a mistake. I should have been more careful.”

“And now you got me dragged into that whole mess.” Diamond fluffed her wings out.

I crossed my arms and averted my eyes toward the floor. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Well, it did,” she said flatly. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to break things off with them last time?”

“They sounded pretty friendly toward you.”

Diamond took a deep breath. “They’re not my friends,” she said. “I used to work with them, now I don’t.”

It was a little easier to look at her now that I wasn’t being actively chastised. “You used to smuggle wine?”

Diamond shook her head. “The booze thing they’re doing is new. When I worked with them, it was all sorts of different stuff. You know about the Storm King, right?”

“Silverstream told me about him a few times.”

“Before he was gone, that was what I did. Supply runs. There were all kinds of things that we couldn’t get underwater, so I was one of the seaponies who risked swimming out to port towns for supplies. At least, you know, the stuff that could survive the trip.”

“So you were a smuggler?”

Diamond shook her head. “It didn’t start out that way. Over the years, more and more things found their way into the supply runs that weren’t supposed to be there. By the time Liberation came around, it was almost all smuggling.” She scratched at the feathers on her arms. “I never liked it all that much, but I was pretty good at keeping things quiet. When we got to come back to Mount Aris, I cut ties with Barracuda and got out. I’ve got the business my parents used to run going again.”

“Did they retire?”

A hollow expression crossed her face, the sort of look I knew all too well. “I never found them after the invasion.”

Silent understanding took over for a moment. I wondered how many other hippogriffs had lost their family members when the Storm King invaded. Ty was old enough to have been alive back then; did he lose anyone?

“I’m sorry,” I said feebly, more as an obligation than anything. I knew how little it did to close that gap.

She brushed it off. “Ancient history. I’m staying away from them because I like not being in jail, and here you go dragging me back in.”

“Sorry for that, too.”

“Look.” Diamond shuffled over and put a talon on my shoulder. “I can’t tell you what to do. If you want to get wrapped up in smuggling, that’s your problem. Just leave me out of it, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “And thanks again for saving my butt back there.”

Diamond smirked. “That’s a better grateful voice. I’m glad you didn’t get your wings snapped.” She turned for the exit but paused at the door. “You’ve got the deal you want, but don’t be surprised when they try to take more from you. It’s never enough for Barracuda. Heck, he’ll probably try to make me some kind of offer in a few days, now that he remembers I exist. Just keep your beak clean and don’t let them get leverage on you.”

“That’s lesson number one in Griffonstone,” I said with a dry laugh.

“Then you’ll be alright,” she said, opening the door. At the same moment, the clattering of a bowl in the kitchen drew both of our attention.

Ty was standing there with a box of cereal in his talons. “Hey Di,” he said.

“Hey yourself,” she said quickly. “I came by earlier but you weren’t here.”

“I went out for a bit,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.

Diamond eyed him up and down. “Figured. Your medicine is on the nightstand.”

“I found it. Thanks.” He gave a small smile that withered quickly as he looked back at his food, avoiding eye contact. Diamond seemed frozen in place, her own smile turning more awkward as the seconds ticked by.

Just when I thought the tension couldn’t get any worse, another set of footsteps joined the mix as a pale orange hippogriff emerged from the hall that led up to Ty’s room. His mane was a mess and his eyes looked sleepy. “Ty, where did you say the bathroom was again—oh, uh...”

Everyone stared at the newcomer. He stared back. All eyes were wide, beaks closed tight.

The standoff lasted for a few breathless seconds before Diamond finally broke it. “I was just leaving. Goodnight,” she said as she breezed out the door.

“Alright! Are you two ready to make history?”

Tali stared at me, eyes alight with her trademark boundless enthusiasm. I nodded, and then she gave a quick nod to the second zebra in the room.

“I am ready,” said Delian. He gave Tali an affirming nod. “Before we get into the dive suits, are you certain that we are in the correct position?”

“Positive, but if you want to check again,” said Tali, unrolling the map onto the navigator’s desk that we had commandeered for our pre-dive check. “We are here. The wreck site has to be somewhere in this radius. All we have to do is get down to depth and activate the Sniffer probe, then we follow the signal home.”

