Iron Tide Rising

by Carrie Ryan

  As usual, Marrill felt a stab of guilt at the sight of the ink. Remy must have noticed the shift in Marrill’s mood because she planted her fists on her hips and scowled. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Remy said. “Tattoo or not, the Stream is my home now. And besides… things have changed a little recently.” Her eyes flicked past Marrill, and her features softened, an almost swoony smile tugging at her lips.

  Marrill turned to see what she was looking at. A familiar figure loped down from the quarterdeck. Her jaw dropped.

  It was Coll.

  It had been years now since she’d last seen him, snatched away as they escaped from the Sheshefesh. They’d nearly made it when the giant squid had swiped Coll from the deck, dragging him back into the depths of its cathedral, trapping him there forever.

  “What?” Marrill sputtered, shaking her head. “How?”

  Coll grinned widely and opened his arms. She raced toward him and gave him a quick hug before pulling back and searching for his tattoo, wondering if he’d somehow gotten rid of it. If Remy, too, might be able to escape the curse.

  But no—it was still there, dancing across his shoulder in exactly the same spot as Remy’s. “But how in the world are you here?” she asked.

  He laughed and patted her arm. “I’m afraid that’s a story for another day.”

  “Let’s just say the Dawn Wizard gives good secrets,” Remy added, chuckling. “Even if they take a while to pan out.”

  Marrill was about to ask more, when she looked past his shoulders and saw Ardent.

  Everyone else seemed to have changed in the past year. But he hadn’t at all. His white hair still tufted out from under a limp purple cap and his beard still tumbled like cotton candy down his front. His skin was softly wrinkled, especially around his eyes. They glittered with mirth and wisdom.

  Marrill’s breath hitched. She hated the moment of doubt she felt. The slight hesitation as she searched his eyes to see if any remnants of the Master were hidden in their depths. Despite everything they’d been through, she didn’t know if she would ever be able to shake that moment of uncertainty. She wondered if she could ever trust him so completely again.

  But, she realized, perhaps that was just a part of life. People messed up. Even wizards were human, and all humans made mistakes. It wasn’t fair to judge a person based on their worst actions alone. People were more complicated. Everyone should be given the chance to change.

  Just look at Serth. If they hadn’t been willing to trust him, they might not have saved the Stream.

  Ardent smiled gently, as though he saw the moment of hesitation and understood. “Welcome aboard, Deckhand Aesterwest.”

  She fell into his arms. He may have appeared frail, his long purple robe practically swallowing him whole, but when he hugged her back she could feel his strength and warmth. She could feel he was still the gentle Ardent she loved.

  “We’re glad you’re back,” Ardent said softly. Marrill smiled. So was she.

  She glanced behind him. “Where’s Serth?”

  Remy shrugged. “He’s going to meet us at the next port. Said something about needing to plant some trees, then walked onto the Promenade Deck, and we haven’t seen him since.”

  Ardent frowned. “He actually said, ‘I have business with trees, those that time burned down and those that burn with time.’”

  Worry knit Marrill’s brow. “That sounds… ominous.”

  Ardent snorted. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it. That’s just the problem with oracles, you know. Once they get in the habit of speaking in prophecy, they want to do it for everything. Last week, he called his bed ‘that place where night-born visions dwell.’”

  They were interrupted by the sound of a giant splash followed by a wave of angry chittering. Turning, she found a gaggle of pirats gathered at the top of the gangplank. They didn’t look pleased. Marrill raised an eyebrow in question.

  Ardent cleared his throat, pressing his fingertips together. “There’ve been some… ah… negotiations over the return of Karnelius.”

  “One side, one side, quit yer fussin’, will ya?” The Naysayer pushed his way across the deck toward her. Draped over one of his shoulders was a lanky tortoiseshell cat, a gift from Marrill and her family the summer before. Marrill grinned and started to say hello, but he just continued past her as if she didn’t exist.

  “Good to see you, too,” she grumbled at his back as he stepped over the cluster of pirats without ceremony and thumped down the gangplank, his thick purple tail trailing behind.

