The pirate queen the pal.., p.1
The Pirate Queen (The Paladin Princess Book 2), page 1
The Pirate Queen
The Paladin Princess Series Book 2
Also by Samaire Provost
Mad World: EPIDEMIC
Mad World: SANCTUARY
Mad World: DESPERATION
ROMANOV
The Pirates of Moonlit Bay
The Pirate Queen
The Paladin Princess Series Book 2
Samaire Provost
Black Raven Books
This is a work of fiction. All of the geography, characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Black Raven Books
The Pirate Queen.
Copyright © 2019 by Samaire Provost. All rights reserved.
Cover illustrations copyright © 2019 by Ravven
Printed in the United States of America.
For information, including permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to publisher@blackravenbooks.net or to
Black Raven Books, P.O. Box 3201, Martinsville VA 24115
The text was set in 12-point Californian FB
www.samaireprovost.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-948594-12-7
ISBN-10: 1948594127
First Edition: July 2019
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to the hardest working woman I know, and to hard working women everywhere.
The Pirate Queen
Chapters
1 - Purple Mist
2 - Preparations
3 - Whisper
4 - We Have a Plan
5 - Closer…
6 - Certain Death
7 - Pursued!
8 - A New Danger
9 - New Friends
10 - Calling to the Babe
11 - Isolated
12 - Lava Tube
13 - Unwelcomed
14 - Hidden from Man
15 - Centaurs from the Stars?
16 - The Centaurs’ Solution
17 - Altered Legends
18 - A Part of the Tribe
19 - We Wish You Success
20 - Into the Mountain
21 - Descent
22 - Injured
23 - Key
24 - Through the Looking Glass
25 - Herded
26 - Stay on Your Toes
27 - Reconnaissance
28 - A Rune of Healing
29 - Enough
30 - The City
31 - Supper and Lullaby
32 - To the Healers
33 - The Alchemist
34 - Fleeing!
35 - The Mills
36 - Er
37 - The Element of Surprise
38 - The Air Pillow
39 - On Names and Heritage
40 - The Old Librarian Grady
41 - The Library
42 - The Challenge
43 - Going In
44 - Oblivion
45 - My Heart’s Best Beloved
46 – The Pirate Queen
Advance Notice of New Books
About the Book
About the Author
Chapter One
Purple Mist
Djinns come in all forms, I’m told. Ours had come in the form of a man, but he preferred to fly in his natural state, which was the man but larger: about three meters tall, with a faint blue-purple-green tinge to his skin that defied any exact description. He flew above the main topmast of our ship, and kept up with us effortlessly. Everything seemed to come to him effortlessly. Everything physical, that is. Emotions were another matter. All these thoughts rolled around in my head as I watched him fly with us, his antics making me smile.
I leaned out over the railing on the fo’c’sle, my face bright with sunshine as a fine spray of sea water misted across it, making me laugh. The coast of Alkebulan was behind us, fast receding into the distance. We’d left Moonlit Bay, the port of call for the coastal Tambibo market, that morning. The winds were low, but the giant manta rays pulling our ship were strong and in fine shape after the breakfast of chopped-up black skipjacks and bluefin we’d fed them, and they streamed through the water, filtering out plankton and nibbling at small bits as they swam, pulling us along at a steady clip.
Our speed was faster than the wind, and our sails flipped over backward, slowing us enough so that we’d pulled in the main and foresails, leaving just the jibs up to flutter merrily against the deep blue sky. Our new friend, the djinn who we called Jim, was now perched on the fore topmast, sitting cross-legged, his wrists on his knees, in a classic yoga pose. His eyes were shut and his face serene, despite the fact that he was plunging forward at nearly 40 knots. The sun’s rays on the djinn’s form served to highlight the purples and greens, the light refracting into a dozen colorful rays as his hair, like a prism, sent it shining down on the decks below.
Down in the hold, our horses snorted and pawed in their stalls, happy to have the new grain we had traded for at Tambibo before we’d set sail. The barrel of black skipjacks and bluefin we’d offered in trade had gotten us a hold full of not only grain, but alfalfa bales: enough to tide us over for more than a few months. Khepri had arranged the deal, and was a wicked good negotiator who could barter a merchant down to his last-ditch hope.
That morning, I had brushed Shêtân until his ebony coat shone brilliantly. I’d been brushing his mane and tail out when Kym joined me. She’d picked out a soft brush and started on her pony Taimim’s coat, working with such concentration that the tip of her tongue had peeked out between her lips. She’d soon had the pony’s dark golden fur gleaming, and his blond tail silky and looking like a gold waterfall.
My mind had turned back to three days ago, when Kym, the second non-human member of our troupe, had discovered the scroll inside a hidden compartment in the bookcase in my quarters. The scroll was actually an old map leading to the fabled Book of Mysteries, said to hold all the knowledge of the ancients, who had come down from the stars and imparted it to mankind. The book was said to hold medical knowledge that would aid humanity in its quest for health and well-being, as well as the secrets to navigating the stars and heavens.
