Godchaser Chapter 6 - Windswept Rhapsody, a white wolf fanfic

Chapter 6 – Windswept Rhapsody

A week passed. Ping began entertaining at several of the local taverns and I followed after her, making little repairs wherever we stayed. Playing a married couple, we would always get one room and a bed to share. Though Ping didn't seem to mind living in such close quarters with a man she barely knew, I continued to sleep on the floor and made sure to avert my eyes while she was changing her clothes.

Working in tandem, we soon earned enough money to pay for our passage at least as far as Nexus. We decided to stay on the waterfront a few more days in order to buy some new clothes and supplies. While she was playing her mandolin one afternoon, I slipped away from Ping and purchased myself a new cloak which would better hide Godchaser who'd been spending most of her time rolled up inside of my traveling pack, still unresponsive. Though cream was not a good color for the open road, I knew that when Godchaser woke, she would appreciate her new covering and especially the very fine gold trim I'd purchased for it. It would make her look as I had seen her in my memories of long ago.

If Ping in all of her usual brilliance was supposed to be my wife, I knew that I needed to improve the quality of my own wardrobe so that I didn't look like her servant. I specifically avoided the tailors that I had favored when I still worked in the Imperial City but I did still know where to get a good suit of clothes and wasn't about to quibble over the price. As Ping had explained, looking dirty and destitute was "the very best way to convince folks you can't be trusted".

After trying on a dozen different things, I settled on a well-made white linen shirt, light-colored breeches, a chestnut-colored leather belt with fancy bronze scrollwork and solid pair of flat shoes which were better than boots for shipboard travel. I found a purple silk scarf for Ping as well, suspecting that she wouldn't mind adding another ostentatious splash of color to her usual attire. The tailor gave me an absurdly low price for everything I requested after I put "the best edge he had ever seen" on all of his shears.

Still, I was never precisely comfortable in the Imperial City. Godchaser's continued silence and my fear of being discovered left me convinced that I had to find passage off of the Blessed Isle as soon as possible. One night while she was working, Ping chanced upon a somewhat heretical rice merchant with a taste for her bawdiest songs. He gave us the promise of a tiny private cabin and the most reasonable price we might have expected for passage to Port Calin, which was only a week's travel from Nexus. And so we paid him, packed our bags and informed the innkeeper who had put us up that we would be leaving in the morning. I took special care to make sure that Godchaser was sewn into my new cream cloak where no one could see her. The trickiest part was tailoring a piece of linen to adequately conceal both her hearthstone and the orichalcum gorget which snapped around my neck.

On the morning of our planned departure, I woke up and found myself in a bed. That alone came as a bit of a shock, considering how many days I'd spent sleeping in the dirt or on hard floors. Then I remembered the argument I'd had with Ping the previous night. She'd insisted that if I wouldn't climb into bed with her, I should at least be willing to trade nights spent on the floor. She winked at me as I rolled over.

"Ready to go?" She prompted.

"Must I get out of this bed? Well, I suppose we do have a ship to catch." I sighed heavily and say up. That was when I saw that Ping had a open bottle of wine in her hand.

"Drink with me first?" Ping prompted.

"The sun's barely risen!" I argued.

"All the more reason to drink now. He can't see us yet!" Ping winked. Though we had made a promise not to pry at each other's secrets, Ping recognized my new devotion. True "believers", she explained, were few and far between. And because I was sure that the Unconquered Sun had led me to her, I trusted Ping, despite the fact that I didn't know her surname. In truth, I suspected that "Ping" was an alias, but if I pressed my companion for more information I suspected that she might start asking me some awfully uncomfortable questions.

"No, it's all yours." I sighed, pushing the bottle away. "I don't drink."

"You keep saying that. I don't believe it. You don't drink that waterfront piss they pass off as beer – that I believe! But this is a good vintage!" She informed me.

"Why are you drinking at the crack of dawn?" I wondered.

"Nerves." Ping admitted.

