It is here I vanish from the histories for a time. Even my most persistent biographers assume that The Burning Knave, the ship that took me from Axichis, was taken as a prize by the Kharsoomian corsairs that ply the Lapis Ocean. They believe I was taken from there to the slave markets at Dezsu, and sold immediately to the Clan Sesamhat, where I toiled for some time before effecting my release. They have found what remain of the records, and I am still under a death sentence by that clan, albeit under a different name. These assumptions are false, and eliminate perhaps the most important parts of the time I think of as my exile.

It is for this reason that I will provide more context to this phase of my life. I hope you will indulge an old man and forgive me if I linger upon details with which you are familiar. No doubt some of you hail from far Obai or even Uazica and know of the peculiar custom of the regions.

The truth is that I spent many years between the voyage from Axichis and my sale in Dezsu. In the darkness of the war, I was gripped by a powerful wanderlust that I could not deny. I did not truly understand my motives at the time. As I said, I thought of this as my exile, some kind of punishment, and I still carry that label for this time even now. The truth was that I needed time to heal, and soon, it was to cope with the shame that would soon dog me throughout. I could not return home until I was once again complete, a task that took much longer than expected.

I would shortly take the name Ashuz, and become known as the Blackspear. This was who emerged from the decadent wastes of Kharsoom. I would return with the hand of my wife, the incomparable beauty Tanyth of Clan Abibaal. I would be a prince. And I would be master of Fate itself. These tales will come in time.

When I left the amazons, the wounds of the war were too raw to even probe. For the first weeks of my journey, I sat upon the deck as we sailed first west, and then south, heading for the Strait of Trelyr that would spill us into the Lapis Ocean. Each moment upon the sea took me farther from home, but I did not care. It was farther from the pain I'd left on the Turquoise Isles.

I rested at the prow, feeling the roll of the waves beneath me and trying to forget that I'd felt the same thing nearly every day during the war. Oddrin sat in my lap, and I stroked his glabrous surface, trying to find peace that would not come. Even the sight of dolphins frolicking in the waves did little to rouse me from my melancholy.

"Are you enjoying the view?" The question was from Jerrika Grendel, in her honey-smooth contralto. The captain of the vessel, she could not have been much older than I and I was still a few months shy of my third decade.

She was only a bit shorter than me, with a lean figure sculpted by a life on the waves. She wore breeches, cinched below her knees, her legs bare below. A golden ring sparkled from one toe, and a sea serpent tattoo twining about her other ankle. Her skin was a light brown, with luminous golden undertones.

She wore a loose tunic with a waistcoat. Her brown jacket, a common sight on deck, was not on her now. It was treated leather, water running off its stiff surface. Her wide-brimmed hat was treated I the same way, and that never left her head when she was outdoors.

She had wide cheekbones, dusted with fetching brown freckles that went over the bridge of her upturned nose. Her eyes, large with a touch of a slant, were a bright tawny brown. Her long, curly red hair was bound in a tail. Her lips always held a tiny smirk.

"I love this part of the Turquoise," she mused when I didn't respond. "Closer to the Lapis, the water has the prettiest hue. Quiet too."

I almost didn't respond again but the bait was too tempting. "Quiet?"

"We're not far from the strait now. The coast," she pointed to the south, where great cliffs rose from the sea, "is too rocky. The islands are small and barren here. And, of course, there is the Heavenfall."

My gaze went to the east. Though shrouded by its clinging webs of fog, the purplish shape of the Heavenfall was visible on the horizon. Though it nearly formed a land bridge between Aucor and Chassudor, it was utterly impassable, and that was before the legends that stuck to it like its funereal wrap of mist.

"Are the legends true?'

"All legends are true, wizard. And false. The seas are hungrier there, but access to the Lapis makes the danger worthwhile." She shrugged. "For those with the stomach for it."

I was quiet, watching the looming presence of the Heavenfall, its peak disappearing into the sky.

"I am curious about something," she said. "You are far from the only charter I've taken from Axichis, but you are the first man. What were you doing there?"

"Killing," I said.

Now it was her turn to be silent for a time. "A lot of that happening lately." She was quiet for a little longer, and I listened to the waves slosh against the ship. "Watch for when the water of the Lapis mixes with that of the Turquoise."

She left me at the gunwale, and I turned my attention to the water.

I stopped wearing my elven robes. That was a decision I would regret, but at the time, I could not bear to have them on me. I wore my old robes, the ones that had wrapped Zhahllaia's lamp in my pack. A foolish, sentimental act, but I longed to be close to her and this was the only way I could think to do it. I did not care that they collected the water from the air the way the elven robes did not, and could be at turns too warm and not warm enough. The phantom touch of my djinn was what I craved.

