A House Beneath the Stars

"How far down the beach have you searched?" he asked.

"I awoke on the beach up there," she said, pointing in the direction he had come. "Just before dawn. A wave hit your ship and broke the windows in your cabin. I was swept out and feared I would drown."

"I feared the same. What condition was the ship in? Could it have survived?"

She looked at a loss. "I heard what Topii said was one of the masts crack, but the rest of it was in good condition when I fell off."

Bromm thought for a moment. He had brought ships into anchor with broken masts before, his crew were skilled enough to do it again. All he had to do was find their anchorage.

"They must be out there somewhere. Come with me, we'll search down the beach." They gathered an armful of fruit and set off down the beach. Asara walked naked, while Bromm's own torn clothing left his cock swinging between his legs. He thought to take her on the beach, but concern for his ship and crew overpowered his lust for the moment. It was not strong enough to stop him from grabbing a few playful pinches. Asara laughed in relieved joy, darting out of his grasp when she saw him coming. The thought of being trapped alone here was not a pleasant one for her, Bromm thought.

To the seaward side, they passed a series of large boulders in the water, and Bromm heard another voice, followed by splashing. He put a hand on Asara's shoulder, bidding her to halt. Slowly, he made his way towards the latest noise until he heard a familiar voice.

"Where are you, creatures?" Manex was calling, "I want to see you again." He was begging, Bromm realized. "Please? I would look upon your beauty one more time."

"Manex, my old friend!" Bromm cried, and the helmsman turned in surprise. He was naked and draped with seaweed. His brow was cut by the same reefs that had wounded Bromm, and his feet wrapped in torn sailcloth.

"Captain?" he asked, as if emerging from a dream. "Oh, Captain! It is good to see you! I had feared us all lost!" he staggered through the surf and wrapped Bromm in a hug, squeezing and lifting so hard he pulled Bromm momentarily off the ground.

"It is good to see you too, my friend. Who are you calling to?"

Manex's eyes lit up. "Nereids, Captain! I was swept overboard by another wave while trying to help Rhamut cast you a line. I fought the storm for as long as I could, but I began to sink. Then they came! Five of the most beautiful women you ever saw, naked and with their hair flowing behind them. They gave me the kiss of life and carried me to the shore. Exhausted, I fell asleep on the beach and when I came to, they were gone."

"You were blessed indeed," Bromm replied, trying to mask his interest. The mind of a drowning man was unreliable, but stranger things had happened.

"I hoped to find them again, Captain. You and I could have wild time on the beach with five divine beauties. Oh, I would so like to see them again..." he trailed off, looking out over the water with one hand above his eyes and the other on his cock.

"I have a beauty already," Bromm said as Asara came into view around the rock. Manex stopped looking for the nereids and studied Asara instead, running his hungry eyes along her naked body.

"What good fortune for all of us," Manex murmured. "But until you share her, I will carry a torch for my saviors."

"Someday we'll find them," Bromm said, though the thought of fucking nereids on the beach had great appeal for him. "But unless we want to stay here forever, we need to find our ships."

Manex sighed and cast one look out over the water. "They found me once, they will find me again," he said and turned back towards the beach. Bromm clapped him on the shoulder and followed him inland. They continued down the beach to where it turned inland and across it in the distance, he could see land again. They were approaching a bay or a strait. A distant cry was heard, followed by the ringing of a bell. Bromm quickened his pace, hope springing in his heart.

The three of them ran to the bend in the beach and looked into the bay. There, anchored in the middle of a shallow lagoon, was Horizon. Her main mast was broken above the spanker sail, and many spars were broken. As Asara reported, the windows to his cabin were all broken, but the ship's hull was undamaged. The ship's boat was in the water, being rowed to the beach with a complement of sailors aboard.

"Now that's a sight more beautiful than a thousand nereids," Bromm breathed in relief.

"She'll need repairs, but she'll sail," Manex agreed. Asara said nothing, but she tightened her arms around Bromm's chest and kissed him.

The three of them hurried down the beach, breaking into a run as they neared the boat's landing spot. When the sailors aboard Horizon sighted them, they set the bell ringing again. The men aboard both the ship and the longboat cheered their captain's return and Bromm went running down the beach to where Topii had pulled the boat ashore. Both captain and first mate embraced each other, overjoyed to have overcome the storm to rejoin one another at last.