"You? Nerves?" I almost laughed out loud. From what I'd seen of her usual behavior, nothing made Ping nervous! She could dodge even the worst drunks and troublemakers on the waterfront with effortless grace.

"Yes, sometimes! Particularly when I'm about to board a ship full of strangers who are going to be my only company for three solid months!" She replied.

"You won't be surrounded completely by strangers. You'll have me." I smiled slightly.

"And that will make the time fly by!" She smirked, leaning forward to kiss me on the cheek. I saw what she was doing too late and we wound up knocking our heads together.

"Ow!" I grimaced. Ping once again offered me her wine.

I sighed heavily and scoffed at my own foolishness. Though I hadn't touched alcohol since becoming a monk, having a glass of wine wasn't the same as being a drunkard. I took a small sip. The wine was as good as Ping had professed and did calm me down somewhat. I hadn't realized how tense I was myself until I surveyed our packed bags and considered that I was about to put myself in a situation that I could not run away from. I had to be careful, and it was absolutely necessary that I keep some distance from Ping, even as I toyed with the idea of telling her everything.

Although Ping was a dyed-in-the-wool heretic, with a particular fondness for the Unconquered Sun, I still felt that telling her the truth would be dangerous. As much as I wished otherwise, the two of us could not continue traveling together without the burden of my secret between us.

"Can I have my wine back?" Ping wondered, gesturing to the wine that I was still nursing as I mused over what lay ahead of us.

"Don't drink it all!" I advised, and she chuckled.

"I couldn't if I tried! I have a whole case downstairs!" She informed me. Ten bottles for when we start to go mad and two for when we make it to Nexus!" Ping stretched languorously with all the grace of a cat and then spit wine all over me as she glanced out the window.

"Sun-in-Glory!" Ping swore. Her favorite curse was so blatantly heretical that it made me smile every time I heard it. She truly didn't care what anyone thought of her. Then she turned to me with a wild-eyed expression and I felt my heart skip a beat. "A dozen monks just got on our ship!"

I rushed to the window myself and cursed incoherently in Old Realm. Ping gave me a critical look. She'd guessed that I was on the run weeks ago, but my reaction at that moment betrayed everything I hadn't told her. "They're looking for you?" She demanded, her hands on her hips.

I took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Well, that's no good." Ping grimaced. "Most of our money's gone, and I doubt that stingy rice merchant will give us a refund if we change our plans. Though I suppose we could stay here another week?" She suggested with a smirk.

That was when I noticed a large number of red-clad Imperial soldiers marching down the street. "No, I'd better get out of here now."

Ping stared in disbelief as the leader of the soldiers went to talk to the monks standing on the dock. "Recluse, what did you do?" She demanded.

"You promised you wouldn't ask me that!" I reminded her.

"But that's the Scarlet Legion!" Ping groaned and buried her head in her hands. "This humble heretic cannot take that kind of heat!" She informed me.

"I told you before, I'm in a lot of trouble. If any of those men find out you've been helping me... I don't know what they'll do to you. We'd best part ways now. " I replied. "You go out the back door first, and find yourself passage somewhere. If I have to, I can distract them for a little bit so that you can get away.

"No!" Ping refused, her hands on her hips. "I'm not leaving you behind!"

"Those men will be combing the port and since they've talked to our captain over there, they'll have good descriptions of both of us. We're not getting out of here together! Not on any reputable ship!" I argued.

Ping smiled slightly, and I could tell from the dangerous twinkle in her eyes that she'd just had an inspired idea. "What about a ship of ill-repute?" She pressed.

"What's that mean?" I wondered.

She put her arm over my shoulders and smirked. "Tell me, Recluse... how do you feel about becoming a pirate?"

Ping and I hadn't exactly planned our escape when we slipped out the back door of the inn. We left most of our hard-earned supplies and Ping's wine, figuring that we stood a better chance of eluding my pursuers if we were light on our feet. Of course, since we were headed straight for the very worst part of the city Ping had also wanted me to leave my somewhat ostentatious new cloak behind also.