I wondered what she would think of her great conqueror, knowing that I had left a war half fought. What had old Qammuz thought of unwinnable wars? Perhaps that had been their doom. They had been like the Heacharids in their time, but Qammuz had brought with it art and culture, and they were far more keen to adopt what they found than replace it. It had not mattered in the end. They had passed into history in the way that Axichis soon would.

My quarters, such that they were, was a hammock strung in the hold. It smelled of wet wood, old produce, and the ghosts of spice. I spent just as many nights up on the deck under the stars. Sleep was more often than not an absent friend.

As we drew close to the Strait of Trelyr, we neared the Heavenfall as well. Something about it filled me with dread, a drone at the edge of hearing that drove me mad. Shapes soared through the fog high above, silhouettes of creatures I did not recognize. I had never seen this thing, though Rhadoviel had mentioned it in his lectures. All considered it to be an ill omen, and I knew now why. The fascinating thing about the Heavenfall is that its name is entirely wrong, but it would be many years before I learned its true origins.

For the moment, I could only watch it warily, as though this mammoth stone would suddenly betray a sinister purpose and start to move. We slipped through the strait, spilling us out into the Lapis, the western coast of Aucor off our port side. Captain Grendel, Jerrika, had been right. The mixing of the bright water of the Turquoise with the deep and subtle color of the Lapis was breathtaking. I watched the tendrils of each reaching into one another, but never quite mixing. It made me long for the Castelpont, where my home and my concubines waited. That was at the mixing of the Turquoise and the Azure, a similar enough sight to fill me with longing.

I began to make myself useful. Over two years spent on Naeri's Revenge had made an able seaman of me and such toil took my mind off the war. That first night, when I went to my hammock after a day of labor, it was with the pleasing exhaustion of work. The next day, the captain approached me.

"Were you not a wizard, I would ask you to join my crew," she said.

"Perhaps that is what I will do next."

"It is an honest trade." Her smirk widened. "Unless you do it right."

"I spent the bulk of the last two years at sea."

"It shows. It is my custom to invite charters to my quarters for supper. An evening of conversation to break the monotony of travel."

"We've been at sea for a month."

"You have not seemed amenable to company until now."

She was not wrong. "Yes, I will join you." She nodded and returned to her command. I too worked, my robes clinging uncomfortably to my skin, but I did not care. Work, honest work, was good for my soul.

I went to the captain's quarters after sundown. She answered after a knock. Her quarters were modest, a small room at the aft port side of the ship. Her hammock hung near the portholes, a small desk nearby. A dining table, fit for four, sat in the middle of the room, a chair at either end. Hers was marked with her her jacket and hat hanging over the back. "Welcome, wizard. And here I must ask your name. Manners and all that."

I opened my mouth and found my name would not leave my tongue. It was stuck in my throat, stubbornly refusing to be dislodged. Belromanazar of Thunderhead had been the Butcher of the Wooden Bay. He had been the one to slay his tent sisters, to use their corpses in an attempt to win an unwinnable war. I would not be him. I would be someone else. Or I would be no one else. "Ashuz," I said. A word in Abbih, the language of Old Qammuz. It meant, simply, No one.

"Ashuz. An unusual name. Doesn't sound Rhandic, and your coloring, your accent..." she paused, her keen eyes searching my face. "...it's not important. Captain Jerrika Grendel at your service. Please, sit and eat your fill. I've opened a bottle of Axichan wine in your honor. A fine vintage from what I understand."

I swallowed on a dry throat. The idea of drinking their wine while their homeland was falling turned my stomach. "Thank you."

The captain set a fine table, and the fact that nothing matched, from the table, to the chairs, to the cutlery, gave me some comfort. It was far from where I had been, where everything was Axichan, never once allowing me to forget where I was, and thus, why I was there. I sat, and Oddrin twined about the back of the chair.

She filled our goblets with wine from a fresh bottle, then sat opposite me. "Your...creature. Does he bite?"

"Rarely."

"I suppose that's a blessing. You wizards and your exotic pets."

"He's more than a pet," I said. "He's the connection to magic."

She cocked her head. "If something were to happen to him, you would be unable to work magic?"

"Correct."

"You fought an entire war and no one ever tried to slay him?"

"Who said no one tried?"

Her smirk widened into a grin. "Very good. Very, very good."

The door opened, the cook bringing in a serving tray. Dumplings, encased in a flaky crust, sat on a bed of dried and fragrant leaves. The cook set them down with a mutter. "Thank you, Piet." He retreated and she gestured with her fork. "Be my guest, Ashuz. Traditional Mairese food."

"You're Mairese."

"You couldn't tell?"

"I guessed, but I was not certain."

"Do you know my people?"

"I know one." I referred to Phylyta Sullac, a fellow wizard I'd met in Iarveiros with whom I had corresponded for years since. Despite seeing her in the flesh only twice, I counted Lyta as one of my closest friends. "She is a friend."

