Suddenly, Hesgeynford was split by the sound of a scream.

	A woman came running into view, holding a small child, tears streaming down
her face. "The Lobster!" she yelled. "The Lobster is coming!"

	Around Treisel, the city seemed to screech to a halt. Almost simultaneously,
everyone he could see dropped what they were doing and rushed indoors.
Merchants locked up or simply abandoned their carts, shopkeepers shut and
bolted their doors, and children were rudely yanked indoors. The street
emptied like water from a broken cup.

	Tao and Waj were halfway towards the nearest inn when the door closed in
their faces. Locks shot home with a sound like a percussion solo. Iryien drew
her sword and moved so her back was towards a wall, trying to look in every
direction.

	"I think we're in trouble," Tao said faintly.

	"What else is new?" Iryien muttered.

	"Look, we've survived this long, haven't we?" Treisel said. "What could the
Lobster possibly do that would be so frightening?"

	"You'd be surprised, I think," a voice said from Treisel's feet.

	Slowly, Treisel's eyes met Tao, Waj, and Iryien's, in slow order. As one,
they all looked down.

	A lobster, about the size of a puppy, scuttled along the pavement. With a
muted grunt of effort, it launched itself from the street to the top of a
merchant's fruit stand.

	"What on Earth...?" Tao gasped.

	"I, Miss Feymu, am the Lobster of Hesgeynford," it said. It plucked a cherry
from the cart, and removed its stem with one of its claws. "I am also the
future ruler of the world."

-----------------------------------------
To Hell and Back
The Hardest Workin' 'Fic In Show Business

Chapter 16: Low Fantasy on the High Seas

Begun by Steven Scougall
Continued by Thomas Wilde

dedicated to the girl
-----------------------------------------

	"I am given to understand," the Lobster said calmly, "that you four are on a
quest for the Prophecy of the Spellbreaker. Is that correct?"

	"...you seem to be awfully well-informed for a crab," Treisel said.

	"LOBSTER! I AM A *LOBSTER*!" the Lobster screamed suddenly. It threw its
cherry at Treisel. "If you question my genus, species, kingdom, *or* phylum
again, I shall strip the flesh from your bones and leave you for the jackals!"
It visibly calmed down. "Oh. I do apologize. I have a pet peeve or two, and
that happens to be one of them."

	"Is there something we can... you know... *help* you with, Mr. Lobster?" Tao
asked.

	"Why, yes, dear girl," the Lobster said. "Despite my current condition,
which, I can assure you, is by no means natural, I still manage to keep my
ears to the ground. So to speak. So I have heard that the Spellbreaker is
walking the world, and I know a great deal about the forces seeking to
imprison, slay, or use you. As of now..."

	"Treisel?" Iryien said softly.

	Treisel looked away from the Lobster, and directly into the face of something
inhuman.

	Whatever they were, they had quietly emerged from alleyways and rooftops.
Each wore the rags of clothing, and clutched weapons improvised from fishbone
and scale. Their faces were twisted into a haphazard array of fangs, eyes,
nose, and scales. Not a one of them was less than seven feet tall.

	"...I am one of those forces," the Lobster said. "Take them."

========

	"Here is a great deal of money," Ezekiel said. "Do we have a deal?"

	He sat in the main quarters of a small, fast ship, drifting idly in the sea
between the city of Hesgeynford and the Latverian Isles. The ship, the
Waverunner, flew no flag.

	The ship's captain, a tall dark-skinned man who answered to "Mordecai",
counted Ezekiel's coins, cleared his throat, and looked up. "All of this for a
single girl? Is she an archmage or a princess or something of the sort?"

	"She's guarded by a novice wizard and two warriors, but she herself shouldn't
be any trouble to you," Ezekiel replied. He slid a charcoal sketch of Tao
across the table; smaller sketches of Treisel and Iryien were scribbled in the
margin. "As you can see, she's young, and is also somewhat naive. If you do,
somehow, encounter a problem while you're acquiring her for me, I'm willing to
double that already-generous fee."

