Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures)

by Terry Kroenung

  “If I might sit in on those lessons as well?” Sha’ira requested, looking more shy and respectful than I’d ever seen her toward anyone.

  “Of course,” Ma agreed. “We’ll need all the combat magick we can muster to get poor Eddie back. Once we’ve managed that then Verity’s true quest to overthrow the Merchantry can start.”

  I waved my hands and stopped dead. Roberta and Pitcairn bumped into me and a silly chain of collisions began, like when train cars close up as the locomotive slows. “Wait a minute! Combat, magic, writin’. Sounds like a lot for one girl to take on in a two-week trip.”

  “It is,” said Ma, “but you’ll do fine. No one expects you to become a master of any of it in such a short time.” She touched the Legacy Stone where it hung from my sweaty neck. “But the Stone, combined with Morphageus, increases your natural gifts. You’re already a quick learner. Look at how well you do in school. The Stone will let you absorb new skills at a far faster rate than a normal mortal. You’ll see.”

  I gave Romulus a pat on his broad head. He licked my hand and grinned his floppy doggy grin at me. “What about Romulus here? Does he stay a dog now?”

  “Only if he wants to. As long as he’s on this ship my spell allows him to shift back and forth at will. I imagine the curse will re-establish itself when he leaves the Kiss, though. The Proprietor’s magick won’t be easy to break permanently without several mages and a strong Songline.”

  “Looks awful happy to me as he is.”

  The great mastiff barked his agreement and started dancing in ecstatic circles. Ernie held on as if he were riding a bucking horse. The Marines all chanted, “Womuwus! Womuwus!”

  Sha’ira showed her lovely teeth in a broad smile. “And you are right about that. He’s as content as I’ve ever seen him. Come, let us check on Captain Tyrell and his marvelous steed.”

  Down in the sick bay we found the Redeemer captain propped up into a sitting position with several pillows. His eyes were open and he seemed to recognize all of us, though he still looked mighty fuzzy. I introduced him to Ma and told him about the battle he’d missed. Despite his injuries, losing out on demon-massacring seemed to irritate him more than all of his pain.

  “Damnation!” he grumbled, slapping the bunk. “A hundred Obverse monsters sent to perdition and here I lie like an old sick granny.”

  “Hey, I’d have let you take my place in a heartbeat, if it makes you feel any better,” I assured him.

  Ernie raised a paw. “Me, too. No problem here.” He held up his knitting needle lance. “Need a weapon, mate?”

  Tyrell laughed, then winced and held his head. “Ooh! Probably all for the best that I was indisposed. Would’ve been precious glory left for the lot of you if I’d been there.” He snapped his fingers. “Alcibiades? What happened to him?”

  “Down below,” Roberta said, “livin’ off the fat of the land and our entire apple store. Wing’s bent up a bit but he’ll fly again soon.”

  “But you won’t, my good captain,” announced the doctor. “I’m not letting you out of that bed for at least another week, maybe longer.”

  I grinned at that. “Looks like you’ve won free passage to the Sceptr’d Isle.”

  Tyrell sank back into his pillows and closed his eyes again. “I’ll miss the whole blessed war at this rate.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m pretty sure we can provide all the fightin’ you’d ever want, once we get to London.”

  After a visit to Alcibiades with a pocketful of sugar, where I loved him up some and groomed him, I made my way to Pitcairn’s cabin, where a big banquet had been laid out on the chart table. Extra chairs had been brought in. Despite Jasper’s snide comment about Van Tassel, the cook had come up with quite a tasty feast for a pirate ship. Turned out he had an enchanted food locker that could keep things fresh and cold for an entire voyage. We had tender beef and pork, crisp vegetables, delicious soup, and even ice in our drinks. Best use of sorcery I’d seen since falling in that hole at Ford’s. While we ate we caught everybody up on all the happenings they might have missed: how I became Stone-Warden (since I’d already let that cat out of the bag during the battle), my first night with the sword, how Ma came to be with us, my trip to the coast with Tyrell, meeting Sha’ira and fighting the Merchantry hordes at the beach, our encounter with the demons on the Croatan, all of it. Jasper kept up a snotty running commentary in my head the whole time, but I’d expected nothing less. When the storytelling ended we had some music. It turned out that Fergus could play a squeezebox, Mr. De Latte violin, and the doctor had a nice singing voice. After we exhausted all the happy songs we knew, Rochester ended with “The Vacant Chair” and we all blubbered about the friends we’d lost fighting evil. I thought about the vacant chair at our house, my pa’s, empty ever since the night I’d been born. Not even a photograph or painting of him in the house to let me know what he’d been like. Ma said she couldn’t bear to be reminded of losing him. She’s make an occasional reference to something he’d once said or how I’d done something in a particular way that reminded her of him, but that was it.

  The song ached me too much and I pushed my way out of the cabin and up onto the main deck and to the rail. Stars glimmered down at me in a cloudless summer sky. A soft breeze mussed up my hair just like all the adults tended to do. All except Pa, who’d never had a chance to. I knew that lots of kids had lost their fathers, especially with the awful civil war we were in. Somehow that didn’t make my situation any easier. Misery may love company, but it doesn’t provide ether to dull the pain for all those folks.

