Isle of Wysteria: The Reluctant Queen (26 page)

“I’m whatever you want me to be, sugar,” Mina said with a playful wink.

Reimay blushed brightly and worked his way back over to the refreshments.

Mina chuckled to herself, her long furry white tail flicking about happily. “Hehe, I still got it.”

“Might want to tone it down there, sweetie,” Captain Evere warned.

“Why? Getting jealous?” she asked coquettishly

One by one, the remaining Guild Masters arrived, their rivalries and animosity barely held in check by greed and common purpose. As Athel walked up on the podium and introduced herself, they eyed each other suspiciously. Hanner had suggested forcing the pirates to check their weapons at the door, but Evere had overruled him, reasoning that people are more inclined to be civil when they know everyone else in the room is armed. Nevertheless, Hanner and Ryin were positioned quietly in the back corners, ready to draw their weapons should the need arise.

Athel tucked her notes behind her and rocked back and forth on her heels. “Ladies...gentleman...androgynous people if there are any, don’t want to leave you out. What we are about to do is both highly profitable and highly dangerous. You have all signed the contract, so we know that you've got the backbone to pull this off. No offense to the cephalopods...”

“None taken,” Geto assured.

Standing behind her, Alder’s head came up. “I recognize that,” he whispered to himself. “You just quoted
The Prints of Tyme
, page 72.

Athel peeked back over her shoulder. “Nice one, Aldi, two points for you.”

“Thank you, my Lady.”

“Athi,” she corrected.

Athel reached over and grabbed the sheet covering the table. “Anyway, I commissioned this special model to go over our plans and make sure everyone knows their part. I know some of you can’t read common...”

“...or at all...” Urbar commented, motioning to Anak.

“...so this should eliminate any language barriers.”

“Clever,” Captain Evere praised. “Even you have good ideas sometimes.”

“You there, be quiet,” Athel hissed.

Athel pulled back the cover, revealing an intricate model of a low mountain, with several buildings built into and around it. The model was accurate to the smallest detail. There were even small clay golem figures of guards and civilians walking about on the pathways and manning the watchtowers. Several of the Guild Masters were so impressed they leaned in and marveled at the craftsmanship. Anuk said nothing, but raised his eyebrow knowingly.

The most dominant feature was an enormous pressure door build directly into the foot of the mountain. From the scale of the people walking about, the door appeared to be truly enormous.

“That’s the most impractical thing I've ever seen,” Bolflel burped drunkenly. “Why would anyone need a door that big?”

Athel reached over and tapped a little rune on the side of the model. A miniature airship model slid down a string towards the door, which opened, allowing the model to fly inside.

“Oh, mystery solved.”

A tear opened in the air above them and Setsuna jumped through, landing on the floor next to Thiric.

“Sorry I’m late,” she apologized, scratching her long pointed ear. “So, what did I miss?”

“How can someone who moves instantly through magic gates always be late to everything?” Thiric groused as he took a long draw on his cigar.

“I got caught up in traffic,” Setsuna teased.

“This mountain is on the north side of a small island called Islai Delsura,” Athel explained as she walked around the model. “It doesn’t officially exist on any chart. Federal Navy ships enforce a strict no-fly zone within a hundred leagues in all directions. No one but Stonemasters and members of royalty are allowed to set foot there.”

“How would you know that?” Sundgen asked, flicking his tusk with his finger.

Athel smiled. “Because I've been there, genius.”

“Oh.”

Bazult and Urbar chuckled to themselves.

Athel pulled out her notes. “Okay, bad news first. This place is a fortress staffed by elite Stonemasters called the Heshi’sians. Their daily rations are laced with a powerful herb called cali’ma'ioro, it makes them immune to pain and torture.”

“So why doesn’t everyone use it?” Hildok asked, scratching the thick bony plates on his head.

Athel rolled her eyes. “Because it’s highly addictive, difficult to cultivate, wickedly expensive, and once you start using it, you can’t stop without dying. Now stop interrupting or I'll make you sit in the back with the dumb kids.”

“Hey!” Ryin complained from the rear of the room.

Hildok looked around at the others, “Is this really The Queen’s daughter?” he asked.

Namtia and Geto chuckled.