	Mordecai looked like he was about to ask another question for a moment. He
finally used his arm to sweep the coins towards his side of the table. "We
have a deal, sir."

	"Excellent," Ezekiel said. "I'll expect results in two days' time." He
vanished from Mordecai's chambers in a twinkling of golden light. He
reappeared in a copse of trees, two miles from Hesgeynford's walls.

	A smile spread across his features as he emerged from the trees and began
walking towards Hesgeynford. With any luck, Feymu and her companions were
still as ill-heeled as he remembered them being, which, in its turn, would
lead to them hiring a ship that a group of pirates, such as the ones who
crewed the Waverunner, could easily capture.

	Ezekiel knew when a situation called for relative subtlety.

	The true appeal of this, he reflected, was that he hadn't even bothered to
borrow or steal real money to pay the pirates with. A simple cantrip, albeit
one that no human wizard had taught a pupil in a hundred years or more, had
transmuted a handy mud puddle into a king's ransom in gold coins. The
deception would hold until either the pirates tried to spend it, or some other
wizard undid the cantrip.

	Of course, Ezekiel doubted that the latter would happen. What self-respecting
wizard would travel with a group of pirates?

========

	"It's faerie gold," Caemryn Haviland said. She tossed one of the coins back
to Mordecai. "It's pretty, but the moment we try to spend it, whoever gets it
will wind up with a handful of leaves and mud."

	"So it's a hoax," Mordecai said, mostly to himself. "I should've known."

	"Yes, you really should have. If it's too good to be true..." Caemryn, the
Waverunner's wizard, put her feet up on her small writing desk. "What are you
thinking?"

	"I'd like to know what's going on." Mordecai lay down on Caemryn's bunk and
closed his eyes. "We had to miss a fat merchant's vessel to meet with that
man, and he thought he could fool us. I may have to find out what that man's
plans are."

	"Why? So you can interfere with them?"

	"If need be," Mordecai said. He opened one eye. "Incidentally, love, I
couldn't help but notice that you're..." He gestured expansively. "I mean,
here I am, *on your bed*, and..."

	"Are you surprised that I'm not throwing myself at you?" Caemryn said dryly.
"I swear, I don't know why I married you."

	"Why wouldn't you? I am, after all, a charming, handsome rogue--"

	Caemryn threw her blouse at him.

========

	"Lightning!" Treisel shouted, and three of the Lobster's creatures went down
in a flash of blue light.

	Iryien was right behind the lightning bolt. She ran straight at one of the
creatures and dove between its legs. It swung at her and missed, and by the
time it got its club back up, her sword was already buried in the back of its
knee. It yelled in pain and fell, but not before Iryien used it as a
stepping-stone to get at another creature's neck.

	Waj simply waited for one of the creatures to attack him. As its spear came
down, he stepped out of the way and stuck his pitchfork underneath its right
arm, locking its shoulder joint. The creature's hand went numb, it let go of
the spear with that arm, and Waj punched it in the stomach. As it doubled
over, its spear clattered to the street, and Waj knocked it unconscious with a
kick to the face.

	Tao had scrambled into the back of the wagon the moment the fighting started.
Nervously, she looked back and forth from Iryien to Waj to Treisel, all of
whom had grim expressions on their faces. They were doing well for the moment,
but there were more of the Lobster's creatures coming down the street.

	She realized that she could hear muffled chanting. Tao stood up on their
wagon, behind Waj, to try to figure out what she was hearing. She found out
quickly, but, unfortunately, too quick to help Iryien or Treisel.

	"Explosion!" the Lobster shouted.

========

	Treisel had been trying to figure out, in between Lightning and Fire spells,
why the people of Hesgeynford were so frightened of the Lobster. His minions
seemed to fall easily enough.

	Then he heard the Lobster finish his spell.

