The Necromancer’s Daughter – Chapter Nine

Fear, Pirates and Cervello Island

Meloreana IV
“I see what you’re saying.” Scarlet said. She was pacing around the room, as if to polarize Mel’s calmness. “So how do we get to this Opal Kaharis you speak of?”
Mel smiled widely. “That’s the difficult part and it’s quite complicated. Fortunately, your task in this is quite simple compared to the larger plan.” Mel stood up and turned away from Scarlet as she continued speaking. “You see, this plan has been in motion for a while now, but we need your network of informants. There’s a certain artifact I’m looking for, and have been for several years now. It’s called the Emerald Splendor.” She turned back to face Scarlet, who had stopped pacing and was now intently looking at Mel. “Obviously not many people know the artifact’s name or what it does, so it’s been hard to dig up. All I know is that it’s an earring made of platinum with a large emerald stone embedded into it. It’s somewhere on this continent, that much is certain. It’s one of a bigger set, but for the vengeance you seek, just getting my hands on the Emerald Splendor should be enough.”
Scarlet pondered for a while. Mel waited patiently. She wasn’t asking much from the former crown princess – at least not that she would know of – but trusting her outright would be crazy. Scarlet hadn’t gotten this far in life despite her circumstances by being dumb. But the offer was too hard to resist, as Scarlet bit. “Fine, I’ll use my network to figure out where this earring is and I will get it to you. If I do so, you will do as you promised, right?”
Mel held out her hand. “I promise.”
Scarlet hesitated for a moment, but then reached out and shook Mel’s hand.
Mel smiled. “Glad to be partners.” She pulled out the ring from her pocket and put it on the table. “I’ve got business elsewhere, but if you need to contact me, use that.” And with that, she turned around and left the room.

Flashes of colors moved quickly across her vision as Danae found herself floating in a large body of water. She felt water entering her lungs as she stared at the colors. Flashes of blue, green, yellow, pink and bright white shot through the darkness. It was weirdly calming. Then suddenly all the flashing colors got really intense to the point where it started to hurt. She tried to move but she had no control over her body. As a wave of panic washed over her she felt like she could hear voices.
“Waking up.”
“Get the captain.”
“You okay?”
Danae only caught small bits and pieces of the voices and then suddenly a rush of air pushed her out of the dark water and she jumped up, finding herself in a room. Two people were sitting next to her. One was a man with a large scar on his face and a sword on his hip. The other was a woman, a familiar looking woman. Danae struggled to place where she knew this woman from while trying to process where she was. The man with the sword scared her and she instinctively moved away from him, until she had her back against the wall. She was in a bed in a small room with wooden planks. She felt herself sway. She felt dizzy.
“Are you alright?” The woman asked.
Danae looked around. There was only one door to this room and it was slightly open. She could hear the sound of people moving about as well as waves. Waves? Was she on a ship? Why would she be on a ship? She was just at home. Wait, was she at home? Where was home? What was she doing before she slept? Then the memories washed over her. She remembered the screaming and burning, she remembered the wagon and the rain. Then she remembered the thunder. Each flash in her mind made her recoil.
“Hold her down, gently,” she heard a voice say and she felt someone grab her arm. She let out a scream.
“It’s okay dear, you’re going to be okay, we just need you to calm down so you don’t hurt yourself,” a voice said, but it didn’t get through to Danae. The sound of thunder, the smell of burning flesh and fire, the sickening nausea of being on the move and the sound of thunder and the sound of thunder and the sound of thunder and the sound of thunder. Danae screamed out once more and everything went dark again.

