We hiked back to the eastern side of the island in a few hours. I was ravenous by the time we got there, too. It was way past my lunchtime and my stomach was letting me know it. Bran and I almost raced to get to the great hall and our provisions there. Neither Mira nor Elle complained at the delay, though I know Mira was itching to explore the rest of this place. We ate what passed for lunch as quickly as we could. No one wanted to be on this island, even if it was a sunny, cheerful place now. We just wanted to get what the Pirate King promised us and get out.

  “Remember, everyone, that the Pirate King said we would suffer a most painful death if we went down the stairs,” I said.

  “Stairs bad. Got it,” Mira said. She rubbed her hands together and had a mischievous grin on her face. “I wonder what kinds of things we could find. Do you think his spellbooks are here?”

  “If he can spare the magic to protect the furniture from the passing of the years, surely he’d do the same for his spellbooks. It’s just a matter of him trusting us with them,” I said.

  “Oooo, I can hardly wait!” Mira said. “Come on, already!”

  Elle and Mira were done eating already, and I was chewing the last bite. Bran stuffed the last couple bites in his mouth and took a swig of water as we stood. We walked into the common room with all of its books, more than we had ever seen in one place except for the library in Stonekeep.

  “You know, I’ll bet these books are worth a fortune,” I said. “It’s too bad we can’t take them with us.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mira said. “The good stuff’s that way, I just know it.”

  Mira opened the door across from the entrance to the room, which the Pirate King had indicated led to the rest of the lair. Beyond was a ten-foot-wide hallway carved out of stone and decorated with carvings that extended for about forty or fifty feet, then came to an intersection. There was a trail of dust leading from the common room to the right-hand hallway. It was a very short corridor to our right that ended in a door that stood ajar. Within was a room about fifty feet wide and forty feet deep with two doors on the opposite wall. This must have been the Pirate King’s living space. I could see a small bed and nightstand in one section of the room, and a table and chairs in another, and a study in still another corner of the room. There was a trail of dust that led right through the door and to a large bucket in the center of the room that even a blind man could have found. There was also a trail of dust going straight into the solid wall between the two doors on the opposite side of the room. Sitting next to the bucket was a little hand broom and a dustpan. There was a letter on the floor in front of the bucket, which was full of dust and little bits of leather boots and the Pirate King’s clothes.

  Mira picked up the letter and read it out loud:

  “To my latest and greatest friends,

  Thanks for freeing me from Ithion’s death curse. You have no idea what that was like, and I pray you never will. As promised, I have prepared for you what you need to get out of here and what you need to get back to Stonekeep. There is a secret room between the two doors ahead of you that is opened by saying the words “Ithion spitted on a pike.” Inside are two notebooks, one for the details of Stonekeep’s inner workings and one for the Unseen Blade and my guardians. Please read that before you go down the stairs! On the little table is a cube with different pictures on segments of its six sides. Rotate the pieces until all the harlequin masks are on one side, and it will open a portal to a place that exists between dimensions. It’s a good place to rest and it holds my most treasured belongings in ageless safety. Once inside, if you rotate any of the harlequin masks to other faces of the cube, the portal will close like it was never there. It was one of my favorite tricks for evading pursuit. Ah! The good old days! Aligning the other pictures will do nothing with one exception. If you align all of the coin pictures on one side, the cube will deliver a very shocking rebuke. Incidentally, my favorite crossbow is in there, and though it’s small, it is not a toy. May it serve you well. Like me, it’s a lot more powerful than it looks. Happy hunting!

  One last thing. I’ll be standing in this stupid bucket for an undetermined number of hours waiting for you to conclude your business. My last request is for you to bury me at sea. The little broom and dustpan are here for your use. It’s so embarrassing to me to ask you to clean me up from the floor. My apologies. Please just dump me out in the bay as you sail away. Thanks in advance for doing this. Safe journeys to you all. I hope things go well for you at Stonekeep.

  Your friend,

  Charles Golemgear

  The Pirate King”

  “Dibs on the crossbow!” Mira said with a grin.

  “There’s no one better for it to go to, but first things first,” I said, picking up the little broom and dustpan.

  I started gently sweeping up the trail of dust from the floor and into the dustpan. I tried to do it reverently, and without too much of the dust getting into the air. The others looked around the suite as I swept up the Pirate King’s mortal remains. I emptied the dustpan into the bucket when I was done with this area, then I moved into the common room and swept him up the best I could. I emptied the dustpan again and waited for the secret door to be opened. Mira was already standing there, and she was almost bouncing, she was so excited. Bandit flitted here and there, unable to contain herself.