	He noted that, yes, the street did seem to have irregular, round patches of
stone, like it had been frequently and unevenly repaired. He noted this
because he was half-conscious, and lying facedown on the street. He could see
Iryien through his peripheral vision, who looked like she was in a similar
state.

	He tried to get up, but there was no air in his lungs or strength in his
arms. "Tao," he croaked.

========

	"What in the--?!" Tao yelled. "How do *you* know magic?!"

	"Did you honestly think I was *always* a damned lobster, Ms. Feymu?" the
Lobster said. "Paralysis!"

	Waj, in the middle of stabbing one of the Lobster's creatures in the gut,
froze in place, like a statue. Tao knew that because he fed on magic, he'd
break free of the spell much faster than a human would. It still wouldn't do
her any good.

	"Gentlemen," the Lobster said, speaking to his creatures, "take Ms. Feymu and
her friends."

	"What are you going to do with them?" Tao asked. She realized she was holding
a chunk of firewood from the wagon, and dropped it; it wouldn't've done her
any good.

	"The same thing I do with all of the people I capture," the Lobster said.
"Your friends have cost me nearly a dozen of these servants of mine. They
shall replace them."

	"You *made* these things?"

	"Oh, please. I'm a lobster wizard, and you're surprised? The 'good people' of
Hesgeynford stood idly by years ago while a traveling witch turned me into a
lobster. It's only fair that they should pay me back, don't you think?" The
Lobster's claws clacked together. "Whatever you're worth should pay for
another few years' worth of research, Ms. Feymu..."

	Tao looked at Treisel, back at the Lobster of Hesgeynford, and made a
decision. "Treisel, I hope you can hear me..."

	She started chanting.

========

	Treisel's eyes widened. Adrenaline surged through his veins, and somehow, he
found the strength to sit up and toss himself on top of Iryien. "Barrier," he
whispered softly.

	"What is she--?!" Iryien said, struggling to get up.

	"I don't know, Iryien," Treisel said. A translucent dome, barely visible to
the naked eye, formed over them both, anchoring them to the street. "I really
don't."

========

	The Lobster of Hesgeynford knew that Tao Feymu was the Spellbreaker, and that
a great many people on a great many planes wanted her, alive if possible, dead
if not.

	What he didn't know, for all his studies, is exactly what the Spellbreaker
was.

	So instead of having one of his creatures slap Tao, or something else that
would've kept her from finishing her spell, he contemptously barked out the
words to a spell of Silence.

	Hilarity ensued.

	Tao's aura caught the Silence spell and played with it, stretching the
spell's parameters like salt water taffy. By the time it shot the spell back
at the Lobster and his creatures, it had gone from being an unassuming,
harmless cantrip to something not totally unlike a transparent battering ram.

	The only thing that saved the Lobster from instant death and/or being
someone's dinner was that several of his creatures had already come close to
Tao. The "ram" hit them and dissipated, but not before it sent seven of the
creatures flying like badminton shuttles. One of them actually cleared several
blocks of the town, landing several hundred yards offshore. The rest were
thrown backward, some digging ruts in the freshly repaired cobblestones, and
fetched up, unconscious, against the walls of various buildings.

	"What... how...? What on Earth was *that*?" the Lobster asked of the world at
large. Its eyes were twitching back and forth, as if to look for the men
holding the wires.

	Tao didn't bother giving him an answer. She said, almost to herself,
"Water."

	She pointed at the Lobster, and the skies suddenly darkened. It went from
late afternoon to midnight in a quarter of a second, and the wind kicked up to
about forty miles an hour. Loose papers and bits of garbage swirled into the
air, as did Tao's hair.

	"What's going on? Since when did *she* know magic?" Iryien asked.

	"Since we were students at the University," Treisel said. "Last time she cast
this spell, it somehow turned into a Storm, and--"

	Then it started to rain.

	Of course, it was raining frogs, but that's neither here nor there.

