“I’ve tried to become more patient over the years,” Fahsteth remarked, patting the side of his raptor-monster’s head while watching me with sharp intensity. Actually, the raptor was staring at me the same way. It was eerily similar. “But it’s a work in progress. So let’s go over it one more time before you give me an actual answer. You’re a powerful Necromancer. Somehow, we either picked up someone important to you, or the pretty red-head down there hired you. Either way, you came with her to shove your nose into my business. Now, you’re here with me. Which means you have a choice. First choice is my friends over there–” He indicated the half-dozen troops still pointing their weapons at me. “–and the ones up there–” His finger flicked around at the ceiling turrets that were also pointed at me. “–will overwhelm you with enough paralyzing shots for Eurso here to rip your throat out. Eurso, show him your fresh new teeth so he knows what he’s in for.”


    The raptor creature immediately tilted his head back and sideways while opening his mouth. I saw his normal teeth. Then I saw the longer, sharper metal ones that emerged to cover the first set. Those looked like they could bite through solid steel. So great, he had clearly given his pet some upgrades. I kept my voice level. “Did you have to take him to a specialist for that, or did you just abduct one and bring them here?”


    Fahsteth, however, just chuckled. “Neither of the above. The gist of it is that my people are good at taming wild animals. And some of us are good enough at it to improve them along the way.” He glanced at the animal in question before setting his hand on its side. As he did so, the already-present white and purple bone armor plating that was covering most of its chest, stomach, and part of its back expanded a bit more. “Takes a lot of effort, but you can’t argue with the results. Makes my friend sturdier, and a hell of a lot deadlier. So keep that in mind as you consider option one. Because option two is much nicer for you. You agree to help with my little project so my client gives full payment and bonuses, and not only will we not pursue those prisoners you helped get out, but I’ll make sure you’re, let’s just say suitably rewarded.”


    “I’d rather we say what exactly we mean by suitably rewarded,” I shot back. “Given I’m not an idiot and anyone could see implied lethal consequences behind what you just said.” Even as I said that, I was thinking quickly about what I could do next. Obviously, just because I now knew that I wasn’t restricted by protecting the timeline against these particular people didn’t mean this was all a done deal. I was still drastically outnumbered, didn’t have time to summon my ghosts without being detected, and Fahsteth was a very dangerous threat all on his own. I still had to be careful here.


    One of the troops said something in a language I didn’t understand, and my host smirked. “No, it’s not time for supper yet. I meant what I said about needing a Necromancer.” His gaze shifted back to me. “Well, need is a strong word. But I will say, someone of your caliber would save me a bit of a headache. So, sure, I’ll be a little more specific. You play nice with us and I’ll take you to the Tower of Lashra Vaeil.”


    Well, he said oh-so-dramatically, but I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. At least not at first. Then I felt a nudge from deep within. It was Shyel again. This time she couldn’t take the time to draw me in for a full conversation. Instead, she essentially sent a quick few words to the back of my mind. Long lost tower on an island full of powerful magical artifacts, mostly centered around Necromancy and life-extension. Supposedly destroyed in a fight between god-like beings a few thousand years before my people arrived on Earth.


    Taking all that in while keeping my expression neutral, I lifted my chin. “Am I supposed to know what that is or be impressed by the offer?” I did my best to make it look like I had deliberately not shown any reaction. Obviously, I hadn’t reacted at first because I didn’t know anything about that place. But I wanted him to think that I simply had a good, but not perfect, poker face and was trying to hold out for more details.


    It worked. Fahsteth eyed me while giving his pet monster’s neck a firm scratch. “Nice try, but I see the greed in those eyes. I can smell it. You want that treasure so badly. Just think of the power it’ll give you. I know Necromancers better than you might think. And I know something else too. If you’re this strong, the old bastard they call Fossor is going to come after you. See, he doesn’t like competition. And I promise, you won’t survive a confrontation with him. So that’s the second part of my offer. I’ll take you into the future when we go back. Him, he’s not a problem anymore at the point I’m from. So, you get to skip over all that time and show up at a point when Damocles has put away that particular sword for good. You know, pop in when the world starts really itching for some other strong Necromancer to pick up his slack. Or whatever you want. But trust me, the future is a hell of a lot better than this time period. Especially for someone like you. The possibilities are wide open with him gone.”


    After saying that, the man straightened up to his full height and stared me down. “But like I said, the whole being patient thing is still a big work in progress. So I can’t wait much longer. Gonna need your answer right now. Are we doing this the hard way or the easy way? For you, I mean. Either way is pretty damn easy for me.”


