Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

Ten minutes later we were pulling up on shore, with several dozen people from the homes nearby under torchlights waiting to receive us.

“Lord Mick!” someone finally shouted in recognition as the Wagon moved smoothly towards shore, Kris still skating across the water, much to the gawking disbelief of those there. Most of the Lights were dimmed down, so it wasn’t so bright, but the low setting was still enough to completely overwhelm their torches and render the area as bright as day.

“Elder Jerman! A pleasant evening t’ ye! I know, I know, belike it’s late ta be out fishing, but this kind o’ catch, ye gots t’ be taking special care, an’ ‘tis the best time to be spittin’ the lot o’ em.” He looked around winningly. “Now, ye know the Scouts got little use for a lot o’ this here, so if some of you fine, noble throat-slicers an’ butchers could be grabbin’ yer knives, ye’ll be earning some hides, meat, an’ skin for yourselves an’ your kin. Anyone be interested?”

Irritation faded away, replaced by anticipatory smiles, and comments that it wasn’t THAT late at night, since it wasn’t, took over.

“What’s that ye were ridin’, Lord Mick?” another man spoke up, pointing at the floating, somewhat gore-spattered front of the Wagon.

“This? Oh, this is the Wagon, a bit o’ an experimental wrought by some nasty smart artificer-types, all very secret and hush-hush. Had a bit of a mind t’ take it out fer a fishing expedition with the lads an’ lasses, an’ it seems t’ be workin’ just fine,” he explained without batting an eye.

“A secret project, is it?” the man mumbled, the crowd edging in to poke and prod carefully at the sides, ducking to look under it and assure themselves it wasn’t actually on any wheels.

“Aye, so secret I ain’t even heard o’ it meself, an’ that’s the truth,” the Mick said with a perfectly straight face. All the fisher-folk there snorted knowingly, but didn’t ask any more questions of him. “Now, how about we be about cleaning these kills, an’ mayhap even giving some thirsty souls a drink or three in return?”

----

Very practical folk, the natives of Kryst Island were quick to get to work.

It turned out the Aquatics were all edible, but took various periods of time soaking in brine to get some acidic portions of their anatomies out of them, although there was an alchemical sauce that could be used to help fry the tentacles in oil, which turned out to be a local delicacy. The locals were soon vying for the chance to munch them down like rather rubbery but somehow delicate-tasting dumplings.

I was kind of impressed, really. The nauts were basically being pickled and preserved for a leaner time. I was told by one of the scouts that their meat was an acquired taste, and there were a bunch of pickling recipes among the clans for the ‘proper’ way to leech them edible.

The shells of the nauts could be taken apart and polished, and were used for everything from plates to cups to ornamentation, and if large enough and intact, even melded together to make fairly sturdy shields.

The remorans were a source of leather, the tips of their tail-stingers used to make prized spears, and the meat something that was dipped into dozens of competing sauces, every household proudly bringing out a cup of their own for people to sample as the meat was sliced up with deft speed and skill by a lot of very fast knifework.

The Mick did appropriate about forty pounds of meat for kin and the families of former Scouts, and the fisher folk didn’t begrudge him any of it. After the impromptu feast, they’d still be left with hundreds of pounds and a whole lot of leavings, all of which would be useful. Even the guts were gathered up to be composted with sand and leaves and turned into fertilizer for the gardens every household had.

The scouts helped with everything, even those who’d plainly not grown up among the fisherfolk knowing what to do and how to do it. The Mick himself was with a circle of elders, laughing and joking with them as he drove his arms in up to the elbow to pull out the ugly corpse of a naut from its shell, its grip weakened by death, and held it up for everyone to appreciate just how ugly it was.

Of course, the things also had a lot of arrows sticking into them, which were carefully removed, examined for defects, and returned to the scouts.

----

“They seem to have forgotten all about you,” I told Princess Kristie in amusement. She had ducked out of sight, put some fairly normal clothes back on, and just kept quiet as Quaver's much-too-sharp edge cut up several remorans, impressing the locals with how keen her Knife was.

It was also obvious I was a spellcaster, and the locals weren’t exactly condemning me, but it was plain they didn’t want to interact with me, considering me something unlucky.

Couldn’t blame them, given the Fall.

“Probably thinking it was just a trick of the Light, once the Mick got their attention,” she said, brown, black, red, and yellow dollops of sauce on a small plate in front of her. She stuck a fried tentacle in the yellow one, rubbed it around, and took a carnivore’s bite of her two-foot snack.

“That’s a mustard with some zing to it.” Her thumbnail twitched, and the fried length was cut in two, half handed over to me smoothly. Like me, she didn’t need to eat for energy, so she ate for enjoyment.

I dipped up the rest of it and took a bite.

A chewier kind of shrimp, with an oddly delicate aftertaste… and the mustard was impressive. I chewed slowly, savoring it, having no memories of anything too similar to go back on… and that was after living in the Imperial Capital, and all the stuff Aelryinth had sampled.

“Trusting your nose,” I told her, watching the Scouts mingling, some having kin among the locals here. “Are they going to keep this quiet?”