	Also, of course, just because a rainstorm is throwing hundreds of frogs down
on the streets of a town doesn't mean that there won't be any lightning.

	The Lobster, with another "mighty" leap, threw itself clear of its fruit cart
just before it was obliterated by a bolt of lightning as wide as a wagon
wheel. The smell of freshly cooked frogs' legs drifted lazily through the air,
accompanied by the croaking of a million frogs as they bounced around the
streets. People slowly, hesitantly, opened their windows to see what was
causing all the racket, were abruptly visited by several frog houseguests, and
closed them as quickly as they could.

	Tao stood in the middle of her "storm", her hair floating around her head
like static electricity. She let out a sigh of relief.

	As usual, what she'd done wasn't pretty, but it had done the trick.

=========

	"Captain!" one of the Waverunner's men shouted. "You might want to see
this!"

	"I was *busy*," Mordecai snarled, coming abovedeck shirtless. The sailor
handed him a spyglass and pointed towards the coast. "What the *hell* could
possibly be so impo -- what's wrong with Hesgeynford?"

	"We were just sailing towards it, like you asked me to earlier," the sailor
said, "when suddenly..."

	They were looking at Hesgeynford from a distance of about forty miles (insert
nautical terminology to taste).

	There was a black cloud over Hesgeynford. Right over it. The rest of the
coastline was clear.

	"Wizards." Mordecai sighed. "It must be wizards." He could feel a headache
coming on.

========

	"We have a problem," Treisel said, entering the Faithful Hound.

	"Yes, we do," Iryien replied, throwing down her plate. "If I eat frog's legs
*ever* again, I'll get violently sick."

	It had been two days since their fight with the Lobster. The people of
Hesgeynford were still chasing frogs out of storm drains and cellars, but were
appropriately grateful to the party who they thought had chased the Lobster
away, possibly for good. The fact that no one had actually *seen* the Lobster
since Tao's storm didn't really make an impact; after a couple of decades'
worth of being the "town with the Lobster", the townspeople were just glad to
have something to be optimistic about. Since Tao's storm had also temporarily
stopped ships from departing (too many frogs in the rigging), they had been
taking a well-deserved break.

	Unaware of the festering mass of exposition that had just flown over his
head, Treisel put a scroll on the table. "I've been helping the townspeople
track down the Lobster's hideaway. I found this inside it. It's a map of the
temple where Tao's prophecy is kept."

	"Well, that's excellent, isn't it?" Waj asked. He downed another mug of
"saviors of the town drink for free" ale. This was his forty-seventh. It was
noon.

	"Sort of," Treisel said. "Read the scroll."

	"I'm afraid I can't read right now, Treisel. Tao?"

	"'The Temple of the Lost Gods'?" Tao read aloud. She read quietly for a
moment, her expression growing darker and darker. "According to this, the
temple's been abandoned for decades."

	"Yeah," Treisel said. "The priests who used to maintain it were all members
of some heretical cult. They believed that the gods that everyone else
worships are newcomers, who killed an older pantheon and took their place.
They're... not pleasant to read about." He shuddered. "In any event, something
they did caused them to abandon their temple. No one who goes there--"

	"Wait," Iryien said. "'No one who goes there ever comes back'?"

	"Yes, that's it exactly."

	"Yahoo!" She jumped up and thrust her fists in the air. "Let's go! That kind
of thing is worth *major* extra credit! Early graduation, baby!"

	"You want to go face an unknown threat, one that's possibly incredibly
dangerous, because it's worth *extra credit*?" Tao said slowly.

	"You bet!" Iryien looked like she was about to start dancing. "If I was sane,
I wouldn't still be with you guys! I'll go charter a ship!" She dashed out the
door.

	"...she's not quite all there, is she?" Treisel asked.

	"Not really, no," Tao said.

	"She's sort of cute, though," Waj said. "Barkeep!"

