Tarwert watched through the scrying windows of the control center of Junkshop as the granite mountain-ship flew away. He wore a pressure suit and floated around the room, bouncing off the walls from time to time, because not only had the port lost atmosphere, but it had also lost artificial gravity.

  He felt like a pathetic failure, but there was nothing more he could have done. However, there was still one option, that he’d been holding off on, because he wanted to be sure the Queen wasn’t scrying. With her ship moving on, he seriously doubted she would bother.

  He cast a bone-transduction spell while he concentrated on an image of General Snurkirt, the gnome in charge of the military. He’d met the fellow six months earlier, when he’d been appointed as Port Commander, because Snurkirt was in charge of the security of all outward affairs, including the Ice Palace.

  General Snurkirt was old enough that his hair was falling out, which was exceptionally rare to see, since accidental death at a young age was the most common end to a gnome’s life.

  Snurkirt was quite unusual, because he was one of the half-blessed, bearing only a single measure of The Touch of Wambris. By gnomish standards, that was considered a terrible affliction, but on the other hand, it made him perfect for government service. After all, government jobs were hard to fill and needed a mind less prone to flights of fancy.

  He wore a green uniform and sat at a conference table, enduring a meeting that had gone on for three hours and was likely to fill the entire day, because the other government officials present couldn’t stay on topic long enough to save their own lives.

  Snurkirt wasn’t the supreme ruler of the gnomes, at least in title, an honor that belonged to King Smimjeck. However, Smimjeck was too busy painting, sculpting and building things to care. He’d long ago given Snurkirt some very ill-advised orders, which left the General with extreme latitude to do as he pleased: “Oh, just stop bothering me a take care of everything however you prefer!”

  Snurkirt hated committee meetings, but it was the only way he’d found to get the others appointed by the King to cooperate, at least when he could get them to focus for five minutes.

  He was about to raise his voice and shout for the fifteenth time, when his skull began to vibrate, due to a bone transduction spell, in the voice of a very stressed individual, “Um, General Snurkirt?”

  “Speak.” The General responded and gave the voice his full attention.

  “Um, this is Tarwert from Junkshop. I hate to tell you this, but the Dead Queen attacked us and stole the spell-core, as well as about ten percent of the port’s ice.”

  On one level, the General was glad, because he was sick of endless, infuriating meetings and boring, day-to-day work. With a pirate attack to deal with, he could finally do his real job. On the other hand, the Dead Queen was the most formidable opponent he could ever face and he was likely to die in combat sometime soon.

  “How are your people doing?” He asked.

  “We’re okay, for now.” Tarwert supplied, “She gave us time to put on our pressure suits and was more polite than I expected. Oh, and she asked me to give a message to the pirates.”

  “What’s the message?”

  “Don’t screw with me, because I’m in a bad mood!”

  “Give me a brief version of the whole story.” Snurkirt ordered.

  Tarwert obeyed and with a little prompting to stay on topic, delivered the required information.

  “Thank you for your report. Hang tight and I’ll have a fresh spell-core sent up with haste. In the mean time, make sure you reach out to the closest ports and spread that message.”

  “Of course, General.”

  Snurkirt shouted for silence, then declared, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now at war with the pirate queen! She’s been attacked and chose to use Junkshop as an example of things to come. All the old rules are off the table and it’s time to attack her!

  “Prepare the entire fleet for a seek and destroy mission! I also need our three greatest mathematicians aboard my ship, Seed of Destruction, within the hour! Send a spare spell-core up to Junkshop, or the gnomes that serve there will perish!”

  “But we’ve always-” one of the noblemen began to argue.

  As the gnome spoke, Snurkirt marched over, slapped him and screamed in his face from three inches away, “Shut up! This is a military matter and you will all do as I say!” He looked around the room, taking a moment to meet the gaze of the others, staring each and every one of them to silence, before he screamed, “I gave all of you some orders! See to them or I’ll have you replaced!”

  Every gnome scattered and ran from the room, having finally grasped the General’s tone enough to be very scared, though he wasn’t sure if they were more afraid of him or the current situation. It might have been both.

