Polar Opposites

Ajiin was leaning on the railing of the ship when the twins came running up the dock.  Sabreur sprinted up the gangplank.  Langley leapt, caught the edge, and flipped herself aboard.  The two turned to face their first mate simultaneously.

“The merchant left ten minutes ago,” Ajiin said and Langley swore.  He waited for her to get it out her system before continuing.  “I told him the captain was off on urgent business at the Academy and well, since it’s the Academy, he didn’t complain a whit.”

“They’re usually too scared to pry into Academy doings.”

“Precisely.  Cargo will be loaded up tomorrow and we should be able to get underway the very next day.”

“Yes, about that…” Sabreur began.

Langley shook her head at her brother and nodded in the direction of the hold.

“My cabin.  C’mon.”

Behind the two, Ajiin gave a soft groan that neither twin heard.  It wasn’t just that he disliked being inside a void room; it was also because whenever Langley wanted to talk to him in private, it usually meant something bad.  Like ‘Sabreur’s modification to the center engine caused it to overheat and shut down and we’re due to deliver this cargo tomorrow” bad.  Or ‘we’re really not sure if this was entirely legal’ bad.  And so forth.

Ajiin collapsed at the table, an easy sprawl that hid any sign of unease he might have from being in a void room.  Sabreur remained perched at the edge of the chair in eagerness, interest, or nervousness.  It was sometimes hard to tell with him.  And Langley stayed standing, moving about near the cabinet near the bookshelves.

“Scotch,” Ajiin called out and there was a clink of glass.  A couple moments later she returned to the table with scotch for him, tea for herself, and flavored tonic* for her brother.

“So.”  Langley glanced at her brother.

Never a good way to start.  Ajiin sighed, took a drink, and slouched further down into his chair.

“The Academy, well, an old professor has asked a favor of us.”

“Do we get paid?” Ajiin asked in a monotone.

“Yes.  3,000 argid, and potentially more along with a writ of favor from the government.”

Ajiin nearly spat out his scotch.  Instead, he coughed, choked it down, and then shook himself to recover.

“Writ of favor!  What the hell we doing for the Academy?”

“Investigating undead penguins.”

Sabreur said this so calmly, just like he announced everything.  ‘There’s a pirate ship tacking off the starboard side and they just fired on our engines.’  Like there wasn’t a flaming burning panic mere seconds away and the Ark was just out for a Sunday cruise.  This time, though, the sheer insaneness of what he had said shut down Ajiin’s brain completely.  He took a deep breath, another drink of scotch, and softly asked for the twins to start at the beginning.

They did.  In their odd, broken way of starting a sentence and then waiting to let the other end it.  Like holding a conversation with one person that was very good at ventriloquism.  It unnerved most people – Ajiin was used to it.

“So, they want to know why there’s a necromancer in the poles creating undead penguins.  Right.”

He paused.

“But what I don’t understand is why is this such a big deal?  I mean, if it’s a necromancer, can’t they just send one of the Cadre’s ships out there to take care of it?”

“Well, they’re not sure it’s going to be a standard case of necromancy.  See-“

Here Sabreur cut in to finish.

“-necromancers have to fuel their creations with their own personal ‘mancy.  The undead can draw some of it off their surroundings, granted, but it’s not enough.  Every zombie a necromancer creates wears on the creator, -“

“-which is why necromancers are illegal.  It’s not so much the reanimating of corpses, it’s the fact that they find ways around the drain of preserving their creations in ways that… well, let’s just say there’s a very good reason the books on those crafts are locked away in the depths of either the Cadre or the Academy.”

“I’ve never even seen the books that detail those sorts of things.”  Sabreur’s voice was very quiet.  “But I’ve heard the rumors of what they contain.  Ways to imprison a person’s soul and leech off of it for power.  How to drain the very essence of life from a portion of land and render it barren for years, if not centuries, to come.”

“Nasty stuff.”

“Scary stuff.”

“So what does this have to do with the penguins?”  The twins often needed to be brought back on track.

“Well, since the cost of necromancy is so high – either to the individual or the poor souls around him or her – a necromancer would want to make every zombie they raised count.”

“Right?  So why would a necromancer raise an undead penguin with no will other than its own and then set it loose?”

“Unless they had some sort of massive power source to draw from that they could splurge like that.”

“So we’re looking at either a really stupid or untrained necromancer, a pocket of ‘mancy that’s not behaving as it should, or-“

“-the most dangerous ‘mancer of our time.”

“Obviously, Cadre doesn’t want to charge in there without knowing a bit more.  Since they tend to stand out, they get the Academy’s interest in all things ‘mancy to find more out, then they charge in guns blazing.”

“Course, we don’t get the writ unless we neutralize the necromancer ourselves, but I’m sure we can figure out a way to do that as well."

Langley finished that sentence and neither spoke after that.  Just looked either at Ajiin, or at their drinks.  

“This is not worth a writ of favor.”

“Did we mention that they think the necromancer is hidden in the ice maze?”  Sabreur seemed almost pleased to add that.  Langley merely shook her head, muttered a ‘not helping’ to him, and refused to look at Ajiin.

“Definitely not worth a writ of favor.”

“Look, Ajiin, we’re not going to get the crew involved,” she finally said, setting down her cup and looking him in the eyes, “We’re going down there and pulling out the second it looks too hard.  If we’re dealing with the last option Sabreur and I will be able to tell before we get too close, much less find port.  We’ll take precautions.  Even then, I’m going to have the crew stay with the ship.  There are too many outlaws and exiles hiding in the poles to leave it attended by only the usual amount of crew when we make land.  So it’ll be just Sabreur and I risking our necks.”

“Although you could come along if you want.”

“Hell no.  I know your standard of ‘too hard’.”

“I’ll admit part of this is personal curiosity.”

“Undead penguins Ajiin.  Penguins.”

“We are ‘mancers, after all.  We’ll make that cargo run, stock up on supplies, and head south.”

Ajiin took a deep breath and looked at his glass.  To his dismay, it was empty.

“I have to break this to the crew, don’t it?” he asked miserably.

“Well, since you volunteered, sure!”

He sighed and stood, adjusted his vest and tightened his ponytail.  This was how things worked with the twins.  He’d learned to just accept it and enjoy the ride.



Two days later they set off for a southern island to deliver the cargo.  Twelve days later everyone invested in cold winter wear.  And seventeen days later, Langley’s Ark set off for the ice maze of the south pole.  It would be a couple more weeks before the temperature plunged and the first of the icebergs started to show, which was when Langley and Sabreur took over the helm.



* - Tonic is an early name for soda (or pop, as the barbarians call it).

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