========

	The ship Iryien had found for them was called the Waverunner. It was small,
but fast, and the price she'd negotiated for passage was well within their
limited budget. Treisel carried one more bag up to the deck, where they'd be
sleeping, and shook the captain's hand.

	"My name's Mordecai Haviland," the captain said. "Welcome aboard my ship."

	"Treisel," Treisel said. "Pleased to meet you. ...I should probably warn you,
though. I'm a wizard, sort of."

	"Just don't throw around any fire, and we should get along just fine,"
Mordecai said. "You're going to the Latverian Isles?" Treisel nodded. "All
right. We can let you off at the easternmost island, near the beach. I'm
afraid that for various complicated reasons, I'm not going anywhere near any
of the established ports."

	"Why's that?"

	"The ruler of the Islands charges foreigners an arm and a leg to use his
ports," Mordecai said with a smile. "I have expressed my distaste with this
policy."

	"So you're a criminal?"

	"One man's criminal is another's free-thinking adult."
	
	Treisel squinted at Mordecai. "If you don't mind my saying, you don't *sound*
like a ship's captain."

	"It's my wife's influence. She's far smarter than I am. If you'll excuse me?"
Mordecai disappeared below deck.

	Treisel shrugged, mostly to himself. He was slightly suspicious of Mordecai,
but for what he was paying, he couldn't afford to be particularly choosy. He
put down his bag, turned around, and found himself face-to-face with a woman
in her late twenties. She was wearing a trenchcoat and fedora, carrying a bag
of her own, chewing gum furiously, and had a loaded crossbow strapped to her
wrist.

	"And you'd be Treisel Arrayarli," she said through the gum.

	"Yes?" Treisel said, taking a cautious step back.

	"Chancellor Hatstring hired me to find out information about Ms. Feymu," the
woman said, "and ever since I took the case, I've been chasing both you and
shadows." She set down her bag. "I figure that if I'm actually *with* you,
that's one less thing I'm chasing."

	"...excuse me?"

	"You're going to the Latverian Isles," she said. "I'm going there too. My
name's Rahve Lisken. Private investigator," she added as an afterthought.

	"Okay," Treisel said. "Pleased to meet you, I think."

	"The feeling's mutual," she said. "At least if I'm with you, I don't have to
put up with Bulman any more. He found something more important to do in town,
and I haven't seen him since."

========

	"This is *fascinating*, Ms. Poshtin!" Pavel Bulman said, scurrying around
with a double armful of books. "Some of these volumes have been missing for
*years*!"

	"That's great, professor," Genni said. She snuck a quick drink of sherry
while he was pawing through the shelves.

	They stood in the Lobster's hideout, which was little more than an alcove in
Hesgeynford's sewer system. It was damp, cold, and stunk to high heaven, but
the Lobster had apparently expended considerable effort to amass a library of
arcane lore. Bulman figured, from the books here, that the Lobster must have
been one of the leading authorities in the world on shapeshifting and the
undoing of curses.

	Some of the books on the shelves were actually the property of the Zinnonean
University, and had gone missing when one wizard or another had seen the need
to travel by sea. Those wizards hadn't been seen again, and now Bulman could
guess why. More appropriately, he would get around to guessing why when he was
done ransacking the Lobster's library. He barely remembered why he was in
Hesgeynford in the first place.

	Both he and the tipsy Genni missed the sound of claws clicking on stone.
Slowly, a sodden and dripping Lobster crept into its hideout, fresh from the
sea floor. It was in a homicidal mood. It planned to murder the two wizards
who were pawing through its books -- scratch a mage, find a thief -- and find
out more about the Spellbreaker. Then, the Lobster figured, it would kill the
Spellbreaker too.

	"Eek!" Genni shouted. "A bug!"

	Genni Poshtin tipped a bookshelf onto it. The Lobster's plotting came to a
sudden end.

	GOOD EVENING, Death said to it. I'M SORRY, BUT I'LL NEED A CROWBAR. I'LL BE
BACK SHORTLY.