  A warm wet nose nuzzled my hand. Romulus looked up with his bright eyes hidden in wrinkles. Ernie hopped across his head and stood on the rail in front of me. He didn’t say anything, just stayed there so I could see he was with me. I felt Ma behind me with my Stone-sense before she put her arms around me in a warm cuddle, chin atop my head. All of us remained like that for a full minute, just breathing together.

  “We’ll find him,” Ma breathed. “We’ll get him back.”

  She assumed I thought of Eddie, which I should’ve been doing. “Not that so much,” I told her, rubbing the back of her hands where they folded across me. “I just wished Pa was here. I wished he could’ve lived to see you take on those demons. Lived to see me grown-up and out in the world.”

  Ernie stiffened. Romulus whimpered and backed away. I felt Ma catch her breath.

  “Honey, I guess you ought to know the truth. When I said I’d lost your pa, I meant just that. Lost. As in missing. I never said he was dead. Not once. Not ever.”

  The stars spun over my head. I tried to suck in air but got nothing but panic and confusion instead. Huh? Pa’s alive? She’s kept that from me all this time? Let me think he was dead?

  I pushed away from the rail and bent down to get blood to my head. Close to fainting, I looked up through my eyebrows at the feet that made a semi-circle around me. Ma’s new sailor shoes, Romulus’ great big mastiff toes, even Ernie’s plump tootsies. My stomach heaved at this news. My head pounded.

  The tin cup at my waist fell off of its own accord, rolling and clattering until it stopped right in front of me. It expanded and grew into the runesword Morphageus, symbols glowing lava-red along its blade. Splitting at the point, the tip became two cartoonish feet. Matching hands flowed out of the cross guard. My magick sword stood up before me just like it’d done in that Virginia shed. Everybody else stepped back a pace at this unlooked-for action.

  “If this was one of them sentimental novels that society ladies like to read,” Jasper said, “we’d call this a Sudden Unexpected Plot Development.”

  Ma knelt down to meet me at my eye level. “Come inside. I’ll tell you everything I know. It’s time.”

  I stood up, back creaking. Morphageus jumped up into my hand. I willed it into the shape of a metallic rag doll and clutched it hard to my chest. Ma led me back to the hatch, tender hand on my shoulder.

  Jasper spoke up again. “And here I was thi
nkin’ this voyage was gonna be dull.”

  DON’T MISS BOOK TWO

  OF THE LEGACY STONE SERIES

  Jasper’s Foul Tongue

  I needed to wash my sword’s mouth out with soap.

  Sure, Jasper was just an annoying boy, more or less, and they all love

  to be potty-mouthed, but still…an obnoxious kid trapped in a shape-shifting magick sword is capable of enough mischief, without me having to listen to that stuff. It’s not like I could force his nasty trap shut, him living inside my head and all.

  And even if that were possible, I had enough to worry about, hovering four feet above the well-scrubbed deck of our frigate while a squadron of pelicans buzzed me. They raced at me from all sides like portly jousters, long pointed beaks lancing at my exposed bits. I tried to fend them off with bursts of magickal force from my hands, while keeping myself in the air with a Songline chant Ma had just taught me that same morning. About every fifth time I succeeded in not getting jabbed.

  Boy, summer can’t get over fast enough. Regular school’s a cakewalk compared to this. Even them miserable cipherin’ sessions with Miz Finch.

  The plump mouse who rode aboard the lead bird cackled as I clutched at my sore backside. In a working-class London accent Ernie hollered, “Watch yer arse, girlie!”

  “Hard to miss it,” Jasper snorted. Even though he hung on my belt in the form of an old tin cup, his voice sounded loud and clear, though only I could hear it. “We may have to put you on half-rations, Tubbo.”

  “And I may feel the need to eat a mess o’ that liver and cabbage you hate so much,” I said to myself, for his benefit. He felt and tasted everything that I did. “Usin’ you as a spoon. Now hush, this is tough enough without your babblin’.”

  I’ll spare you his reply. Trust me, you don’t want to read that sort of language. Apparently Mr. All-Powerful Blade of Destiny had been cooped up around the tough sailors on the Penelope’s Kiss for too long. Hoping it would prove to be a phase, I tried to ignore it. But sometimes it felt like trying to disregard an itch in your underwear during church.

  Ernie banked his pelican in a big swoop around the foremast. He wore a tiny tricorn hat that Ma had made for him. The bird, Bob, a big brown and white fellow, bore in on my left flank. Three others came at me from low right and high center. Sweat glued my shirt to my skin as I tried to remember the chant that kept me airborne. Jasper’s prattle had distracted me so much that I’d sunk to barely a foot off the deck. With a shake of my head I focused on my lesson and on the odd aboriginal words. Ma claimed that if I learned to do this right I could use puffs of energy to maneuver myself away from danger. Not like real flying, but good enough for an emergency. The trick was to be able to block out everything except the spell and your opponents.