I tuned out as Tali and her friend continued to discuss the specifics of our mission. In the week since our reunion, I had already gotten plenty of earfuls to know the plan by heart. Dive to find the wreck site of Intrepid Zephyr—an airship that had crashed offshore from the Ornithian coast about twenty years ago. It was rumored that the ship carried immense riches from King Eclectus’s royal treasury. Gold, silver, and gemstones galore—and most importantly, a spear forged out of platinum and obsidian that could wield the power of all the fires of the earth: The Spear of Vulcanis.

If it was still there at the bottom of the sea, it would make me the most dangerous parrot in the world. Or so the stories said.

I knew magic was real. I had seen the wondrous feats it could accomplish, but that power was reserved for those either virtuous enough to wield it or wicked enough to abuse it. Clearly, I was not the former, but the question remained about the latter. Perhaps it would be answered today.

Perhaps this was all a boondoggle and everything would crumble to dust anyway.

The outcome depended on the success of the mission, and that was almost entirely out of my control. That was why Delian was here. He was a diver by trade; his expertise and equipment could get us to the ocean floor. Tali had designed and built a device that could detect disruptions to the ambient magic field that tended to happen around powerful artifacts.

And then there was me, the one whom this plan most directly benefited, with nothing to contribute. I was to stand guard while Tali and Delian did the work at the wreck site. Through no small miracle, this crew of zebras happened to have a single dive suit designed for bipeds like me.

I hated the plan. I hated how little I was needed. I hated how dependent I was on its success. And I especially hated Delian.

“Suits are prepped, ready when you are,” came the voice of a third zebra as she poked her head in.

“Thank you, Nela,” said Delian, giving her a smile and a nod. “We will be along shortly.”

He was the sort of zebra who was born to be a leader—confident, charming, relaxed under pressure. While he did not have the aspirations to carry him to positions of true power, he led his team with a level of grace and respect that made me envious. His team did not require the promise of splendor or threat of reprimand to stay in line. They all seemed to treat each other as equals and as friends. There was little visible hierarchy. Except for some executive decisions, it was a free-for-all—unthinkable to me, and yet it worked.

That friendliness extended to Tali, as well. She had brought Delian and his crew in on the plan because they were childhood friends from the same school, apparently close enough that they regularly kept in contact. She didn’t even need to lure him in with the promise of sunken treasure; he was ready to assist from the moment she asked.

Everything and everyone was harmonious on this ship—except for me, the strange parrot Tali had brought along.

Suiting up was a herculean effort that required assistance from two creatures to fit the heavy canvas suit over my body. It was clear that even though the suit fit bipeds, it was designed for bodies with more substantial frames than parrots. The helmets were the last step, and those would be fitted outside.

Starting from the lower decks, it was an arduous trek to the main deck. Each step was a struggle, requiring a burst of effort to swing my legs forward. When that seemed difficult enough, I reached the ladder that led to the main deck.

I was panting by the time I reached the open air nearly a full minute behind Tali and Delian. The rest of the crew was waiting. As the dome-shaped helmet slid into place, all sounds became muffled. The world was reduced to a tiny viewport in front of my face, crisscrossed by a grid of metal bars. The air grew stale and heavy with every breath. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to get out.

But then the lifeline was connected and oxygen rushed in.

“Air coming through?” asked Nela, the dive tender.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Good. There’s a valve where the line connects to your helmet. Whatever you do, don’t close it,” she warned.

“Understood.”

A test of the communication system built into the helmet brought outside sounds and voices, and suddenly it wasn’t so terrible inside the suit. The air supply was cool and crisp. The suit inflated slightly around my body as the pressure rose. The suits were in working order, the air pumps were operational, and all was ready.

Nela gave us clearance to proceed. I took one last look up at the clear blue sky through the helmet’s tiny viewport, and then I jumped.

Plunging into the sea was something I had carefully avoided for most of my life. That was, until today.

All outside sounds drained away as I sank the first few meters, and I truly felt alone for the first time in recent memory. Being in charge of a supposed upheaval of the power structures that governed the South Sea left me with little time to myself. Always a move to plan, underlings to keep in line, mountains of boring administrative worries just to keep everything running smoothly.