I refused, but since our partnership was based on the understanding that neither of us would ask too many awkward questions Ping didn't ask me why. As I saw it, there was only one thing I wasn't willing to leave the Blessed Isle without, and that was Godchaser. Attached as I was to my tools, I decided to bring them along too... although I was beginning to think that I could craft myself a more efficient set.

Ping and I made it only a few streets down from our residence when we stumbled across our first Imperial patrol, a small group of annoyed-looking Scarlets questioning a man whose tavern Ping had played at several times. Seeing the Dragonbloods before they caught sight of us, Ping and I dodged into the nearest alley and hid behind a reeking pile of garbage. We watched the soldiers in silence, not daring to breathe.

"I've already told you!" Our former employer protested. "I don't know where they stay! Yes, they were working for me... but they've worked for practically everyone on the waterfront since they came to town! You can't miss those two! Wherever the girl's playing there's bound to be a crowd, and that man who follows her won't be more than ten feet away, up to his elbows fixing something. If you haven't seen em' yet, my bet is they got on a boat right under your enormous nose!"

"You fool!" The leader of the Scarlets slapped the man and he crumpled to the ground. "How dare you suggest such a thing? You don't even know what those fugitives have done! You'd better hope they haven't escaped!" He snorted and turned away on one heel. The leader of the men was clearly a Fire-Aspect and maybe a Cathak himself, possibly some relative of Dragonlord Chiron. Whatever House he belonged to, it was obvious that he was inexperienced and arrogant, an all too common combination amongst young Dynasts.

"Fanglord, we'll never find him knocking down doors! Half of these mortals are criminals and they've no respect at all for the law! They'll hide him right under our noses if we don't tell them that he's..." One of the soldiers protested.

"Shut up!" The Fanglord snarled. "You know our orders! If my uncle says that we call him a "fugitive"... we call him a fugitive! Is that understood? Search the inn!" He ordered.

"What was that all about?" Ping wondered as the Scarlets followed their leader's command and went inside the inn. Trying to look as casual as possible, the two of us waited until the soldiers all appeared to be gone and then crossed the street. I didn't answer Ping's question. I wanted to remind her that she had promised not to ask about my past, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we weren't out of danger yet.

"Heretic!" A voice demanded. "Stop where you are!"

I looked up. Standing only a few feet away from me were two Immaculate monks. I didn't recognize them, and the scripture the elder monk carried draped over his shoulders was tied with a dark blue ribbon. The official color of the Abbey of Mela was white.

"Uh oh." Ping blanched. Quicker on her feet than I was, she took off running and the monk went flying past me as if he hadn't seen me at all.

They were after her?

Not for the first time, I suspected there was a lot more to my companion than met the eye. I already knew from dancing with her that Ping was very fast and coordinated. She succeeded in knocking over half a dozen stalls as she dodged the monks all around the marketplace, moving like an acrobat with the streetwise sense of an accomplished thief.

"Damnit, Recluse... aren't you coming?" She demanded from a nearby rooftop.

That was when some of the Scarlets apparently decided that they were done trying to force answers out of the working poor who were largely immune to typical Realm intimidation anyway. Three Dragonbloods stepped out of the inn and all of them stared at me in disbelief. I did not have to ask myself if I had been recognized.

"I'm right behind you!" I shouted, bolting after Ping.

Ignoring the exclamations of shock from the gathering crowd, I leapt effortlessly onto the nearest rooftop. Ping had used a fruit stand as a step up herself, but there was no explaining what I had just done. It was an impossible feat without using Essence. Fortunately, Ping was busy tripping up a monk with a clothesline... which meant that she hadn't noticed me momentarily defying gravity.

The two of us jumped from one building to the next and even busted through the windows of a brothel, desperately trying to dodge the growing hordes of monks and soldiers who were following our flight on the streets below. Some of them pursued us across the rooftops, but even the elite Scarlets were slowed by their armor and not as adept at running across clay tiles as we were, particularly since most of them were wearing riding boots and Ping and I were both in cloth shoes.