  He strode from the room, because he wanted to be in the air within two hours and there were quite a few matters that needed his attention before lift-off. It wasn’t going to be easy to match the speed of Foundation Stone, but if anyone could do it, it was a gnomish engineer with the threat of death hanging over their head.

  As he walked, he cast a bone transduction spell of his own, which he focused on the first officer of Seed of Destruction, saying, “We’re going to war. Prepare the ship for flight and get someone with a crossbow to supervise the chief engineer, to keep him on task. We’re going to need all the speed we can get!”

  Anna returned to her quarters aboard Ice Palace Sixty-Eight. Despite the fact she’d lined the room with rugs and tapestries, it was still rather chilly, since it was made of ice. Her bed was rather comfortable, however, because it featured heavy furs and she’d etched runes for warmth into a metal plate she’d put beneath the mattress.

  She’d been selected for her post based on her talent for long-range scrying and communication magic, which was considered essential for the job of Port Keeper, because the Order expected regular and swift reports.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  While every port had a Port Commander, relatively few included a Port Keeper, or resident Newt Witch. Mostly, the job involved communicating with several ports, usually seven or eight of the minor ones, plus one major port, like Sixty-Eight. They were also responsible for relaying additions to and deductions from account balances that were tracked on behalf of various travelers, because water was the currency of space and each Ice Palace served as a bank.

  In Anna’s case, she technically looked after the Ice Palaces numbered seventy-three, down to sixty-five, a task that could fill most of a day when the others were all within reach. She was technically able to reach half the moons of Junas with bone transduction, which was unusual, but she was only responsible for contacting the ports assigned to her.

  Seventy-Three hadn’t been in contact for centuries, due to the people of Taneas becoming dangerously xenophobic, and last she’d tried to scry for it, three years earlier, it hadn’t been there. She’d looked further afield in an attempt to locate it, but had failed, ultimately concluding the locals had either destroyed or de-orbited it, a worrying fact that hinted at how powerful they’d become. In the past, it had still been there, though it had been derelict and disused for more than a century.

  Seventy had been given to the gnomes of Wambris, because there was only so much insanity a sane witch could endure before she walked away. Unfortunately, Anna was still required to maintain minimal contact, for the sake of sharing warnings of danger, though under normal circumstances, she only had to contact them once an orbit, or about once a month. She wasn’t looking forward to reaching out to them over current matters, which was why she planned to do them last.

  She wasn’t normally supposed to reach beyond the network of local witches and Port Commanders, but the current situation required swift action, lest one of the Ice Palaces mistakenly give the Blackwell Sisters refuge, especially since Amelia was capable of plotting direct courses in her head.

  Anna pictured the face of Arabella Talbot in her mind, the current Matron of The Order of Newts, and cast a bone transduction spell. Matron Talbot was quite far away, at The Palace of Judgment, which was just barely within reach.

  “Matron Talbot, I have urgent news…”

  The Queen was frustrated and angry with herself, because she’d spared the lives of the gnomes aboard Junkshop, which hadn’t been her original plan. She’d intended to steal what she liked, followed by de-orbiting the port, to drop it on Wambris, while she allowed all the docked ships to escape, because someone had to survive to tell the tale. It would have been absolutely delightful to see the port crash into the surface, which would impact so hard, it was likely to blanket the entire world in dust that would start an ice age, because the port was a sphere of ice, two miles in diameter.

  However, she’d instead been far more measured and controlled than she’d intended, which had to be Marta’s influence. The Queen really didn’t like the implications, but that was likely a matter of meditation.

  Still, the situation aboard Foundation Stone had been improved, because the new spell-core was just strong enough to unify the magic of the ship, which simplified navigation, plus the Queen had managed to steal the atmosphere of the Ice Palace by sending her Docking Witch, Mina Trevlis, to manipulate the existing atmospheric seal spell the core was projecting. The air was thin, like a mountain top, but that was enough for speaking, which made handing out orders much easier.

  The usual timetable for a soul theft had been abandoned, due to Amelia crashing Starwitch into the bridge and since then, the Queen had been far too busy to focus on the mental battle, while Marta obviously had plenty of time on her hands, time enough to exert dangerous influence.

