Gog surveyed the scene with great interest. He seemed to sense something, and his expression grew intense.
“His fate thread has been broken,” he noted excitedly. He shook off Magog’s grip and stepped forward. “Do it, Taisia. Take this traitor’s life. End him! Then you and I can begin our lives together. I shall show you everything there is to see.”
Pierce had to admit that that last bit sounded mighty appealing. He wished he could offer Taisia the same, but all he had to give her was his own life, which was literally in the palm of her hand. He thought about saying something to her, but he had nothing else to say. In the end, it was all up to Taisia. She needed to make the choice.
Taisia stared deep into her husband’s eyes without blinking. She seemed unsure now.
“Tai,” Pierce whispered.
Her expression shifted with her different emotions, changing from mournful to anger, and then fear—all of it wrapped up in confusion. A battle for the truth waged inside her, and judging by how the gun was pressed against him, it must have been a hell of a fight.
“End him, Taisia,” Gog nagged her. “And become my wife!”
Pierce’s chest heaved as he sucked in a breath of air. There wasn’t much Pierce could do against the sod. Gog wasn’t any kind of mortal person. The fact that Pierce had belted him was nothing more than a lucky strike, one he doubted he’d achieve again.
Taisia’s expression eventually became angry and stayed that way. Pierce expected a blast at any moment.
She pushed the hammer forward.
“I am a wife, Gog,” she stated, lowering the gun. “His wife. And I have no desire to be betrothed to another.”
Pierce nearly fell over. The sensation made him weightless with glee, for her love had broken through Gog’s deception.
“You believe me, then?” he asked her.
Confused, she looked at her husband. “I . . . I want to. My head tells me one thing. Yet my soul feels differently. Whatever love is, Pierce, and wherever it truly comes from, mine will not let you go so easily.”
Pierce smiled with tears in his eyes. He grasped her hand and squeezed it tight.
“Taisia, no,” Gog protested. “Do not allow his tricks to fool you. He no longer wants you, for he craves another.”
Pierce sensed Gog was attempting to get back inside her head. Taisia didn’t seem the least affected. His spell had been broken, and that was that.
She turned to Gog. “You once told me there is nothing you would ever deny me.”
“I did,” he admitted in a weakening tone.
“Then what I ask for is for you to leave me be and never bother us again.”
The seriousness of her tone could have weighed down an army. Pierce knew that tone. When she used it, it meant she had reached her limit. Gog realized it as well and released a loud, high-pitched scream that hurt Pierce’s ears. Before Pierce knew it, Gog had grabbed hold of him and everything vanished.
* * *
The deafening roar of crashing water caught Pierce’s attention before the lack of airflow did. The pain was the worst. His entire body was wracked with it as if he had been shattered to bits. He hurt from the inside out. His veins had turned to barbwire, cutting into him. His muscles cramped up and his intestine felt like they had been wrung out like rags. The marrow in his bones had become acid, burning through the bone itself. His head hurt worst of all. The stabbing pressure caused him to believe someone was tearing out his brain, dicing it into thousands of tiny bits, and cramming it back into his skull. Because of all the pain happening at once, Pierce almost failed to notice Gog holding him over a cliff by his throat.
“Where the bloody hell are we?”
He doubted Gog heard him.
“This is Zambia,” Gog answered over the thunderous crashing of tall waterfalls surrounding them. “And it’s your final resting place.”
Gog let him go, and when he did, it was as if some great force grabbed Pierce by the ankles and yanked him down. The spray of the falls drenched him before something snatched him up and took him to another cliff above the falls. When it released him, Pierce collapsed and rolled over onto his back, gripping his pounding head and cramping stomach. He kept his eyelids shut. Every time he opened them, the world spun. He wanted to retch, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t. Never had he ever experienced such wretched agony.
Or, had he?
“No, don’t! Please don’t kill him!” cried a woman.
Pierce suddenly found himself inside a small flat that smelled of sodium chloride, candles, and tobacco smoke. Music played from an odd-looking contraption with a large cone and a stylus running over a thin black disk of sorts. The weeping woman stood behind it, but in front of a changing screen, holding her wrist as if it were wounded. She was a lovely little thing with large, kind eyes and short red hair. Her clothing style was nothing Pierce had ever seen before.
There was a second woman in the room, an olive-skinned lass with pointed ears, dressed in leather, holding a knife against his chest. An elf, Pierce reckoned. She had him pinned against a door. The elf turned to the pleading young woman who was in tears about what was happening.
“Sorry, child,” the elf said, turning back to Pierce, “but he’s simply too dangerous to be allowed to live.”
“Don’t do this,” Pierce heard himself say. “Not here. Not in front of Lucy.”
Lucy? Had he known a Lucy once? Yes! That was her! That’s bloody Lu—
“You’ve lost, Gog!” a powerful voice shouted, bringing Pierce around. “She has chosen this boy over you.”
It felt as though Pierce’s head was being crushed. The roar of the falls did nothing to help. The pain finally drove him to cry out.
“Be at ease, child,” Magog said, touching him on top of his head.