The monks were another story. While they were mostly mortals and not Dragonbloods, they all trained in martial arts and were lighter on their feet. Two of them cut off Ping and she drew her sword. I noticed with some surprise that she struck the first only with the flat of her blade when she could have easily killed her opponent. When the second tried to take her down from behind, I caught his punch and locked up his arm so that I could deliver a swift arc kick to his gut and then sweep him onto his back.

Another monk soon took his place, an Air Aspect Dragonblood surrounded by an anima of cold that was painful by sheer proximity. He lashed out with a stunning combination of jumping spinning kicks that I would have applauded, had they not been aimed in my direction. He finally caught me with a very sharp back kick and the strength behind his blow forced me to catch my breath.

Fortunately, I'd seen enough of his moves to anticipate what we would do next, and so I pretended to throw a slow roundhouse at him. Before he could counter with a wheel kick to my head, I leapt into a wheel kick of my own, striking him squarely in the face. The Air Aspect slid off the roof into a display of pottery and did not get back up, loose tiles and dust falling all over him like spring hail.

"Wooo!" Ping exclaimed. "Nice, Recluse!"

"Snake style." I replied. "The meaner they are, the harder they fall." Another monk tried to strike me from behind and I caught him in the temple with a ridgehand strike. "Where are we going?" I demanded.

"Fisherman's Wharf." She replied, taking down her opponent with the flat of her blade. He was an especially nimble soldier who'd succeeded in following us for several blocks, probably an Earth Aspect and obviously talented since he'd made it into the Scarlet Legion, but Ping made him look absolutely inept. I was very curious to know why she carried a sword if she didn't intend to kill anyone with it and decided that my host of questions would have to wait until we escaped.

If we escaped.

Catching sight of something nearby, Ping suddenly grinned. "This way!" She shouted, sliding down a gutter into a heap of garbage. I followed her without hesitating, grimacing as I landed on my feet in a puddle. I'd soaked myself with something that smelled an awful lot like the contents of a chamber pot. Still, with two Scarlets, one on either side of us, and three monks on the roof... I couldn't afford to waste a moment.

"I've got the monks." I told Ping. The two of us stood back to back.

"They're after me!" She argued.

"I noticed that. You'll have a lot of explaining to do when we get out of here!" I informed her.

"Oh, I'm not explaining anything if you're not explaining anything!" She retorted. "Those Scarlets are chasing you!" She reminded me.

That was when the agile Air Aspect monk with the deadly flying kicks reappeared. He nearly landed an axe kick on my shoulder that would have broken bone, had it not contacted with the blade of Ping's weapon instead. The monk cursed and hobbled away, clutching his foot which was bleeding profusely.

The first Scarlet thrust his sword at me and I dunked, sweeping his feet out from under him.

Clearly, our witty banter wasn't amusing our pursuers.

As I blocked yet another violent flurry of attacks from the Air Aspect, the Fanglord barreled into the alley, flames billowing all around him. He'd obviously seen the mess we'd made of his highly trained men and was extremely upset. Generally speaking, Fire Aspects tend to resemble their elemental heritage when it comes to virtues, relying more on sheer pigheadness than anything as pedestrian as compassion or temperance.

I was beginning to feel the strain of drawing on so much Essence myself and was certain that my Caste Mark was about to start flickering. That would be the end of any cooperation that Ping and I might expect from the waterfront locals. A slew of monks and soldiers chasing after a pair of wandering performers warranted their assistance, but a demon was another matter entirely. I didn't even want to think about how Ping might react if my anima really flared and I knew that without her guarding my back I was as good as dead. I'd dropped my tools nearly a mile back when I'd used the box to knock the teeth out of a monk. Even if my life depended on it, I had nothing I could use as a weapon.

Or did I?

As the leader of the Scarlets lashed out at me with his red jade daiklave, I swept up my cloak and the blade struck Godchaser with a resounding clang.

