Sparrow on a Plank Chapter 20: Of Fake Books, Exploding Pirates, and Raiding Vikings

Prince Ta's office was an organized mess. He kept clipboards of current projects, with people and events linked logically by strings of six different colors. He had a stack of papyrus right next to a well-used quill. He even had books of cases, closed and open. But there seemed to be papers everywhere, covering virtually every surface. He had a nice oak desk somewhere underneath the papers.

Into this temple of bureaucracy crept a black-clad thief. She was looking for a book, and she had no idea where to begin looking for it. She knew it was some book of high magic, but that didn't help as much as it sounded. She knew it would be well protected, but it could have been in plain sight and it wouldn't have helped. In fact, it was possible that it being in plain sight would have been part of the security system. He just needed a single magic-suppression device and it would have foiled any detection device. She knew that Prince Ta was a cagey one; it would not have surprised her that he would have done something as sneaky as that. Safes can be easily broken into, and traps defeated; it would have been more sneaky and cost-effective to have no defense system beyond organization.

And the severe lack of organization was a potent security system when you couldn’t even find the book you were looking for.

She had just under an hour to figure out where he had hidden the tome, do something about it, and make it look like no one had been there. Well, that should easy enough. She at least knew that the book had to be in this room; all attempts to scry for it had been pointless, and this was the only room that Prince Ta frequented that had any kind of suppression system in effect.

The first thing that she looked for was a place to hide. The guard would be through every fifteen minutes; the guard would be doing it just to be doing it, so he wouldn't be looking too closely. As long as she was quiet, she should have no problem hiding in the dark room. The desk would be the obvious place, as would be the closet, but she didn't need to hide there; the umbrella stand would be good enough for her purposes. She got to work, keeping an ear open for the guard.

She just had to figure out his system of organization, or at least find the book. At least she had moonlight to help her; it was nearly the half-moon, so it wasn't too dark. She decided to look for a shape, not type; she just had to deal with camouflage. There were several false starts, but she started ignoring the obvious solutions, and hit her forehead with her hand when she realized that she was putting too much effort into looking. She dropped to the floor and looked at the legs of the desk; she saw that one of the legs was supported by a book with a thin piece of wood between it and the foot. She grabbed the book while supporting the desk; she quickly confirmed that she had found the book. A book of high magic being so abused? He should be whipped!

She dared to light a torch. She only needed to look at a few pages in order to ascertain the information that she had been sent to find. She quickly found a replacement, realizing that the book's location on the creaky desk was part of the security system. Once she had found another book to support the desk (while memorizing where she had gotten it), she quickly looked through the book to find the information she was looking for. She found the map, just as Hajime had, and the passages about how to defeat the guardian, and quickly committed them to memory. She replaced the books and quickly snuck out of the office. She would have the information back to Bubastos in a few days, earning herself a nice commission.

In the morning, Prince Ta arrived. He saw that someone had moved the book he had been protecting. “Huh. Someone looked at that copy I had made. Hope they don’t actually use that information; someone could be killed if they don’t pay attention. Then again, that’s precisely the purpose behind a forged copy.” He debated sending Lord Ashigaru a memorandum about the quality of help he was hiring, but decided to let it go. Besides, it would be interesting to see how he would do against a village of cannibals.

* * * * *

After Hajime had been gone for a few minutes, Captain Taylor decided to ignore the pirates for a few minutes and decide what to do about the Vikings. He quickly ran through a few scenarios, and decided that the Vikings weren't a major worry; if they decided to attack the Hell's Wrath he could blow them away before they even became a problem; they may have some firearms, but they lacked the cannons that the galleon packed. He then smiled as he realized that they could actually help him.

“I need an archer, immediately!”

Thomlinson approached, the railing. A bit wiry, he was nonetheless a fine archer. “Aye, Captain!”

Captain Taylor quickly scribed a note and passed it to Thomlinson. “I need that message to reach the Viking boat.”

“Not a problem, Captain.” He took the note and tied it to an arrow. He waited for the longboat to approach, and then fired, hitting the cabin just behind the Viking leader. The Viking took the arrow out, and untied the note. He read the note, and, smiling, saluted the ship. They changed course towards the group of birds, rowing with an excited vigor. A general chorus of tension-breaking laughter went up from the galleon.

Captain Taylor looked towards where he had sent the Vikings, and only hoped that Hajime would succeed.

* * * * *

Hajime was beginning to realize that he needed lighter cannisters. He kept flying almost too low, only to find another wind to buoy him out of the sea spray. It took him almost ten minutes to fly the distance, and then he let the cannisters fall to the water below. The cannisters floated on the water's surface, and so he took advantage of them, resting for a few minutes on the cannisters. His wings were aching; he really hated those lycanthropes that had enhanced endurance. He confirmed that the pirates were still coming towards him as he waited. After getting his wind back, and sure that the pirates were still headed towards the birds, he jumped into the wind, and flew back to the Hell's Wrath.

The pirate ship had been almost on top of him when he caught the wind, so he hurried up. He hated having to place all of them together; even a slight course change, and the pirates may miss the canisters completely. However, there was no choice; he needed some sort of cover, and the birds enjoying a fish feast was his only real choice. On the way back through, he wasn't sure if he had seen what he had seen. It just wasn't every day that you saw Vikings on a longboat this far out to sea. Sure, they were nautical geniuses and were constantly doing things others thought were impossible, but it just felt...weird to see them this far away from shore. At least they weren't Ravens in a long canoe; now that would be weird.

Hajime had just about made it back when he heard one of the best things he had ever heard n his life: BOOM! The pirate ship hit the cannisters; apparently running through a group of seagulls was something that they couldn't resist. He could hear the shouted commands from here, punctuated by screams. If he could have, he would have smiled at the pirates being stopped by a small hole just at the water level. If they didn't stop and make basic repairs, they would be swamped quickly enough and begin to flounder. The pirate ship was effectively stopped for as long as it took to do repairs. Most ships carried boards and nails, so it should be okay, at least once the hole was patched up. They were more inconvenienced than anything else.

And then he remembered the Vikings. He did a quick loop-de-loop to confirm, and then felt a pleasant warm sensation. The pirates would have the hole patched up just in time for the Vikings to show up and do what they did best: grab other people's stuff. He wasn't being judgmental, it was just what they did; fish swam, birds flew, Vikings pillaged. As long as they weren't pillaging him, he was okay with it. Besides, it made for some great people to have your back, as you knew that they knew the best ways to defend pretty much anything. And they did have those huge axes, after all.

He then heard what could only be happy cheers from the longboat, followed by even louder commands from the pirate ship. He wanted to turn around and see what was happening, as he was sure it had to be something fun, but he was beginning to tire; sparrows were not long-term fliers. He needed to touch down, and quickly; he was tiring quickly. Yet again he wished he was an eagle or hawk, or even a condor; it was annoying being a mere sparrow sometimes.

He flew right into the cheering crowd on the ship. He barely made it, and had just enough energy to land near his clothes. He shifted, and quickly put on his clothes. He joined the celebration and was hoisted upon the shoulders of the sailors as a hero. Captain Taylor allowed a few minutes of celebration; his shrill whistle brought the men back to reality and they quickly remembered that there was a pirate ship in the area. Admittedly the Vikings would have something to say about that, but it was better to be away from the area when the Vikings were done with the pirates.

In the meantime, he decided to just enjoy the quick celebration aboard the Hell's Wrath. It sort of helped that he was the hero, so he enjoyed the feeling. It wasn't everyday, after all that you saved a couple dozen of your best friends and got handed a tall stein you hoped was beer. He would sleep great that night, but that was that night. You have to enjoy the days when you could.