In that moment, it was just me, my thoughts, and the steady hiss of air flowing into my helmet from the umbilical line. Weightless, suspended in the all-consuming embrace of the ocean.

The solace only lasted a moment. Splash. Splash. As soon as the other divers entered the water, the speaker in my helmet crackled to life.

“Artie, do you copy?” said Vitali, her voice like a hollow, tinny shell of its usual sound.

“I hear you,” I said, shaking my head.

“Welcome to Poseidon’s abyss,” said Delian. “Make sure to hold onto the guidelines until we are certain that it is safe to proceed.”

Lacking a reference point through the tiny, cramped windows in the helmet, I hadn’t noticed that I was sinking like a stone. I reached out blindly until I found one of the ropes dangling from our ship into the depths.

“I still wish we could have used the pearl shards,” I grumbled.

“And you still could if you don’t mind getting crushed by thirty atmospheres of pressure!” said Tali with what I knew was a cheeky grin.

“And these suits won’t get crushed?”

“Not as long as the umbilical cable stays attached,” said Delian, dropping down his guideline to an even depth with me. “Home base, status report.”

“Everything nominal. Begin descent,” said Nela’s crackly voice from the deck.

“Copy.” Delian gave a slow and clunky nod in my direction before loosening his grip on the rope and beginning to slide down. Tali and I did the same.

“How far down do we have to go, again?” I asked.

“It depends,” said Vitali. “It could be about two hundred meters. Maybe five hundred. Either way, we’re going to be well into the mesopelagic zone.”

“You say that like I have the slightest idea what it means.”

“The twilight zooone!” Tali clarified, stretching out the word for dramatic effect. “There’s barely any light and the pressure is crazy. And the sea creatures start looking weirder with every meter you drop.”

“It is nothing these suits cannot handle,” said Delian, seeming to sense the nervousness in my lack of response. “I will be with you every step of the way.”

I should have felt comforted by that, but it only furthered my annoyance. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Just think!” Vitali’s voice echoed through my helmet, partly obscured by static. “You’re probably going to be the first air-breather to see this part of the ocean. You can add ‘explorer’ to your resume.”

First to see an uninhabitable waste, I wanted to say but held my tongue. Tali’s enthusiasm was beginning to lose its charm, at least at this moment with every spare thought directed at the ever-increasing weight of the water above my head. A few minutes passed in silence as our little party sank, and it gifted me with a rare moment of clarity.

I was going to die soon.

Perhaps not here, perhaps not now, but it lurked around every corner. This underwater snipe hunt struck me as an indicator of how well things were going in the life of Captain Artemis Sternclaw—sinking into darkness toward an uncertain goal. At the mercy of what little luck I had left. Surrounded by forces that would like nothing more than to crush me.

It was growing tiresome to constantly live in a metaphor. I could never go back to how things were before. The hippogriffs would find me eventually. If I ran away, their allies the world over would be happy to make the arrest on their behalf. The only path that went anywhere was forward, into this gamble that might give me the power to take them on. If not, at least it would finish the inscription on my tombstone.

Staring ahead at the abyss that we were descending into, I felt little hope. What was the point? What had I done all of this for, anyway? Money? Power? Status? Like the ocean’s surface far above, those things grew ever more unattainable the further I sank into the mess I’d made. The only question was how soon it would drown me.

My eyes flicked toward my suit’s air valve. The only thing protecting me from the sea’s cruel depths. Small, narrow, fragile. All it would take was a quick slash to the lifeline, and then the water would rush in and restore the balance.

It could end right here, right now. On my terms.

“I see the ocean floor! We’re almost there.” Tali’s voice tore me from my mental spiral, and I peered out to see a growing darkness rising up from below. A small puddle of light from our dive suits appeared as we closed the last few meters.

A cloud of sand and dirt billowed up as our feet hit the ground, which I noted was steeply sloped. “Touchdown. Depth: two-seven-nine. Beginning walk,” Delian called out on the radio, a short acknowledgment from the crew up on deck answering him.

“Activating the Sniffer,” Tali said as she fiddled with the small crystal-bearing device attached to the outside of her foreleg. A green glow joined the bluish-white of the spotlights on our shoulders.