The pressure eased up and the pain subsided, but it wasn’t enough to allow him to stand. He still felt as though his body was putting itself back together.
Gog appeared before Magog, looking none too happy. “Why are you intervening?”
“Because it’s necessary. Killing this boy will not make her love you. She has broken down the barrier you’ve built inside her mind simply by using what she feels for him. You cannot come between them.”
“Why do you care about this man’s fate?”
“I don’t. He could die right now and it would affect me not.”
Wonderful, Pierce thought.
“I’m merely trying to stop you from making a critical error, old friend.” Magog pointed at Pierce, who sat up with great effort. “You kill this boy and she will fall into misery. Grief-stricken. She will give you no satisfaction, for she’ll never want you the way she desires him. The woman will resist. If you were saddened before, my friend, then imagine fruitlessly trying to woo a woman who can never offer you genuine love. How long can you withstand it before you kill her out of frustration?”
“No!” Pierce bellowed, grabbing onto Magog and working his way up to his feet. “Don’t. Don’t you bloody well harm her. Taisia is my wife, and it is our child she carries. We’re a family, and you have no bloody claim to it!”
Pierce clung onto Magog’s shoulder while hunching over. He couldn’t help it. He almost expected Magog to shake him off like a fly on a horse.
“If you care for her, Gog,” Magog went on, “then respect her wishes for her sake as well as your own.”
They waited for his response. Pierce watched Gog. He wished he had the strength to at least stand on his own. He only found it fortunate that Magog had soothed some of his distress, for if he hadn’t, Pierce would still be lying on the ground.
Gog grunted and vanished from sight. That worried Pierce.
“Take me back,” he requested of Magog. “Please.”
Magog clasped his arms. He said nothing such as “Shut your eyes,” “Hold your breath,” or anything of that nature, but Pierce did those things anyway.
He thought it might help. It didn’t.
The crushing, agonizing p
ain floored him. The sound of a trillion glass beads falling onto a sheet of metal and shattering to pieces echoed inside his eardrums.
“Pierce!” Taisia yelled.
He closed his eyes tight. Opening them only set the world spinning. He heard footsteps that he reckoned were his wife’s. She tried lifting him, but it only made things worse.
“Please don’t move me,” he pleaded, staying in a fetal position on the ground. “It hurts too much.”
“Bastards!” she hollered out. “What did you do to him?”
As she screamed, she rubbed Pierce’s shoulder. Her touch was welcoming.
“He’s alive,” Magog said. “Be grateful for that.”
“Taisia,” Gog called, his voice tender and lovelorn.
“Get away!” she shouted at him in Russian. “You have done enough. Leave me and my husband be!”
There was a brief silence. Pierce pried his eyes open just enough to see Gog standing with arms outstretched to her and with longing on his face. Pierce felt anything but sorry for the bloke.
Gog lowered his arms. Taisia remained kneeling beside Pierce, stroking him. He turned his focus on her touch to distract himself from the pains.
She returned her attention to Pierce. “It’s all right. I’m here.”
She kissed him on the lips and he couldn’t be happier.
“Let’s go,” Gog yelled out to the nomads.
Pierce spotted the Sea Warriors, still frozen in place. Not a moment later, the nomads released them and they were able to move about again. Another moment ticked by and the whole nomadic tribe was gone.
Taisia gently laid her head against Pierce’s and whispered, “I’m here, my love. I’m here.”
It took a while, but, eventually, Pierce recovered enough to be able to stand on his own again. By the time he got moving, the airship was ready for departure.
Soon, they were sailing down the coastline. Since they had used so much fuel getting up the coast, they traveled slowly. It mattered little to Pierce, who had his wife and unborn child with him once more. They stood at the bow where Taisia wanted to speak to him privately.
“My memories are my own again,” she explained. “The deceptions Gog placed on me are gone.”
“That’s great, love,” Pierce said happily, taking her by the hand.
Because of the manhandling by Gog and Magog, his wounded shoulder was bleeding and burning with pain. He ignored it for now. Instead, he concentrated on Taisia’s troubled expression.
“What is it?”
“I . . .” she began saying, “. . . I have a confession. After our argument, Gog came to me. I called for him, in fact. We were alone in the grassy field. We talked, and then we . . . we . . .”
Pierce swallowed thickly, scared out of his wits at what she was about to tell him. He decided that no matter what had happened between her and Gog, he’d forgive her for it. After all, she truly believed her husband had been unfaithful, and in the midst of her anger, she’d been driven to act out of spite.
“We kissed,” Taisia finally confessed. “He kissed me, I should say, but I let it happen, and I kissed him back. I shouldn’t have, but I was so angry at you, and . . .”
Pierce pulled her close to him and pressed his lips to hers. It seemed like ages since they had kissed this way. He was relieved nothing more had happened, but, even if it had, this kiss would not have tasted any less sweet. When they parted, he removed her wedding ring from his pinkie finger.
He held it up. “May I?”
Taisia laughed with tears in her eyes. “Da.”
He slipped the ring on her finger and kissed it. He touched her stomach, and the baby kicked. Taisia wrapped her arms around him. He embraced her with his good arm and held her tight.
