The nameless master was very curious how the mermaid knew me as “Signore Marcus.” Not because it was a false name—that was only prudent practice as far as he was concerned—but that the mermaid was familiar with me at all. So, I told the story of how I met the mermaid, the mermaid nodding along and occasionally adding her own comments. The short version is that I met a Venetian dolphin while searching the canals for a missing infantry captain and a squad of her men. The dolphin then informed me about the location of a long-sunken quinquereme in the lagoon and helped put me indirectly in contact with the local mermaids; the combined effort of shy mermaids with rope-tying fingers and dolphins bold enough to closely approach the harbor brought the ship in for me.

  Unfortunately, I was knocked into the water and ended up getting my trident (an antique accidentally stolen from a statue commissioned for the city of Tridentum and later plated with orichalcum in an alchemical demonstration) stuck point-first in the soft mud underwater. When I tried to pull it out, a sudden, coincidental, and unexpected earthquake rocked Venice; when the earthquake had settled, the ship and I had been brought to the surface.

  After some assistance from the suddenly eagerly cooperative residents of Venice, we readied the ship for launch, building a flux-powered rowing engine, and then set out for the Golden Empire via the strait from Troy to Constantinople. Throughout our journey, we had been accompanied by a trio of mermaids, one of whom had been particularly interested in a lovelorn lieutenant of our company, Ragnar Rimehammer, who had met a lovely blonde woman named Bianca in Venice and left her behind. Upon learning Ragnar’s apparent preference for blonde hair, the interested mermaid had changed her hair color to blonde. The nameless master, at that point, asked me if this change in hair color was a glamour or an illusion.

  “I suppose it could be,” I told him. “There are some creatures that change their true colors, and I can’t say I know anything about either sort of magic except what I’ve read in books—I don’t know that I’ve ever witnessed an illusion spell.”

  The nameless master scoffed, face darkening with anger. “Creatures that—never witnessed—you should not try to tell such ridiculous lies to me,” he said. “Magnificat, I am well aware that you apprenticed yourself to Master Teushpa in the art of magic, as you arrived in his company and are here entirely on the strength of his introduction, and I very much doubt you built a working flux-powered engine that, of all things, turned a synchronized three-tiered set of oars. Now, put aside the lies and tell me the real story.”

  “The colonel—I mean, Magnificat—has a very strange sense of humor sometimes,” Johann said, offering a polite smile as he attempted to defuse the tension between us. “But the mermaid story really is true, as far as I know, and the flux engine works quite well. I didn’t see everything the colonel did, but I saw the blonde mermaid swim away with Ragnar after he fell off the carpet.”

  “Fell off the carpet?” The nameless master’s eyebrows rose, and he turned back to me, his expression difficult to read. “I suppose if Minificat will vouch for your honesty in this matter, I am unlikely to get an alternative explanation, but my curiosity is engaged. Please, do continue.”

  “The carpet in question was flying over the water at the time to catch up with the ship—we had to make a hasty exit from Constantinople, both us and the carpet were coming under cannonfire. That’s how we met Gulben, the auburn-haired enchantress I arrived with; she said she was the sultan’s favorite little sister. Ragnar, um,” I paused, not sure if I should say “rescued” or “kidnapped”; I continued by saying neither. “Ragnar picked her up along with a few other women when he, um, visited the sultan’s harem. He’d been really glum, missing Bianca for so long, and I told him to go put it out of his mind.”

  “So this Ragnar person broke into one of the most heavily guarded sections of one of the most heavily guarded palaces in existence, abducted several of the sultan’s wives and relatives in an act that surely would have driven him into a deep rage, then fled to your ship in open view on a flying carpet with a collection of kidnapped women from the sultan’s harem, then fell off the carpet into the arms of a blonde mermaid?” The nameless master looked over at Johann, seeking confirmation. “This Ragnar character sounds difficult to believe.”

  Johann shrugged. “After the stories he told me and—well, I just said to myself when I saw him on the carpet, I should have believed Ragnar all along. That’s just the kind of man he was.” At my frown, he quickly corrected himself. “Or is, he could still be alive.”

  The nameless master shook his head. “Not likely if that’s the last you saw of him,” the necromancer said, looking darkly over at the brunette mermaid. “Can you add anything to this account?”

  “She really loved him, even before he saved her life,” the mermaid said sourly. “And then she swam away from us very quickly after she pulled him up from the depths of the strait, abandoning her sisters. Very greedy and very rude of her. That’s all.” Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her tail twitched uncomfortably every few seconds, flukes trying to drip water over herself from the puddles of water around the wreckage of the nameless master’s mermaid trap.

  “I see I still do not have the full story,” the nameless master said, turning back to me. “Sometime before attempting to start a new war with the Sultanate—I suppose this tall tale is supposed to explain the disappearance of the Holmgard—and then fleeing, in broad daylight, to a ship of unique and therefore highly identifiable appearance, Ragnar saved the blonde mermaid’s life?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “Not that Ragnar’s, um, activities in Constantinople could explain the destruction of the Holmgard. We moved across the Axine Sea too quickly for the sultan’s fleet to catch up and found it already destroyed, so it couldn’t possibly have been an act of revenge. After all, effect cannot precede cause. No, as best as I can tell, they were ambushed in the night by galliots at sail, armed with fire projectors or fire mages and carrying at least one boarding mech equipped with a parallel-bladed axe.”

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  “You know this by divination?” The nameless master’s expression was carefully blank. “A parallel-bladed axe?”

