"Okay, one thing I gotta know right away," Kit said to Flynn, once he and the captain had rejoined the table. "You and Blackmane can do some pretty scary stuff. So…"

"You want to know if you can do the same," said Flynn. Kit nodded.

"Afraid not, laddy."

"Why not?"

"Two reasons. For one, you're new to this experience. Took me two centuries in an icy grave to know what I was capable of. But that brings me to reason number two, and I mean no offense given the company you keep here, but, as I have observed and believe truly, you're too good of heart."

"Huh?" Kit was flustered, more so by the annoyed nods the other pirates were giving each other, with many a pair of eyes rolling up. What a strange place to be when 'good of heart' wasn't as much of a compliment as it was an insult.

"See?" the captain hissed at him, with yet another clawed poke to the shoulder. "What have I always told you about all that 'being good' beeswax?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Kit asked Flynn.

"Much and more, as it turns out," said Flynn. "It depends on how well we can commune with our other existence, to put it one way. To put it another, the more sinister the heart, the easier it is, for the Dark thrives in the sinister. I can only tell you from my own witness, though I am certain for it to be true for you and the others as well.

"When the avalanche fell over the ships, I was crushed and unable to move. Frozen, in the most exact meaning of the word. Frozen, suffocated, blind… but always awake. At first, I struggled. Ah, I struggled so, fighting the freeze, but helplessly locked in it. Could not even move a finger. My lungs craved air, but I could not die. And the cold… you know the pain of ice held too long to your skin. It consumed my every inch, never numbing, for the blessing of the Dark was constantly restoring my flesh anew.

"Atimes I could see the glow of the sun, barely, and t'was a sign that the days yet passed above. I must have been so close to the surface; so close, so far. Death was too great of a mercy for a heart like mine. I admit, I'm yet afeared of sitting down and drawing the numbers, that is, how many days that passed while I was under that relentless torment. The last day was no easier than the first. I'm no priest, you can lay to that, but if you want to know if I believe in the existence of eternal damnation, aye, I do now. I broke under my guilt, assigning my fate to my own ill deeds, for how I dismissed the innocent lives that were taken while I was so greedy for my immortality. Irony, there, aye? T'was my treasured immortality that was now the cause of my eternal torment. I decried to any Providence that listened, that should I be given the mercy of escaping my torment, I would work to mend my wrongful ways.

"At some point I found, in my own tormented desperation, an ability to walk my mind into the Dark, a vision I had seen afore only in my dreams since the sword tasted my blood. In this retreat I wandered in the darkness, neither here nor there, neither past, present nor future, atimes through blackened sky over ashen wastelands where I knew, somehow, life once grew, but now all was consumed. There were pieces of worlds ― like, imagine the moon shattered as if it were glass and floated in pieces over our sky, 'tis what it looked like." Flynn duly noticed Kit's quiet, aghast expression. "You've seen a glimpse of it yourself, aye lad. 'Tis the fate that awaits us if the Dark is fully invoked into our world." He continued to look at Kit for a moment; the boy was very tense, staring at his hands on top of the table. "Did you relive memories there?"

Kit nodded, remembering what had stormed through his consciousness when he was dropped into that flooded quarry outside of Badda Bing. "It seemed like everything." He shrugged uncertainly. "All at once. It happened to you, too?"

"A great many times," said Flynn. "I saw… objects, people… many memories come and go, not like visions, more like dioramas in broken pieces, that I could walk among. I had a conviction that none of that was part of the Dark… rather, that was me. And for your part, you. There are things you experience in the Dark, so it seems, that depend on what you bring into it. I believe our minds and heart are an invasive force there, perhaps because they're still our own. It doesn't like them, it can't control them, and in its realm they run rampant in odd ways. But that it can't excerpt control in these things, lad, take that as a comfort, for what it's worth. It means its power has its limits, even if we don't understand them." Kit acknowledged that with a nod. He wasn't any less tense.

"Anyway," continued Flynn, "it was during this long, frozen incarceration that I became quite acclimated with the other side, as it were. Alas, for all those years in cold, suffocating agony, I had no awareness that I conjure any power into this world. Perhaps it could have saved me earlier if I knew, but t'wasn't until I broke free that such was revealed.