"Hallas thinks he can turn one of these trees into a replacement mast," Topii said as he and Bromm walked among the trees just past the beach. "We've a few other repairs to do, there are replacement panes in the hold but not enough to replace all the windows."

"How many crewmen did we lose?" Bromm asked.

"Rhamut and Wooze are still missing, they were swept overboard in the same wave you were. Onrey made it, but there are still about twenty others missing. They may be up the beach like you and Manex were, but..." he trailed off, looking out over the sea.

"Is there any sign of Fortune?" Bromm asked, though he thought he knew the answer. Topii shook his head. Bromm nodded somberly. He had known that the spars on the beach had not come from Horizon.

"It will likely take several days to complete the repairs; we should send a party into the jungle to find food and fresh water. Maybe there is a settlement nearby," Topii suggested.

"I will lead it, but I need new weapons first. All I have now is this stick." He hefted the fallen branch and Topii tried to hide his amusement.

"We have some swords in the boat, and I'll send a man back to the ship for pistols. One more thing, Captain. This island does not appear on any of our maps. There is nothing of this size for a hundred miles in any direction of our last known position."

Bromm frowned. There was no way that storm blew them a hundred miles over night. Furthermore, the storm was moving south, and the closest islands of this size to their south were more than four hundred miles away.

"I fear we are on one of the Shifting Isles, then," Bromm replied.

"That adds some urgency to our repairs, for there is no telling how much longer this island will be here," Topii remarked. "The nature of the Shifting Isles is such that we may awake tomorrow to find ourselves stranded on the open sea again."

Bromm knew he was right. Sailors' tales told of islands that appeared and disappeared from charts based on the phases of the moon or the alignment of the planets. Some were rumored to be on the backs of enormous sea turtles, which would sometimes disappear beneath the surface, drowning all who were still on land. This island struck him as too large to be atop a turtle, but the world had many surprises.

"We'll know more once the moon appears and Onrey is able to take a sighting," Topii added.

They waited on shore while a boat was sent back to Horizon, taking the time to probe the jungle. They spied strange birds in the trees and a pig-like creature in the brush, but it ran off before they could inspect it further.

"I think that rules out being on a giant turtle's back," Topii said. "Or else this pig would have drowned long ago."

"These creatures are unfamiliar to me," Bromm said. "While I have not explored every isle in the Devouring Sea, I see no similarities between these creatures and those of other islands."

"You have something in mind, Captain?"

"There are tales that you can hear, if you know the right old salts, of storms that carry sailors far across the world. One man I met long ago told me he was aboard a timber trader's ship, bound for Liro. They were caught in a storm just south of Freeport and wrecked. But the stars were all wrong. They took their sights, but they couldn't believe their measurements. They were not near Freeport, they were in the Sapphire Sea, near a place called Sorcerer's Town. They ended up plotting a course around the southern tip of Cappas to approach Liro from the south."

Topii frowned. "Onrey did take a sighting," he admitted, "but he had only the sun to go by. After making his calculations, he said they were all wrong and it would be better to wait for the stars to come out. Now I wonder if his calculations were right."

"We should wait until I get my weapons," Bromm said, and turned back toward the beach. Soon enough, the boat returned, carrying a pair of pistols and a broadsword for Bromm, as well as a new pair of breeches.

"Apologies, Captain," said the sailor Aichis, "your woman's clothes were swept away in the storm."

"Captain, the beach is insecure, and the sun is going to burn her if she stays out here naked. Perhaps we should put your concubine aboard the ship?" Topii suggested.

"With you ashore, is Tyralf in command?" Bromm asked and Topii nodded in agreement. "The girl stays here with me," Bromm decided. The shore party liked that, but Aichis frowned in disappointment. He averted his narrow blue eyes and returned to the boat.

"Shall we go exploring?" Topii asked, hefting a boarding pike onto his shoulder. A cluster of men gathered around them, armed with swords, firelocks, and boarding pikes. Bromm pulled Asara close and helped her put on a spare pair of boots.

