“Greatly exaggerated,” he agreed.
“I’ll leave you to it then.” Bounty tilted her face up expectantly to Aragon, and he kissed her on both cheeks. “Until I hear anything to the contrary, I’ll assume you’re in good hands.” She smirked at them both, and sauntered away down the road, her hips swaying neatly back and forth.
Kassa frowned thoughtfully. “Who was that?”
“An old acquaintance,” Aragon replied, watching Bounty disappear into the shadows.
“Should I be jealous?”
“Do you want to be?”
Kassa turned towards the tavern window. “He’s finished. They’re applauding, at least. Hate to think I’d come all this way to see him concussed by a flying tomato.” She pushed open the heavy tavern door and yelled into its smoky atmosphere. “Tippett! Get your bony butt out here on the double!”
The little jester-poet pushed his spectacles up his nose and stared in her direction. “Kassa, is that you?”
She tapped her boot meaningfully. “Are you coming or what?”
Not one to be told twice, Tippett grabbed his piles of parchment and scurried out towards her. “Gosh,” he said.
The three of them walked together to the stables and found the ship there, its mast casting a silvery shadow in the darkness. “Jump aboard and start introducing yourself to our new crew members,” said Kassa.
“Right,” said Tippett, heading obediently for the ship.
Aragon caught Kassa’s sleeve as she attempted to follow Tippett. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t, did I?” She removed his hand from her sleeve, but held onto it, her fingers lacing into his. “Come on. We’ve got a horizon to sail into.”
* * *
Skeylles the Fishy Judge, Lord of the Underwater, sat in his bath. He hummed loudly to himself as he scrubbed his back with a conch shell.
The lobster-shaped butler appeared in the entrance to the bone-tiled hall. His nose was firmly in the air, and his left claw held a small, bedraggled half-grown grey ball of fur. “Yours, I believe, milord,” he said snootily.
“Ah,” said Skeylles, pleased. He held out a hand, and the butler dropped the kitten into it as if he was pleased to divest himself of the creature. Skeylles tickled the kitten under the chin. “Everything Sorted Out?” he boomed.
The little cat stared back, a flicker of intelligence in its little eyes.
“Good,” said Skeylles, settling back into his bath. “All Is As It Should Be.” He dropped the little grey furball down with the other cats, who were busily swarming around the legs of his bath. “More Or Less,” he added.
* * *
The horizon was still some way off. The silvery ghost-ship glided soundlessly over meadows and moors. Its crew were having a whale of a time, partying the night away. Tippett had found a harmonica somewhere and was noisily setting his Kassa Daggersharp epic to a jaunty tune. Daggar sang noisily along, while Sparrow taught him how to cheat at arm wrestling. Singespitter and Officer Finnley were sharing a bottle of rum they had found in the hold.
Aragon came up behind Kassa as she stood at the helm. “You’ve extended the crew rather successfully,” he told her, not sounding as if he altogether approved.
“By another two, I should think,” she added, pointing ahead.
Aragon followed her gaze and saw a fellow in a pastel pink suit hovering by the edge of a forest with a pile of luggage and a bright orange sprite. They were hopefully waggling their thumbs, a long-established gesture for hitch-hikers. “Kassa…” he said warningly.
“Oh, don’t fuss,” she smiled, pulling the ghost-ship to a slow stop. “They’ll liven things up.”
“You want things livened up?”
The hitch-hiking god and orange ex-guardian sprite were welcomed aboard with a raucous cheer and two mugs of bubbled wine. They joined the party.
Kassa shivered in the night air, and Aragon put his cloak around her. “I’m not sharing a cabin with them,” he said.
She leaned her head back against his shoulder. Her hair smelled of sea-salt. “Actually, I was wondering if you would like to share one with me.”
He gave her a quirky look. “The Captain’s cabin?”
“Nothing but the best,” she teased. As she turned to face him, her face sobered. “Aragon, I know what you’re thinking.”
“Now there’s a surprise.”
“You have a decision to make,” she insisted. “You don’t have the witchmark any more. You are not compelled to stay on this mad ship of mine. If you do…it will be because you want to. Only because you want to.” She moved away from his arms. “I want to go say hello to the Dark One and Vervain. Think about it.” She squeezed his hand briefly, and went to get herself some bubbled wine.
“Right,” said Aragon Silversword, staring out at the dark landscape. He had filched a coin from Daggar for this very purpose. He flipped it over his fingers now, considering his options. “Heads I get off this ship and get a life of my own,” he muttered. “Tails I do something I will probably regret.”
He threw the coin, and watched it spiral up into the air. It fell smartly into his hand and he slapped it hard against his other arm. Very slowly, he lifted his hand and stared into the face of Kassa Daggersharp. It was quite a good likeness. Some years older, of course. He traced the lines of the coin thoughtfully, reading the date.
Then he opened his hand, and let the coin fall into the darkness. They were crossing marshland, weren’t they? Hopefully the evidence would be gone for good. But he couldn’t forget it. An omen, perhaps? It had been heads, after all.
The real Kassa came forward, grabbing his arm. Her smile was warm and inviting, full of life. “Come on. You’re missing a great party.”
“I hate parties,” he reminded her, but let her draw him towards the others.
After all, he could pack his bags and get a life of his own at any time. It didn’t have to be tonight. Or tomorrow, for that matter. He could wait until the day after that. Or the day after that.
Aragon Silverword didn’t join in the laughing and singing with the pirate wench, the profit-scoundrel, the troll-raised mercenary, the sprite, the god, the Blackguard and the sheep. He still retained some standards, after all. He sat silently and watched Kassa Daggersharp enjoying herself, her dark red hair glinting in the silver light of their ship.
Kassa noticed him looking, and tilted her head speculatively in his direction. In answer to her unspoken question, Aragon Silversword leaned back against the mast of the Silver Splashdance and almost smiled.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tansy Rayner Roberts was first published in 1998 with Splashdance Silver, the first of the Mocklore Chronicles. Since then, she has had eight more novels published (two under the name of Livia Day), travelled overseas, won a bunch of awards including a shiny chrome rocket, gained a PhD in Classics, and had two children. She lives in a messy house with lots of bookshelves. Sometimes the Tasmanian landscape still looks like Mocklore to her, but she is yet to spot a flying sheep.
Tansy is the winner of Hugo, Washington Small Press, Aurealis and Ditmar Awards, and a co-host on two all-female podcasts: Galactic Suburbia, talking about books and the SF publishing industry, and Verity! talking about Doctor Who. Her most recent books include the third of the Mocklore Chronicles, Ink Black Magic, and the second Livia Day novel, Drowned Vanilla. Tansy’s website can be found at http://tansyrr.com/ and you can follow her on Twitter at @tansyrr.
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