He stared in disbelief at his chipped weapon and I whispered a quiet apology to Godchaser even though I knew that she was still unconscious and couldn't hear me. I was also annoyed that I would already have to repair my new cloak, but sewing up a piece of clothing was easier than sewing up skin.

Another Scarlet charged at me and I dunked under his blade. Ping leapt over my head like a gazelle, bringing her sword down on his helmet with a force that made his eyes roll back in his head as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. I took a glancing blow from a bamboo staff before I finished off the last of the monks who were chasing us with a hook kick.

As I caught my breath, a hand reached to grab my hood and I whirled around and raised my first, almost striking recklessly until I saw that it was Ping who had me. The Fanglord was on his knees, bleeding from a sword thrust that went directly through the plates of his lamellar armor and Ping looked more frantic than I had ever seen her.

"This way!" She tugged on me. "Before more of them come running! Now!"

We darted into a steam-filled alley between two bathhouses and clung to the walls as we raced through the crowded, stinking, fish market. At the end of a long and rickety dock was the scariest-looking ship I had ever seen.

Really, "ship" wasn't even a good name for it. It was a raft or maybe a boat if one were feeling very generous, the kind of craft used only for coastal fishing and trapping crabs. A large, surly-looking Westerner was loading barrels onto the deck under the steely gaze of a scarred Tya woman who smoked a twisted ivory pipe. She missed seeing Ping and myself because of her eye patch and watched the monks that followed a few minutes after us with disdain.

As soon as the Tya's attention was turned on our pursuers, Ping motioned for me to climb inside an empty barrel. Once I was safely sealed up, she hopped into a second barrel herself, popping out a large knothole with the pommel of her sword so that she could reach up with one arm and put her own lid back on. It was a stroke of genius, clearly a trick that she had used before.

We held our breath and watched the monks approach the Tya, who didn't even stand up to acknowledge them. "What do you want?" The Tya demanded in heavily-accented Low Realm.

"We're looking for a pair of heretics." The first monk replied without hesitation.

"Look somewhere else." The Tya snorted.

"Whose ship is this?" One of them demanded.

"Not yours." The Tya replied.

"Now listen, you!" The second monk protested.

"You listen!" The Tya snapped, grabbing him by the collar of his robe. "I don't know nothin' about any heretics but if you'd like some trouble..." She began.

"Easy, Tick!" A man's voice laughed. "You gonna break that monk, and then what you gonna do with him? The Captain don't want no more dead men floatin' in the harbor!"

I heard more laughter, and through a crack in the wood of my hiding place, I saw three more dirty Westerners. The big dock hand cracked his knuckles and grunted. The two monks both looked like mortals, but they seemed ready to hold their ground, at least until an old Water-Aspect Dragonblood arrived on the scene. He was dressed ostentatiously in blue and black silk with a good quantity of silver, gold and pearls sewn into his clothing, which made him stand out in stark contrast to his humble surroundings. Like most old Dragonbloods, he didn't look entirely human. His skin was almost coal black and gleamed in patches with faintly blue-tinged scales and his even his eyes were vaguely reptilian. Rings adorned every one of his clawlike fingers. A second Water-Aspect, a teenage girl who strongly resembled the old man, hopped down from the deck of the ugly little crab boat, evaluating the monks with obvious disdain.

The old Dragonblood looked even less impressed with them. I'd never seen Dragonbloods react with such hostility to Immaculate monks before... but then I remembered that Ping had definitely said something about pirates.

"Is there a problem?" The old Dragonblood demanded, frowning.

"We're looking for heretics." The first monk stammered, not sounding very certain of his mission.

The young Dragonblood snorted.

"No heretics on my boat. Just honest fishermen." The old Dragonblood replied. "Now why don't you two make a nuisance of yourselves somewhere else?" He dismissed them.

The monks left without a word of argument.