"She, hmm? Why do I think there are quite a few shes in your life?"

I selected a dumpling and put it on my plate. When I cut it open, it bled a spicy slurry of fish, lamb, and dark gravy. The flavor was savory and subtle, and knocked me back in my seat.

She chuckled. "Piet is skilled in the kitchen, isn't he? Sadly, we don't carry that much of this quality of food on board. Just enough for me to entertain charters."

"I am grateful."

"The way your robes hang from you, it looks as though it has been some time since your last decent meal."

"We did not have very much on the islands. A blockade. I believe the Heacharids tried to starve us."

"Yes." She shook her head. "I dread the day the Heacharids turn their attention on Mairault."

"You would fight?"

"I might feel guilt over not fighting. Have you ever been to a Heacharid port?"

"I've been told they would kill me on sight."

She waggled her hand. "Not quite. If you had the coin to travel, oh then, there'd be special dispensation, wouldn't there? Their goddess would decide that your death wasn't needed. But you'd need to pay this and sign that and woe betide him who forgot the seal of the Church."

"I think I see."

"And it would be for nothing. You know why you should visit a Heacharid city?"

"No."

"Exactly. You don't. And they decided to spread this. I tell you something, Ashuz. You tried to stop them, and for that you have my gratitude. The more of the Turquoise they take, the more difficult my life becomes. And the more boring every port. Although the more these ports will pay for proper goods."

"I have no desire to visit their empire."

"A wise decision. Where will you go?"

"Castellandria."

"That's right, I recall now. You wanted to go to Castellandria and I cruelly told you I was going in the other direction. Now that is a city. Anything you would want is there."

"Indeed."

"You will not have trouble finding passage, but you might need to go overland. The Turquoise is liable to be dangerous in that stretch for some time."

I planned to find standing stones and make my journey through the Hinterlands, but I saw no need to share this with her. The utter lack of them upon the isles of Axichis had been a conscious decision by the amazons and their distrust of areteoi. I had been more trapped and isolated than I ever had been.

We finished the dumplings and Piet returned, this time with a fish, its belly flayed open and stuffed with roasted eels. "A charter gives me the excuse for one such meal," she said with a grin.

"It is more food than I have seen in some time." Even the feasts at war usually gave little more than a bowl of soup and a crust of bread.

"Eat, Ashuz. Let it never be said that the table of Captain Grendel be miserly." We ate for a time, my stomach gurgling happily with each bite. "Tell me something. What does a wizard do when he is not at war?"

"I was an adventurer."

"Mad bastards," she said with a trace of approval. "I might have guessed. I can see why you would be drawn into a war then."

"It was not an adventure," I said, my voice low.

She sipped her wine, apparently unaware of the danger in my voice. "No, not that. Merely that adventurers have a habit of finding lost causes, of fighting for people who cannot. Adventurers are exactly the breed to find themselves against the Heacharids."

"Oh," I said. Abruptly, I was no longer hungry. "That is right."

"I should like to hear some of your adventuring stories. Perhaps not tonight, but we've time before we make port."

I enjoyed the work of a sailor. The crew went about their jobs through the long days at sea, voiced raised in song. I learned the songs by sound alone, for they were in Mairese. Many of the words were familiar, because Mairese was a dialect of Eomet, the language of Castellandria, and the closest thing to a common tongue in and around the Turquoise Sea. Pronunciation made them nigh impossible to understand, and so I caught only scraps of meaning,

Working in robes was difficult, and Jerrika took pity on me, giving me a pair of breeches one day. I changed, carefully tying the sweetwater goblet to the rope belt about my hips. The captain regarded my lean torso, now exposed to the air.

"What happened there?" she asked, indicating the circular scar on my abdomen, a souvenir from my first battle against Lysethe.

"A disagreement with a fellow wizard."

"You'd be wise not to disagree with them then."

"We don't anymore," I said.

A frown flickered over her features, as though she had caught the shade of my meaning but didn't quite understand. "In any case, those breeches will serve you better than the robes."

"Could I trouble you for a shirt?"

"Don't have any of those, I'm afraid." She gave me another look, this time ignoring the scar and instead going over the muscles of my chest and abdomen. "You seem attached to that cup. I could give you one that is not covered in barnacles. Won't be silver, but it will hold water."

I took it to the barrel of seawater the swabbies were using to scrub the boards and dunked it in, then offered it to her. "Drink."

She looked at me like I'd gone mad. "I should see if I can find a hat. Your brain is baking."

I sipped the water. Then I gulped the water. Then I quaffed the rest and refilled the cup. "Trust me."

She gave me a wary look, then accepted the cup. Another look and she touched it to her lips. Her expression changed with the first sip and she quickly swallowed the rest. "What is this?"