"See, I could hear them, whoever was digging up there. Someone had finally come looking for the shipwrecks. I could hear their voices, muffled as they were, and the strikes of picks and shovels. In days the digging was drawing closer, and for the first time in thousands, and thousands of days, I felt hope. Hope, sweet hope. Digging, digging, digging, they were so close! Then… I heard the ice creak and crack. And a sensation I had not felt for two centuries: inertia. Turned out, the lot of ice I was frozen inside broke off and drifted out to sea. They let it go, never the wiser I was there.

"Or rather, that we were there. Raj'jik was adrift with me, as I at last heard him growling as he writhed from his icy tomb. Lucky sod melted free afore I did."

Flynn leaned forward on his elbows, a memory forging his face into a scowl. "Before either of us were freed, though, some time during our drift, I sensed something. Bloodshed, sorcery. Screams of victims. Somehow I was certain it was Jack. It was my first hint that we had a nose for each other, us immortals. Turns out feats of sorcery can be like a scent in the wind. I had felt it weeks later again, that time I thought from Raj." He looked at Kit and Karnage. "That would have been upon your visit to Cabo Diablo, you can lay to that. As to what I felt that first time there in the ice, I imagine the diggers had found Jack. They thawed her free."

Kit squirmed in his seat, queasily. "They were all dead," he whispered miserably.

"Aye. Sounds about right. Anyway, at last, my cage of ice melted. I breathed again." At that, Flynn had closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. "I shall never again take for granted the sweet air. I washed up on a shore, birthed into a great new world of flying machines and electric wonder. Some hard reckoning to be had there, you can lay to it. I had naught to venture into this new world but with the clothes on my back, and my hat ― ah, my lovely peacock hat, that survived two centuries in ice ― only to be blown asunder by you buggers."

In response to that, Don Karnage pantomimed wiping away a sad, sad tear, then stuck his tongue out at Flynn.

"I found myself in a place called Winger City," continued Flynn, "as you now know, lost as lost can be. I think it safe to say I did not arrive in the affluent part of town. I was greeted fittingly, by a group of thugs who attempted to deprive me of my fashionable attire and what other items of value I might have had. They had pistols, ah but not like the pistols I knew. Much better, the ones these days. Can you believe they just shot me? Not even a sporting chance! I was hit in the chest and it hurt to all buggery, but of course, it did nothing to kill me. That spooked them, aye. They shot me some more. I suppose, at that moment, everything that I am had had enough of the pain and suffering. My mind rolled back deep into the Dark; I had naught but anger for these bloody codfish. In the void, in some spiritual, ethereal sense, I grabbed onto something. And I snapped. In a flash I had these sods by the neck, in tendrils like shadows coming from my arms. I lifted them into the air, not even thinking on how I was doing it, I was just doing it. Upon dropping their weapons and crying for their mums, I released them, let them run off shrieking. The rest was of a bit of experimentation, but I found out…"

Flynn closed his eyes, his hands folded over the table; he was concentrating. As he did, the light of the room faded, and a chill washed over everything. The pirate crew stirred uneasily, something that turned into outright fear when stacks of bowls and plates from around the room began to levitate. Flynn opened his eyes and they were pure black. Grinning, with a snap of his fingers, his face returned to normal, as did the room, and the stacks of dishes clacked back in place. "I was capable of some wonderful party tricks. And remembering my oath to Providence, I took to task opposing the predators and protecting the prey. They called me the Corsair Crusader. They called me a hero. That was a cold slap on the head, considering the blood on my hands. It was obvious that Jack had not been able to unleash her designs upon the world. That is, the lack of mass death and destruction suggested that she had not yet found the sword, and I knew I still had a chance to nab it first. It was my intent to return to the North and begin the search, from where I last knew the sword to be. But a venture and a search like that, a little difficult for one to do by oneself, aye? So to that end, I rather became fond of an idea of using a new pirate crew to take on the task. And I thought, no sense building one from scratch since I learned there was already an active group, one that sailed in the sky upon a vessel called the Iron Vulture. That, of course, is how we all became friends."

Don Karnage sat back calmly, a leg crossed and his hands folded neatly on his knee, but his snarl was murderous. "I really hate you, you know."

"Here's what I don't get," spoke up Ratchet. "We met that broad Sterling, didn't see nothin' magic about 'er. You're tellin' us she can fly, call up ghosts, make fire in the sky, I mean c'mon! If that were true, how come she didn't pull none of that on us?"

Kit and Karnage here shared an apprehensive look, remembering once again Blackmane's demonic rampage on Cabo Diablo.

"I too found that curious," said Flynn, rubbing his chin. "Hardly anything stopping her, aye? Expect, perhaps, her own smarts. Blackmane is alive and well ― relatively speaking, of course ― and that doesn't bode well for anyone, including her.

