Prologue – Fool’s Gold

Prefer PDF? Download the most recent copy here!

“‘Leave the humdrum of Ezdin, come to Forastad, there’s a fortune to be made,’ that’s what you said, wasn’t it?” Josswees snarled, slamming Ravenbeck against the eroded sandstone wall, her forearm exposing his neck to the point of her stiletto blade as thunder rumbled through the sky above.

“It’d only just risen from the sea, Joss! If we’d come here in a few months’ time, it’d have been picked clean!” Like most of the crumbling buildings here, there was no roof, and rain splashed as it hit Ravenbeck’s round, stubbled scalp. The shine of its fresh shave was lost during weeks in this ruined city. “Look at what we have, Joss. Look.”

“It’s no fucking use if we die here, is it?” Her gaze didn’t leave his grey, bulging eyes, which stared back at her from either side of his bulbous nose. She’d been the fool for following him here. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t add our corpses to the mounds of rotting fish, Ravenbeck. We should never have come here!”

“Joss,” Ravenbeck whispered, eyes flitting between the blade and a torn sack on the seaweed-strewn floor. Gold spilled from the tear, glistening, as though minted only days earlier. “We’re rich!”

A storm hit around midday and carried on hitting, and now, in the dead of night, the wind was whistling through the ruins, and the sea was roaring, battering the island city on all sides. Over the sound of everything, she could hear the clacking of those fucking crustaceans. The sound of a million tiny feet scurrying through Forastad. Despite being cold, soaked through, and with a stiletto at his throat, Ravenbeck was quite chipper—they had enough treasure to live well for the rest of their lives.

Glow orbs hanging from posts on the street outside were a great idea when the weather was calm, but they swayed like a willow branch in high winds, casting their low light everywhere but where it was intended. Lightning flashed, making everything seem crisp and bright for an instant before the clap of thunder seemed to plunge them into near darkness once more.

“Only if we can get it back to the ships,” Joss growled, her eyes flicking to the door as she sheathed her dagger. The rough wooden door was a recent addition, someone was planning to use this room for something. “I wish this forsaken place stayed beneath the waves.”

“We can do it, Joss! We can do it,” hissed Ravenbeck, still leaning against the wall. “It can’t be far now, a few hundred meters at most.”

Ravenbeck slowly turned his head at the sound of scraping, and a trio of crab-like legs emerged from a two inch wide gap between two stone blocks. More scraping came from the makeshift door. Ravenbeck stifled a cry of alarm, and Josswees silenced it with a filthy hand over his mouth. Around the walls, crabs of every shape and color forced their way through gaps in the ancient stone.

She raised a finger to her lips and crept across the room as the crabs skittered across seaweed and up piles of barnacled rubble around them. A terrific crash from outside made her start. She dodged away from the door as something hit it, splitting a sodden wood panel.

“Out the window, quick!” Ravenbeck scooped up the sack in his strong hands, holding its mouth and the tear together to prevent spilling their loot.

Josswees pulled herself through the small window, landing face-first outside. Rain lashed at her, and she slipped on the seaweed-covered rocks as she tried to stand. Righting herself, she leaned against the wall beside the window, catching her breath. Ravenbeck’s arms shot out of the window, clutching the sack, and she swiped it from him, dropping it to her feet, closely followed by his sword. Bracing one foot against the wall, she grabbed him by the wrists and pulled. He slid through a little, then stopped.

“I’m stuck, Joss! Pull! Pull harder! I can fe—” Ravenbeck’s eyes widened, and he let out a sharp, pained screech.

Blood sprayed through his gritted teeth, and he convulsed, his white-knuckled grip like iron. His face twitched and contorted as a scream quickly became a gargling choke, then stopped. Blood poured from his mouth as his bald scalp writhed. His right eyelids bulged, then split to reveal a small, gore-covered crab. It scuttled across his eye and down his cheek, dropping from his chin to the floor beneath as two thick crab legs burst from his mouth.

Josswees realized she was screaming and recoiled from her comrade before slipping on the seaweed and slamming into the rocks. Scrabbling back on her hands and knees, the glimmering of gold caught her eye, and she dived for the sack, pulling it toward her. A shard of precious, sordalite clinked onto the spilled gold, and her eyes locked onto it. Its magical properties were valuable. So valuable. But Ravenbeck’s sword was now more so. She grabbed it as thunder boomed overhead.

Ravenbeck’s top half dropped from the window, landing with a wet thud as a wave of chittering crustaceans of every size poured toward her. Her boots skidded through seaweed and scraped mussels from rubble as she clambered over it to reach the road beyond.

Swinging glow orbs gave the crumbling buildings a ghostly appearance, faded and pale against the sharp, flickering shadows around them. Confused and disoriented, she turned this way and that, searching for something recognizable as the rain lashed at her face. The wind howled between the shattered city’s ruined buildings.

Uphill, to her left, four orbs swayed together. The compound!