"My sweetwater goblet," I said.

"Some of your wizardry, I take it."

"A gift from a friend."

"Oh yes, another one of these mysterious friends. For such a melancholy fellow, you seem to have no shortage of admirers."

"I've been lucky."

A song struck up, and it was one of my favorites. I joined in, doing my best to sing the unfamiliar words. Jerrika broke into a wide grin.

"What?" I asked, hoping we would be finished with the conversation before I got to my favorite verse.

"You like this song?"

"Very much. Why?"

"It's about a young sailor who meets a woman at a port."

"That's lovely."

"And when he goes to sea, he breaks out in warts and sores and all manner of ailments. Most of the verses are cataloguing his shame."

"They really set it to a jaunty tune, didn't they?"

"That they did. Carry on, Ashuz."

I shrugged and really tore into my favorite verse, to the amusement of my fellow crew. I could only hope the lyrics were especially lurid. The sun set and I stayed on deck with the crew, donning my robes for warmth. A few played simple instruments and sang, others started a dice game, and others drank quietly at the prow.

I unrolled a piece of parchment, marking it properly, and putting out objects I'd collected: bits of wood, knots of string, some bristles. Before long, I had collected a small crowd of curious onlookers.

"What are you doing?" asked Waller, a bosun's mate. He spoke in halting Eomet, which was helpful as I still needed practice in the language.

"A game," I said. "Sit. I'll teach you to play."

Waller was the first to learn Alishum, but he was not the last. By the end of the week, I had not only the crew playing but asking my assistance for the creation of new sets. In true sailor fashion, they turned it into a reason for gambling. I refused that aspect as they weren't worthy opponents for me. I'd learned from Zhahlliaia the Enlightened after all.

"Where is this game from?" Jerrika asked, coming up next to me. I stood over Waller and Piet as they played. I saw avenues of victory for the both of them, avenues that Zhahllaia would have mercilessly exploited, but the two men were unaware.

"It was played in the courts of Old Qammuz."

"Old Qammuz? What do you know of that?"

"I've learned a bit about it."

"Wizards and your books." She looked it over. "When these two salts are finished, bring the game to my quarters. You'll teach me. I'll not be the last one on this ship who understands it."

The men complained when I took my board and pieces to Jerrika's cabin, but they couldn't gainsay their captain. She greeted me with warmed wine, salted fish, and bread laid out on the table for the two of us.

"Show me," she said, chewing on a crust of bread.

I put the pieces out. "They would normally be made of...something more appropriate. I've set I sculpted from coral and driftwood."

"It is at home in Castellandria?" I nodded. Zhahllaia would not have stood for me taking it. Jerrika cocked her head. "Where did you go?"

"I don't understand."

"Your eyes went far away, and...it was like the war dropped from your face for a moment."

"I am thinking of a friend."

"The one who taught you Alishum."

"Yes."

"She is more than a friend."

"Yes."

"You'll be home with her soon, wizard, though perhaps in slightly used condition. Now show me how these pieces work."

I taught Jerrika the game, and though she had a quick mind, she was not my match. "I have to admit I'm a little surprised," I said.

"By what?"

"The lyrics of your sea chanteys. Although I suppose that there is bound to be a change in your culture over the centuries."

"What do you mean?" she asked, ready to move one of her immortals into an attack position.

"You don't want to do that," I said absently. She put the immortal back, hunting for another move. "Mairault. It was founded by religious dissidents.'

Jerrika laughed. "What?"

"Religious dissidents from...I can't remember. Some kingdom in northern Aucor."

"We were founded by Castellandrian pirates," she said.

"Lyta said--"

"Lyta lied. Oh, we've had religious dissidents from all over come and make a home on our islands, but we were founded by pirates. Did you not wonder why our language is a Castellandrian dialect?"

"I should have," I admitted.

"Not everyone is proud of our pirate heritage, I suspect."

"And you are?"

"No. Not proud of anything. I had nothing to do with my heritage. It's a fact though, and I'll not hear untruths. Now, I think I have a handle on this game. We'll play for real."

"As you wish."

"But we're going to make this interesting."

"I've not much in the way of coin with me."

"I remember what you paid for the charter. No, I said interesting. Every game you lose, you remove an item of clothing. We play until one of us runs out."

I was only wearing my robes and the breeches she'd given me. I was confident. "Very well. Let's get started."

Just to prove what I could do, I beat her with the blind advance, a trick victory that any beginning player learns to be wary of. Zhahllaia had made certain to beat me with it early, and she liked to feint with it just to see if I was paying attention.

Jerrika surveyed the board. "I suppose I should be more careful." She slipped off her waistcoat and set it aside without ceremony. "Another game?"