I spun around in place, attempting to get my bearings. “Is it working?” The nervousness in my voice was barely hidden.

“Give me a minute,” Tali said, continuing her work. I had little clue how the Sniffer worked. It wasn’t particularly important that I did; Tali had gotten straight to work on it when we hatched this scheme at Black Skull Island. All it needed to do was point us toward the treasure we sought. “Okay, we’re up and running!”

“Which way?” Delian asked, his voice calm and even.

I craned my neck forward inside of the rigid helmet, attempting to see more of what was happening around me. Tali was obviously doing the same, though her attention was directed squarely at the device on her leg.

“The strongest signal is coming from the south. Looks like we’re going down the slope,” she said.

“Lead the way,” said Delian, and we began to carefully float our way down the incline. “I do not remember hearing the story of this wreckage we are looking for. What sank this ship?”

“It was a crash first, then a sinking,” Tali answered. “It was called Intrepid Zephyr, one of the original Ornithian airships built for King Eclectus.”

“The original,” I corrected.

There was a short, annoyed pause before Tali continued, and I smirked to myself. “Right. When the Storm King first took over this area, this ship made a run for it. They only lasted a couple of hours before the yeti caught up and shot them down.”

“Did any of the crew survive?” asked Delian.

“I never heard of any that made it.”

I chimed in, “If any of them survived falling into the ocean and then sinking, I would hire them in a heartbeat.”

“What a horrible tragedy.”

A dry chuckle escaped me. “Don’t feel so bad. They were trying to take advantage of the chaos and make off with the royal treasury. Just a bunch of thieves.”

“Huh. I always thought they were trying to warn others of the Storm King’s approach,” said Tali.

“That’s the propaganda version. The reality of it was a lot less glamorous.”

“And how do you know that?” Tali asked.

“Grand gestures are rare. There’s almost always an ulterior motive,” I said.

“And we are looking for this treasure now.” There was a pause before Delian spoke again. “Does that not make us thieves too?”

“Us? No, we’re explorers. We are recovering this treasure and raising it to the surface so the world can see it again! And if we make a profit on the side, why not get rewarded for our efforts?”

“Yes, very noble of us,” Tali chimed in, though her tone betrayed her disenchantment with our motives.

The light continued to fade as we descended the slope; it even became so steep in some spots that it was more of a cliff, rocks jutting out from the sand at random and giving us footholds. At least floating down through the water made it much less precarious than it would have been in air. Every sound the dive suit made, every creak and groan as it held back the increasing pressure outside, sent shivers down my spine.

The dim silhouette of the metal bars guarding my viewport was inescapable, following everywhere I turned my head. It was just like being back in a prison cell. I could practically smell the wretched place. Sulfur. Sweat. Filth. The regular prison cells at Black Skull Island were awful enough, defined by regular beatings from the guards, long hours of forced labor, and just enough food to keep you from starving to death.

But deep beneath the island, there was a tunnel that led down. A steep spiral toward the center of the volcano, which still held plenty of heat despite its long dormancy. Maybe it was dug in search of treasures, maybe it was made just to torture the prisoners. The guards diplomatically referred to it as ‘solitary confinement’.
The prisoners called it The Broiler. The tunnel ended when those digging it could no longer press on, the heat of the rocks enough to scald them. A small cluster of crude cells had been constructed down there—cages built like livestock pens. Misbehaving prisoners were sometimes hauled down there, kicking and screaming, to sit in the intense heat for however long the guards saw fit. Claw marks lined the tunnel floors from their desperate resistance. Many never came back, expiring in just a few hours from heat stroke when the guards forgot about them.

The bars on my helmet felt just as inescapable as The Broiler. I was sent there once after an escape attempt, locked into the dim cell amid the sweltering heat, clinging to a small wooden stool that was just slightly cooler than the scalding hot rocks underfoot. The air was thick and panting gave no relief. First, it was painful. Then excruciating. Everything I touched was burning hot. I screamed until my throat went hoarse, begging to be set free.