"With the sword, Jack Sterling is nigh invincible. Without it, however… that would be interesting. Ah, if my time served in the northern ice drove me to the throes of madness, I can only imagine what it did to Blackmane. I caught glimpse of him in Badda Bing, as did you and the lad, captain, on the isle. His rage has consumed him wholly, and through it he's conjuring the sorcery of the Dark arguably just as well as Jack ever could. His power is far beyond my own. Maybe beyond Jack's, sans the sword. There's wisdom in her keeping a low profile for the time, as not only do we tend to get noticed when we put on a show, aye, but as I said, we can sense each other. Maybe not you, lad, you're not so acclimated, but if I could catch a whiff of Raj'jik exercising his conjurations in Cabo Diablo all the way from Winger City, I imagine he can do the same, perhaps all the more powerfully. Jack must know this. I wager it's her best interest to avoid such detection of herself for now.

"If Raj'jik were to catch up to her, couldn't kill her, no, nor she him. But the battle that would ensue! Their immortal forms would be tearing each other to pieces across every corner of the earth, and then back again, for time eternal. Alas, Jack needs the sword before she faces him.

"But there's another reason comes to mind, knowing her, why she does not reveal herself. A clever one. Tell me again, lads. What exactly did she say about wanting to find the sword?"

"Uh, lessee," thought Ratchet. "She said it could make all our pirate dreams come true."

"Hm. True, that. It could. Were she to use it to that end, that is."

"She said there was doom at our doorstep," said Mad Dog.

"Yeah, that's right," said Will, "and she said that same thing a few times, like she liked the way it sounded. Also liked to say it as she was on quest. She said it was a quest that the fate of the whole world depended on."

"And let me guess," said Flynn, "she looked very amused all the while she was saying these things." The pirates nodded. "Aye, lads. Just like when she read me the writing on Bloodfang's blade. She was amused because she wasn't lying. Don't you understand it now, she was playing you. She had told you everything! She was speaking of herself! She is the doom at your doorstep, by thunder, and the fate of the world does depend on her wicked quest. It's all a jape to her. Everything is a game, until it's her turn up to play."

Kit raised his hand halfway to get Flynn's attention. "So the lady's dangerous, can't have the sword. But she's gonna get the sword, from what it sounds like. Then what'll we do?"

"By whatever means possible, we must take it away from her," answered Flynn. He frowned. "For that I have no easy solution. I myself will fall if cut down by that sword, and you lot, no offense, would be absolute rubbish. But help get me to her, lads, and I will give it my all, you can lay to that. I owe this world as much, for my part bringing this evil into it."

"And supposing we do," said Karnage, "and we get the blasted thing from her. Then what, we play keep-away until the cows come home?"

"Until the cows come home, you mean," corrected Kit.

"Is what I said!"

"Oh! Um, jeez." Kit cupped his head, miserably. Demonic pirates, end of the world, his own life torn between two existences ― okay. But if there was one bridge too far in every maddening thing the world was slapping down on him, it was for Don Karnage to start getting his idioms right. Look no further for a true sign of the end of the world.

"Keep away for a time, perhaps," nodded Flynn. "We would need to get the sword to Olde Victoria." He gestured at Katie. "For it would seem my aforementioned inkling has evidence behind it, something I was not aware of. Alas, for that part, I turn the conversation over to our resident museum-wench."


Katie Dodd made a face at Flynn, but was too resigned to bother explaining the word 'archaeologist' again. Besides, here she was on the elusive Pirate Island, beyond the point of no return, amidst a group she trusted about as much as if she were swimming with hungry piranhas, and she was counting on him to keep a promise he made earlier, to be her ally if the sky pirates turned out not to be accommodating. So far, aside from Don Karange's initial grumbling about her being there, none of them had been menacing toward her, but she was wary. Her knees weren't knocking like she feared they might; it seemed she was getting used to this business of sticking her neck out to save the world. With all attention upon her, she took a breath and began,

"We think we know how to get rid of the sword," she said. "It's just as Flynn theorized, tossing it back into the portal opened in Olde Victoria might do the trick. And we think this because…" She opened the tome; most of the centuries-old pages were ruined beyond recognition, many missing, but she had a bookmark upon the illustration of a Norse warlord and his mighty axe. "... this isn't the first time a weapon named Bloodfang has come around." She turned the page to show Karnage; other curious pirates huddled to look over his shoulder until he swatted them away with growl and a glare. "This book is from an early medieval period, but the stories transcribed in it are over two thousand years old. The person in this illustration is Skaal the Undying. He led a seafaring raiding clan from the North, sort of a precursor to the Viking age. He was so named the Undying because ― well, he supposedly couldn't be killed. This greataxe you see here, it was also named Bloodfang. Now you look at what we're up against today, and two and two start adding up."