I bit my tongue as the big dock hand picked up the barrel I was hiding in and hit my head three or four times as he easily rolled it up onto the half-sunken crab boat. Once I was safely on the deck, I peered through a crack in the wood and saw Ping's barrel sitting beside mine. She poked her hand out through her knot hole and gestured to the dock hand who'd carried us both aboard. When he saw her waving from a distance, he crept closer and rubbed his eyes, clearly wondering what he was looking at. Ping let him get within about six inches of her and then her hand darted out again. She seized the Westerner by his braided beard and knocked his face into the side of her barrel with shocking strength.

"Go get Jing Wei." She hissed, venom in her tone. "Tell him he's got two more "honest fishermen" on his boat."

I did not ask how Ping had known that the "honest fisherman" whose boat we'd stowed aboard was actually a notorious smuggler and sometimes-pirate called Jing Wei who was hated by the Realm almost as much as any Anathema.

When the sailor brought his captain back for negotiations, the entirety of the business between Ping and the old Dragonblood was conducted in Wavetongue, which I couldn't understand. Money and something else changed hands and Ping definitely showed the young Dragonblood her blade, which the girl seemed to like very much.

The ship we had stowed away on was called The Ying Long and that it was uncomfortably small by any standards, crewed by only four Westerners, the captain, and his two officers. The four ordinary sailors paid no attention to me because I did not speak any Wavetongue, but the bad-tempered Tya called "Tick" who served as quartermaster was fluent in High Realm and the young Dragonblood also knew my native Rivertongue. Matsu served as her father's second officer, and it was obvious that Jing Wei would do anything for his daughter.

I learned only after the sun had gone down that Ping had sold her sword to Matsu. To Jing Wei she had passed along all of our remaining money, an unopened bottle of wine that she was inexplicably carrying, and the promise that the two of us would help to crew The Ying Long until we reached our destination. I had never sailed before myself and although I felt confident that I could be useful as a carpenter, Ping had volunteered my services in a very different capacity.

"You said you could fix anything..." She began.

"I meant doors, boilers, pocket watches... not food!" I protested.

Ping only snickered and went off to attend to her duties as a deck hand, leaving me staring helplessly at a low ceiling full of pots and pans and a dozen unmarked barrels of provisions. She'd promised Jing Wei that I could cook.

Of course, raised in the house of a well-to-do merchant, I'd never cooked before in my life and didn't know how to make shipboard provisions even remotely palatable. Fortunately, Ping assured me, most sailors were accustomed to food that was blackened, over-salted, mushy or otherwise foul beyond all reason. I learned the kitchen tasks quickly enough and eventually discovered a small cache of spices stashed in the back of a cabinet. If I used them sparingly, there would be enough to make the cured meat and floury biscuits edible for the duration of our voyage, if not exactly gourmet fare.

A month passed. I became somewhat competent at my job, which also involved pulling teeth, giving stitches and fixing anything that broke, including the captain's sextant on more than one occasion. Jing Wei had a tendency to bash his delicate navigational tools when they failed to operate the way he wanted them to, a thing which always made me cringe.

Ping endeared herself to Jing Wei and everyone else in her usual fashion by telling stories and playing her mandolin. She obviously knew her way around a ship also, and the crew marveled at how quickly she could skitter up into the rigging and unfurl a sail. Largely because of Ping, we were both offered permanent positions as members of the crew before we were halfway to our destination.

I politely declined, though Ping promised Jing Wei that we would at least consider his generous offer – which involved her getting her sword and most of our money back. I tried to explain to Ping that I didn't want to be a pirate... but she only laughed and reminded me that I was already a fugitive. How much choice did I really have?

I decided that I would stand my ground on one point, however. I had not killed anyone yet and would not. Ping assured me with her irresistible smile that I wouldn't have to, even if we did become full-fledged criminals. She claimed that she had never killed anyone herself, but I remembered the expression on her face when she'd run that Dragonblood through. Although she was good at parrying and dodging, I did not doubt that she'd spilled a fair amount of blood in the past. It was obvious, however, that she preferred to avoid doing so if she could.