The next time Danae awoke, things were a little bit less intense and painful. She still felt a terrible stinging pain in her head. When she looked around, she was apparently moved to a different room. Instead of several people being near her, she only saw one woman next to her, the same woman who was there the first time she woke up. “Where am I?” she asked, her throat hurting with every word she pushed out.
“You’re on a ship called Varshen, I am the first mate Lisanna.”
Danae tried to sit upright but she struggled. She felt a hand hold her as she almost fell over. “Careful now, you’ve been asleep for quite a while.” Lisanna smiled at her. “You’ve been through a lot but you’ll be alright now.”
Danae heard the words and tried to process them, struggling to do so. How was she going to be alright, did these people free her from her captors? If they did, why did they do so? And what happened to her? Everything still hurt and there was a feeling going through her body that she could only describe as energy coursing through her veins, pulsing with every heartbeat. It didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t a comfortable feeling either. As the minutes went by, she finally started to regain some calm. She could now make out more of the room she was in. It seemed to be a small cabin aboard a ship, as Lisanna had said. The woman called Lisanna was a beautiful looking elf wearing simple clothing. Comfortable but functional. “Where is this ship headed?”
“We’re on our way to an uninhabited island a few days off the coast of Fyrston. That’s where we’ll set up camp for a little while.”
“And what will happen to me?”
Lisanna gave her a long look and Danae couldn’t quite figure out what thoughts were happening behind those eyes that seemed to pity her. She didn’t like it, that was for sure. “I don’t know yet. For now I hope you’ll try to rest up as much as possible. Are you hungry?”
Danae nodded. She hadn’t noticed it before Lisanna pointed it out, but if she’d been asleep for a long time, that also meant she hadn’t eaten in a long time. Not to mention that the days leading up to the auctions weren’t much better.
Lisanna stood up and peeked out of the door. She could hear her talking to another person, followed by footsteps slowly fading.
“I’ve sent someone to get us some dinner. It’s a bit early for dinner for me, but I suppose it can’t hurt.” She picked up the book that was on her chair and closed it before putting it away in a nearby chest. She then sat down. “Now, how do you feel, and can you tell me a little bit of what you remember?”
Danae thought to herself, the process of which hurt her head a little bit. She remembered little of what happened. “I was captured after our village was raided. They transported us to this auction. There we were fed and bathed and then made ready for the auction itself. I remember waiting for someone to call me up, and when they did, the sound of thunder got louder and louder and I felt a strange burning sensation inside my head. Then I saw someone in the crowd and my mind went completely blank.”
“And what were you doing before your village was attacked?”
“I don’t remember. I haven’t been able to remember since I first woke up in that slavers’ wagon.”
Lisanna thought about what Danae had told her for a while, long enough to give her time to look around a bit more. She could feel the swaying of a ship and there were quite a few books strewn throughout the room. There was another chair beside the one Lisanna was sitting on, but it was relatively bare besides.
Eventually Lisanna spoke again. “I’m sure this is all coming at you fast, but do you remember being able to use magic at all?”
Danae shook her head.
“I see, and what color are your eyes?”
Danae was taken aback by the question. “Ehm, they’re brown, why?”
“One moment.” Lisanna stood up and moved to a nearby cabinet. She unhooked the lock which was likely there to stop the doors from swinging open while they were at sea, and took out a small handheld mirror. The mirror was made out of wood which was painted into a navy blue color and the handle seemed to have some sort of leather covering the grip. It looked very expensive, to say the least. “Have a look at yourself.” Lisanna handed Danae the mirror.
Danae pointed the mirror at her face and saw her own eyes. She blinked a couple of times, convinced she saw something that wasn’t there. “Is this some sort of magical mirror?” It looked expensive enough to be something made out of magic, so maybe that was it.
Lisanna shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s just a normal mirror. I stole it from a noble back in,” she chuckled, “that’s not important right now. What’s important is that your eyes are bright pink, and seemingly this is a recent development.”
Danae thought for a moment. “Why do you think I remember the color of my eyes?”
Lisanna shrugged. “Same reason you seem to remember your name, or how to use language, or what a mirror is. I’m not a healer, but I know that our memory is something strange and often does things we can’t really explain. Whatever happened to you that led you here was probably traumatic enough for you to block it out of your memory, but that doesn’t mean it blocked out other things as well. That also probably means your memory – or at least some of it – might return as time passes. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
“And my eyes?” Maybe Lisanna had an answer for that too.
“That is something entirely separate I think. I haven’t seen someone undergo sudden eye color changes before.” Lisanna muttered to herself, “and to such a vibrant color too, it must be magic.”
Danae thought back to the strange old man she talked to back in the slavers camp. “Do you think someone did something to me?” she asked.
“Hard to say, if you remember someone doing something to you that could be it, but it could also be something unrelated. Like I said, it’s a type of magic I’ve never seen before.”
“You know magic?” Danae asked.
Lisanna nodded. “I am actually pretty well versed in a lot of magic, it’s something I’ve been studying for many years. But it’s also a field of study that is extremely broad and has many unknown factors. Honestly your best bet to find out more about your eyes is to go to the Academy, but let’s worry about that later.”
There was a knock on the door and a man came in with some plates of food. All interest in talking about magic left Danae when her stomach rumbled in hunger.
Only once most of the meal was already in her stomach did Danae consider the possibility that it might be poisoned. She then quickly dismissed the idea, since there would be no reason for these people to poison her. After finishing the meal she noticed that Lisanna had barely touched hers. She hadn’t said anything to her since she started eating though. Now that she pushed the plate away, Lisanna continued. “Feeling a bit better now?”
Danae nodded. Truthfully this had been the best meal she had in a while, and she could feel an immediate boost in energy, even if it was partially in her head. “I’ve been worse.”
“I can imagine.” Lisanna stood up and put her own plates away.
“Let me tell you where we’re going, so you have a bit more of an idea of what is going on. She pulled out a scroll from one of the drawers and unfurled it on top of the small desk. “This is where we took off, near Viras. From there we traveled a little bit south and now we’re on our way west. There’s an island, about a day from where we are right now, that we discovered a while back. It’s not exactly hidden, but it is completely uninhabited. Our sailor crew has been planning to set up a base there, a village and a place to stay in between journeys. It’s a long story that makes more sense than this short explanation, but that’s the gist of it. The reason we were at the slave auction was to get cheap labor.”

