Water lapped around Stump's boots and left fingers of seaweed curled around his ankles. He shook them off and waded further inland while Morg pulled their vessel up the beachhead.

  "Looks like we're on this island here," said Stump, pointing to the map. He skittered out of the way of the next wave's icy grip. "Two isles east of the lighthouse."

  After resolving their standoff outside the boathouse, the four of them agreed to jointly explore the islands in search of the Iron Fleece and the ship made of fog. Morg insisted they stay together, as the ghosts of the tides would be discouraged from frightening a larger group, but Germott countered that the vengefulness inherent in drowned spirits would overcome any such timidness. The two bickered without reaching a meaningful conclusion.

  They'd cast off from the island side by side, although it was clear the Ocelots commanded the faster rowboat. Morg was breathless keeping up with them.

  He aggressively dropped the nose of their skiff in the sand and nodded farther along the shore. Sauntering from that direction came the Midnight Ocelots.

  "Bit of a tired vessel you've got there," observed Sylas. "Germy here had to row slowly to let you keep up."

  Germott slugged his ally's shoulder.

  "How should we search the island? In pairs?" asked Stump, ignoring the barb. He quickly scanned what was within their foggy bubble, but the spit was even less inhabited than the last one.

  "However you like," said Sylas. "Let's not be as sluggish as we are at sea, yes?"

  The mist parted at their advance, revealing remnants of civilization. Scattered bits of pottery dusted the space between stone foundations cracked and split by sprouting mushrooms. Seashells crunched underfoot.

  Stump waddled between piles of wreckage. He sifted through, finding nothing more than broken furniture and old household implements. There were no dropped badges or trinkets or leftover footprints, or any signs of the Iron Fleece.

  Someone yelled.

  Morg leapt back from a pile of wooden beams, knife in hand. "Watch that damned thing, will ye?" he growled.

  Germott stood a few feet away, and winking in the gloom above his head was a lumen. He frowned. "I was tryin' to help you," he returned tones equally as unfriendly.

  "Ye'll help me by puttin' that thing out," said Morg. He prodded his knife at the magical light. "That's how ye draw the dead near."

  Germott huffed. "Draw the dead near? It'll keep 'em at bay is what you mean. Never known a spirit to drift towards the light."

  Sylas emerged from the misty curtain, hand on his his sword belt. "What's happened?"

  "Then yer stupider than ye look," Morg spat, ignoring the catfolk. "Light draws 'em like moths to a fire."

  "And like moths they'll burn if they get close. The light unmasks them, reveals them for their otherworldly nature," countered Germott.

  "All the good it'll do ye when they're pullin' ye to the depths."

  "No one's getting pulled if I've got the protection of Lumensa."

  "She don't rule the dead, in case yer forgettin'."

  "Ahh, know all about the dead, do you? Borovic scum."

  "Scum, is it?"

  "Stop!" yelled Stump.

  The two of them had inched so close during their verbal joust that Morg was looking straight up at the human towering above him. He held Germott's stare for a long moment before he spat a wad of phlegm at his feet, then turned and stalked off.

  "Nothin' to be found on this spit," he announced. As he passed by Stump, he leaned in and whispered, "If I see that ugly face again I've a mind to add a scar to his collection."

  Dwarf and human trudged to their boats in silence. Stump waddled behind them, but stopped short of the beach and sighed.

  "Yours is as obstinate as mine, it seems," said Sylas, beside him.

  His presence gave Stump a start. "Sometimes," he allowed.

  "Though in Germy's case, the Lumenurgy is extremely valuable. I assume you feel the same about your friend."

  "Morg doesn't know Lumenurgy. He's a good sailor, though."

  One of Sylas' whiskers twitched. "Oh? Perhaps you, then." He glanced askew at the goblin.

  Stump gulped. "Not me, either," he said. Does he remember me?

  Sylas' yellow eyes glimmered in the rolling mist. When he smiled, they remained as still as the moon. "I thought I saw a bright light before you two came ashore. Before we met, that is," he said, and then chuckled. "Or was I mistaken?"

  "It was a torch," Stump lied, thinking quickly. "I dropped it when Morg hit a sandbar."