This statement caused a lot of pirate brows to furrow with deep contention as fingers were being counted off on left and right. Seeing this, Karnage put his head down on the table and groaned.

"The story isn't complete, and a lot of the pages are gone," said Katie. "But we can discern that Skaal raided his way to a part of what is now Crownland ― and I believe, given what Flynn has said of his underground discovery in Olde Victoria, that it's Skaal's old fortress.

"We can also discern that he wasn't only into fighting with steel and stone. He happened to be heavily obsessed with dark magic. There's mention surviving of him forging something called a soulstone. I've heard of these before, in other early myths. A soulstone is often described as a powerful magic artifact capable of trapping souls, or transferring them from one plane of existence to another. In Skaal's case, the story says he used the soulstone in a sacrificial ritual to open a gate to the Underworld."

"The very one Jack re-opened under the Havenshore warrens," added Flynn.

"If that's indeed where she was given Bloodfang," said Katie, "she wasn't the first. The story tells it like Skaal was answering a calling when he crafted the soulstone and opened the gate. He communed with something beyond the gate, a new god, he claimed, and he called it the Dark ― spelled by a rune that could also mean Nothing. The exact context of the rune was their word for what the body experiences after the soul has departed. He declared himself a servant to the will of the Dark, in exchange for its power. He offered it the soulstone…" Katie points at the illustration again, sperically at the greataxe and the small circular detail between its double blades. "The Dark returned it, forged in this ax. An ax named Bloodfang."

She looked at Don Karnage. "If you guys remember, the sword had runes along the edge of the blade, both sides. This axe had the same runes, the same verse. You might also remember the sword had a strange, round object on it. It was red, and eerily cold to the touch."

"On the bottom," said Kit. "The part that looked like a ruby?"

"I never imagined it," said Katie, "but in hindsight it has to be a soulstone. The fuel behind the sword's power. It's a conduit with the Dark, binding Sterling, Blackmane, Flynn…" She paused, with a sad expression looking at Kit. "I guess you, too, kiddo. Your immortality is conditional to the soultone remaining on our side of that gate."

"That's the jab," muttered Flynn. "To get rid of the sword is to get rid of the soulstone."

"Wh-what would happen to us?" asked Kit.

"Fortunately," said Katie, "that part of the story is intact. What's in this book is transcribed from ancient scrolls written by a man named Skjol ― Skaal's son, and apprentice. Skjol wrote that his father used the sword in exactly the same way Flynn spoke of Sterling ― Jack, whoever. He hunted for lives to feed Dark's hunger for souls. He cut down entire villages, women and children too, then raised them to attack the next village over, and so on. There were no survivors. His own clan was scared to death of him. The only person Skaal shared this 'gift' of immortality with was his son ― same way, by giving just a little blood to the ax's blade. Skjol used the name Deathwalkers, agents of the Dark meant to carry out its bidding ― that was him and his father, and now… well, you guys. Both father and son were pierced by arrows, spears and swords many times as the villagers defended themselves, but nothing could kill them. All the meanwhile, Skjol was loyal outwardly, but he secretly loathed the dark magic that had consumed his father, and feared its ultimate outcome. According to the story, he had asked his father, 'What happens when none remain to live?' Skaal's answer, 'We rest with them, in the Dark.'"

Katie carefully turned pages in the tome, and landed her finger on a passage written in an alphabet that no one else in the room could read. "So, Skjol conducted an experiment. He entered the gate to the Underworld. He described it as like being cast into an empty night sky, but he had all of his faculties. He cut himself with a dagger, and noticed the wound would not heal as it would on Earth. He concluded that the power of the soulstone was inert within the Dark itself, and that meant his body's immortality. He tested that theory with the ultimate risk.

"During a feast, Skjol suddenly turned on his father right in front of the gate. Grabbed the ax from his hands and tossed it back into the portal. Before his father could hardly react, Skjol ran him through with a spear. And so, Skall the Undying ― died. At that point Skall was considered nearly god-like among his clan, so those witnessing Skjol slaying him… well, guess who became the new uncontested leader. Skjol wrote that, now that he could bleed again, he looked forward to an honorable death in battle. He had his father's hall sealed off and abandoned. It was completely forgotten in time."