  He reached the parking lot and splashed his way toward Marrill’s parents and their collection of luggage. They straightened, grinning in greeting. “Mr. Naysayer, so lovely to see—” her mother began.

  “Not interested,” the Naysayer cut in. It was the only acknowledgment he gave to their presence as he swiped at Karnelius’s carrier and flicked it open. An orange ball of fur leapt free, scrabbling up the Naysayer’s arm. When the cat reached the lizardy creature’s opposite shoulder, he bonked his forehead against the Naysayer’s jaw and began purring loudly.

  The Naysayer let out a contented sigh and retreated back up the gangplank, balancing both cats the whole way.

  Ardent strode past him, approaching Marrill’s parents with open arms and a welcoming grin. “Mr. and Mrs. Aesterwest, we’re so pleased you could join us again.” He shook her father’s hand, turning it so he could get a better look at his wrist. “Good to see that the side effects wore off from that… unpleasantness last time. Sometimes they don’t, you know.”

  Marrill’s dad pushed up his glasses. “Last time you said they always wore off.”

  “Yes,” Ardent muttered. “I probably did, I probably did. Nasty little creatures, at any rate.” He quickly turned to Marrill’s mom, taking her hand. He held it for just a beat longer than necessary. “How are you feeling?” he asked, his face folded with concern.

  “I’m well, thank you. I still need to take care not to overextend myself. The doctors have said there are no guarantees.” She smiled. “But there never are, are there?” she added with a wink.

  Ardent nodded. “No,” he said, with just a touch of sadness in his voice. “There never are.” Then he spun, kicking aside the hem of his robe, and held out his elbows for them to take. “Adventure awaits!” he exclaimed as he escorted them on board the Enterprising Kraken.

  That evening, Ardent snapped his fingers, and hundreds of tiny lights burst to life around them. It was like the fluffiest snow caught in the gentlest breeze, except instead of snowflakes, they were soft fuzzy motes dancing in the rigging overhead, illuminating the darkening deck. Around them, the Stream stretched out to the horizon on all sides, shimmering with a soft golden glow.

  A large table in the middle of the deck was piled high with buckets of prollycrabs. The Naysayer was ensconced at the head, already elbows deep in his own mess of food. Every few bites he alternated between dropping a hunk of meat for Karnelius, who sat purring in his lap, or tossing a bite to his other cat, who lounged on one of his shoulders.

  The rest of the crew sat trading stories from the last year and laughing. Fin updated her on Fig and the Fade’s declaration of independence form the Rise, and Ardent expounded at length on the truce he’d negotiated with the Salt Sand King.

  Then it was her turn. “Mom, Dad—tell them about your news,” Marrill prodded.

  The crew quieted, turning to Marrill’s parents. Her father adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “As you know, when Marrill first told us about the Pirate Stream, we were a bit… ah… skeptical.” Beside him, Marrill’s mom chuckled at the understatement and threaded her arm through his. “But it’s difficult to deny the possibility of magic when confronted with a bedside table that follows you around the house like a dog, demanding to be petted.”

  “Plus,” Marrill’s mom said, “we wanted to believe such a magical place exists. So when Marrill suggested we actually travel here and see the Pirate Stream for ourselves, we jumped in with both f
eet.” She winked at Marrill. “And we’re so glad we did.”

  Marrill’s dad nodded. “Of course, once we returned from our first trip on the Stream, we did what we always do after an adventure: We documented it. And then, on a whim, we decided to try publishing it.”

  Her parents exchanged a grin. “Turns out we weren’t the only ones who wanted to believe in the Pirate Stream.”

  “Understatement,” Marrill said. “It’s one of the bestselling series right now, and everyone thinks they made it all up when it’s actually all true!” She dragged her bag onto her lap and pulled out a stack of books to pass around. Welcome to the Pirate Stream! was printed across the top, above an image of a towering ship with a wizard in purple robes standing on the bow, his arms wide open to the reader.

  Ardent took a copy and fanned through the pages with a look of interest. “Well, if you need additional source material for inspiration, I’d be happy to tell you about the time I accidentally invented an entire species of…”

  While Ardent launched into another long-winded story and Marrill’s parents sat listening, enraptured, Marrill slipped a bundle of letters from her bag. “From your family,” she said, handing them to Remy.