    Now, playing along with this was obviously an option. Especially if it meant they would let their guards down eventually. I made a show of weighing the options back and forth on both hands in a deliberate pantomime before pointing out, “I can’t exactly make an informed choice if you don’t tell me what you need me to do. After all, if I’m signing up to go punch the monster at the bottom of the ocean in the nose, that’s a bit of a harder commitment than picking up some bread for you. See what I mean? Even if the reward is tempting.” I deliberately added that last bit so he’d think I was almost on the hook.


    It seemed to do the trick, considering the man stepped away from his pet monster and spoke loudly. “View change to coordinates Kappa Two.”


    At those words, the view on the front screen changed from showing the planet below us to a shot of a small Native American village near some water. They all looked human, and they were just going about their day. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary, though I had no idea where it was or what was taking this video. Maybe it was a small invisible drone, or something disguised as a bird. Whatever it was, no one was paying attention.


    “Now, that might look like some ordinary bunch of pathetic meat down there,” Fahsteth began with a dismissive grunt at how inconsequential a bunch of people just living their lives clearly was, “but that place might just be one of the most important places on the planet at this point. Know why? Because that is the place where the mother of the Merlin Key is right now.”


    That made me give a sharp double-take, and he laughed. “Yeah, I thought that might get your attention. Obviously, we don’t dare do anything directly to the person who supposed to wake up good old Arthur. It’s too risky that putting her directly in danger could be what wakes him up. But if you kill the mother before they’re ever even conceived? Well, that’s a different story. The only problem is, we need a Necromancer strong enough to completely eradicate her spirit once she’s dead. Let’s just say there is some risk of her ghost sticking around and getting a new body if we don’t clean up after ourselves. And that’s what you’re here for. Well, it’s what my other Necromancer was here for, but I think you pretty thoroughly showed why you deserve the job.”


    Aylen. They knew about Aylen. Well, Fahsteth and his mysterious client did, anyway. How? What the hell? Who was his client and how could they know about Aylen? I wanted to demand answers about that, but it would give away that I knew more than I should, and I wasn’t completely certain that it was time for that yet. So, I forced myself to sound as unaware, yet intrigued as I thought someone in my position would. “You know, a lot of people have been looking for that person for a long time. What makes you think you found the right mother? And what does this have to do with the Pale Ship? If you’re about to tell me that her dad is one of the people from it…” I intentionally threw that in to add to the illusion that I didn’t know anything about Aylen.


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    Fahsteth chuckled. “My client has several interests. We were sent to this time because it was the best intersection between grabbing a certain something that was on that ship that you can see the wreckage of down there, and taking care of that little Merlin Key problem in that village across the country. That’s the only reason you and the schoolteacher got as far as you did without having to deal with troops that aren’t a complete waste of space. Me, my ship, and my actual good troops were over there getting ready to handle Mommy Key.”


    “But you haven’t done it yet,” I pointed out. “This ship could turn that entire village, and everyone in it, into dust in less time than one of my lunch breaks. It’s not like you actually had to figure out a strategy to beat them.”


    He, in turn, snorted. “The troops and extra firepower weren’t for anyone in the village. They were for someone else who might show up. That’s none of your business. And it took awhile, because I had my Necromancer preparing the ground around the village, getting it ready to make sure Mommy Key’s ghost wouldn’t just vanish on us before we could erase her. That’s when she got the call from the morons I left back at the dig site.”


    He gave a low snarl of annoyance, which I first thought was directed at me, but instead he growled, “That shouldn’t even have been there. We had that ship in our sights up here. We were only shooting to disable so we could board the fucking thing and get what we need. But one of my dumb-fuck crew must have overcharged the weapons, because we blew a hole in the side of the damn thing and made it crash instead. And cuz that wasn’t enough of a goddamn problem, one of their crew just had to get some sort of miracle going to keep the ship flying until it crashed all the way over there. Otherwise it would’ve come down a couple of thousand miles south.” He showed me his teeth in a grimace. “So you see why I say it’s been an annoying couple days, and I could really use some good luck. Which is where you come in. Sure, you started to make a mess of things, but I think I can forgive that. Like I said, I’ll even let any of those prisoners go that you want so you can make nice with the teacher and get whatever it is she offered to pay you on top of what I’m offering. All I need is for you to help me make sure one soon-to-be-dead woman’s ghost doesn’t escape anywhere. Sounds like a good deal, right? Pretty goddamn amazing deal when you add in the Tower of Lashra Vaeil. And no, I wasn’t fucking with you about that. You scratch my back and I’ll take you to it. Then I’ll take you into the future with me. You’ll get whatever Gaia promised for saving those prisoners, a whole building full of incredible Necromancer artifacts just for you to play with, and you get to skip over a few hundred years to come to a time when there’s, ehh, less dangerous competition for the title of most powerful Necromancer.”