  The Queen was furious and still in a killing mood, despite her uncharacteristic restraint, growling, “And they stole my dog!”

  The bridge crew flinched again, focusing on anything and everything they could to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

  As her crew moved Foundation Stone away from Junkshop, the Queen closed her eyes and focused on Marta, picking through her opponent’s most recent memories, to figure out where Starwitch was.

  They were heading for Black Palace, a place the Queen had always liked. Oh, the cultists that ran the place were pretty strange, but harmless, on the whole. Ironically, the Children of Takenta openly welcomed even unaligned and rogue pirates, because their religion required accepting everyone, good and evil, light or dark. They believed that the human condition was so steeped in both, that it was only right and logical to accept them on even terms and seek the point of balance between the two.

  The Queen’s eyes snapped open and she declared, “We’re going to Ice Palace Fifty-Two!” She paused to perform the relevant calculations in her head, then rattled off a set of precise instructions for maneuvering and thrust.

  When the bridge crew were busy to her satisfaction, the Queen closed her eyes and meditated on the memories of Marta, curious to learn why the sisters were headed for Black Palace…

  Anna had just finished reaching out to all of the other Ice Palaces she was responsible for, leaving only Junkshop. With a sigh, she focused her mind on the high-pitched voice of the current little fool in charge of the place.

  She spoke, “Tarwert, I’m Anna Brack, your Port Keeper.”

  “I’m glad to hear from you!” Tarwert spoke with relief, “I was about to reach out.”

  “Oh?”

  Tarwert explained, “Junkshop was attacked by the pirate queen…”

  Orgic stepped into his office, just after Starwitch had left. His Docking Witch, Beth Killoran, was more than six feet tall, with vibrantly red, but rather short hair and brown eyes. However, her most striking feature was her collection of tattoos, which covered every inch of her body that Orgic had seen. Most of them were in the form of interlocking flowers in a blue shade, though each of her fingers featured a bee just behind the first knuckle and the back of her neck was a spider’s web, with a black widow at the center on the background green color of her neck, which made it look like a huge flower stem. Her face was dominated by an open, red rose, which gave one the impression they were talking to a mobile, sentient flower, especially since she perpetually wore a pair of enchanted earrings that created a subtle illusion to enhance the effect, making her hair and ears appear as part of the rose.

  “Hey boss.” Beth greeted him, then added, “I know you well enough to know this doesn’t sit well. What’s the plan?”

  Orgic nodded, “Aye. Me wants ye to reach out to Shallow Victory and hire every ship ye can. Me’ll give ye access to me accounts for this. Send them to rally at Katuna, where they’ll stand with the Blackwell sisters, just as soon as the Dead Queen arrives. Tell them they’re also welcome to any treasures they can take from her ship, but the Blackwells get first pick of everything.

  “After ye’ve done that, reach out to General Skalgoum Rubyfall, down below. Tell him the sisters are luring the Queen to Katuna. Me wants as many ships as he can muster and tell him this will clear his debt to me. Ask the Keeper to plot a direct course for them, but don’t tell her why. If she argues, remind her of the day me saved her life, in the market. If she won’t help, then contact Amelia and ask her to plot the course.”

  “You got it, boss.” Beth stepped toward the exit.

  Orgic didn’t like it, but another idea had occurred to him.

  Before Beth left, Orgic called out, “Wait, me wants one more thing!”

  “Yeah?” Beth turned back around.

  “There’s always ships from the Silver Circle about. Go tell their captains that if the Circle doesn’t support the Blackwells at Katuna, me will use all of me influence to get them banned from trading with Ibris.”

  “Whoa!” Beth’s eyes went wide, “Are you sure you want to blackmail the largest merchant house like that?”

  “Aye.” Orgic spoke with great intensity, “The Blackwells is family and me would gladly burn me career to ashes for them. No one screws with me family!”

  “I hear you, boss.” Beth nodded, grimly, “I’ll see if anyone else around here has some strings to pull, since everyone loved those oranges so much. After all, if the Blackwell sisters die, we’ll never see oranges again, since no one else does rush orders.”