  Her former babysitter’s eyes widened and instantly glistened with tears. “They all miss you and send their love,” Marrill added.

  “Thank you,” Remy said, holding the packet of letters to her chest. Coll draped an arm across her shoulders. She leaned in against him.

  Marrill let out a sigh of satisfaction as she looked around the table. She could think of no other place she’d rather be and no other crew she’d rather be with. Happiness bubbled up inside her. She stood and lifted her glass. “We should toast,” she announced.

  Everyone else stood, except for the Naysayer, unsurprisingly. Marrill turned to her parents. “You go first.”

  “To good health,” Marrill’s dad said, squeezing her mom around the shoulders.

  Her mom smiled. “To family,” she said, pulling Marrill into a side hug.

  Coll went next. “To the wind at your back.”

  “To love,” Remy said with a grin. Marrill could have sworn she noticed the older girl’s eyes dart to Coll, and his cheeks flush.

  It was Ardent’s turn, and he cleared his throat. Marrill braced for a rambling speech. But instead he said simply, “To Annalessa.” A hint of sadness filled the air as he lifted his eyes to the scribbled bird perched on the yardarm above. She let out a cry and took to the air, soaring through the glittering lights.

  The moment was broken rather quickly, however, by a loud belch from the Naysayer. “Heh,” he chuckled. Then he raised a goblet, joining their toast. “To me.”

  Next was Fin. He turned to face Marrill and placed a thumb against his heart. “To friendship.”

  Marrill’s heart swelled as she touched her own thumb to her chest in response.

  “Who is that young man?” her mother asked politely.

  Coll scowled. “I thought we rounded up all the strays and threw them into the brig.”

  “He’s Fin,” Marrill said proudly. “He’s my best friend.”

  Then it was her turn to raise a glass. There was so much she was grateful for, so many things she could toast. But in the end she chose the one thing that brought them all together. “To the Pirate Stream.”

  “To the Pirate Stream!” the others at the table echoed.

  Overhead, the Ropebone Man squealed happily in his rigging. The pirats all let up a cheer. The rumor vines took up the call from the stern, echoing it until the night was filled with laughter and merriment.

  And through the dark, the Enterprising Kraken sailed onward, toward the distant horizon, charting a course for possibility and wonder.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A list of all the people and creatures who helped us on our journey would be as long and magical as the Stream itself. And all the thanks in the world are not enough to recognize the gifts they have given us. But for this last book of the series, it is you, dear reader, who we would like to thank the most.

  You are the one who makes the Pirate Stream possible; you are the one whose thoughts bring magic to life. It has been a privilege and a joy to share our world with you. We hope that someday, in the near future or the far future or the many futures between, when you are standing in line somewhere, or trapped by something tremendously boring, your mind may drift down eddies of wonder, and you will find yourself looking at some nearby object and wondering, What would happen if I dropped that into the Pirate Stream, right now?

  And you will smile.

  We hope that on the edge of sleep, just as dark creeps beneath your eyelids, you may drift off on some foreign tide to far-off worlds filled with fantastical creatures and endless magic.

  And you will spin those imaginings into your own stories.

  We hope that you will daydream. That you will imagine. That you will wonder and question and believe. In magic. In friendship. In yourself.

  And you will remember: At its truest heart, magic is imagination and imagination is magic.

  With that in mind, it seems only fitting to end this series where it began (in our minds, anyway), with the words of Ardent Squirrelsquire:

  From The Manufacture of Enchanted Artifacts and Implements

  By Ardent Squirrelsquire, VVM, XQR, TLZ, etc., Wizard

  “Thus, I draw this epistle to its close, with this simple reminder: items acquire magic as a fuzzy sweater acquires shock. It may come at once, or it may build over eons beyond reckoning, but this is the truest type of enchantment, the type which never, ever wears off. While your common artificer may lay an enchantment upon an item temporarily (this is oftentimes the nature of the magic potion), this is as a thin film on a running mare, quickly washed away.

  True enchantment comes not from spells, but from lives.”

  Live your lives in true enchantment.

  Sincerely,

  The Authors

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