    Instead of responding to that directly, I tapped my chin a couple times though considering the offer. Inwardly, I was silently cursing Ehn. This whole thing had to be his doing. That was the only thing that made sense. They had been trying to simply disable that ship and accidentally blow a hole in it instead? Then it miraculously continues flying just long enough to get close enough that I could find it? Yeah, at this point, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that he was the one who directed the pirates to that lake, and made sure Millersby came out in time to see them. This whole thing positively stank as a set-up from Ehn to give me this opportunity. But was he also the client from the future? Would he have set this up from then to put Fahsteth in this situation and possibly put Arthur at risk? Did he want Aylen to never be born so Arthur wouldn’t be reawakened? But if he did, it wouldn’t make any sense to also put me here to stop it. On the other hand, did that mean there really was someone else in the future who sent these guys back to do this? I was very confused. And I didn’t think Fahsteth would be up for answering any more questions on that front, if he even knew anything else.


    So, instead, I simply replied, “You still haven’t explained what it is that you’re looking for at that crash site, or what it has to do with the Pale Ship. How come one of your pirates had a sash from them?”


    There was a brief pause as the man regarded me, showing his teeth a bit as he very clearly ran through the options of how much he should–or could–say and still convince me to help. “Fine, if you must know, there’s a troll named Occillo. He’s had some encounters with the Pale Ship and got some souvenirs in the process, including a few of those sashes. As you might’ve guessed, those things fetch a pretty good price when they’re real. That ship down there, or what’s left of it, was a merchant vessel that carried Occillo to a point in the middle of supposedly empty space and dropped him off. Which, to be damn clear, means they gave him a spacesuit, let him walk out the airlock, and then left. At his request. My client thinks that’s where the Pale Ship is. They think there was a ship there but the people who dropped him off just don’t remember it. More to the point, they think that’s a place where we can find the damn thing again. We just need the coordinates. Unfortunately, Occillo left a virus to erase them from the ship’s computer once they jumped away. But what he didn’t manage to erase was the personal log of one of the crew members, who recorded where they went on a private computer that wasn’t connected to the mainframe, because he thought it was weird from the start.”


    “That’s what your people are looking for,” I realized. “They’re trying to find a small personal computer from that single crewmember. And it could be anywhere along that entire crash site.”


    Fahsteth grunted in agreement, gesturing. “Yeah, so you see why it’s a bit complicated. But that’s nothing for you to worry about. My guys will find it and we’ll send it to my client. The only thing you should be thinking about is how lucky you’re going to be once you agree to play your part in the other thing.


    “But I’ve told you enough.” He straightened to his full height and stared me down. “I think I’ve been more than accommodating. You have my offer, and you know what it’s worth. So what’s it going to be? Play nice, or don’t?” As he said that last word, the raptor monster snarled me pointedly, making its own preference on the subject clear.


    I knew about Occillo, of course. He was the adventurer/Indiana Jones-like space archeologist troll who took a ride on the Quietus, the same pirate ship that Percy had come to Earth on, the reason those anti-Whisper runes were scattered everywhere on that ship. We already knew he had a big connection to the Pale Ship, and now it seemed like he’d had that connection for awhile.


    Shaking that off and setting the thoughts aside, I focused on the man in front of me, as well as the troops holding their weapons at my back, the turrets along the ceiling, and the armored raptor. “You sure know how to make an offer compelling,” I muttered. “Even made sure refusing was harder because I can’t call up my own help without setting off your Necromancy scanners.”


    He smirked easily. “What can I say? I like negotiating from a position of strength.”


    “Yeah,” I agreed, “there’s just one problem with that.” Even as I said that, I focused on the grains of sand that I had oh-so-carefully maneuvered out of my own pocket and positioned within the barrels of the turrets and all those guns over these past few minutes while we were talking. One by one, in rapid succession, I made those sand grains grow to the size of large, burning-hot rocks, malforming all those weapon barrels before anyone here knew what was happening.


    At the same time, I also focused on a different power, one I’d gotten much more recently. It was the one that allowed me to swap the weight of two different objects within my line of sight. In this case, I made the grain of sand I had positioned directly over Fahsteth weigh as much as the enormous control console behind the man. Immediately, as I shifted the weight and relaxed my sand-manipulation power, the grain slammed down into Fahsteth’s head.


    My staff was in my hand as I spun, sending a kinetic blast from it to slam into the suddenly-leaping raptor, sending it crashing sideways while the troops reacted to their broken guns and Fahsteth hit the ground with the several hundred pound grain of sand on his head. My own true voice, undisguised as my form shifted back to my real self, filled the room to finish my thought.


    “I’m not just a Necromancer.”