"Until my lot came along," grinned Flynn, waving his fingers smugly.

"Lemme get this straight," said Kit. "We throw the sword into this gate, and we go back to... normal?"

"Aye, according to the Viking bloke," said Flynn. "Dull, boring mortality. Ugh."

Kit jumped onto the seat of his chair. "Well what are we waiting for?"

"Hasty to shed living forever, lad?"

"I don't wanna be twelve forever!" cried Kit, and he was dead serious. Then pointing at Karnage, "Holy jeez! You know how long it'd take for this guy to let me fly a plane? I'd hafta live forever to find out!" The captain was not amused. "Besides," said Kit, "You're right, I've seen the other place. If this thing, this Dark or whatever, if it gets its way, there's gonna be nothin' left to live for anyway."

"Spoken true," nodded Flynn. He leaned on his elbows on the table, holding his chin between his palms. "Still remains the matter of how we take it. Even if we make all due haste to these Twin Spires, even if we were to get there afore Jack finds exactly where the sword landed, there'll be no means for us to search with her around. She'll hold back no further at that point, you can lay to that. She's as like to rip us all to pieces. I'd get better, but rest of you mortal lot… no, you cannot go near her. Alas, since I've not gained the ability to sprout dark wings myself ― feel a ways left out on that ― I can't get to the spires without a vessel. Either that or swim. I do, by the way, hate swimming." At that he cast a glare at Don Karnage, who was, this time, amused.

"But in Winger City you landed on our plane, in mid-air," Kit said skeptically.

"Got a mean spring in my step," shrugged Flynn. "That'll take me only so far."

"Well! I am hearing what you need, and Don Karnage is of course a generous and gracious pirate," the captain said to him, leaning back and smugly stacking his heels on the edge of the table. "I am supposing I will help you perhaps not to have to swim there."

"Was counting on it, matey. Though, I also fully admit, it is gracious of you, given our prior… eh, misunderstanding, as it was."

"The rowboat is all yours," declared the captain. "Good luck, and don't get ripped into too many pieces, h'okey-dokey?"

"Cap-tain," chided Kit.

"H'okay, fine. I was making the joke! What I meant to say was, by all means, you immortal mutt ― get ripped into as many pieces as you possibly can. Please!"

"Stop it," argued Kit. "Did you miss the part about the end of the world? That's all of us! We gotta throw everything we got into this. You gotta give him a chance!"

"A chance?!" seethed Karnage. He stood up and slammed his palms on the table. "You put me in jail! You stole my Iron Vulture!" The captain put his hand up to stop another utterance of protest from Kit. "And remind me ― no no, remind the boy, who seems to be having some shortness in the memory-spandages. What was that little mention of marooning us on a certain first speck of dirt?"

At that, even Kit turned a frown at Flynn.

"I know you have no reason to believe me," said he, lowering his head, "now that the time has passed, but it was only a threat in hopes of hastening your cooperation. I would have had to have shipped you out some way, aye, but I'm not as cruel as to have actually left you to your fate in desolation. I'd not do that to a grown man, and certainly not to a lad."

"Hmph! So you say," sneered Karnage.

"As I said, I know you have no reason to believe me. Yet I ask you to do so all the same. I was a fool, and not for the first time in my life, to force command of this crew. I am sorry, and I mean that."

"Sorry, bah! You think a worthless word like sorry makes it all hunkity-dory? You think sorry will ever make me forget what you ― what you ―" He saw it in his peripheral, how the boy got up and turned his back on him. With a groan, Karnage's head hung limp over his chest. He plopped back down in his chair, and rubbed his temples. "I don't trust you," he told Flynn at length. "But…" He jerked a thumb toward Kit. "This one, I trust." Again in his peripheral, he saw the boy brighten. Karnage stood up once more, springing with an air of command ― maybe a little too much spring for the effects of his hangover, as he suddenly wobbled. But undaunted he continued, a finger raised high in the air, "And if he says we need to give it everything, we give it everything. Ay-ay-ay, can we just hurry and save this stinking wreck of a world so I can pah-leez get back to robbing it blind! Off your tails, you mangy minions! To the planes! To the Twin Spires!" He suddenly paused, an unhealthy sounding urk lurching from his gut. At once he spun on his heel and fled the room. "But first…*gulp*I go throw up."