The VIP staterooms were at the very rear of the ship, below the officers' cabins and currently unoccupied except for one which, the Captain said, contained a very important person on a secret mission. He warned them not to speak to him, or else it would be back to the brig with them. Then, apologising once more for the necessity to detain them, he left them there.

     The warship had six staterooms, great luxurious apartments the equal of anything carried on a Baddow clipper, so that Lirenna was granted her wish to sail the seas in style, although not quite in the way she'd expected. Each one had windows along one entire wall, giving a wonderful view of the Western Sea, although there wasn't much to see at the moment except grey water and grey sky, both roiling turbulently in the gathering wind.

     The bedrooms boasted huge four poster beds similar in design to the one they'd seen in Rhanov's room in Vantarestin, and everything else was equally luxurious. Beautifully made furniture, deep thick carpets and various fairly valuable works of art, but it struck Thomas as soulless, lacking any real warmth or sense of welcome. There was nothing to give the rooms a personal touch. There was nothing to indicate whether their last occupants had been an Admiral, a Baron or a foreign ambassador, except that he or she must have been used to a life of luxury and was presumably unwilling to allow any reduction in his or her standard of living just because they happened to be on a sea voyage. Thomas would have felt more comfortable crowded with his friends in an ordinary junior officer's cabin. Here, he hardly dared touch anything in case he marked or damaged it in some way. They were not rooms he could relax in.

     With the largest and most luxurious stateroom taken by the mysterious VIP, there were five others, meaning that the travelers could almost have had one each, with just two of them having to share, but none of them wanted to be alone in a strange place. They paired off, therefore, with Shaun and Matthew having one room, Diana and Lirenna having the next, with which it shared a connecting door, and Thomas and Jerry sharing a third. They were locked in at night, but allowed to walk around the ship by day, accompanied by a couple of guards who made sure they didn't go where they weren't supposed to. All in all it was a pleasant cruise, but Diana fretted at the delay in their quest for the Sceptre of Samnos.

     One day Silan and Rogor were given the job of guarding them as they were strolling around on deck. The young, dark haired ensign and the tall, bearded wizard soon became good friends with the travelers and chatted quite freely with them, although they avoided some subjects such as where they were going and how long they would take to get there.

     "You're a strange bunch," said Silan as they stood on the prow next to the giant catapult and watched the sea go by. "A cleric of Caroli, a follower of one of the most pacifistic Gods there is, in the company of two heavily armed fighting men armed with steel swords, one of them magical. Another human armed only with a knife. A demi shae and a nome. What were you all doing in a boat in the middle of the Western Sea?"

     Thomas tried to explain about the Emerald Oracle, but instead heard himself say "Nothing much. Just sightseeing, you know."

     "Well you really picked a funny place to do it. Nobody goes sightseeing in the Lonely Isles. Much too dangerous. You're lucky we were there to save you."

     Lirenna put an arm around him and gave him a friendly kiss on the cheek. "We know, and we're very grateful," she said. "I'm sorry if we got you into trouble."

     "Not much," he replied with a grin. "I've been in worse trouble before. Rog'll tell you."

     Rogor grinned and started to tell them a tale about when Silan had persuaded him to help smuggle a few bottles of Janta water aboard a few months before, and some of the chaos that had ensued. He turned out to be a natural storyteller and soon had the six companions almost helpless with laughter as he described, in vivid detail, the Captain's reaction as the potent spirit caused the wizard's spellcasting to misfire in bizarre and unpredictable ways in the middle of a sea battle with a Lantellan Warfish. "I thought he was going to explode!" he said, almost choking with his own laughter. "I was scrubbing the deck for a month afterwards, and it took nearly a week for the other wizards to get the mainsail back to normal again."

     "Such things don't happen on an Imperial warship, surely," said Shaun, suspecting they were having their legs pulled.

     "You'd be surprised at the things that go on around here," said Silan. "Why, if you only knew half the things that I've seen..."

     More outrageous stories followed, each more unlikely than the last, and the travelers shared amused looks with each other as they pretended, as soberly and seriously as they could, to believe them. Shaun decided to get his own back. He knew they'd be expecting him to invent an equally tall story, so he decided to tell the absolute truth, but in a way they could not possibly believe. "We've also had a few strange experiences we'd like to share with you," he said. "One of the strangest happened just a few days ago, as we were sailing down from Ilandia. We saw this strange island, where none had ever been seen before..."

     Rogor and Silan listened intently to the story of the island fish, but if Shaun had expected them to be awed by his inventiveness and imagination, he was disappointed. “I've heard stories of such creatures from old sailors, said Silan. “They like to hang around in taverns and spin yarns in the hope that someone'll buy them a drink. Just made up nonsense, I've always thought.”

     And that’s what you still think, thought Shaun in amusement, seeing the suspicious look in the other man’s eyes. But hopefully one day you'll realise that I was telling the truth, and won't you be amazed then! He just smiled, however, accepting the compliment as Thomas, not wanting to be left out of the game, began recounting an unbelievably weird happening that had occurred during his third year at Lexandria University, changing the name of the place so as not to give away the fact that he was a wizard. He suspected that Rogor knew that three of them were wizards anyway, as these things were difficult to hide from someone who knew what to look for, but if he had guessed he never said anything except, possibly, to Silan, who never gave any indication if he had. Several times Thomas almost came right out and told him, but was never quite sure whether the seaman's friendship would be stronger than his sense of duty to his superiors. Suspecting and keeping silent was one thing. He could justify it to himself by the fact that he didn't really know anything for certain, but knowing for sure and keeping silent was another thing altogether. He decided not to risk it.