"Are you certain? I learned to play from a master."

"I'm certain," she said, her smirk never wavering.

She didn't fall for the same gambit, and so it took me a bit longer to beat her, but beat her I did. She unlaced her tunic and pulled it off over her head. Her modest breasts were bound against her chest with a length of soft linen, producing a pleasing bit of cleavage. Freckles dotted the sweet bowl between her soft globes. For the first time, I felt myself growing hard, my attention straying to where her nipples gently tented the fabric.

"Enjoying the view?" she teased.

"Not as much as I'll enjoy it after the next game."

She played well, and she kept leaning far over the playing board to distract me. It worked, and I blundered into a few bad moves that took me time to recover from. When I finally toppled her sultan, she grinned. "I suppose I should have seen that coming."

"Go on now."

"Eager, are we?" She stood, unwinding the wrap from her breasts. They bounced free, a pair of modest hemispheres capped by pinkish-brown nipples. A beauty mark sat by one, and I kept picturing my mouth brushing over it. Her breasts were wonderfully buoyant, sitting high on her chest, reacting to movement with an alluring jiggle. I watched as gooseflesh pebbled the soft skin and her nipples grew hard.

"Next game."

She beat me. Perhaps it was because my eyes constantly fell to her swaying breasts, especially when she leaned far over, her nipples lightly grazing the playing surface. Perhaps it was that I wanted to lose. "Go on now," she said to me, echoing my order.

I stood, pulling off the robes, revealing the breeches beneath. I was swelling against my leg, the charged air in the room sinking tendrils into my flesh. Her gaze fell to my staff, her eyebrows rising. I sat before she got a good look and set the board for another game.

I beat her decisively. I would give her no air. At this point, I knew what I wanted, the persistent rush of blood in my ears, the warmth over the back of my neck. I needed to finish things, and reveal the last of her. "The breeches," I said, rust growing on my voice.

She stood, undid the ties below her navel. I watched her agile fingers take their time with the knots. Finally, the two strands hung free, each side of the breeches beginning to separate. I caught a glimpse of a single curly hair, a shocking red against the cream-colored garment.

She hooked her thumbs into the waistband and pulled them down, revealing a lovely sex with pouting lips and delicate innerfolds, nestled in a bed of fiery fleece. Hair, I noted, that was already wet. A savory, musky fragrance joined the ambience of the cabin. I stared at it for a time, wondering how it might feel beneath my hand or my tongue. How it would feel wrapped about my staff.

"Turn about," I said finally.

"Turn?"

"I won, and this is my prize. I want to see everything."

She turned, displaying a small and shapely buttocks. Every movement dimpled the two hemispheres. She would be strong under my grip, capable of wonderful movement. Before I could descend too far into the fantasy, she sat, robbing me of my delicious view. "Another game."

"You've run out of clothing," I said. "You've nothing to wager."

"Pick a hole," she said.

"Pardon?"

"You heard me. If I lose, you pick a hole."

"Pick a hole."

"Yours to do with as you wish. For a short while."

"You're serious."

"Quite."

"Why?"

"Could be this is what I do with all my charters. Could be you're special. Could be I am curious about the man who lived with the amazons. How adept he must be at satisfying them."

I considered. I wanted her, even despite my turmoil. I wondered, if perhaps this Mairese captain was precisely what I needed. "Turn about again."

She cocked her head, but then obeyed, giving her hips a wiggle. She began to muse aloud. "What will the wizard choose? Will he choose my bee-stung lips and see what a sailor knows of the knight's kiss? Will he choose my sweet cunny and find what a velvet vise I've between my legs? Or will he choose..." She had her back to me, and put a hand against one buttock, spreading it. Her rosebud, a dark circle winked at me as though to express its own preference. She let this option go unspoken, though I noted how gooseflesh dusted the dimples of her lower back.

"What would you like me to pick?"

"Oh no, that is the wager. Pick blindly. What do you want?"

"Mouth," I said finally.

"An excellent choice. I can suck the barnacles off an anchor."

"My standards are quite high. I've had a woman trained in the Silken Labyrinth of Kharsoom."

"I can compete with those slatterns. Now quit stalling and set the board."

I obeyed. Beating her was a bit more difficult this time because I kept thinking of her face between my legs, imagining her lips wrapped about my thick staff, struggling to swallow the seed I pumped down her throat. Distracted though I was, I beat her nonetheless. She had not been trained by Zhahllaia the Enlightened.

"Well," she said. "I suppose I have to pay up."

I lifted myself off the chair just high enough to slide my breeches down and off. The cool ocean air caressed my staff already wet with my dew. "I am ready."

She stood, once again showing off a body sculpted by a hard life at sea. She was supple and lovely, and I liked watching her muscles bunch beneath her taut skin. She came to the side of my chair. My staff was still hidden beneath the table. "I'll need some room."

