There was no one watching the bridge on my way out. There was no one there at the edge. The lunatics were screaming at the top of the castle, men were being chucked out of the windows. A general cacophony all around me as I treaded the bridge carefully back. Blood dried on my face, a disgust came from inside my gut out towards me. The armor I wore somehow disgraced, though this wasn’t the first time. I didn’t even know why I felt it - maybe I wasn’t as absorbed with Hannibal as I thought, I still disliked him. Not hated. Strange what combination of emotions we come up with for people.

Not that it was hard to return to that place of hate, all I had to do was remember Chaucer.

So let the torturer’s suffer, let this island starve. Let it all go to hell.

I looked up one final time catching glimpse of the smoke stacks coming out the top. The walls off to the west of the castle blown by the flames. If hell looked like anything, it looked like this. If there were a communal of demons, it would be here.

I walked down the cliffs towards the bottom floors and through a ruptured exploded spot in the wall, I came out to the sewers. A kitchen fire of all things, the grease ignited, and the flour stacks exploded in storage. This allowed for the spot to open where food decomposed and washed down towards the sea. They collapsed some of the interior of the plumbing. Though there were always alternatives. Plenty of kitchens and toilets and water ways in Shrieker’s Veil. Or what was left of it. Walking was easy enough, save for the occasional tremor and pause. I made my way through the dark tunnel going solely on what I remember from that map months ago, going off instinct if we were to be frank. A little hope at the end of these long tunnels, tunnels excrement-flaked. Fish bones, blood, all the gunk and murk of the city. Ash too.

Knee deep in the hell of Shrieker’s Veil. The light - finally! Coming to the edge I looked down at the boat. A small raft with some rows, rope tied around a stone. The septic pipe hovered over it. My first rule of thumb, throw the metal away. Swords and all. Keep myself light to swim with nothing but my sturdy leather armor. I’d swam in it before, no reason to think it couldn’t again. The ocean had to it the same hue, the same blue and light glimmer. It was still day - midday, perhaps. Or morning? I hadn’t kept track of time. I didn’t need to any more. Let time come and go, the spliced memories interrupting life as they will - memories a slave to the occasion, the present. You can’t trudge forward with the shackles nipping at your feet, walking through a desert of your own making hoping the water comes when you know it never will. To re-tell yourself a story you already know the end of, to live the life lived. Memories change or we change - but the past is dead and cemented, another tomb in the catacomb of time.

The ocean was the same and yet not the same. The day rolled and it felt good to be of the time. To take the leap as a free man.

I jumped. The water struck all around me. Cold, of course. The raft cradled from the undulations, I swam and pushed myself up to the side. Wet, clean too for once. Nothing like a good salt water scrub.

Out in the distance you could see the sails, some place beyond the light towers. A safe perimeter from the chaos. What was the rush though? I knew Ritcher would come for me, he needed me. And I needed him.

I breathed heavy and took up my rows. My whole body slumped and for once I relaxed. I hadn’t realized my cheeks were that achy, I must have been smiling the whole time.

“You do the heavy lifting for once.” I said.

From the bottom of the ladder their faces looked annoyed. Dark, even. The five seahands made a noise I could only describe as a growl. They raised me up to the top of the boat. I fell over and slumped down, sprawled on the floor. Eyes like lazy springs underneath, the timer running as I closed them and them snapping open at the near-close. A shadow came over me. Ritcher.

“We were going to leave two days ago.” He said.

“Why didn’t you?”

“We saw the fire.”

“Two days ago? I was fighting for two days?”

“You have any idea of what happened?” He asked. “Look.”

I came up off my knees and turned to Shrieker’s Veil. Smoke stacks, soot up the walls, banners burned. A black flag raised at the top of the copulas. It was destroyed. The prisoners had inherited a ruin.

“They’re going to break that down in a few weeks.” I said. “You think some of them will get out?”

“There’s about two small ships in the docks last we saw.” Ritcher said. “Two were taken by the Wardens, those that survived. The last three of them were burned down as they left. I guess they didn’t have time for the last two.”

“Some of them will survive. Some of them will make it to land. But two ships - they’ll have to decide who goes free.”

“The only way they know how to decide.” He turned to me. “There are is a lot of purple blood in that prison, blood on your hands.”

“I’ll worry about it when I touch land. How about that?”

I walked away from the guard rail, palms to my waist, I looked at the boat. A small crew.

“Faulkner.” I said. “Your brother headed north towards Faulkner.”

“Does that mean I can throw you overboard now?”

“I kept my promise. I wanted a boat and I’m on it.” I said. “’Sides, I thought you’d want my employment.”

“Employment, with what? Finding Obrick?”

“No. You can find him. Or perhaps he’ll find me.” I said. “Truth is Vicentius is going to conquer you.”

“What?”

“Not yet. Maybe he’s truced with your nation, as he’s done with the others. But it’s in him, the seed. He wants the world. Not a single breath taken without his consent.”

“How do you know?”

I turned to him.

“I know. Believe me.” I said. “He’ll do it under any means. Assassins, terrorists, propaganda. I’m the one who helped him with it in the first place.”

Something like disgust showed on Ritcher’s face. I never said I was noble.

“We can talk about that later. We can talk about your problems later, there’s a reason you wanted Obrick. Right? Some…civil strife perhaps?”

Ritcher went cold. A truth snapping like a puzzle piece in his head. The stars aligning - every atom and celestial body in the universe finally coming into mass-syzygy - Ritcher paused. Something of sweat came down his neck. He composed himself.

“Yeah. I’m having home issues. Issues far greater than you can solve.” He said.

“You’re right. But I can help.”

“How?”

“By killing Vicentius, of course.”

The sea hands looked at me. A man hung his arms on the lines running to the mast, it was as tight as the face he made. Someone craned from the crow’s nest, their face so far up I could not see but the tanned skin of him.

“A thousand gold from the Rose knights and Virgil Darko is at your service.” I said. “My credentials: monster slayer, Captain of the Fourteenth. General of the Crows of old.”

I nudged towards the open quarter doors at the side of the ship. “A bed would be nice too.”

Ritcher’s face relaxed. Was that smile at the edge of his lips?

"The beds are a floor down.” He said. “We can talk about the rest. Especially about Vicentius. We’ll touch land in two weeks if the winds are good.”

Good. A night of good sleep was all I imagined, but two weeks of those. Even better. I walked with cold ocean wind behind me, my own sails pushing north-long towards a horizon far beyond me reckoning. A fate beyond the round of the planet, something on the underbelly in the dark side of Xyra. But that was for another Virgil, in another time. And as I said, I was a man of the present.

And the only thing for the immediate Virgil was a good long sleep.