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“I’rid found below the decks of the pirate ship…”

SIGRID DUCKED AND STEPPED GINGERLY ONTO THE first stair leading to the innards of the Maidenhead The interior was dark as a belly, dusty and filled with strange noises—the knocking and creaking of a ship which Sigrid had not yet come to know as her own heartbeat Suddenly, a face appeared out of the dark swirl of dust reen eyes the color of a deep-thatched forest All around the grinning face were tight curls of deep brown hair, alhtly curled as the fleece of a sheep or the fur of a wild dog The shaggy rid peered closer to see the body attached to the face floating before her like a lantern

“Hullo!” it cried, and pulled Sigrid down into the ship by her foreared to the woman she had been sent to find—the curly hair bunched and knotted all the way to her waist, where she ceased to be a wooatlike creature Her haunches were thickly furred in brown and red, tapering to delicate hooves that had clearly been polished to their current bronze shine She kicked theood measure

“Satyr! Yew copse, to be specific—but then that won’tto fear now Eshkol’s got you clamped to her side and Tommy’s at the wheel You’re safe as a vault! Now, you must make yourself useful and earn your board and at thethe least bit nautical—so you and I are going to play nurseers!”

Sigrid went along a Eshkol’s hooves Indeed, they were shiny asas a mule’s kick

“I adh, “but at sea you tend to cling to little vanities Besides, I can still kick a hole in solid silver with the blessed things! Now, the thing youor otherwise, is that they think they own the ship They fret about this or that and snipe at us about the rigging, or the sail material, or the type of wood in the , best to show they woe “Not that we have a plank, you understand! We just keep a good solid board below and tell folks it’s a plank to scare the us some peace! If anted to kill theuts like any civilized crew”

Eshkol led Sigrid through an astonishing labyrinth of roorid could hardly believe they could still be on the Maidenhead Finally, they arrived at a heavy wooden door from which issued the unress

“Part of the fun of it, you know,” Eshkol explained “The Maid’s a bit bigger belowdecks than above I don’t ask questions about that—I’ht, it’s none ofour prow for the season—Ari to look at and Lord knows I told Toold and they keep to themselves, and that’s the best you can hope for from anyone Now take this beer in and —you’ll bunk with me in the stern”

Eshkol disappeared as suddenly as she had arrived, and Sigrid was left face-to-face with the thick door, a clay pitcher of frothing black beer in her hand She did not quite fancy being a serving wench to whatever monsters lay on the other side, but she hoped that it would only be for the night, that in the n her to sew sails or so which befitted a sailor She slipped into the roo at the inhabitants

At her entrance, six or so of them had scurried behind a seventh, clearly their leader He was enor with rid’s own people, but true black, the color of h he had been cut from a block of onyx His hair was braided in co down his back like a woman’s His eye cut into her, no less black than his body—but he had

only one true eye The other was an eye fashioned out of gold and set into his skull like a dia It was a perfect likeness; one almost expected it to blink She could see that his coh their artificial eyes were not of gold, but of silver and bronze and copper and crystal Sigrid felt reasonably certain of her guess and curtsied before the

“I a of the Arimaspian Oculos Who is this insect who presents me with drink as if she were fit to serve me?”

“I… I arid, my lord Of Ajanabh”

The King looked skeptically at her, his eye roving over her slight forraphy of a mouse’s haunch

“Are you huirl I will not be served by humans”