Squinting through the gloom and the rain, she spotted the eye-catching blue glow from an airship’s engines, gently illuminating its hull and the side of a nearby ruined building. Twin masts with furled sails rose from its decks, and the faint silhouettes of people on deck were moving with haste, the ship was preparing to leave. A wooden scaffold supported a boarding ramp that ran up the side of the ship, stopping at a horizontal platform where the gangplank allowed entry and egress onto the ship. Josswees made for the ship and toward the outline of four guards on the street at the bottom of the ramp, barely visible in the shadows. Forastad beggars huddled beneath rough overhangs on either side of the road, the adventurers and explorers who lost everything and couldn’t pay to get home. The coral and seaweed strewn road gave way to sand, then worn stone paving where deep sea detritus had been cleared. Her feet splashed through puddles on uneven stone and even the plink of coins hitting the road couldn’t slow her. Beggars turned at her approach, a few standing and stepping out for a closer look. More coins dropped and figures lurched from the shadows to either side. Gold and sordalite clattered to the stone as she switched her grip and drew Ravenbeck’s short sword—giving the beggars enough pause. She seized those added seconds, sprinting up the road.

The guards moved to stop her approach; their fine mail shone bright in the blue engine light. Helmets with scalemail face coverings had two shadowy slits for the eyes. Two guards adopted firing positions, fingers twitching on triggers while the remaining two shifted uneasily, each gripping the shaft of a long glaive in saturated leather gloves.

“You! Slow down. Can’t you read the figgin’ signs?” The glaive-wielding guard on the right gestured to a crudely painted sign to her right with the spear tip. A flash of light caught it: “Approach with Caution.”

“Please let me through! We need to leave! The lake! Please!”

One guard unclipped his face covering, letting it drop to one side of his helm. He was a dark-skinned elemdar, his yellow eyes appearing glowing in the gloom, and stepped toward her, lowering his blunderbuss, its sordalite crystal shimmering red and orange. Born with characteristics of one of the four elements, fire, water, air and earth, strangely magicked with elemental energy, the elemdar always unsettled gave Josswees. This was a fire elemdar, she guessed, as his skin reflected flecks of red in the swinging light. She recoiled from his hand and took a half-turn. The elemdar guard raised a pacifying hand, showing his palm.

“Easy, love. Forlgrain’s Mercy isn’t due to leave for…” he checked the clock beside the airship, “…three hours. You might fare better with De Vien’s east of here.” Looking the torn sack up and down, he cocked his head. “Be a hell of a journey to make on your own in this weather. Especially with that lot.” He gestured over her shoulder to the beggars fighting over her spoils.

“It’s not safe! They’re coming.”

The guard unclipped the face mail and let it hang to one side of his helmet. His skin was deep crimson, and his eyes blazed. “We can protect you against the beggars if you want to wait here, but the Mercy’s waiting for the weather to abate.”

“What about them?” Josswees pointed past the beggars.

The elemdar scrutinized the darkness behind her with glowing yellow eyes. After a few moments, he put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. She stiffened but allowed the touch. “Why don’t you pay your way on board and rest until Mercy sets off?”

“There were…”

They had to be there, but there was nothing. The sea crashed against the side of the island and jets of spray crested the cliffs that fell at the city’s edge. Lightning flashed and for a split second, she saw everything.. “There… there! See?”

The guard followed her gaze. The floor glittered. Flickering every time light caught it, but it wasn’t flickering; it was moving. A living carpet of chitin flowing up the street like a storm’s surge. The hand on her shoulder slid off slowly, and the guard pushed her toward the ship. “On the Mercy! Now!” He yelled before turning to the other guards, “All arms to positions!”

The blunderbusses fired. Long gouts of flame released innumerable balls of white hot magical shot. A swathe of crustaceans exploded with a hiss of steam and a warm gust of burned crabmeat. Josswees turned on her heels and ran for the gangplank. Guards on the boarding ramp took up firing positions, blocking her path. One came to the bottom of the ramp and shoved her aside to take up his position. Beggars, still fighting for loose gold, were lost beneath the chittering mass. One by one they rose, crab-covered hands brushing at their clawed attackers in vain, screaming and gagging as pincers tore strips from them, then filled their mouths with stabbing feet and snipping claws.

Bursts from the blunderbuss put holes in the mass of crabs, but the magazine wouldn’t hold enough charges to kill them all. The second guard swung his glaive, a sheath of golden energy bursting crustaceans before the blade could slice them. They popped and hissed as they flash boiled. Bursts of fire came from the boarding ramp and deck in a rainbow of devastation. Josswees backed away, stumbling into a stack of wooden crates, jarring her elbow and dropping Ravenbeck’s sword. Gold spilled from the sack until she gripped the one remaining crystal through the burlap with white knuckles.

Overwhelmed, the guards disappeared beneath the undulating mass. Her back against the crates, she watched a giant pincer rise beneath the ship, gouging into its flank and crushing wood to splinters. A second claw rose up, grabbing the prow and pulling it down. As the bowsprit angled toward the ground, the sea of crabs surged, climbing over each other until they reached the ship and swarmed it, burying it beneath their mass. The crew screamed, cries for help echoing through the night as wood crumpled and metal buckled. Spell thrusters misfired, jetting the ship into the ruins. The prow shattered, allowing egress to the chitinous mass while the giant claws dropped out of sight. East, she had to head east!

Josswees fled, rushing for the alley between the ruined buildings on the opposite side of the street to the airship. Screams and shouts swelled, then faded into the night as she ran—through alleys and avenues littered with seaweed and broken coral, with fish guts, muscles, and mollusks. She had to keep running. She had to get out of Forastad.