I scooted out, and my spear came into view, now jutting aggressively up, its purplish head shining. "Here you are."

"I can see how you found a home amongst the amazons," she said, dropping to her knees in front of me. "I find myself wishing you had picked one of the other two options. One more than the other."

"And which would that be?"

"You made your choice, wizard. Now, let me show you the skill of a Mairese captain." She took me in hand, then without hesitation, spat upon my head. Ulodice had done the same and I found the act, at once insulting and familiar, to inflame me. Her thumb came up, massaging the white wad of spittle into the engorged head. The path of the digit ignited me, the sensation almost unbearably wonderful.

"That is your hand, not your mouth," I sighed.

"Hands are included with every hole," she said. "Mairese custom."

"I should visit."

"You should. See that friend of yours. I would wager she has thought of doing this from time to time."

She licked up one side of me, then the other, her tongue wide and flat, then brought her mouth to the apex. I wondered what she was doing, and found she was drooling more spittle over my head, massaging it into the increasingly sensitive flesh. The water of her saliva joined with the fire of her touch to bring me to boiling. She kept this up, her licking, her drooling, until the sound of her hand going up and down me squelched with moisture.

I reached into her red curls, taking a handful, and pushed her to my pulsing staff. "I was promised your mouth."

"You were, weren't you." She fought against the push for a moment, then relented.

She opened her mouth, sucking me in, her tongue writhing over the head. She ignited my body. As she took me in deeper, she began to suck. Her tongue was restless, and more of her spittle flowed down me. Soon it was sloshing about over me, dripping from her. She pulled the pleasure from me in slurps, up and down. She was right to be arrogant. Her technique was direct, insistent, flawless.

Her hands were busy. One followed her lips in a stroke, while the other caressed my coin purse. It was a subtle touch that raised the hair on the back of my neck, a lovely counterpoint to her more vulgar ministrations.

I thrust up against her, and she was game, each time taking me deeper. Her strokes were long and languid, the slurp, suck, and lick of a trained spear-polisher. The longer she continued, the more impressed with her I became and the less able I was to do anything other than enjoy. The cabin filled with the sounds of her mouth running over my staff, the sucking as she released my head.

The pleasure grew in a great churning mass inside me, and every second I thought I would lose myself. I fought against release, desperate to prolong our fun. Just then, she took me to the back of her throat. I expected her to gag, but her eyes flicked up to meet mine, and she raised an eyebrow. Then, forcefully, she pushed down, taking me into her throat. Her lips were too wide, stretched over my girth, to smile, but I caught the grin in her eyes. Then she swallowed.

I shuddered at the impossibly delicious sensation. She withdrew, and I found myself lifting my hips to follow her.

She sat back and stood, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. "There, what did you think about that?"

"I think you are not finished."

"I never promised to finish you," she said with a wink, returning to her seat. "Set the board. If you want more, win again."

I sighed. "You are a cruel woman."

"As cruel and beautiful as the sea."

"Would that were not true."

"You think I'm beautiful," she teased.

"I will show you just how beautiful in a moment."

I beat her again, though she was growing used to my tricks. Beating her required a touch more creativity each time. She stood. "Now pick your hole, wizard."

I stood. My staff was hard, glistening with her spittle and my juices, the flesh a turgid purple. She backed away at the sight of my eyes, her breath coming quicker. I dropped to my knees, roughly putting her left knee over my right shoulder. She was open before me, her scent clinging to her fleece, filling the air between us. I turned my head, stroking the sensitive flesh. I felt her pulse pounding there, a bright and vital road directly to her sex.

I did not take her immediately. I felt her hand tangle in my hair. I relished the way her hips hunted the caress of my lips. I placed kisses on her inner thigh, above the blazing triangle of hair, everywhere but on her lips.

"I am cruel," she gasped.

I took her sex in my lips, inhaling the scent caught in her fleece. Her innerfolds, poking from her splayed lips, were delectable. I ran my tongue over them, finding her taste. I slid my fingers up into her, beckoning her as I explored with my tongue.

This was not what I was after. I put my mouth about her pearl, sucking it between my teeth. At the same time, I removed my juice-slick fingers from her sex, and pressed them against her rosebud. She gasped as I entered the hot confines of her, a soft whimper escaping her lips. I felt the bliss in the shivers of her body and the thickness of her juice. She was ready to lose control.

I stood. Her eyes opened, looking at me in confusion. She spat upon my lip, and before I could protest, she sucked it into her mouth, her tongue collecting the spittle. She gripped me hard, need in every one of her movements.

"Another game?" she gasped, the pupils of her eyes tiny.