     Rogor and Silan spent a lot of time with the six travelers over the next few days, somehow managing to persuade the Captain to give them escort duty full time. They had such a pleasant time together that they were almost able to forget that they were prisoners and, accepting what couldn't be helped, they tried to imagine that they were on a luxury cruise instead.

     It was hard on Diana, though, who felt that she was failing her Goddess, and she spent a lot of time in one or another of the ship's two chapels, whichever one happened to be nearer whenever an attack of guilt came over her. She tracked the Captain down again and again, pleading with him to let them go and, when he remained inflexible, she made him repeat over and over again his promise to let them go as soon as they got to wherever they were going. In the end he threatened to have her confined to quarters unless she stopped bothering him, so she spent the remainder of her time on the ship moping around in misery while the others tried vainly to comfort and reassure her.

     It grew hotter as they sailed south. Several times the huge warship had to make wide detours to avoid the great floating mats of seaweed that plagued the near equatorial waters. The mats grew so thick in places that the tops dried out, crumbling into a salty, loamy soil that supported a forest of dry land plants. Silan told them a tale he'd heard about one of these floating seaweed islands that grew to be over twenty miles long. It had been destroyed when some sailors had landed on it, thinking it to be a real island, and made camp. When they tried to light a camp fire on it, the dried out surface layer of seaweed had caught fire and the whole island had gone up in flames. The six companions at first thought that it was just another of his tall tales, but there was an earnestness in his voice that hadn't been there during his first storytelling session a few days before. Or maybe he'd just learned to lie more convincingly.

     Then, on the twentieth day after the companions came aboard the ship, one of the lookouts gave a cry and pointed ahead. Rushing to the railing, the six travelers looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a sail, just visible on the horizon. "A ship!" cried Shaun. "What's it doing way out here?"

     He was referring to the fact that the warship was sailing much further from the shore than normal, to avoid being seen by other ships, and had even gone beyond the continental shelf for short periods. Spotting a ship this far out was, therefore, an unexpected occurrence, to say the least.

     "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we have to take you back to your rooms," said Silan apologetically. "My orders are very clear. I'm sorry." He genuinely was sorry as well, as they could tell from the anguished look of embarrassment and regret on his face.

     "Don't worry," said Diana, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "We'll go peacefully."

     They went aft to the staterooms as the crew went into a flurry of activity, sprinting to their battlestations, just in case. When they reached their rooms Silan, embarrassed and apologising effusively, told them that he would have to lock them in, and Diana had to keep telling him that they understood perfectly and didn't mind. Fortunately they were able to use the interconnecting doorways to stay together and, by leaning out the window, they could watch the other ship as it approached.

☆☆☆

     On the warship's bridge, located at the top of the ship's forecastle, the Captain was also watching the other ship through one of the wide windows where the thick oak beams of the bulkhead had been rendered magically transparent. "Do you think they've seen us?" he asked his first officer.

     The first officer was a serious looking demi shae called Dannis. He was shading his grey eyes with a slender hand as he also studied the ship, while beside him the ship's chief clerical officer, an ancient looking priest of Nimbus called Bailey, was muttering unhappily under his breath.

     "Undoubtedly, Captain," answered Dannis, scratching his pointed ears. "And they must also by now have identified us as a Beltharan Warship."

     "Damn!" exclaimed the Captain. "Who in the name of Hell are they, anyway?"

     "It has the look of a Nyundian ship, probably a tradesman. About eighty tons, with a crew of thirty to forty. Almost certainly armed with at least one ballista, plus whatever the crew happen to be carrying."

     The Captain nodded silently, wondering what they were doing this far from shore. Smugglers, probably, anxious not to be seen by the revenue ships. Maybe even a slave ship. Not that it mattered. The Prince Fennerel was still several days from its destination. If that ship's crew reported seeing them and the news reached the wrong people (which it would. The enemy had spies everywhere) their one chance to even the odds against the enemy would be lost. He sighed as he made his decision. "Mister Dannis, we're going to have to capture that ship and take it with us to Lantana."

     The demi shae nodded, having already come to the same conclusion. "Let's hope we can avoid creating an international incident," he said. "The abduction of a ship and crew going about its lawful business could generate bad feeling and Nyundo has many friends and allies along the coast of the Southern Sea."

     "At the moment, a diplomatic incident with one of those tiny little countries is the least of our worries," said the Captain impatiently. "You know we must make an alliance with the great shae nations if there's a real chance of war breaking out."

     "And the Shadowlord must not find out that we know of the threat, or he will advance his invasion plans so as not to give us time to prepare," agreed Dannis. "I wish you had not promised to release those guests of ours on arrival at Lantana."

     "Sometimes, a Captain must make promises he cannot keep," said the Captain regretfully.

     Bailey stared at him in shock. "You're not serious!" the priest exclaimed. "Just how long do you think you can keep them prisoner?"

     "As long as necessary."

     "But they've done nothing wrong!"

     "I don't like it either, father, but all civilization is at stake here. The Shadowlord would like nothing better than for us to be destroyed by our own sentimentality. Don't worry, they'll be treated like royalty. Maybe they won't want to leave."

     Ahead of them, the merchant ship had noticed that the warship was coming straight for them, and her crew was rushing about setting full sail in an effort to get away. It was surprisingly light and fast for a supposedly heavily laden cargo ship and managed to gain on them, leaving the warship behind.

     "Now's your chance to do something useful, father." said the Captain sharply. "Go up on deck and get one of your pets to give us a push."

     The priest gave him a sour, unhappy look as he stalked off to obey.