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‘Then what are they doing here?’ Corrigan asked.

I said nothing, having no insight to offer except that nothing pisses off a Glorian Justiciar more than having to stand voluntarily in the vicinity of a bunch of mercenaries wonderists– unless, of course, they have their boot heels pressed on said mercenaries’ throats.

I peered across the deck at the two justiciars, disguised in as much frippery as their Aurorally infused consciences could tolerate.Why would the Lords Celestine tolerate you working for a secular prince, esteemed brother and sister, and more importantly, what are you doing for him?

This wasn’t the first time in the past year I’d found Glorians behaving strangely. Hell, backing a warmonger like Ascendant Lucien against his more pacifist neighbours had been a poor choice, spiritually speaking. Come to think of it, whyhadn’ta full court of Glorian Justiciars come hunting me now that Lucien was no longer granting me clemency?

I noticed Galass and Aradeus were leaving the deck with their chosen companions, while our scrutiny was beginning to draw the wonderists’ stares. Corrigan gave the curvaceous woman on his arm a playful pinch on the buttocks before he leaned over to me. ‘Should have picked a girl, Cade. At least you could have got laid one last time before the bloodshed starts.’

Even Aradeus looked stricken as he allowed the siblings to lead him down the stairs. Apparently this simple rescue wasn’t going to be quite as simple as planned after all.

Chapter 17

Love Poems

Typically when a wonderist wants something, events play out as follows:

Knock, knock.

‘Who’s there?’ enquires the imposingly armoured captain of the guards at the front gate of whatever castle, fortress or Stygian Hellgate happens to contain the item the wonderists want.

‘Mages of surpassing power,’ replies the wonderist. ‘You have something we want. Kindly hand it over.’

The captain turns to his fellow guards, grins knowingly and motions for any other interested parties nearby to come and join in the anticipated fun of beating up the fool who dared make demands of them into an early grave. There’s a lot of laughing, soldiers making a show of gripping the hilts of their weapons, and jokes at the wonderist’s expense. The pleasantries eventually come to an end with the captain giving the order to arrest the would-be offender and drag him off to the dungeon in preparation for extensive interrogation, followed by his eventual and inevitable execution.

After that? Explosion, bigger explosion. Lightning. Fire. Rivers of blood. Walls that have stood a thousand years tumbling down. Screams. Prayers. Heads flying off in all directions, until said wonderist is free to saunter into the largely depopulated fortress, secure whatever they came for, and leave with a polite nod to the decapitated corpse of the captain of the guards.

The end.

Here’s whatneverhappens:

‘Hey, the four of us are professional war mages and you have something we want.’

‘Really? We have nine of our own. Perhaps you should all fight over it, right here among this civilian population, and see where that leads.’

‘Good thinking! Let’s begin. . .’

The brutal, unmitigated destruction that comes from wonderists fighting each other outside of a duly declared war– and thus taking place in a location where violence and mayhem are to be expected– tends towards such cataclysmic consequences that every time it’s happened in the last five hundred years, that conflict has been followed by the nations of the continent agreeing that a good old-fashioned purge is in order. Purges of this sort are performed with such enthusiasm by the Glorians that I once read an account– afirst-handaccount– that insisted one of the justiciars was seen– briefly– to smile.

Seriously. A Glorian Justiciarsmiled.

Nobody wants that kind of heat. Wonderists avoid public confrontations with each other at all costs, and if any do break that unwritten rule, others tend to come down so hard on the offenders that nobody feels any particular need for a purge.

Okay, so, Aradeus’ righteous rescue mission was cancelled, right? We came, we saw, we ran away.

Except. . .

Aradeus hadn’t given the signal to call things off. Corrigan was below, engaging in what sounded like the sexual adventure of a lifetime, and Galass was. . . doing whatever a former sublime does when she’s finally the one doing the subjugating. That left me sitting on the largely empty top deck of what I suspected might be the world’s most expensive brothel ship, reading an unpleasantly well-worn book of erotic poetry and thinking about the fact that we were entirely fucked.

Well, that’s not entirely true: I was also trying to figure out which part of the genitals was represented by the vegetables referenced in one particular poem. I’ll spare you the poem, but it was the aubergine that was really confusing me.

Squeak, squeak?

No, that wasn’t a reference to the aubergine. A rat at my foot was enquiring about my position on allowing rodents to bite me.

‘This again?’ I asked.

The rodent appeared to be confused by the question. It squeaked again.