Muse Cruise

Muld confides in Syndi about the bounty on his head.

16.

Muse Cruise

 

With a great degree of effort, Muld appeared relaxed and in a good humor as Tadd and Mutt boarded The Locust.  Both had brought ‘dates’; two rather pretty halfling girls who were introduced formally to him.     He was amused and charmed by the halfling and especially the Goblin’s treatment of the two ladies.    They were charming and very attentive to them and both women seemed to be genuinely interested in them.     Mutt was amazing to watch with his lady, for he was so suave and debonair that you almost could believe that he was not a goblin at all.

A few minutes after Tadd and Mutt, Jevon and Rick arrived, both without any companions, but they made up for it by eagerly talking about the two Losasidhe ladies that they had danced with several months before.     Their expectations were set and he hoped that they wouldn’t be disappointed.

Syndi appeared suddenly; he simply glanced up from watching Tadd, Mutt and their ladies looking around at the redecorated captain’s cabin, and she was there.

After hearing her words about wanting to get away from being a sorceress and wearing the skimpy ‘costume’ of the trade, he had expected her to be dressed in simple and plain attire.    

But she stood there wearing a long, flowing, hooded purple robe and he could see beneath the hem of her robe, the matching purple of high heeled leather boots.     Somehow he knew that underneath the robe would be an extraordinarily sexy and scant costume.    She was dressed as if she was in class with Alleania.  

He began to say something, but thought better of it and simply rose and smiled warmly at her as she crossed the room.

She had a strange gleam in her eyes and the hint of something troubling her, but it was the intensity of her look as she spoke to him that unnerved him most.    

“Sorry I’m late,” She said in her usually meek voice, and she smiled the same shy smile, but her eyes seemed to be boring into his very soul.

“No problem,” He replied, feeling extremely uncomfortable at the strength of her gaze.    It was a somewhat wild look, perhaps feverish in appearance, as if something instinctual and powerful was just barely being kept in check.    She was both terrifying and intoxicating at the same time and somehow she managed to appear vastly more beautiful than he’d ever seen her look.

Muld felt a deep physical hunger for her begin to boil up inside of him.     It was slowly intensifying, giving him time to counter it, but he knew he could not stop it.    Nothing like this had ever happened to him before.    It was building up like a terrible storm at sea --- slowly, but assuredly growing to hurricane force at due time.

He had to stop it before he lost control… but he didn’t know how and was not certain if he even really wanted to try.

 

Somehow he managed to speak the proper words to her, though he could not hear his own voice over the pounding of his pulse.    All he could sense was her eyes, those wonderful, gorgeous green eyes, which were radiating so much power and communicating to him such strange emotions without verbalizing them.

Had she managed to cast some sort of bewitchment spell upon him?    Was there unknown magic being used against him?    Perhaps she wasn’t Syndi at all, but a demoness, taking a form that emitted a seductive glow that penetrated his heart, mind and soul.

Was that what was happening to him?    Maybe Hobnail had command of such devilish servants, and he had sent one to destroy him by fooling him into thinking he was falling for Syndi.

 

 But as quickly as that thought entered his mind, he banished it, for he did not believe that.     More likely, he told himself, it is merely exhaustion and loneliness, mixed with the radiant charms of a blossoming young woman. 

She turned and chatted with Mutt and Tadd, meeting their ladies, and Muld forced himself to speak to Rick and Jevon about their quarters on the ship.    This led to a full-fledged tour of the revamped vessel, including detailed instructions on how to pilot it.

As he was demonstrating the engines by maneuvering the ship away from the docking platform, Tadd, standing with the others to observe the procedure, mentioned the bounty hunter.

“Hey boss, did you hear about that man who committed suicide or accidentally fell to his death from the docking platform last night?”

Muld nodded, not turning to look at the halfling. “Yes, I heard about that… how tragic.”