“I’m always impressed with how unafraid you are to make a bad first impression,” Alder observed.

Athel looked back over her should. “I’m not sure if that is a compliment or a criticism, so I’m going to chose to take it as a compliment.”

“That is wise.”

Athel took out a pointer and waved it around the table dramatically. “First, we have to get past the Navy blockade, which, anyone will tell you, takes more than a smile and a bag of lies.”

“
The Tower of Frost
, page 132,” Alder whispered.

Athel tapped the pointer on the model. “Next, through this ship-sized outer door, which will not open without a royal seal given to the tithe ships when they leave dock. I’m assuming my mother gave you one?”

Thiric pulled the seal out of his vest pocket and tossed it up to Athel, who caught it in one hand without looking up.

“These seals are magically enchanted to prevent their theft. They will disintegrate after being used, or after twelve days, which leaves us just two more days to pull this off. Any ship who drags their feet is on their own; don’t expect anyone to come back looking for you.”

“
The Lord of the Dragons
, page 278,” Alder whispered.

“Past those, the ship is brought into this special dry dock, where the crew of the tithe ship is removed and held in an anterior room. The ship is staffed by Stonemasters only from this point on.”

Athel tapped a rune and the table split into two sections, revealing the underground chambers located beneath the mountain. “Here’s where it gets tricky. The inner door will not open unless the counterweights are triggered from both sides, and the guards won’t do that without verbal confirmation.”

“Which we won’t get,” Captain Evere added.

“From there the ship passes through a special kind of barrier that will kill anyone who does not possess a special stonemaster seal on their wrist.”

“Which we can’t fake,” Captain Evere added.

“Next, the tithe ship descends down a cave shaft lined with cannon emplacements and six-foot thick iron snap-doors that can be triggered from anywhere in the fortress.”

“If we try to force our way in, the iron doors come down and we'd be trapped,” Captain Evere explained.

“Giving us plenty of time to think about our execution if just one of us misses his or her mark,” Athel added.

“
Snakecharmers
, page 27,” Alder whispered.

Athel spun the pointer around in her hand and tapped it again. “Once we get down the shaft, it’s a piece of cake. Just a few more cannon emplacements and the most...labyrinthine vault door ever conceived.”

Athel looked up to a sea of blank stares. “Any questions?” she asked, faking a smile.

“Why can’t we just tunnel?” Reimay asked, his whiskers twitching.

Athel shook her head. “Tunnelling would take too long, and we'd suffocate from the toxins in the soil. Plus, they've buried all these little tremble orbs for a thousand feet in all directions. If a woodchuck so much as scratched its butt they'd know about it.”

“
The Voyages of Tanabori
, volume 3, page 86,” Alder whispered.

Athel looked around hopefully. “Anyone else?”

Anak raised his hand. “You mentioned good news?”

“Yeah. Federal law requires the reserve to keep enough gold to cover the wages of every active serviceman and to cover all federal contracts for the next three months at any given time. That means that on an average month, the vault contains by law, between one and two billion taries. When the reserves are called up, between three and four billion taries. During a time of war, with thousands of new ships under construction, seven billion taries easily. Once we're done, you can put it all in a big pile and swim in it if you want to.”

“
The Rings of Grendelabra
, volume 5, page 351,” Alder whispered.

Mina leaned in towards Alder. “She does that quite a bit, doesn’t she?”

“You have no idea.”

Athel pointed out towards her audience triumphantly. “There are thirteen Guilds here, each with an equal share. You do the math.”

The Guild Masters looked around at each other uncertainly. A couple shrugged.

Athel dropped her hands down in disappointment. “Alder?”

Alder stepped forward without missing a beat. “Two hundred and thirty-two ships, with an average crew of ninety, that comes out to over three hundred thousand taries per person.”

The Guild Masters smiled and nodded approvingly. A couple of them whistled greedily. The lust for money was thick in the air.

Geto raised his tentacled hand. “I have a question.”

“Go for it.”

“Say we get past the blockade, and through the inner door we can’t open, and through the field we can’t pass through, and down the shaft with all the guards with the cannons we can’t force our way past, and get to the vault we can’t open...”