“They already offered to send a runner out to the nearest garrison, and the Mick made a big show about being caught with the secret project he didn’t know about. None of them will say anything about us being here as they pull one over on the crown.”

“Peeling half a Suggvat Remoran off the side of it might have helped,” I noted. The impaled bright yellow wing had gotten a lot of attention for its size when it was cut off the razored prow. A local even sliced his hand on the prow’s edge, cursing after he did so and the others just laughing at his lack of caution.

I watched her dip the brown sauce and chew on it thoughtfully. She made an ‘okay’ face, and I followed her.

Earthy, kind of a garlicy ketchup, points of tartness. Had character, if not great appeal. “Mushrooms,” I said of the source, and she nodded agreement as we both chewed.

Around us were lots of palm trees. We hadn’t come eighty miles, and we’d moved from mixed pine and leafed trees in the cold of the north, with snow on the ground, to the low sixties Fahrenheit and palm trees everywhere on what would be an idyllic island paradise if we didn’t know what was waiting beyond the Shoreward.

“Thoughts?” I asked her, knowing she was contemplating future moves.

“I intend to present myself to the local rulers. I don’t have an intention of supplanting them, per se, but I’m not going to give up the advantages of my station without a very good reason.”

“Better to be noble than to not be noble,” I had to agree. Especially in a feudal society.

She swirled around the third sauce, bit in, and smiled dangerously. “Heat,” she warned me, and I arched an eyebrow. Mira perked up and got very excited. She loved spicy food.

I wiped it up and went all in, biting down.

My eyes popped open, and Kris smirked at my expression. Hot little knives were biting into and all through my mouth excitedly, letting me know I was invading their territory and they didn’t like intruders eating them whole!

A few of the locals who’d been paying attention also smirked at my expression, which faltered as I smiled, opened my mouth, and steam literally wafted out.

“Nice,” I admitted, licking my lips and chewing with obvious relish. The impressed locals decided that maybe we weren’t two soft women after all, although Kris’ Cursemark sure wasn’t hurting in that area… and her face looked like she’d been eating buttered bread, or something. “That’s as good as some of the Sho stuff I had back home. Some potent peppers there. The Scoville on that has to be about two hundred thousand, I’d say. Definitely an acquired taste.”

“The Mick has that personal business to take care of, which I approve. Without someone actually sending word, nobody is going to know we actually are here, so they’ve got a few days to move. We’ll be gone before dawn, the locals will spin up some yarn about bright lights luring in some stuff to be killed, maybe trade some fresh remoran meat, some Scout trainees happened to be running by to help, and life will go on.”

The red stuff was last, and she tilted her head as she chewed, making the best face of the lot. I wiped the heat residue of the black sauce off my tongue and took the rest.

Rich and vigorous, a decent seafood cocktail sauce, with just the right amount of zing on three different levels. “This is fit for the Imperial table!” I pronounced as I chewed.

“Yeah, Dad would love it. Mom would complain it needs more fugu.” I opened my mouth to say something, thought better of it, and just kept chewing. Yeah, that was about right. “The other sauces are just lesser variants of these, for the most part. I think I got the best of the bunch, or at least the most extreme. I’m sure they all have a good following, depending on tastes.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t surprise me.” I cleaned the plate off with a sparkle of magic, setting it aside. “What do you think of the rum?” I hoisted the rough flagon of the stuff, which everyone was enjoying broadly.

“Needs work, but it’s got a delayed kick to it, so what else can you expect?” She squeezed a provided lemon into it for some flavor. “Mostly it’s sugary tastelessness with a kick. Just the thing to knock you out at the end of a long day.”

“We should get going during the night. We can move during the day, but big invisible objects are a bit hard to maneuver, and people will wonder why you are running around.”

“I’m sure the scouts will all be enthused to keep moving after such a fun celebration, but life goes on, and headache remedies work better if you don’t actually sleep enough to get the headache before they are cured.”

“Yeah, I’ll get the cold water ready for them.”

----

Some of them were sprawled on top of the Wagon, some of them were inside on the stone boards overlaying over all our salvage. None were in particularly good shape, that rum doing its potent work, but I didn’t allow them to go to sleep without drinking down a mug of cold water. It would mean frequent stops for piss breaks, but the last thing I needed was a bunch of scouts with hangovers to worry about.

I also left the fisherfolk some gifts of Eternal Lights, Shaping up the lotus-style braziers that would close over the Lights to stifle them, or open up to provide strong, steady, heatless illumination. Furthermore, I informed them all that they were location-sensitive. The first time they opened them, the Lights would be locked to within fifty feet of that position.

If anyone stole them, they’d just be getting a stone brazier, albeit one nicely made. I also got the names of each of the recepients and inscribed them on their brazier, then cast Reed on the thing so it wouldn’t be brittle and shatter if dropped or knocked over.

They had mixed expressions of accepting magic into their home, but the thought of not having to spend money on oil or torches or the like was enough for them to accept the gift for what it was, and incidentally make sure they thought well of us and clammed up before they retired for the night.

We were long gone before even the fishermen got up, of course.