Though Jing Wei occasionally raided ships, he was also in favor of avoiding fights whenever possible. Before Ping and I had come aboard, the Ying Long had been heavily loaded with contraband and Jing Wei's goal was to make to Nexus without coming under the nose of anyone he couldn't outrun. The situation suited me just fine. I had no desire to hurt anyone if I could avoid it, and was secretly pleased to hear that there would be no 'pirating' whilst Ping and myself were part of the crew.

We made very good time, passing ships that had left the Imperial City days before our departure. More importantly, as we neared our destination I had noticed a startling change in Godchaser's status. Though she didn't wake, her hearthstone had begun to flicker with light again and I hoped desperately that meant that my meager efforts were doing some good.

I didn't dare do any serious work in the close quarters if the ship, but I still managed to privately feed Godchaser enough Essence every night to curb the strange black corrosion that she seemed so prone to. I missed her more seeing that faint spark of recovery in her hearthstone than I had when I was certain that I had lost her. As much as I still worried over Godchaser, I now had another woman in my life, one who was in many ways even more maddening and incomprehensible.

Ping.

In my efforts to keep our relationship as platonic as possible, I took my kitchen duties very seriously and found that scrubbing pots and pans afforded me far too much time to think about everything that had happened to me so far and wonder what I really intended to do with myself when we reached out destination. Was this what the rest of my life would be like, sailing on The Ying Long?

I'd felt very inspired before Godchaser's hearthstone had failed and had begun imagining a future where I could save damsels in distress and battle injustice. I'd almost forgotten that in the eyes of the world I was a loathsome demon. I wanted so many things, especially a chance to do some genuine good, something more important than serving up gruel for a crew of pirates who only tolerated my presence because they loved Ping.

Not that I blamed them for that.

As difficult as it had been for me to admit, I loved Ping myself and felt undeserving of her attention. I decided that I should make something for her so that when we finally did part ways, she would have something to remember our time together. In exchange for some minor tinkering above and beyond my expected berth, I'd acquired a few small bits of silver. I'd also won a gold ring gambling with Matsu and had set about making it into a pendant with a tiny piece of orichalcum that I'd grudgingly gleaned from Godchaser. It wasn't one of her essential parts and I suspected that if I ever succeeded in waking her, she would certainly approve of what I had done with it. After so many weeks of tedium, I needed to do something exceptional... and hearing Ping recite her favorite prayer each morning had given me the perfect idea.

With more than a little Essence to aid my efforts, I coaxed the orichalcum into a perfect circular disk and then painstakingly crafted rays of gold and bronze extending out from it in all directions. It was a design reminiscent of the First Age, that wouldn't have looked out-of-place on the crown of an ancient queen.

I finished my gift for Ping when we were very near to our final destination, perhaps only a few days away. I could see the coast on the far horizon and foolishly thought that we had already made it to freedom. It had taken me so long to complete Ping's necklace only because I'd never been a very good gambler and I'd had to win a few more tosses of the dice and a bet at cards in order to get the remainder of the metal that I needed. Since I had no chain and not enough material to make one, I'd taken a strip from my old destroyed cloak, braided it and bound it with four blue glass beads. The resulting piece was somehow "earthier" than the pendant alone, and less likely to draw critical stares.

When I finally mustered up the courage to give my gift to her, I found Ping sitting on the bow of the ship playing her mandolin, The Ballad of Windswept Rhapsody once again. The picture she painted was so perfect that I almost believed she was the legendary bard herself. I wasn't the only one who noticed the similarity. With how often Ping played her favorite tune, several other members of the crew had begun referring to her as Little Rhapsody... or less elegantly, Windswept Ping.

Oh, I was born a sailor on a ship far out West, No place to lay my head down, every day in a new town, Blow me where the wind goes, I'll play for you as it sweeps me, Won't you spare a coin for this humble bard?And listen to my melody?