In response I turned her about, roughly bending her over the table. She gripped the edges, squirming with glee, a moan falling from her. I found her sex and with one thrust, I was in her to the hilt. She gave a happy sob. "Harder, Ashuz. I am no delicate little trinket."

Though I had recovered some stamina with her mouth not upon me, the pleasure reawakened inside, snarling to be released. I withdrew until only the head of my spear was between her petals, and then, gripping her hips tightly, I hammered my sex home. I hit the back wall of her, forcing a cry from her lips. I repeated the movement, again and again. There was no love in the act, and that was what made it wonderful. Each thrust was harder, each cry louder. I picked up my speed.

"Fuck me like you mean it," she snarled, her skin shining, her body shuddering.

I slapped her across the buttocks hard, and she yelped, grinding back against my thrust. I hit her again, and again, giving her pain with each thrust. She cried out something in Mairese, and she began to quake. Her sex clenched over mine, the last bit of fire I needed, and I spilled into her. My sight left me as I surrendered to the incredible pleasure. It hit me in waves, and when I was finally done, my flesh tingled with lightning.

Jerrika sighed, still bent over the table, her shiny back rising and falling. I pulled from her, and relished the sight of my seed running down her legs. I wiped the tip of me down the cleft of her buttocks, leaving behind one final pearly smear. I went to my chair and sat, catching my breath.

She pushed herself upright, her flesh blushing a fetching rose. "That was fun."

"Can I ask you something?" I asked, my gaze crawling over her nude form, and settling at the curve of her torso, where her abdominal muscles stood out against her taut golden brown skin. "Why choose Alishum, a game you do not know and cannot win?"

She laughed. "You heard the sounds I made. Do you think I just lost something?"

Now I laughed. "I suppose not. Sit down," I said, gesturing to her chair.

"What?"

"I still have a hole to claim."

She broke into a wide smile. "That you do." She sat down at the table as I set up another game.

The next day, the captain walked the decks a bit more bowlegged than usual. The crew gave me some gentle ribbing over the sounds they'd heard, but they knew better than to do it within Jerrika's earshot. I returned to the captain's quarters every night. She was precisely what I needed. She was uncomplicated. We were uncomplicated. I never once thought I was in love with her. We were merely having fun in the best way we knew how.

We lay in her hammock one night after our loveplay, my arm about her, and her head pillowed on my chest. "May I ask you something?" she asked.

"Is it about the woman in Castellandria?"

"Oh no. Whatever is between you, is between you. I care not. No, I was curious as to what you were going to do now."

"Go home to Castellandria," I said.

"After that."

"There is no after that."

"Of course there is."

"I will stay home."

"No, you were an adventurer. You will not be happy living quietly."

"I need some time in the quiet."

"Could be you do." She kissed my chest and closed her eyes. Soon, she was asleep. I listened to the creak of the ship. Soon, the sway of the hammock and the rhythm of her breath lulled me to a peaceful sleep.

The ship made its way deep into Lapis, headed for the silken ports of Kharsoom on the far side. I believe this is where the confusion comes from. The Lapis Ocean is such a strange color, a deep, consuming blue. Jerrika explained to me it was thanks to its clarity and depth. I could look over the side, see shimmering schools of fish, or a great dark form prowling fathoms below.

"I love the Lapis," Jerrika said.

"This is my first time seeing it. I grew up on the shores of the Gray."

"Oh, the Gray," she said dreamily. "I suppose it would be easier to know what ocean I do not love."

"Which one?"

"None of them," she said with a grin.

"What do you love about the Gray?"

"She is stormy. Navigating her is never easy, and she is stingy with the sun and stars. When the Gray gives up her secrets it is out of love."

"I have never been on the Gray," I mused. "It was always the domain of the fishermen." I had once been under the Gray, but that was a memory for me alone. I touched the sweetwater goblet at my belt, running a finger over one of the barnacles.

"You will one day. Too much sailor in you. I can see it in your eyes. You will always want one more horizon."

"Perhaps I--" the sentence was cut off by a cry from the crow's nest.

"Mu-Baoth!" shouted the lookout.

"Impossible," Jerrika murmured, striding to the forecastle.

I followed after her. "What is Mu..." I trailed off, unable to conjure the final syllable from memory.

"Baoth," she said. "A creature said to hunt these seas. Whenever a ship goes missing in this part of the Lapis, it's the fault of that mythical beast."

"If it's mythical, how was it spotted?"

"Oh, she's just seen a whale," Jerrika said dismissively, with a glance up at the woman in the crow's nest. "Maybe a serpent. Serpent might give us a bit of trouble, but not with a wizard aboard."

I hardly felt like a wizard. I was dressed only in my breeches, my pack and sword belowdecks. Only Oddrin was with me, clinging to the rigging like a stubborn spider. I did not need such tools to call to my magic, though part of me dreaded it. The last time I summoned a storm aboard ship, I had taken the lives of my friends.

