Epi-prologue

Previously: Esmiralda, a freelance historian and member of the Fulcuhn--a group commissioned by Queen Phedera to record the achievements and culture of the different people of the land--has discovered that one of her traveling companions is an agent of the crown in his own right. Merrick has confided in her, and her alone, that he is a member of the Ministry of Human Preservation, tasked with finding and weeding out evil wherever it appears...

"Esmiralda, come have a look at this!" Merrick shook me with enough force to rattle my teeth. I pushed him away, groggy, and looked up into a face nearly glowing with anticipation. My head pounded and my back ached from the rough ground. We were alone in the structure.

"What?" I asked, momentarily forgetting where we were. We had talked long into the night after his revelation and it was a bit surprising to see him not only awake, but energized.

"You must come outside." He shuffled away and disappeared through the opening.

I groaned and willed my stiff joints to follow him. They eventually agreed, but protested all the way. I found a bright new day beyond the ramshackle walls of the old cottage: a sky that was crisp and blue and unmarred by the clouds of the previous night's storm framed the majestic trees all around us. In the distance, I saw the faint purple peaks of some mountain range--I could not put my finger on which one it was. The sun was high in the sky and I had no sense of which direction I was looking in.

Merrick, Seymurh and Broo Fang Tane were standing some distance away.

"Behold!" Merrick shouted with some flourish.

"Yes, it's very nice today," I muttered, shielding my eyes from a ray of sunlight that reached unfiltered through the canopy.

"Indeed it is," he answered. "But that's not why I called you here. You know of the land near the village of Alt?"

"I do," I said, pointing at Seymuhr. "I had just mapped out the area when your brute there abducted me. As you know."

"And what of it?" He persisted. I wondered what he was getting at, but found no clue in Tane's bemused expression.

"Yes. What of it? I think perhaps you need some more rest. I suggest a later start to...to wherever we're going today..."

"You know of the forest, then, and the hills--the distant mountains, the grasslands...?"

"Indeed. It was all on my map, and depicted very accurately, and with an artists' flourish, I might add. Why?"

"What of the lake? Or the sea?"

I scowled. "There is no lake nearby. And the sea? A journey of 18 days would not bring the scent of it."

"Exactly." He gave me a single smug nod, then uncrossed his arms and pointed behind me. "Then how do you explain that?"

I turned, not knowing what to expect, and then a cold tingling sensation formed at the base of my neck and wiggled down my spine. For the structure we had sheltered in was not a square one and, indeed, had never been. We had been unable to see its shape in the dark. The full light of day showed that each end was curved with the points jammed into the ground. The sides were punctured, not with rectangular openings but round ones. What I had first taken for a fallen tree was much too straight and smooth. It was not an abandoned home, at all, nor a woodsman's retreat, hunter's cabin, fort or outpost of any kind.

It was a ship.

Next: The Lost Treasure of Thormun Zool