“...Unseen by observers,” Dr. Griffin added, holding up a small marble.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention that,” Athel said. “The whole place is lined with special glass orbs that send images to the command room here.” Athel tapped her pointer at a room buried within the complex.

Dr. Griffin tossed the marble, which rolled along the floor amidst the pirates.

“They are also quite useful for looking up skirts,” Dr. Griffin added, holding a strange device up to his face.

Setsuna stomped her heel down, smashing the glass orb. The device in Dr. Griffin’s hand shattered in a puff of black smoke, and he fell to the ground, writhing in agony.

Several of the pirates laughed.

Geto raised his hand up again. “Okay, so say we do all that, we're just supposed to walk out of there with seven trillion taries without getting shot?”

Athel shrugged. “Yeah, it'll be just like the fourth
Migration
novel.”

“Oh. Okay. Fine,” Geto said, looking nervous. “No problem.”

Athel began pacing dramatically, tapping the pointer against her leg as if it were a riding crop. “Now, most of the blockade ships have been stripped away for the war, but even so we're going to have to assume that news of our attack will be broadcast the second we start. That gives us two days before reinforcements can be expected to arrive from Kirdish. One of our biggest obstacles will be the time it takes to load the gold onto our ships. To facilitate that, our esteemed colleagues from the Egress Guild will be creating a gate that will allow us to fly our airships, one at a time, directly into the vault itself.”

“That’s impossible,” Bazult appraised.

Athel motioned to Setsuna for an explanation.

Setsuna shrugged and clucked her tongue against her green painted lips. “It’s impossible for a single Gatemaster, but the more of us that work together, the larger the gate, the greater the range. My crew can make one large enough to swallow a ship without breaking a sweat.”

“That’s how you do it, isn’t it?” Namtia hissed. “That’s why your Guild is so wealthy. You just gate whole ships away from the shipping lanes to rob them at your leisure, away from the patrols.”

Setsuna tugged absentmindedly on a green pigtail. “Normally I don’t like to brag, but yes, that is how we do it.”

“Then you are cowards,” Namtia accused.

“Hardly,” Anuk praised. “It is effective, what else matters?”

The comment was so out of character for Anuk that the other Guild Masters could only stare at him.

Her hands in her pockets, Setsuna stepped forward into a tear and reappeared, standing on top of the model. “The problem is that the whole facility is protected by these barriers, and we can’t gate through those,” she appraised, bending down to look it over.

“So, the barriers have to come down,” Athel explained, “which is where our special strike team comes in.”

Athel took out a model of a tithe ship and placed it before the great doors.

“Strike team reveal,” she said into the command crystal. When she did, the tiny crates on the deck popped open, revealing miniature golems made up to look like the crew of the Dreadnaught.

“Oh my gosh, that is so cute,” Mina gushed as she bent over the table. “It’s a tiny me.”

“Okay, strike team take your positions,” Athel said into the crystal. The little golems scrambled about on the ship, climbing up the shrouds and crawling across the yardarms.

“Ohh, sweetie, sorry to interrupt, but could you make mine jump?” Mina begged.

Athel rolled her eyes. “Mina, jump,” she said into the crystal. The tiny Mina golem hopped up and down, her long white fox tail whipping behind her.

“That is adorable!” Mina purred.

Alder stepped up and looked at his golem. “I assume I'll be contributing in my usual capacity as decoy?”

“No Alder,” Athel smiled. “You get to be bait this time.”

“Make mine dance!” Margaret begged.

Athel sighed. “Margaret, dance.” The tiny golem put up its little arms and spun around like a ballerina.

“Yay!” Margaret cheered.

“Okay, back on task,” Athel said. “So, the strike force will...”

“Ohh, make mine do a cartwheel!” Mina insisted.

“We don’t have time for this,” Athel groaned.

Mina grabbed the crystal from Athel’s hand.

“Hey!” Athel said, “Give that back.”

“Mina, do a cartwheel,” Mina shouted into the crystal. The tiny Mina golem cartwheeled along the yardarm as if it were a balance beam.

“Will you knock it off?” Athel demanded, grabbing back the crystal. “Now, the next thing...”

Dr. Griffin leaned over Athel’s shoulder and shouted into the crystal. “Mina, punch Athel!”