Jerrika peered out over the prow. A great shape grew on the horizon, heading for us at speed, throwing its wake into the air.

"Captain?" said the bosun, fear quivering in his voice.

"Come about, and bring out the catapults!" Jerrika bellowed. She lowered her voice, talking only to those nearby. "Whether or not that's Mu-Baoth, we'll give it a reason to hunt for easier prey."

Suddenly, I was back on the deck of Naeri's Revenge, and we were preparing a broadside for an unsuspecting Heacharid ship. A blink, and I was on The Burning Knave, the sun bright on the Lapis Ocean. I stood on the forecastle, watching the approaching shape. Oddrin uttered a hiss, coming to my shoulder, his little claws finding purchase in the scars along my shoulders, gifts from Thalalei so long ago.

I reached for my magic. It rumbled in my mind, tendrils of cloud and lighting twining over my soul. Diotenah's whispers spiraled about the energies, sinking black talons into my power. Horror spiked my heart, but then bloomed curiosity. Would such a creature become a wight? Could such a creature become a wight? Diotenah had bound a piece of herself into the ring, a necromancer refining her power. I had yet to find its limits. There was little reason to think it would not turn this Mu-Baoth into some great wight prowling the Lapis for an eternity, trying to fill a maw rotten with decay.

Thunder cracked as slate-gray clouds bloomed in the sky. The air grew cold as the sun disappeared behind storm clouds. Lighting paced the seas, waiting for the beast to arrive. I assumed it must be close, for nothing so big could exist, but it kept growing and growing, the sounds of it approaching sounding like the deck of a ship being continuously cracked in two.

For a moment, I was on the deck of Naeri's Revenge, the ship being torn in half by the Heacharid ram, the screams of the Heacharid fanatics as they leapt onto the deck all around me. Amazon warcries, the valiant calls of my tent sisters, echoed in my ears. I shuddered, blinking, and I was back in front of the advancing leviathan, the past clinging to me like cobwebs.

The beast reared from the water. What I thought was a head was in fact merely the upper jaw, filled with teeth the size of trees, all crowding one other and spilling from its mouth. Inside, the beast's gargantuan throat swelled, light shining between what could be ribs, revealing a partially translucent and glabrous monstrosity. Its eyes, in fact gigantic but tiny against the incomprehensible vastness of the monster's skull, glowed a baleful green. Tendrils, like barbels, writhed about its lips. A great webbed fin like a sail broke the surface of the water. Behind, the ocean churned with the monster's passage.

"Mu-Baoth!" howled a sailor. In maddened terror, he fled, diving off the stern into the stormy water.

One catapult flung a stone, but it might as well have been a pebble. Mu-Baoth, for this could be nothing else, did not seem to notice when the stone bounced off its colossal snout. Nor did the great beast notice when the other four catapults flung their stones into its slick skin.

The first time the creature reeled was when my lightning stabbed it from the gathering clouds overhead. I wanted the beast to roar, but eerily, it did not. The only sound that came from its throat was a hideous huffing.

Lightning played up its head, scorching it, and the jaw snapped shut, hurling a wave at The Burning Knave and showering us with stinking saltwater.

I commenced to battle with Mu-Baoth, the terror of the Lapis. While Jerrika ably commanded her vessel, desperately dancing away, the monster perpetually closed to attack. Intent on devouring us, the beast would not be dissuaded. Our catapults were useless, and I was left to chip away at it with lightning strikes and frigid winds. The power of my storm grew, and soon was out of my control. I did not care, for it was only by relinquishing control that I had any chance against the creature.

I was freezing, lashed by wind and rain, my breeches soaked through. I wanted to huddle in a heap, but I would not. The ocean was a maelstrom. Mu-Baoth thrashed in fury. The ship shook, hurling screaming sailors into the water to be sucked under.

Still I battled. My lightning connected everything, dancing over the surface of the ship, the water, up the creature who had forgotten its errand of feeding and now sought only to destroy us. I could see nothing else through the icy sheets of driving rain. The last I saw of Jerrika, she clutched the ship's wheel as lighting crawled over the wooden surface. Fires sprung up only to be immediately doused. Then the leviathan crashed down upon the deck. I felt only Diotenah's power, murmuring its ecstasy into my mind. Whatever was left of her wanted Mu-Baoth, and it was far too late for me to stop her.

Then, in the midst of conducting my storm, hurling great blasts into the beat, I was hurled from the deck. I hold only isolated memories of all that follows. Of floating in the stormy sea, desperately clutching a shattered piece of the ship's deck in one hand and the little body of my familiar in the other. The sea fought to claim me, but I would not die. I did nothing more than hold onto the floating wreckage and then I knew no more for a time.