"You're coming with me," he told her. Then he turned to the assembled sailors. "Some of you are going to stay with Hallas to cut us a new mast. The rest of us are going inland." He and Topii picked out Hallas' repair crew and dismissed them. They walked down the beach to where the ship's carpenter was preparing his tools. Bromm gathered the other fifteen sailors around himself.

"We're going to poke about in the jungle and see what we can find. Don't eat any of the fruit until we know they're not poisonous, don't antagonize the animals and if you see any natives, tell them we come in peace. We don't know what's out there, we're down a lot of men and we have no escape from this island. Best not to start a fight now.

"If we do find natives, they might be inclined to help us, or to host us for the night." He smiled at his own memories of friendly islanders. Once as a younger sailor, he had been a part of a shore party that had landed near Kraken's Harbor in search of water. In the hot jungles, they had found three girls wearing naught but golden nose rings and necklaces. They had all enjoyed themselves immensely that afternoon before returning to the ship with a lusty story to share.

Topii marched to the edge of the jungle and pointed the way with his pike.

"That rocky rise up there will make a good vantage point. Come along now lads, I'm getting hungry."

Their party set out through the jungle, making for a rocky promontory they spied from the beach. The jungle undergrowth was thick with brush and flies, which buzzed around them as they walked. The heat of the day was coming on fast as the morning cool subsided. They crossed a small stream, stopping to splash water over their sweaty faces and fill their waterskins.

They passed beneath a fruit tree, and Topii speared several fat, juicy yellow fruit with his pike to bring them down to the crew. They looked much like the fruit he had found Asara eating, so Bromm told his crew they were safe. They had a sweet, tangy flavor to them, and their meaty centers were delicious.

"We should pick more of these, they might sell well in port," Bromm suggested. The uneaten fruits went into the sailors' sacks for later.

Soon enough they reached the base of the rocky promontory, which turned out to have lower wings that jutted out to form a small dell where they now stood. Topii handed his pike to another sailor and prepared to climb the slope when they were all startled by a sudden cacophony of screeching and wailing. Bromm drew his sword and looked toward the source of the noise.

Bounding down the slope were a mob of wretched green creatures. They stood perhaps four feet tall, with large, mottled feet and spindly arms. Their bodies were thin and wiry with flat stomachs and narrow shoulders. Their heads sat too large on their shoulders, with large, flapping ears and bulbous noses. Their narrow, yellow eyes seethed with hatred. Whooping shrill war cries, they lifted spears of wood and sharpened stone along with crude knives. The wretches were all nude, with fat green cocks swinging between their legs. At the sight of Asara, they screamed even louder, some reaching down to grab their cocks and stroke them as they ran.

"They want your woman!" shouted one of the sailors as he discharged a pistol at the attackers.

"Do we shoot back?" one of the men wailed, taking Bromm's orders too much to heart.

"You better fucking shoot back!" Topii shouted, levelling his pike at the enemy. The other crew men drew in close under the protective shelter of the pikes. Bromm was at the center of the formation, clutching Asara close with one hand while drawing a pistol with the other.

The creatures swarmed around them even as they were fired upon. Two were struck dead and fell among the leaves, but the others were undisturbed. They circled the knot of reloading pirates screeching and hissing at them while some stroked their cocks. Bromm drew his second pistol and shot the largest of the creatures in the face, spraying those nearby with blood.

The death of their leader gave the others pause, and they all retreated half a step. Bromm pushed himself wholly in front of Asara and deliberately began reloading his pistol. Like animals, once sight of their prize was lost, the creatures began to lose focus. Topii shouted for an advance and the knot of sailors began to move forward. The wretched creatures backed up before it and then fled as the reloaded firelocks roared again. In short order, they were in full retreat up the slope, leaving behind a half dozen of their own dead or dying.

"What were those things?" Bromm asked in wonderment.

"Goblins?" Topii suggested.

"They wanted the girl," one of the sailors said. "They aren't the only ones," another muttered.

Bromm knew the reputation of goblins for stealing women but had never heard of them living on islands, nor had he ever seen one in person.

"Will they be back?" a third sailor asked. Asara clutched Bromm's arm tightly and he stroked her hair soothingly. "You've nothing to fear, girl. I won't let them take you any more than I will let the sea rats have you." Looking up the slope he said to the crewmen, "they must have been watching from up there. They saw the ship come in and gathered a war party."