  “Ithion spitted on a pike,” Mira said.

  The secret door opened into a small room that ended up being around ten feet wide and twenty deep when the door moved to the side. Inside the room was a little table with two small notebooks, a stoppered crystal bottle that appeared to have nothing in it, four empty crystal drinking glasses sitting on the table next to the decanter, as well as a little cube about an inch wide with a little chain attached to the corner of it. The cube appeared to be made of silver but was actually of mithril, I noticed. Mira picked up the crystal bottle and removed the stopper to peek inside. Suddenly a jet of clear liquid rushed out of the bottle and hit her in the face. She struggled to stopper the bottle with her eyes closed and snorted to get it out of her nose.

  “Fresh water, anyone?” Mira asked.

  We all had a good laugh at Mira’s expense. Predictably, she pointed the decanter at me and removed the stopper suddenly, but I had activated my shield spell, deflecting the water elsewhere. I laughed at finally getting the better of her. It didn’t happen often, so I savored the moment.

  Elle picked up the little mithril cube and rotated a few sides. Directly in front of her, about four feet away, a portal opened that looked gray and moved like ripples in a pool of gray paint. The portal was as big as a standard human-sized door. She shrugged, then stepped through it. I grabbed up the two notebooks and stepped inside also, just after Bran and Mira did. I was not prepared for what was in there. It looked like a very large and brightly lit wood-paneled room with a wood floor that had a bed, furniture, crates and boxes, and many shelves full of books and odd little things like vials of liquids. One bookcase close to the bed, upon my inspection, had books with titles suggesting they were about the mastery of different forms of magic.

  There were two big, iron chests in here also. They were the most obvious places to hold money, and an awful lot of it, judging from the size of the chests. Of course, Mira was already there checking them out before opening either one.

  “I don’t see any traps. I mean, the walls probably aren’t real, so there’s no place to hide the mechanism, and the clasps aren’t even fastened,” Mira said to me.

  Mira shrugged and pulled her knife to flip open the lid of the trunk without touching it. Opening the first one, it had a few precious stones that glittered in the light but was otherwise empty. The gems looked small, however nice they were, but they weren’t even embedded in jewelry or anything. The second chest had a couple hundred gold coins in it, which barely even covered the bottom of the chest. We were all sorely disappointed, but I was the most immature of the lot of us, so, of course, I had to cry and moan about it.

  “What the hell?! I practically shouted, thinking of all the pain I’d suffered. “All that, for this? He said his wealth was considerable! We can’t even hire a hundred men with this!”

  “So much for the legendary Pirate King’s treasure,” Mira said bitterly. “Ah, this sucks!”

  Elle looked pretty upset as well, but at least she was mature enough to keep it to herself. She spoke in a small voice. “Stonekeep’s going to fall. I really thought…” She couldn’t finish. She and Bran had dreams leading them on this quest, and it all led to this. Two empty chests.

  Turning from the chests with curses, we had a look at the rest of the contents of the room. There were four cases full of bottles of wine and two barrels on their sides that were probably full of ale. I saw boxes full of fresh fruit and vegetables, some kinds of which I had never seen before. There was a whole shoulder of beef sitting on one of the ale barrels. Then I fixed my eyes on some big stacks of metal ingots. At a glance, I saw steel, mithril, and even adamantine ingots. I was already thinking of making a new suit of armor. Bran looked at the ingots, then at me with a wide smile. Yep, he was thinking it, too. In all, there was a huge amount of empty floor space available still.

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  To my surprise, there was a table set up close to the bed that had a glass of ale and half of a steak sandwich sitting on it. This wasn’t just any steak sandwich, either. It had a toasted bun, melted cheese, sauteed onions and mushrooms, and some kind of sauce on it that filled the room with a delicious scent. I poked the bread and found that it was still fresh. Bran saw me poke it, and his eyes narrowed. Neither of us was particularly hungry, but we’d all been eating trail food for way too long. Both of us would’ve killed a cherished pet for that half sandwich.

  “Clearly, you’ve found the most valuable thing here, brother dearest,” Bran said.

  “I’ll fight you for it.”

  “We’d better keep this civil. Even or odd?”

  “I’m even,” I said, turning to face Bran. “Best two of three?”

  “Agreed.”

  We held our right fists out in front of ourselves in clear view. Together, we each brought our fists up, then down again two times, then on the third time, I held out three fingers. Bran held out two fingers. Five! Flyspecks! Bran smiled. We shook our fists three times again, and this time I held out one finger, as did Bran. Aha! We shook our fists three more times, then I stuck out four fingers as Bran stuck out two fingers.