Then the delirium set in. Hallucinations of water just outside the cage bars, of polar bears passing by on ice skates. The room began to spin as the most splitting headache of my entire life split my skull just before I collapsed. I woke up in the infirmary two days later with shallow burns where I had fallen to the floor.

“I’m getting something,” Tali said, holding up a foreleg to stop the group and ripping me from the horrid memory. The device embedded in her suit thrummed with a faint green glow as she swept it in an arc across the darkness ahead. “The signal is getting stronger. We’re close.”

A stirring in my chest perked me up. “Which way?”

She pointed a bit left of straight down the slope, and wordlessly started downward again, keeping her leg with the scanner attached held out. The pressure vessel creaked ominously around my head.

Just keep moving forward, I urged myself.One step at a time. So great was my focus that I found myself holding my breath until my lungs ached for air. Small clouds of sand and mud drifted up from each step, leaving the water surrounding us slightly murky in our wake. The spotlights pierced through the haze, but I wondered how much more disturbing the ocean floor we could do before we lost sight of each other.

With every extra meter of depth, the life around us grew stranger. Our lamps must have been totally foreign to the inhabitants of these depths, drawing many curious fish and squid to investigate. The fish were grotesque caricatures of ones I knew from shallower waters. Their eyes took up larger and larger shares of their faces. They lacked color, being either a sickly gray or sometimes translucent. Some glowed with luminescent stripes along their bodies. Some had appendages dangling from their heads with a dimly glowing bulb on the tip—those also boasted mouths full of spiky, gnarled teeth.

“I’m glad that all of these fish are so much smaller than us,” I said as one of them bumped against the glass of my helmet, giving me a split second of dead-eyed stare before it flitted away. “Freaky-looking things.”

“To them, we are probably the freaks,” said Delian.

Vitali didn’t respond for a moment, seemingly in deep concentration, but then she added: “Just keep your harpoons ready.”

Seemingly the moment the words left her lips, a wave in the water buffeted against my suit. It was subtle, but it stood out against the gentle currents of the deep. Then another, this time a little stronger. A chill shot down my spine, and I shuddered. “Did either of you feel that?”

There was a pause as the others thought about what they had just heard. Delian responded, “It was probably a passing wave, nothing to mind.”

“Or it could be a Kraken,” I mused.

“I strongly doubt that,” said Delian with a chuckle. “I have been diving for fifteen years and I have never seen one. Kraken are just an old sailors myth.”

It did little to assuage my fears, but I didn’t argue.

“We have to be getting close,” said Tali after another minute of silence. “All of the eyewitness accounts said that the ship went down three kilometers off Puffin Point. I’m getting a signal, but I can’t zero in on the source. We have to be close, we just have to be.”

“Is there anything that could disrupt your device?” Delian asked.

“The fact that it’s lighting up at all is a good sign,” said Tali. “How much deeper can these suits take us?”

“We are three hundred seventy meters from the limit,” he replied.

“Then we go deeper.” Tali pushed herself forward, and we followed her.

Minutes of trudging through the inky blackness felt like hours. I kept my gaze down, focusing on my feet. One step after the next. One extra meter away from the open sky at a time. One meter closer to crush depth.

“There!” I looked up to see Tali pointing ahead at a vague shape that loomed in the darkness ahead. The green light on her wrist had grown brighter.

I turned my light forward, but it was difficult to make anything out through the tiny viewport.

“Is that—?” Delian wondered.

An exuberant cackle from Tali cut him off. “We found it! That’s Intrepid Zephyr!”

Maybe Tali was going to get me out of this mess after all.

Tali bounded forward, leaving me and Delian to follow through the cloud of silt she kicked up. The wreck loomed like a great leviathan, only a small bit of its mass visible at a time thanks to the low light. I knew the ship’s class, and it was considerably larger than more typical Ornithian ships. After all, it had belonged to the king; why wouldn’t it be the biggest?

But it was not as tall as it had once been. Support beams jutted out from the splintered sides of the hull, some of which had pancaked down onto each other. It was obvious that when this thing hit bottom, it did with great force and also probably rolled several times due to the sloping terrain. Whether the sediment had simply accumulated over the years or the keel had been driven into the ocean floor like a stake, none of the ship’s bottom was visible. The gas envelope had long since been lost to the currents.