"So, are there more?" the sailors wondered.

"I don't know," Bromm admitted. "But let's move on. I want to see what we can from the top of that rock."

Carefully, they scaled the slope, swords in hand, while men with firelocks or pistols covered their advance. The slope was steep and tall, but soon enough they were at the top. The peak was beneath a canopy of trees but denuded of undergrowth. The leaves were trampled flat and the remains of a firepit sat in the middle. There was no further sign of the retreating creatures.

From the high perch, they could see all along the beach and out to sea. Horizon sat in the little bay, the only sign of humans other than the boats on the shore. The wide expanse of blue showed no other ships or islands, and the jungle was a green sea equally devoid of signs of civilization.

Inland was a different matter. Behind the promontory, the jungle sloped upwards to tall gray slopes. A trail of green foliage wound its way up those granite slopes and into a crack in the mountains were Bromm espied a grand structure. It was not large, but solidly built of marble, with white columns in the front and a domed roof of blue and gold tiles.

"Well, that is unexpected," Topii said.

"Is it a temple?" Bromm wondered. "It seems too grand for a simple watchpost but that is what I would expect to find in such a place."

"Should we go in and find out?" Asara asked. She had picked up one of the fallen creatures' spears and held it in one hand while she wrapped the other around Bromm's thick chest.

"What if it belongs to the creatures?" asked a sailor.

"It would seem too grand to be the work of little wretches who find with spears like these," Bromm replied, tapping the rock spearhead in Asara's hands.

"Maybe it is the abode of their masters?" Topii suggested. "Or a ruin they overran."

Bromm's curiosity was getting the better of him. He checked his pistols again and looked back toward the beach. All was proceeding as planned on the beach.

"Let's go have a look," he said, starting up the slope.

They approached the building without any more encounters with the little creatures, moving up the line of tree growth to find a cleared field of green grass before the doors. The doors were made of perhaps brass or iron, but they stood open. White marble steps led up to the doors and in front of those steps was a brick area surrounding a running fountain.

"Hardly seems a ruin," Topii whispered as they moved closer. The carefully made their way across the grassy field to the fountain. Bromm looked into the pool beneath it to see brightly colored fish swimming in lazy circles. Something glittered at the bottom and one sailor thought to reach in, but Bromm stayed his hand.

The party moved forward, ascending the marble steps to the doors, where they looked inside. The doors opened onto a round foyer and beyond that, through another set of doors identical to the first, was what appeared to be an assembly chamber. It was also round, with a wide central area and stepped outer edge. In the middle of this chamber stood a figure, its form tall, slender, and black-skinned. It wore long robes of shifting blue and white, with a gem-studded diadem of silver on its brow.

Around the central figure, in three rings, more figures like the first sat on symbols drawn on the floor. There were three figures in the first ring, five in the second and four in the outermost ring. They too wore robes of different colors, sitting with their arms upraised and their heads bowed. Bromm could see that lines spiralled outwards from the symbol on which the central figure stood, connecting each of the other symbols in strange patterns, like an orrery viewed from above.

His curiosity getting the better of him, Bromm crept closer without even realizing it until the central figure turned towards them and raised its long black arms. Its voice boomed in a strange language Bromm did not understand, and he slowly raised his hands in peace.

"I do not understand," he said slowly, "But I have no quarrel with you." Slowly, he laid his sword on the marble floor, and the other sailors did the same.

The figure touched its chin in thought for a moment, its eyes orbs of pure white. Then it spoke again, this time in the Common tongue.

"Welcome, lost seafarers. We have foreseen your arrival here."

Bromm advanced slowly, watching for signs of hostility. Other than the figure who addressed them, none in the chamber moved.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am Nthende. We are the Seers of the Spoke. Your name is already known to us, Captain Bromm of the Horizon. We watched your ship fight the storm and then limp into the bay."

"What is this place?" Bromm asked as he entered the main chamber. He looked up at the domed ceiling, which looked to be made of blue crystal. All manner of visions played through the pale blue depths of the dome. He saw mountains spewing fire, wide deserts of barren sand, cities vaster than Torvuls or the great port of Sostrum, crowded with all manner of people, and a black void studded with bright stars.