Danae nodded. “So, do you want me to work for you then?”
Lisanna paused for a moment. “I’ll lie if I say it’ll be that easy. The reason things escalated back on the shore is the fact that you collapsed in the way you did. The type of magic that caused the strangeness is limited to only a few people which makes it very interesting.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Danae replied.
“Basically, once we get to Cervello Island, we’ll have to sit down and figure out what to do with you.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have a more concrete answer than that, but I would be lying if I said I did.”
“I understand.”
“Get some more rest for now, you can use this room until we reach the island. If there’s anything you need from me, I’ll leave someone on the other side of the door that you can ask.”
“Thank you.”
With that, Lisanna left the room and Danae got some time with her own thoughts. She was still in a bad position, but it seemed like things had improved somewhat. Perhaps this magic weirdness at least meant she was more important to the people in charge and perhaps that upped her chance of a decent future. Maybe she would even be able to learn magic or something. She sat back down and focused on her breathing for a while. After she calmed down a little bit, she picked up the mirror again. Her eyes were indeed a bright pink, almost creepily so. There was definitely something very unnatural about it and she didn’t quite know what to feel about it. But there was also an excitement bubbling up deep inside of her. It first sat in her stomach, uncomfortable as if it was a flame that she couldn’t put out. Then she slowly started giving it a place in her mind and grew from a burning flame to a pleasant warmth. Without really being able to explain why, she felt powerful. Yet at the same time she was completely powerless in this situation. The duality of it all gave her a headache and after drinking some water she went back to sleep.

When Danae next awoke, she was alone. She heard the sound of people outside and after getting up and putting on a jacket that was on a nearby chair. She hoped it was left there for her and if not she hoped that whoever left it wouldn’t mind. When she exited the door, an elven man, probably not much older than Danae, with an unshaven face and his blond hair tied in a right ponytail was sitting against the wall, seemingly asleep. When Danae stepped out of her room he looked up, definitely not asleep. “Good morning, are you feeling better?” he asked. His blue eyes were the color of the summer sky and Danae was captivated for a second before she answered. “I’ve been worse.”
The man stood up. “Sometimes that’s the best we can ask for.” He reached out his hand. She shook it. “Accipiter, first mate of this crew.”
“Danae.”
“Well then Danae, as you can see we’ve made it to Cervello. If you feel well enough, we can hop on land and go talk with the captain.”
Danae wasn’t too excited about the idea of talking to the person who had tried to buy her for labor just a few days ago, but she didn’t really have a choice in the matter. “I’m feeling well enough for now.” She still had a headache but it was subsiding quickly and the fresh air was definitely helping with that. She followed Accipiter off the ship and the two of them walked along the shore until a camp came into sight. Well, the beginnings of a camp at least. Looking at where the sun was in the sky, it probably hadn’t been that long since they started working and although some tents were standing, and there was a small pavilion set up that seemed to serve as a temporary base, it was all still quite bare bones at this point.
Accipiter led her to the big tent, where they found the captain as well as a couple of other people.
“I highly suggest we start with building a basic shelter. We can move from there, but there’s no efficiency in tired workers and without proper shelter you workers will be tired.” A burly elven man, looking well past middle aged was talking to a human man with piercing eyes. The two looked up as Accipiter and Danae entered the tent.
“Ah, you’re awake.” The human man looked at the elf and said. “I’ll trust your judgment on this, I have other matters to attend to.”
“Very well.” The elven man collected the scrolls he’d laid out on the table and gave a friendly nod to Danae before leaving the tent.
“She just woke up, captain, she says she’s doing a bit better.”
“That’s good to hear, I would hate for my people to make poor decisions on someone’s behalf and it then not go well.”
Danae immediately decided she did not like this man. Where both Lisanna and Accipiter had seemed friendly – for the situation she was in – there was a coldness in this man’s eyes that she recognized all too well.
“You’ve caused quite a stir amongst my people, for better or worse.” He pointed to one of the pillows on the floor. “Please, sit.”
Danae sat down and waited for him to speak. Instead he got up from his chair behind the makeshift desk and sat down on one of the other pillows. “My name is Layek. I am the captain of this crew. What’s your name?”
“Danae.”
“Before you ask her, she lost her memory from before she became enslaved and has no idea what happened to her since.” Danae and Accipiter both looked up to see Lisanna walk up to the small pavilion. She smiled at Danae before sitting down next to her. “I like what you’ve done to the place,” she said, looking at Layek.
“Spare me your mockery, I’m in a bad mood.”
“You knew when you took me in that there would be good days and bad days.”
“I know, I know. You can’t just hire a powerful wizard and don’t expect them to have their own agenda, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”
“If it makes you feel better, I think I’ve come to a decision on what to do with her, and she’ll be out of your hair soon.” She put her hand on Danae’s shoulder as she said this.
“Please, share your plans with the rest of us.”
“I believe it’s best to send her to the Astrianara Academy.”
“And how does that benefit us?”
“We send young Accipiter here with her, and when she’s figured out what is happening to her, perhaps we can make use of whatever magic she has. If she allows us to, of course.”
Layek rubbed his temples. “You realize what you’re saying is crazy, right?” He looked up at Lisanna. “Right?”
“While the two of them are at the Academy, they can try to find any information that their library has on your little pet project.”