“Vitali, please be careful,” Delian pleaded. “This does not look safe.”

She ignored him, charging forward at what would have been a gallop were she not slowed down by the heavy dive suit and the countless tons of seawater over her head. “There has to be an easier way inside. What if there was—aha! A breach!” She began running as fast as the water would allow her toward what looked like the ship’s stern. A cloud of sediment followed her, partly obscuring her from view. “Someone give me a boost!”

“On it,” I said, brushing past Delian as I offered my services. Tali was surprisingly easy to lift up to the opening, even with the hundred-pound dive suit. The hull had been blown inward with some visible charring on the wood around the edges. Was this the ship’s mortal wound, or had something else brought her down?

Tali disappeared into the wreck, her air line trailing behind her and dragging against the rotten wood. A small chunk of it gave way just from the gentle pressure of the hose. “How does it look in there?”

“It’s a mess,” said Tali. “This thing is really starting to break down. My hooves keep punching through the floorboards.”

“Any sign of the spear?”

“As strong as the signal is, I’m sure it’s here. It was the most powerful artifact in the Ornithian treasury. That kind of power is hard to hide.”

At that moment, a prickle ran down my spine. I spun around to face the inky darkness of the abyssal plain. I felt like I was being watched.

On instinct, I reached down to pull out a pistol from my gun belt, but found the dive suit instead. Just another reason I didn’t want to be here. A harpoon strapped to my back was not nearly as comforting.

“Do you feel like something is off?” Delian asked.

“I do,” I said. “Make it snappy in there, Tali. Something out here is giving us the creeps.”

The intercom crackled for a moment. “I’m getting the creeps too. There’s a bunch of skeletons in here. I think this wreck is haunted.”

“You could say we’re doing a form of grave robbing.” My quip was met with silence, and I turned my attention back toward the nothingness that surrounded us. A few of the strange deep sea fish had come over to investigate the lights our expedition had brought into their home, normally devoid of light. Their eyesight must not have been good, because several of them bumped into me before I shooed them away. Pale, gnarled, disgusting little creatures they were.

More static in the headset, then Tali’s voice burst forth loudly enough to pierce my ears. “Holy horseradish, there it is! I found it!” She cackled like a madmare, and my guts turned so light I could have floated back to the surface on that alone. “I have it! There’s also a ton of other treasure down here.”

“Grab what you can and let’s get out of here,” I said, my tone light and airy for the first time in weeks. “What does it look like?”

“It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” was all she gave for a description. “Okay, the bag is full. I’m on my way out.”

“Be careful,” said Delian.

I set my eyes on the hole, watching as Tali’s air line slowly backed out of the breach in the hull. Intense warmth flooded all of my limbs. It was hope. Not the fleeting moments where I thought I might beat the odds for another day. This was the answer to my problems, a gift of providence that might show me a way out. True, genuine hope.

Finally, a leg appeared, and Tali dropped out of the breach with a long, silvery spear with a wide head. A triangular orange gem was embedded in the blade, shimmering against our spotlights as it caught some of the first light it had seen in twenty years. Intricate, swirling engravings decorated the blade. Orange and red lines coursed down the weapon’s shaft, pulsing with a faint glow of raw power in dormancy.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, beak hanging agape.

“Oh, you flatterer. I didn’t even put on any makeup this morning,” Tali snorted.

“If not for the helmet, I could kiss you.” I gestured toward the spear. “May I?”

With careful movements of reverence, Tali offered the spear to me. It was heavier than it looked, but the moment I took it I could sense it. A faint tingle ran through my arms and down my spine. This spear was special. The legend said it was forged in the fires of a volcano and could bear the power of an eruption. And it was here, in my talons.

“Congratulations to you both,” said Delian. “Just so you know, there will be a finder’s fee.”

“Done,” I said. “How do we use it?”

Tali chuckled. “That’s the next problem on our list. But it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Once we get back to my workshop, I’ll have to run some diagnostics a—” she cut off, then shrieked ”—GET DOWN!”

I looked up just in time to see a gigantic purple tentacle, as thick as I was tall, swipe through the water toward me before it slammed into my face.