Kinah, the former captain of the ship we’d taken possession of, had been long on brawn but short on acuity, and we were sure she had not known of the scroll’s existence. In fact, after examining the hidden compartment Kym had breached to find the scroll, I could not easily see how she’d managed to open it. I asked her to shut the scroll back into the small apse she’d retrieved it from, then tried to find the way in myself. It took me nearly a half hour, and I was only able to find it because I knew for a fact it was there. I was sure the space was not only invisible but irretrievable for anyone who didn’t know where to look.
“Kym, how did you know it was there at all?” I asked. Kym had found a secret drawer in the hidden compartment of the bookcase, where she’d found a large bag. Inside the bag was an old brass tube, which, in turn, contained the scroll. But I wondered how she’d known the secret compartment was there at all, since it had become virtually invisible when she closed it again.
“You see the purple mist coming from the scroll?” Kym said.
I nodded. There was a very faint purple mist emanating from the surface of the parchment, a sign of its magical properties. But when we rolled it up, the mist all but disappeared, and with it inside the brass tube it was dark to the naked eye. That’s how it had been when we’d discovered it: inside the bag, in the drawer, which had been shut and the compartment door closed.
How on earth…?
“The purple sprinkly misty color was spitting out the edge of the corner,” Kym explained, pointing to where the hidden compartment edge supposedly was, though it was invisible to all of us.
I blinked.
“Oh, and you can smell it,” Kym added.
I smelled a hint of elderberries when the scroll was unrolled; we surmised the parchment had been soaked in elderberry juice and other spell components to enchant its magical nature, but closed up in the bookcase, behind four different barriers, we smelled nothing. At least none of the humans could.
Kym was a different story. We had met her during our time in the fabled Aoudaghost oasis, a place of both riches and misery, or so Khepri told us. Her people had developed a huge mythology surrounding Aoudaghost, which she’d eventually shared with us – after we’d entered the oasis and had run into some pretty interesting magical effects. Kym had been in the form of a chimera, the creature we’d been searching for after Khepri had told us that finding it was the only way to escape the place. The chimera had played with us a bit before finally settling down for a real conversation. We’d discovered that she was actually young for her species, and in fact, was a very young child.
We’d made a deal: help the chimera (who had been apparently bored out of her skull) by taking her with us, and she’d help us with her talents. Kym had told us that her powers as a chimera were greatly reduced outside of the oasis, but then we’d seen her take the head off a slaver who’d attacked her, and we realized, she might not have as much magic outside the oasis, but she was still a massive chimera, with the head and forelegs of a lion. Ordinary lions can take a human’s head off with one swipe. They are that strong. And Kym was even stronger.
So, she’d come with us, and we’d grown close. Kym was the little sister I’d wished I had. She turned into her human form whenever she thought ‘human’, but she could morph into any person she’d seen. Traveling, she remained in her own human form, which was to say, in the form of a six-year-old little girl. Kym had dark, dark skin, and her hair was currently arranged in braids. She wore a blue dress, and sandals. She looked like any other Alkebulan girl from the central regions. But we knew she wasn’t ordinary at all. She was a chimera.
“You mean to tell me, you can see the purple mist leaking out of the edge of the secret compartment?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said happily. “Can’t you?”
I raised my eyes to the ceiling and breathed.
Wait a minute.
“Tupu, can you ask Jim to come in here. And Tam, too?”
Tam had been a member of the ship’s crew from the beginning, back when Caroline and I had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. Nearly a year ago.
So much time had passed. So much had happened since that morning I was kidnapped last spring, I felt like so much more than a Swerighe Princess.
“Hey, Princess,” Tam poked his head in the door a moment after I summoned him. “What’s up?”
Tam, short for Tamerlane (a joke from his mother, he’d told me) enjoyed teasing me about my royal status and title.
“Tam, please come in.”
Tam entered, an easy smile on his face. His light swagger made me grin. He was an able sailor and good with a sword, and had turned against Kinah to help us capture the ship. We considered him a friend.
Jim followed Tam into the room.
“Sit here, you two, please.” I indicated the cushions lining the bench next to the door. “Face starboard.”
They complied.
“Now, can you see anything odd over there?” I waved my hand in the general direction of the bookcase and waited.
Tam’s brow furrowed, and he focused on the bookcase built into the wall on that side of the chamber. Standing up, he approached it slowly. He reached out and, long fingers extended, delicately ran his palm over the wall and bookcase, picking up a tome at random and bringing it out of the wooden shelf to sniff delicately, then returning to its place among the other books. He took a long time to scrutinize the entire wall before he finally sat back down next to Jim. Even then, he continued to stare at the area, trying to see anything odd.
Finally, he declared: “I don’t see any irregular.”