  "Ah. So what's your class, then?"

  "My class?"

  "Your dwarf fills the roll of the navigator. Why did your goblin crone send you, a brewery assistant, to investigate the ghosts of the isles?" Sylas was staring at him again in that unblinking fashion, as if he were peering through Stump's fleshy shell and interrogating his soul.

  "Wasptongue doesn't like mercenaries after the Iron Fleece she hired went missing," said Stump. "This way she's got eyes and ears where her coin is spent. Besides," he held up the map satchel. "I know the isles."

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "Right," drawled the catfolk. "So no real talent, then." He swaggered forward, making for Germott's rowboat.

  "What's yours?" Stump called after him.

  Sylas stopped and turned a dozen feet away. His lips moved, but no words came out. "Sonurgy," slithered his voice, from deeper inland.

  Stump spun around, but saw nothing but the island draped in mist. "Manipulation of sound." This time the words whispered next to his ear, but when he turned again the catfolk hadn't moved.

  "Come now," Sylas lilted from his own tongue. "We've got a dozen more of these to scour."

  Their boats set off the isle together, but this time there was no effort to remain side by side.

  Morg rowed as hard as he could, but the Ocelots drifted ahead, swallowed by the fog and leaving Morg and Stump in their own misty patch of sea. Germott's light, the only guide to where they were headed, grew fainter and fainter.

  "S'alright, I know where they're goin'," said Morg, stealing a glance around them. Nothing but a veil of grey sea fog greeted them on all sides, but Morg's grim consideration suggested he knew what he was looking at.

  "Right," said Stump, who looked around and saw nothing.

  He unfurled the map and pulled it close to his face to read the landmarks. "Maybe they're going to the lighthouse? I think that's nearby. Or… there's some sort of town square further north. And a temple beyond that."

  The dwarf sighed. "Ye can make a light if ye need. Just keep it short."

  "Can't," said Stump, shaking his head. "If I do that the one who looks like a cat will recognize me."

  He took the chance while they were alone to tell Morg how he'd used Lumenurgy to hide his escape from the tank, and how he was worried Sylas might've seen him, and that the two whose partnership they found themselves in were not actual members of the Gilded Mace. Morg was quiet during the telling.

  "I didn't really believe their story, if that's what yer worried about," Morg said at the end of it. "Can't say I'm disturbed about their true 'filiation, though. I've brushed close to 'em Ocelots once or twice outside of our own little scheme on Dagg."

  Stump blinked. "You have?"

  "Durin' my tenure with Seawind Silver. One of theirs came to our leader and made a proposition." Morg split his attention between Stump and the sea, constantly struggling to turn at the prow to spy incoming wreckage. "He said we could be great friends with the Ocelots if we offered up some of our income and a willingness to keep 'em informed o' the goings on in our nook o' the Downs. We did that, they said, we'd get the sort o' jobs that turn pennies to gold."

  "That's quite a tale."

  Morg snorted. "A tale's what it was," he said wistfully. "Y'see, I didn't leave Seawind Silver. We were on the up in Penny Square, already doin' well enough before the Ocelots came our way, then the whole company went belly up a month later."

  "What happened?" Stump asked, but felt he already knew.

  The dwarf paused rowing, letting the boat crest gently over a wave. "We said no."

  Stump gulped. He thought back to the conversation he'd overheard at the tank. There was someone else there, someone giving orders to Sylas and Germott. And Dagg. He was in her palm. His whole inn was. If I catch your hand in the pockets of another company again, you'll lose the hand, she'd threatened.

  "What did Germott mean back there?" said Stump, distracting himself from his own thoughts. "About Borovic?"

  "Nothin'. I don't know. Borovic and Aubany are mortal enemies. Every few years or so they threaten war, but nothin' comes of it."

  Stump allowed the dwarf more time to explain, but nothing was. "He doesn't like that you're from there?" he asked.

  "Yer mighty curious about some city ye'll never see," Morg barked, then retreated from the outburst. "It's where I'm from. A mark on a map. That's all it'll ever be."

  Stump didn't push further. He knew that feeling all too well. No one other than Daggan had yet held his cave dwelling past against him, but he imagined the people beyond the gates of Aubany might. "I didn't mean to pry," he said. "You don't have to tell me about it."