  “Yes! Sweet victory!” I said, a fist raised in victory.

  I turned to claim my hard-won prize and found Mira and Bandit sitting at the table eating my sandwich. I was stunned. How did they even get at it without me seeing them?

  “Hey!” I said, in mock outrage. “I won that sandwich fair and square!”

  I stepped closer to claim my winnings, and Mira stuffed a huge bite of it into her mouth. I grabbed her hands and pulled them away from her mouth, but all that was left of my prize were about two bites of it close to the end of the bread, which was not even the best part of the sandwich. Mira chewed the best she could with her mouth so full and did not relinquish the sandwich. She growled at me and kept her hold on it. I looked at what was left and decided it wasn’t worth it.

  “You owe me big,” I said. Was this what marriage was like?

  Mira just finished chewing the piece she had, then took another bite with a satisfied smile. Bandit laughed merrily. Bran and Elle were standing together and seemed to really enjoy the situation. I shook my head in disbelief, dismayed by the loss of the best part of the treasure.

  Turning, I decided to continue my inspection of the space. In one corner of the room, there was an armor stand with a Seeker-sized shirt of adamantine chainmail that was very well made. Near the armor stand, a smaller than normal crossbow leaned against the wall. There were ten quivers of crossbow bolts sitting nearby. A weapons rack stood against the wall close at hand. There was a shortsword and two daggers made of glass that were sheathed in ornate scabbards which hung from a sword belt that was hanging from a peg on the weapon rack.

  Mira was now admiring the crossbow, which was stained a dark greyish color with blackened steel pieces. I could see she was thinking about shooting something, so I held my hands up in the classic “please don’t shoot me” pose. Mira smiled at my joke. She moved one of the metal pieces close to the trigger, and the crossbow string moved into the ready position by itself. She moved the lever again, and the string reset slowly to the ‘at rest’ position. That was a really good use of magic that I had never thought of. Mira set the crossbow down, then wandered over to the bookshelves.

  There were too many things to even inventory right now, so I opened one of the notebooks I grabbed from the table outside. Inside there were command words for the Pirate King’s T.U.R.D.s and B.U.M.M.s. I flipped the pages and found detailed instructions for sailing the Unseen Blade. He had neglected to mention how he would help us get off the island, but this must be it. Suddenly I felt like a kid again as I fantasized about sailing in the Pirate King’s infamous ship. I flipped open the other notebook and found passwords for a few doors and command words for the golems at Stonekeep. Beyond that were instructions on how to utilize the smithy in Stonekeep. This was better than gold in my opinion.

  “Old Chuck was as good as his word,” I said. “He’s given us his ship, the Unseen Blade. We’re each going to have to memorize the instructions given about his guardians and his ship. If those guardians are active right now, as he hinted they are, then we’re intruders to them until we give them the command words. How’s your Arborean?”

  “Please tell me he didn’t give the golems command words in Arborean,” Elle said with a groan.

  “I’m afraid so. He also mixed in some seemingly nonsensical words, probably so that no one would wrest control of the golems from him. I think we’re going to have to take a day to really memorize and practice these commands, or we’ll end up as fish food,” I said.

  “These are spellbooks!” Mira said excitedly. “There’re a lot of ‘em, too.” Mira took one off the shelf and opened it to the first page, already reading.

  “I’m setting the notebooks down on the table here, just in case,” I said. “I’d like to explore the rest of the Pirate King’s hideout. Anyone want to come with me?”

  It seemed that everyone did. We exited from the extradimensional space in the same place we entered, the Pirate King’s secret chamber within his bedchamber. Elle turned one row of the cube, and the portal disappeared. Looking around the chamber, there were a lot of expensive looking nick-knacks lying around. The door to the left of the secret chamber had a very large bath chamber in it with a huge bathtub, a shower stall, and a toilet, all with indoor plumbing, of course. I expected no less of the Pirate King now. The door to the right of the secret chamber looked like it was a closet. It had shelves around four feet high running around the walls with horizontal wooden poles under the shelves that had metal triangles hanging on them. It looked like he hung clothes there. There was a lot of dust on the floor, but no clothes inside. Not anymore, at least.

  We walked out of the bedchamber to the intersection, then straight across. We could see that the hallway was around a hundred feet long and there were wooden doors set every twenty feet or so apart on both sides of the ten-foot-wide hallway. I tried the handle of the first one on the left, and it opened into a twenty-by-twenty bedroom that had a bunk bed with dusty mattresses, but no sheets, and a table with two wooden chairs at it, all of which were human sized. There were two doors on the other side of the room. Inside one was a ten-by-ten bathroom with a toilet and tub in it, and inside the other door was a ten-by-ten closet with shelves along the walls at head height. The shelves had a pole hanging from each one with metal hangers on it. There was dust on the floor under these hangers, also. Each of the other rooms in this hallway turned out to be carbon copies of this room except some had furniture sized for Seekers.