  But I felt like a well-wrung washcloth. Magick’s tiring at the best of times, especially when you’re only twelve and just learning it. This Songline stuff, though, made the miracles I did with Jasper seem like nursery school. The earth’s energy ran through you like signals through a telegraph wire, thrumming along your bones and threatening to tear you apart if you couldn’t control it. And this wasn’t even real heavy-duty Songline witchery, which required contact with solid ground. What we were doing on the ship was a hollow imitation, only made possible because the frigate had been doctored with be-spelled soil from all the continents as an experiment. That permitted a sort of weak Songline for a few minutes at a time. A little like the actual thing, but not really. Kind of like those icky desiccated vegetables the government gave to our soldiers, the ones the troops called ‘desecrated’ vegetables.

  Gritting my teeth and narrowing my mind to a pinprick of intention, I jammed my will onto the deck and imagined myself a big red-haired spring. With a whoosh in my ears I shot up to the yardarm fifteen feet above my head. I clung to it with both hands, the mainsail whapping me in the face. Whoa! Hope somebody can catch me if this goes bad.

  Right where I’d been floating a moment before the four pelicans thumped together in an explosion of feathers. Indignant shouts stung my ears. Ernie shot off of Bob’s back and toward the starboard rail like a fat furry cannonball. I feared we’d have to send a bird to rescue him from the sea, but just before he passed the point of no return an elegant hand with black lace at its wrist plucked him out of the air as if he were a tasty peach.

  “Miss Verity, the Equity doesn’t have a surplus of Marshals,” said Commander Aloysius Pitcairn, squinting into the morning sun as he looked up at me. “It would truly be a shame to so casually toss this one over the side.”

  Ernie wriggled free of his grip and ran up his arm to stand manfully on his shoulder. Hiding amongst Pitcairn’s long brown curls, the mouse proclaimed, “All just part of her trainin’, gov! I had meself in total control, don’t you worry.”

  A high frothy giggle came from around Pitcairn’s knee. Peeking around the skirt of his long plum-colored coat, five year-old Freya pointed up with a stubby finger and said, “Mister Ernie, you’re silly!”

  Our rodent ally sagged, his belly paunching out like a fuzzy gray balloon. “If anybody needs me, I’ll be in the galley, drownin’ me inadequacy with cheese.”

  “Does this ship carry that much cheese?” Jasper snickered.

  As Ernie scampered down Pitcairn’s brocaded garments and disappeared down a hatch, the pirate captain held up a pair of dainty smallswords, their points covered with leather buttons. “When you’ve found your way back down and rested a bit,” he said, “it’s time for your fencing lesson. Today we’re covering the fine art of the prise-de-fer.”

  Before I could respond to that, bare feet slapped across the deck in a big hurry. Fergus, out of breath and waving a spyglass, panted and announced, “Sorry, Cap’n! School’s out fer now.”

  Pitcairn took the telescope from him and aimed it aft, where Fergus pointed. “Hmm, that’s a trifle annoying.”

  “What is it?” I asked, seeing nothing as I struggled to hook a leg over the yardarm and sit up.

  “Harpies. A whole flight of Merchantry harpies. And it looks like they have…muskets.”

  “Hope you enjoyed your rest,” Jasper chuckled.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Books don’t write themselves (okay, at times I could swear that Verity and Jasper hijacked my keyboard, but the rule generally holds true). So even though I spent a few months holed up alone in my dismal chamber, pecking away with a single finger, other folks helped birth this monster.

  Yes, Janet, beloved and long-suffering spouse, you have to share the blame. If you hadn’t insisted that I could write a goofy kids book that adults would also like, none of this would have been inflicted on an unsuspecting public. Thank you, Honeybunch.

  Thanks to Alaena Prince and her expensively-acquired graphic artist skills for aid in creating the cover. It’s no small task to respond to every selfish “suggestion” from an author with Asperger Syndrome while herding 3 toddlers around one’s computer terminal. Alaena also gets credit for managing to get my adorable granddaughter Freya into costume to pose as Verity while also keeping her rascally baby brother Jasper out of the shot (you careful readers may notice a theme here).

  I also appreciate the readings and encouragement from the students and staff at my day job at Niwot High School. Your patience with the butt-ugly early drafts, waiting forever for something good to arrive, was worthy of Homer’s Penelope (if you don’t recall who that is, stay after class and clean the erasers).

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Terry Kroenung teaches literature at Niwot High School in Colorado, where he also inflicts his Shakespeare impersonations and love of Eeyore collectibles on tomorrow’s leaders. An Advanced Actor/Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors, he owns more swords than any sane human has any need of and spends countless hours choreographing fights with his students (thus, the gray hairs and nervous twitchings of his poor principal). As unplanned preparation for writing Brimstone and Lily he has served as an U.S. Army infantry office
r on the East German border, a Confederate Civil War re-enactor in Virginia, and a pirate at street festivals. The youthful cigar smoking and whiskey drinking resulted in just as much misery as Verity feels when indulging.

  The smart-ass dialogue comes naturally, alas.

  He can be contacted at his website: www.legacystone.net

  or at the Brimstone and Lily Facebook page