	Underneath the bookshelf, the eternal soul of the Lobster of Hesgeynford had
itself a good, long cry.

========

	They had been at sea for several hours. Night was falling slowly, and the
stars were coming out. Iryien, still a little wary of the woman who had rudely
invited herself along, was trying to appreciate them.

	"Iryien?" Tao said, coming up behind her.

	"Hey, Tao," Iryien said. "Isn't this rom--beautiful?"

	"I guess." Tao scraped the deck with the toe of her boot. "I... wanted to ask
you a favor."

	"Name it." Iryien turned around. By moonlight, she thought, Tao became quite
a lot more kissable. She decided that sooner or later, she would sit down with
paper and a pen and work out just how much more kissable Tao was.

	"I've been thinking about something. Treisel's got his magic, and you and Waj
can fight. Every time we run into trouble, I just kind of sit around like a
bump on a log and hope you guys win." Tao put her arms behind her back. "I'm
not expecting much, but we've got a couple of weeks' worth of ocean travel
before we reach the Latverian Isles. I was hoping you could teach me how to
fight."

	"Really?"

	Tao nodded. "One of the sailors has a spare quarterstaff. Do you know how to
use one?"

	"Yes, actually. It's part of the beginning courses at the University. Easily
Improvised Weaponry I, with Doctor Mandrake." Iryien thought about it for a
moment. "When did you want to start?"

	"In the morning, maybe?"

	Iryien smiled. "It's a date." Literally, she thought.

========

	"The girl with the sword likes the other girl," Caemryn said to her husband.

	"Really?" Mordecai said, not really paying attention. They were standing on
the other end of the ship, using the last of the sunlight to go over
Mordecai's maps. "You know, I overheard the big one in the robes talking to
the boy. They're planning to go to the Temple of the Lost Gods."

	"Isn't that place supposed to be condemned?"

	"In theory," Mordecai said, holding up a map to the light. "It's one of those
things that the ruler keeps promising to do, but he knows the kind of price
he'd have to pay to cleanse the place. If he did it, he'd come home to find
himself overthrown. In any case, I'm more and more interested in what our
'client' wants with these people."

	"What do you have planned?" Caemryn asked. She leaned against the rail and
watched Tao and Iryien talk.

	"I'll make up my mind on the subject if they come back from the Temple." He
squinted at her. "How do you know that the girl likes the other girl?"

	"My wild college years," Caemryn said idly. "I've been around."

	"Really."

========

[To be continued...]

========

Author's Notes:

It's weird; this is the third Impro chapter I've written, and all three times,
real life has screwed me over and I wind up riding the edge of the deadline.
I'm ImproCursed.

Okay, so I screwed up the character dynamic again. Sue me. Rahve's too
interesting to be shuffled off to the sidelines the way she has been, and I
figured Ezekiel's clever plans would have to involve a surrogate at some
point. It just so happened that I made the surrogate a band of pirates. Sorry
about introducing more characters, by the way.

Thanks to Steven Scougall for sending me a bunch of ideas about the Lobster of
Hesgeynford. I wound up not using them, but I still appreciate the thought. My
first idea sort of self-destructed on me, so I decided, what the hell, let's
have a fight scene. That fight scene sort of led to Tao learning how to fight,
as all she seems to do in fight scenes is save the party through creative use
of her aura. (Note to future authors: her aura really needs to backfire
spectacularly one of these chapters.)

If I had my druthers, the next few chapters would be great for a 1950s
pulp-fantasy sort of adventure; I mean, it's a *ruined temple*, for gods'
sakes. How Robert E. Howard is *that*? All sorts of neat things are in ruined
temples, like magic swords and undead monsters and the Prophecy of the
Spellbreaker and stuff like that. I know that this sort of thing is very
Western, and this is an anime-based site, but c'mon.

Anyway. Here's hoping someone else runs with this.

Thomas Wilde
storyteller@msc.net
http://www.dimfuture.net/elsewhere/