“He could have been a thief, you know.   Maybe he was casing The Locust after hearing about how you were fixing it up.”

Muld frowned, wanting to move the conversation away from this subject, “Well, he didn’t take anything from this ship.”

“Have you checked everything?”   Tadd persisted.

“I’m confident he wasn’t here.”

“How do you know?”

“I spent the night here,”  Muld lied, and it gave him a bitter taste in his mouth.     Behind him, Syndi looked alarmed by his statement, but didn’t say anything.

He changed the topic to the arcane defenses of the ship, omitting the Light of Yesh self-destruction option.   

 

For a while they all just enjoyed the speed and smoothness of the eight vacuum engines attached (four on each side) to the ship.     He flew just above tree level so they could enjoy the scenery rushing by, but Syndi had not completely mastered her fear of heights and sat in the captain’s cabin at the opposite side of the room from the control area (which Muld called the bridge).

 

He had removed part of the wall from the cabin and replaced it with enchanted, unbreakable glass, so that the ship could be piloted from inside and yet the pilot could still see clearly what was ahead.  As the captain’s quarters sat on the aft deck, rear vision was also good, though two large blind spots to each side had not been addressed (yet) by any magic innovation.   

After piloting the craft for an hour, he allowed Jevon to try his hand at it.    Tadd and Mutt were sitting in the spacious captain’s quarters, entertaining their ladies by sharing ideas for Practical Magic inventions.    Rick was chatting with Jevon and enjoying the view, so Muld decided to go find Syndi and see if the feelings that he had felt earlier had waned in intensity.

 

She was sitting on the comfortable couch, with her eyes closed while rubbing them with her thumb and forefinger.

“Are you alright?” He asked softly, so as to not embarrass her if she was ‘seasick’ (or was it ‘airsick’?).

She jumped upon hearing his voice and sat upright quickly.

“I’m fine,” she replied somewhat tensely.

“Is the air travel making you sick?”

“Well, it would be better if the ground wasn’t so close, rushing by so fast.     Up higher, you don’t notice how far off the ground you are, until you look over the side.”

“I can tell Jevon to climb,” he volunteered.

“No, no, that’s alright.”   She waved off his offer.

“Should I leave you alone?”  He began to get up, but without opening her eyes, her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.

“Stay… I want to talk to you.”

Something about the way she said this made his stomach fill with butterflies.

“Okay.” He said, sitting on the end of his seat as he waited for what she had to say.

For a long time she didn’t say anything, though she kept a hold on his wrist.   He could feel her pulse through her fingertips and he noticed that both of their hearts beat at about the same speed.

“Muld…have you felt… sick… recently?” She finally asked him with evident care for her choice of words.

“Sick?   Um… no…why do you ask?”

She opened her eyes a crack, though she didn’t look directly at him, “Your voice sounds hoarse this morning and you looked like you didn’t get any sleep last night.”

Muld shifted nervously and decided to fend off an answer by using preparations for the trip as an excuse.   “I was busy getting things ready for the trip, so I haven’t really slept in a long time.”

“So you spent the night here on the ship last night?”   She asked and he almost lied, but something told him that he shouldn’t do that, and instead should excuse his earlier lie to Tadd.

“Actually, no, I didn’t stay here, though I told Tadd that I had.”

Syndi opened her eyes and gave him a quizzical look.    Her eyes falling on him made the butterflies in his belly begin to flip-flop several times.   He felt his face blushing, but he couldn’t stop it.

“I…I had something… odd…happen last night.   I think someone was spying on me.”   He told her about the crystal ball incident and she listened with a strange slight smile on her lips.

“It could have been your imagination.”  She said still smiling slightly.   He was so taken by her smile that he failed to wonder exactly what she was smiling about.

“Maybe it was, but as you can imagine, it made me nervous.”  He subconsciously rubbed his throat.

“Something else happened, didn’t it?”  She said with a penetrating gaze.

“What makes you say that?”  He answered, trying to conceal his reaction.