Layek’s eyes went wide. “Of course, if there’s any place that would have information on the Azure Lagara, it would be the Academy.” He looked at Lisanna. “Maybe what you’re saying is not so crazy after all.”
“Darling, when have I ever had a bad idea?”
Layek seemed to want to answer but Lisanna cut him off immediately. “That was a rhetorical question.”
Layek sighed. “That still leaves us with the question of what exactly happened to her.” He turned his attention to Danae. “So you’re saying you have no real memory of anything that happened to you before you lost your memory?”
Danae nodded. “I remember my name and basic things about life, but I don’t remember anything about my life leading up to waking up on that cart.”
“I see.” Layek looked her up and down. “Well, you don’t like a fighter, nor do you look like someone who’s done hard labor their entire life. On the flip side of that, you don’t look like a noblewoman either. If I were to guess you might have come from a seamstress family or something like that. Not that it matters now, anyway. Do you remember anything strange happening to you in your time since you were enslaved?”
She did, obviously. Her mind immediately went back to the strange man that talked to her in what felt like riddles. But she wasn’t sure if that man did something to her, and if he did, she wasn’t sure if she would trust that person more than she would this captain. So she lied and shook her head. “No, nothing strange has happened until I lost consciousness.”
Layek looked at Lisanna. “We’re going to need to discuss this in detail, but I do like your plan.”
Lisanna smiled. “That’s why you pay me so well. And Danae, I know this is a lot for you to process, but I think going to the academy is probably the safest thing for you to do as well. As much as Layek knows about sailing, his knowledge of magic is lacking. And although I know quite a bit about magic, the old farts at the Academy know much more than I do. What do you say?”
“Do I get a say in this?” Accipiter interrupted.
“Not really,” Lisanna said. She laughed. “As if you’d object to such a rare opportunity. Chances are you’ll be denied entry anyway, since you’re not the magic type.”
“Can’t you vouch for us?” Accipiter asked Lisanna.
She shook her head. “As much as I’d love to help you out, I’m not really allowed anywhere near the Archipelago after what my old tutor did. I’m sure they would love to hold someone accountable for his actions and with him gone, I’m the closest person they have. Besides, I have other leads to look into.”
Layek let out an annoyed sigh. “You people are bent on making my life as difficult as possible, aren’t you?”
“You chose this life.” Lisanna shot back.
“I sure did.”

After the conversation more or less died down, it was decided that Danae would stay aboard the ship for the time being. The rooms there were more comfortable, at the very least the couple of nicer rooms that the captain, the first mate and a few others were in. Danae learned that the room she was using belonged to Lisanna. Lisanna said it was no bother for her to sleep elsewhere and Danae didn’t have the energy to really object. Besides not having the energy, she was still very uncertain about her future. Everyone around her was treating her much nicer than she was used to in the days leading up to this, but she was still very aware of where she was. They could flip on her any moment, so she had to make sure not to offend anyone. The one thing that gave her a bit of breathing room was the idea that she was somehow valuable to them. Valuable enough to send her off to some sort of magic school. Danae hadn’t heard of the Astrianara Academy before and if she had, it wasn’t among the memories that stayed with her after she first awoke in the cart. Accipiter, the man who had accompanied her today, promised her that he would show her around the island and make sure she was doing okay. He seemed nice. Lisanna also seemed nice, but there was a strange aura around the woman, as if she was somehow always far away. Danae didn’t like the captain. He hadn’t been mean to her, but there was a look in his eyes that she just didn’t like. After thinking everything over a few times, and trying to recall older memories without any success, she eventually went to bed. Sleep came slow and she didn’t rest much that night, but it was at least a step up from the past week. Maybe her future wasn’t as horrific as she thought.