“We’re in this life together, darling,” he whispered. “And I’ll have it no other way.”
* * *
The airship made it solely on fumes the rest of the way back to where they had left the wagons.
“Thanks for the adventure,” Captain Xiong said to Pierce.
“Anytime, Cap’n,” Pierce said with a wink.
After bidding the crew of the Ame-No-Mi-Kumari farewell, Pierce and everyone else headed for the village, where they found Itza-chu and Second Mate Waban waiting by the shore. They had been swimming in the ocean to wash away the dirt after burying Jaxton. They showed Pierce the burial plot, a secluded little area located on a short cliff overlooking the sea. Pierce and Taisia held hands as they stood by the pile of stones. He told her about Jaxton Beau and how he had saved him more than once. He told her about his snake oil and about their encounter with the Shawnee. Pierce then spent a few moments by himself to say a private goodbye to his friend.
When they returned to the village, the family greeted them with hugs and tears of joy.
The following day, Pierce asked Sees Beyond to write a letter in Spanish to Leonardo. He then rode to Guaymas and handed the letter over to a barkeeper at the Chinchilla Cantina and told him who the message was for and when to expect him.
On his return to the village, he learned the Ekta was ready for departure. And not a day too soon, for Chief Sea Wind and his whole crew were itching to return to the sea.
The Ekta weighed anchor and they set a course across the Pacific.
* * *
After many weeks of sailing, land finally appeared. The island of Maui rose over the horizon with luscious, bright green hills and crisp white sands. Clear turquoise waters surrounded the shoreline, revealing everything underneath. It was truly a sight to behold.
Taisia was overwhelmed by it all.
“Oh, Pierce,” Taisia cooed in awe while rubbing her belly. “It’s so beautiful.”
By this time, she was showing.
“Aye. What a grand place to raise our child.”
“You mean children,” Grandmother Fey put in slyly.
Pierce snorted. “Well, eventually, Grandma. We do plan to have others later on.”
“So, you don’t know yet, Taisia?” Grandmother Fey asked her. “I would have thought you’d have guessed it by now.”
“Eh?” Pierce said, turning to his wife. “Guessed what?”
Taisia thought a moment, remembering the things Gog had said to her.
I want you with me. All of you.
In time, you will see how we’re meant to be together. You, me, and the children.
“Pierce,” she announced excitedly. “I think we’re going to have twins!”
Epilogue
Six years later . . .
The asylum reeked of human waste, moldy fabric, and decay. The entire place was in ruins. A rat or two scampered across the floor. Patients in the hall were hopelessly lost in their own separate worlds. A man was on his feet and having an in-depth conversation with no one. A pool of piss lay at his feet, presumably his. Another patient had pressed himself against the wall and was moving his arms over it in wide half circles, talking about his love for the water.
The visitor ignored them.
“She hasn’t spoken a word since she was admitted here years ago,” the asylum’s administrator explained. “She only mumbles and sometimes cries a little as if she’s being hurt. You say you’re a relative?”
“Ja,” the visitor answered, following the administrator through the corridor of insanity. “I am her husband, as I told you before. I have been searching for her for a long while.”
“I see,” the administrator said in his lofty British drawl.
They came to a closed door. The administrator stopped and turned on his heel to face the visitor. “Well, she’s in pretty bad shape, I’m afraid. She doesn’t eat on her own and therefore, we have been force-feeding her daily. She doesn’t know when to get up to defecate or urinate, leaving her an utter mess at times.”
“Is she in there?” he demanded impatiently.
The pretentious Englishman who believed he had any kind of authority because he ran a piss-poor insane asylum nodded. “Indeed. And . . . oi! Hold up, you!”
he shouted when the visitor opened the door and entered.
The administrator followed him into the room and the visitor turned sharply around, suddenly standing nose to nose with the man. “Leave.”
His ominous eyes broke down the man’s sense of importance. He backed out of the room, too afraid to turn his back on the visitor. Once the administrator reached the threshold, the visitor slammed the door in his face.
With him thankfully out of the way, the visitor turned slowly to the woman sitting in a wheelchair near the window. As he approached, he saw more clearly her dreadful condition. She was very malnourished. Her skull sat too close to the surface of her skin. He could only imagine how the rest of her looked. She was dressed in a filthy grey gown, torn and heavily stained. Her greasy black hair was matted from years of neglect. Even her grimy yellow fingernails and toenails were so long, they had curled inward. Drool hung from her bottom lip and had pooled on her collar. Her eyes were partly open. Her shallow breathing and mumbling was the only indication of life.
He snarled at the disgusting sight.
“I did warn you,” Thooranu reminded the visitor, suddenly appearing. “She’s a wreck. Frankly, I’m surprised she’s lasted this long.”
“But you can restore her mind.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her mind. She is merely in a trance. In fact, one of the chores I had her do was build machinery. It has exercised and strengthened her brain. What you want her to construct ought to come easily enough for her. Do you have the information I requested?”
He nodded. “I found the Trickster who enslaved you. And I shall tell you if you return her to her senses as agreed.”
He had tracked the Trickster down because that was what he was good at doing, whether the prey be man or god.
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