Syndi just smiled as if she was in on his secret, leaned forward and whispered, “Muld, tell me what happened.”

“Who says anything happened?”  He knew his nerves were betraying him and so he began preparing his tale.

“Muld, tell me… I won’t tell the others.”

He spoke without hesitation, which alarmed him, for he prided himself on caution.

“That dead man-“ He began.

“Yesh preserve me!”  Syndi somehow seemed to piece a lot together from simply that.    She took his hands in hers.

“He was a bounty hunter… from Hobnail.”

“Tell me everything!” She demanded and he told her the entire account of the incident.    She hung on his every word, looking mortified when he mentioned the harm done to him by the bounty hunter.

“Why didn’t you call for the night guard?”  She whispered in exasperation when he finished his tale.

“I didn’t want to spoil this trip for everyone.”

“Muld, that is ridiculous!   You could have been kidnapped or killed!”

“It all turned out alright.”

“I’m not so sure!    When they find out what happened, you could be viewed with suspicion.”

“Why?   I didn’t do anything wrong… did I?”

“You didn’t report a dead body and lied to the guard about it.”

“But I was the victim!”

“Yes, but police and government officials are funny about things like that.”

“Well what can I do now?   We’ve already left.”

Syndi sighed, “Nothing, I guess.    But this also means that there are probably others looking for you.”

Muld nodded, “That is what concerns me the most.   I don’t want your life… and everyone in the guild… in danger due to Hobnail’s grudge against me.”

Suddenly she leaned in closer, alarming him for an instant until he realized that she did this just so the others would not hear what she was saying.

“Muld, why don’t you stay with my parents for several weeks?”

“Oh, that would be safe!   Your mother would probably turn me over to Hobnail herself and claim the bounty!”

“Stop kidding around, Muld, I’m serious!    You’d be safer there as it is far less populated than Westmark and almost all of them are elves.”

“I don’t want to be a victim, Syndi.   If I hide from Hobnail, then I’m merely a victim.”

“You can’t think that way, Muld!    Your life is in danger,”   She pleaded.

“I live for danger!”  He joked, but she frowned at his frivolous attitude.

“Damn it, Muld, how can you joke about it?” She snapped angrily.

“Syndi, I can protect myself just fine.”

“Oh sure, like you did today!”

“It worked just like I imagined.”

“You just got lucky!   What if the bounty hunter had strangled you to death?   You took a stupid chance, Muld!”  Her voice was raised now and everyone in the room was listening to their argument.

“It wasn’t stupid!”

“It was very stupid, Muld!   I’m not going to stand for it!”

“It isn’t really any of your business.”

“The hell it isn’t my business!    Someone has to look after you; you’re too preoccupied most days to notice what is going on around you.”

“I’m not in any particular danger, my dear!”

“You still don’t see it!    Good Lord, how dense do you have to be!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not going to let something happen to you, Muld!”

“Nothing is going to-“

“Oh, just shut up!    Are you trying to tear me apart?”   She was fighting back tears now.

“Tear you up?   What in Yesh’s name are you so upset about?”

“Can’t you see it?!”  She yelled at him, “Don’t you understand?   Muld, I…I…”   She wasn’t able to continue and just stared at him, hoping he’d understand.    But he just stared at her blankly.

“Oh my Lord!”  She screamed, “Men are impossible!”

Syndi jumped up and stomped out of the Captain’s cabin, staggering slightly upon leaving the shelter of the room when she saw how fast the ship was moving.    With weak knees she began to use the railing on the side of the building to head toward the door to the lower decks, where the crew quarters were located.

He was opening the door to go after her when Jevon called out in alarm, pointing to something on fire on the horizon.   Outside, Syndi saw it too and hurried back to the Captain’s Quarters.

“It’s an airship on fire!”   She told them as Muld held the door open for her.

“Pirates!”   Mutt exclaimed.