  We walked back to the intersection, then down the passage further opposite of the common room. About thirty feet down the hall was a stairway leading up to the right. We checked that out first, and at the top there was a thirty-by-thirty room full of clean, fresh water.

  “The cistern for the plumbing. Check that off the list of curiosities,” Mira said.

  We went back down the stairs and continued down the passage. We came to a passageway on the left. The corridor ahead of us started going downstairs ten feet ahead of us. We remembered the Pirate King’s warning and went into the left-hand passage. There were seven doors in the passageway, three on the left, three on the right, and one at the end of the hallway. The first two doors on the left and two on the right led to storage chambers whose contents were in ruins. The next door on the left opened into a big laboratory. The vials and implements in this room were all puddles of glass on the soapstone tables. Across the hall, the door opened into a smithy the same size as the lab. There were some really nice tools in there that I intended to pick up later. The door at the end of the hallway had what was left of an armory in it. The racks and shelves were all rotted in heaps on the floor, and the weapons were all just piles of rusty dust.

  “All right. It’s early evening, and after the fighting and hiking, I know you guys want to get this armor off as badly as I do,” Bran said.

  “A bath sounds wonderful,” Elle said. “Let’s just put our armor in the cube so we don’t have to lug it around.”

  “Good idea. The convenience of the cube will take some getting used to,” Bran said.

  Elle activated the cube and we all stepped inside. Everything was exactly as we left it. We helped each other with our armor and left the pieces in piles close to the bed. When we had gotten down to our gambesons and padded pants, I made a realization. Bran and Elle were helping each other, and Mira and I were helping each other. It was the first time we paired up like that. Bandit certainly noticed. She was stretched out on the bed, resting on one elbow, regarding the four of us with a half-smile on her petite face.

  “We should put our foodstuffs in here also, before they get more stale,” I suggested.

  “Yeah. May as well,” Bran said.

  Elle handed Bran the cube. “Thanks for getting that, Bran. I’m heading to my room for a bath. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Bran said.

  As Elle left, Mira gave me one frosty glance and didn’t say a word to me. She must still have been holding our failed rendezvous against me. Was that even my fault? I could have handled things differently with Bran, maybe. Or I could have snuck in there later. Honestly, I just didn’t have any fight left in me at that point. I wanted another opportunity to make things right, but I doubted I’d get one. One thing I knew about Mira was that she rarely gave second chances.

  Bran and I both watched them depart. We looked at each other and knew we were thinking the same thing. We’d give anything to join them for those baths. It was best left unsaid, so we just exited the portal, closed it up, then walked to the great hall to load up our stuff. We both kept our weapons on us at all times, unlike the girls. Better safe than sorry. The provisions were very easy to move, and we left them close to the other foodstuffs we found inside the cube. I picked up the notebook about the Pirate King’s golems and the Unseen Blade, intending to read and memorize as much as I could before going to sleep. I was still tired, but I didn’t have the usual headache or body aches I would have had for using as much magic as I’d used today. It must have been Elle’s healing magic that did that.

  Bran and I went to our rooms after closing up the portal. After a thorough scrubbing, I was very much ready for bed. I read for as long as I could, then slept more deeply that night than I had in a long while. My dreams were anything but peaceful. Sometimes, even years after it happened, I had nightmares about Juleen shackled to the altar and how she would have ended up like Fay. What happened that day with the focus was so much worse, because the dead didn’t stay dead. At the time, I didn’t know how much that affected me. But it did. Profoundly.

  That night’s dream was a particularly bad one that started with Fay blaming me for her death. Then she tried to claw my eyes out. I was in a room with everyone I’d ever known, and they were all strewn across the floor, dead from gruesome wounds. After Fay attacked, they were all given horrible undeath, then they got up and tried to kill me. No matter how powerful the spells I threw at them, they kept coming, and my magic got weaker and weaker. I tried to fight them off, but I tired quickly, until I had no magic and no strength left. When I finally awoke, I was covered in sweat and shaking.

  That was when the shaking began. Sometimes something would set me off. It could be something someone said, or it could be a memory, but it always made my hands shake a little. I could usually hide it somehow, but it was there. The fear, the pain, and the trauma were always there. These things don’t go away easily, and I’m hoping that journaling this helps. I still hope.