  Morg dragged the oars slowly through the water, as if they'd turned to iron. "Maybe someday I will, gobby," he said, looking beyond Stump. "Maybe someday."

  Germott's lumen winked like a distant star.

  Stump's teeth chattered. "It's cold."

  "Aye," said Morg. He pulled the oars out of the water and rested them in their small hull. "Means the dead are near."

  Stump eyed the dwarf over his scarf, which he'd pulled above his nose. "Shouldn't we row faster, then?"

  Morg held a finger up for silence. "Don't want to disturb 'em now, do we?"

  Their boat drifted to a stop. Water lapped at the sides. Stump pulled his damp feet closer to his body and peeked over the dwarf's shoulder to watch the light as it bobbed in the distance.

  And with a flicker it was gone.

  "Uh… Morg?" He pointed.

  The dwarf's fabrics whined as he swivelled to spy where the light had been. "Dead, you think?" He sounded pleased. Stump shot him a silent glare. "I warned him about the light. Can't say I didn't."

  "We should row closer to see what happened."

  Morg made a sound of disagreement, but sighed under the siege of another stare. "Fine," he mumbled and carefully dipped the oars in the water. "Not a sound, ye hear?"

  They navigated as if mimicking the natural flow of the sea. Stump leaned over the side for a better view of the water. They rowed and rowed. Shadowed trees drifted by, punctuated by the occasional jut of land or submerged sandbar.

  And there was no sign of the Ocelots or their vessel.

  The hull shuddered.

  "Ah, nearing land," whispered Morg, gently steering starboard.

  Another thud, louder.

  They exchanged a grave look.

  A moan rose from below. Whispers swelled off the waves. Something scratched the bottom of their skiff, knocking against the wood.

  "Damn it," said Morg, driving the oars deeper and thrusting their boat onward. One of them jerked out of his hand and was dragged beneath the water. "Find the source o' the hauntings, she says!" yelled Morg, gripping his last oar with both hands and using it to paddle on either side of him. "We've found 'em now! We've damn well found 'em! What are you doing?"

  Stump, who had bent over the side, could see nothing through the murky waves. "Trying something," he said, and stretched out a hand. "You're sure about what you said about the lights?"

  "What?" Morg grunted, paddling hard.

  "About it attracting spirits?"

  The moans grew louder, overlapping with other voices. A watery shriek vibrated the wood beneath his feet.

  "I was standing on principle!" admitted Morg. "I've never seen a ghost!"

  Tits, Stump thought. "Then we're about to find out."

  The lumen appeared above the water. Stump swept his hand down, and the light followed. It slipped beneath the surface without a splash.

  And the things below were bathed in light.

  Bloated faces looked up through vacant eyes crusted in barnacles. Their mouths, jaws shattered, teeth rotted with brine, opened far wider than they should have. They moaned, pleaded. Begged. Slimy stalks of seaweed slithered around their tattered corpses.

  No, not seaweed. Fingers. Hundreds of them, grasping, clawing, scratching, reaching for him.

  Down and down the light went. Follow it, follow it, follow it.

  "Let go!" yelled Morg. The remaining oar whisked out of his grasp.

  Hands reached over the side of the boat. It rocked from side to side. Saltwater splashed over their feet.

  Please follow it.

  Stump gripped the boat as it flipped. The last thing he saw above the surface was a ship on the horizon.

  He blinked. His eyes stung. Water rushed down his throat. The whispers were all around him, pulling him under. He flailed, clawing for the surface. Goblins don't swim.

  Stump tried to raise a hand. Which way is up? Fingers curled around his scarf, gripping his cloak, tightening around his wrist. Around his neck. It's so cold.

  Obey. He spent the virtue to order the light.

  Come, he told it.

  It rushed up to meet him, revealing the drowned creatures swarming his body. They glowed pale green, their watery figures shifting like fog. Their fingers lost their grip, passing through him like mist.

  It unmasks them. Germott was right. Stump tried to laugh. Instead he tasted salt, and water filled his lungs.

  Tenet of Lumensa fulfilled: Virtue +1 (5/6)