I looked at him for a long time. He seemed sincere.
Then I turned to Jim. The djinn was a very quiet person. He was in his human form now, that is to say, he looked like a normal man. He was maybe six-and-a-half feet tall, muscular, with brown hair and hazel eyes. A delicate jaw and thoughtful, merry eyes completed the picture. He was usually very reserved, offering his thoughts only when pressed, and sometimes not even then. I studied him for a minute. He sat easily, his billowing shirt and loose pants looking comfortable and worn. He, too, wore sandals, and his brown feet looked relaxed. He held his hands clasped together in front of his belly in a casual manner. His face was turned to the wall and bookcase, his expression pleasant and serene.
“Jim?” I said gently.
He turned to me, an eyebrow raised.
“Do you see anything abnormal there?” I indicated the bookcase in front of us.
He turned again to glance at the wall and bookcase, then back to me.
“Do you mean, besides the purple mist?” he asked.
Chapter Two
Preparations
That was how we figured out that the scroll was much easier for non-humans to detect. It stood to reason that it had likely been created by non-humans, as well.
“Magical items are notoriously hard to construct,” Khepri had told us. “The court magicians take years to create such things, and even then, only the most skilled and learned of them can even manage it.”
Hmmm, I’d thought.
“Kym,” I called over to my young friend. Kym bounced over happily. She really is like a six-year-old little girl, I thought, not for the first time. Even though the chimera was over a thousand years old, she was still just a child.
I smiled as she approached and held out a clutch of kasaba berries. I plucked a few of the delicious fruit and munched on them as I spoke. Putting my arm around Kym’s small waist, I pulled her close in a hug.
“Kym, can you make a flower for me?” I asked.
“Make?” she inquired.
“Yes, make one for me, in your hand,” I said. “It’s okay,” I reassured her.
Kym cupped one of the kasaba berries in her hands, a look of concentration on her face. Within seconds there was a glow and the berry transformed into a small yellow-orange flower. She smiled and handed it to me.
“And what will this flower do?” I asked, seeing it glow faintly purple.
“This one will turn your hair white, and settle an upset stomach,” Kym said.
“Did you pick those attributes yourself, then?” I asked.
Kym nodded and giggled.
I popped the flower into my mouth and chewed slowly, then swallowed it. I could feel a cool sensation traveling down my throat. Caroline reached out and brought one of my long curls around over my shoulder so I could see it. As the cool feeling of the magical flower traveled down to my belly, a pearly white color traveled down my lock of hair until it reached the end that Caroline held, smiling.
Khepri’s eyebrows raised and threatened to disappear into her hair, and she remained speechless in surprise.
“I think Kym has some great abilities,” said Caroline. “It’s wise we kept her true form secret. The sheikhs would love to get hold of her.” Caroline glanced over at Jim. “Of both of them,” she said.
We were well aware of how obsessed the sheikhs of Alkebulan were, not only with money, but with power. Most of the magical creatures they’d captured had been exploited, at the expense of the creatures’ dignity and freedom. Either that, or the creatures had been impossible to contain. Remembering the manticore that had attacked us out in the desert, it occurred to me that it had likely been extra aggressive because it was interacting with humans. I felt sad that I had been forced to kill it defending our party. At the time, I’d felt the thrill of victory, happiness and relief that it hadn’t killed me, but I was quickly learning to see things from a non-human point of view.
I saw Kym studying my face then, an inscrutable look on her own, and I realized that most of the time I thought of her as human, even though I knew quite well that she was, in actuality, a massive mythical beast, an impressive, regal chimera. She was this creature, even when she appeared as a six-year-old human girl. She dealt with us as a chimera, but as a child – a curious, inquisitive child – exploring the world outside the Aoudaghost oasis, with our help.
I gathered Kym in my arms, pulling her into my lap, and held her close. She wrapped her small arms around me and nestled there, eventually falling asleep.
The next day found us discussing the scroll.
“The Book of Mysteries.” I said the words over and over. “The Book of Mysteries.”
“Two things come to mind, as I see them,” said Tupu, sipping warm camel milk laced with honey as she did every morning. “The Book of Mysteries is an incredible object which can change much of our world. And,” she said, taking another sip of her mug, “the quest to retrieve it will, without a doubt, be fraught with incredible danger and jeopardy.”
She looked into my eyes. “We will be in great peril,” she said, her eyebrows raised, indicating intense interest.
I agreed. “After the Tomb of Ancients and the treasure we pulled out ...,” I began.
“Barely pulled out,” Tupu amended.
I nodded. “Barely pulled out,” I took a deep breath. “Even though the pocketfuls of gems were ridiculously small compared to the chests of loot we had hoped to bring out of the tomb,”
“Before we were so rudely accosted,” said Tupu.
I smiled. “Before we were so rudely accosted, by a huge band of ghouls.” I nodded. “They still have made each and every one of us ridiculously wealthy.”