  I shrugged off the question, not wanting to get sidetracked into talking about the evidence—a witness describing a flapping noise before the attack as of great wings (obviously sails rippling in the wind), the gouges in the decking deep enough to be from a mech-scale weapon but coming in parallel triples, and the evidence of the use of some kind of fire were all very clear clues that pointed in a single obvious direction. “Anyway, enough about the Holmgard, you asked about the mermaid—Ragnar rescued the mermaid quite a bit earlier, back when we were stopped over at Karystos on Negroponte. Some fishermen caught her in the harbor, and—uh—wanted to sell her to someone with enough money to pay. He was offended, there was a fight, he won.”

  I decided not to explain that Ragnar had refused because he believed he was looking at a fake, a prostitute tied to the tail of a large fish in an effort to scam him out of his hard-earned money, or that he’d passed out drunk after the conclusion of the fight. I’d had to carry both him and the mermaid over my shoulders to get them out of the village before the fishermen finished rounding up enough friends and relatives to feel confident of winning a rematch.

  The nameless master looked over at the mermaid. “When Magnificat here sailed across the Axine Sea, did he find a wrecked ship along the way as long as three of his put together but just as narrow?”

  “No,” the mermaid said. “There was a big round raft of some kind, though. I’d never seen anything like it, and it was definitely at least three times as big. And it was burnt in parts, I could smell it. That’s when my other sister and I parted, we got in an argument about whether to keep following Signore Marcus and his ship or to turn around.” She sighed, chest heaving and eyelashes fluttering as both sets of her eyelids blinked. “I’ve been so lonely since then.”

  The nameless master looked back and forth between me and the mermaid several times before speaking again. “I do not believe this creature would have coordinated with you on such a description. It is fortunate that I do not have responsibilities outside of Xarakel. Perhaps it is best that I not know more; I imagine that your report must have stirred up quite the storm in the admiralty and the House of the Second Heir-Son. They would not like it known that the Holmgard faced such an ignominious end—mere galliots, the least potent vessels of Sultanate’s navy!” He shook his head, changing mental gears. “While it is fortunate my life is constrained to the Black Tower, it is unfortunate that you broke my mermaid trap. Transporting this specimen to Mermaid House safely will be rather challenging, especially considering its size. Minificat, perhaps you might fetch a hand-cart.”

  “Mermaid House? There’s a house for mermaids here?” The mermaid perked up, hands smoothing down her side as she arched her back to present herself in an appealing pose. “Does it have a salt pool? The river water is itchy.”

  “Um, there is a place called Mermaid House here, but…” I trailed off in uncertainty as to what I should say about it as Johann obediently trotted off to find a cart. My heart sank in my chest as I thought about the two smaller mermaids locked up in the basement of the nameless master’s house, the third one that I had seen only in a partial and postmortem state, and the ragged section of preserved skin that had once belonged to a mermaid captured by Ognyan Spitignov in the Cimmerian Strait. Any settlement of my fresh-caught mermaid in Mermaid House would be unpleasant for as long as she lived, which might not be very long given the nameless master’s keen interest in her internal anatomy.

  “Could you carry me there?” The mermaid wriggled in a fetching manner that drew my eyes to her human anatomy, her tail flopping rhythmically as she inched towards me.

  “I could,” I said, my train of thought derailed by the sight in front of me for a moment. I am not sure what I would have said next if that moment had lasted for long enough for me to regather my thoughts before a steel-clad furry thunderbolt streaked into view, resolving itself into my dog, Yuri.

  Originally bred and trained by the mad general known as the Butcher of Belz, Yuri had been given to me near the start of my great journey. I had thought that I left him with the ship and the majority of the ship’s company on the other side of the river, where the quinquereme was docked by the white city of Sharkel. Yet here he was, planting his feet between me and the mermaid and beginning to bark loudly, threatening to rip her limb from fishy limb if she came any closer to me. I wondered how he had come to reach this side of the river.

  Looking around, I saw Katya clambering out of a little rowboat near the main wharf, her great rifle slung over her shoulder. I felt suddenly and guiltily conscious of the mermaid’s exposed assets. My redheaded lover was a woman with more modest endowments, and had only two surviving natural limbs; I had known her to feel insecure or jealous, and I suspected she would be displeased by seeing me embrace a rather attractive and friendly mermaid.

  She could also be quite protective. If she listened to what Yuri had to say about the dire threat posed by a mere mermaid in his misguided excitement, the question of the length of the mermaid’s stay in the nameless master’s laboratory would quickly become moot. The woman I’d chosen to make my captain of cavalry and chief scout had a talent for marksmanship that was rarely inhibited by moral qualms.

  “Excuse me,” I quickly told the mermaid, then asked Yuri to follow me as I rushed over to greet Katya with affection, hoping to preempt any worries she might have about my safety or fidelity. Several minutes later, after having offered verbal and physical declarations of how much I missed her, I set her back down on her feet and gave her enough time to speak a full sentence.

  “It is very boring when you talk with the ugly man all day,” she told me. “I do not like it. I also do not like the ugly man. I also do not like this place. It is a very boring place if you are not a wizard.”

  “It is…” I hesitated. “What I am doing is gathering powerful, perhaps important information. Intelligence. But I think I do not like him, either; nor do I like what he is likely to do with that mermaid—I think I should go put her back in the river.”

  “Gathering intelligence is good. I should gather intelligence, it is less boring than watching.” Katya leaned to one side, peering past me. “I think you are too late. The cargo platform is already a third of the way up the wall,” she said. “The mermaid does not look bored. I think she is happy.”

  For the long version, see Intentional War Mage, Chapters 42-50.

  reading again. I've started poking my way through a cute little story called , enjoying it so far.