4 From Fearless truth:

The old healer leaned over the boy. "Girl, you're with Epsilon, do you know what did this to him?"

Lyra nodded and then swore.

"The cask! I must have left it up on the mountain! Oh of all the featherbrained things to do!"

"Cask?"

"We used it to escape the dustbowl. People were almost upon us so epsilon had to drink something that sent himself to sleep immediately. The only thing we had on-hand though was a cask of… of…"

She searched around for a suitable name "Sweet-dreams."

The healer shook his head "Never heard of it. What is it?"

Lyra described the drink to him, raising a few eyebrows from the townsfolk.

"-and so it was meant to be for troublesome customers, you can't resist drinking more and the more you drink, the more effective it is. So that's why Epsilon is sick."

"Well, let's get him along down to the infirmary."

Once Epsilon had been brought down to the infirmary, The old man examined the boy's eyes, peeling back the lids and mumbling. "Do you know when he last ate?"

"Well, no… but probably not since yesterday morning, or earlier."

Her response was not well received by the old man.

"Well, then I'll send for some broth… but, you girl. What's your name?"

"Lyra."

"Well then Lyra, the people living here are happy to see Epsilon for more than what he did for us the last time around. I assume that you discovered the mountain bridge was down." he glanced at Lyra who nodded and added;

"Epsilon found the stumps and said it looked like it had been cut recently… Someone's been cutting them down?"

The healer sighed and wrung out a damp cloth, placing it on the boys forehead.

"Pirates. A ship has been harassing us, slicing through our bridges and attempting to pollute our water supply. We still have the wards, but someday they'll return with someone strong enough to break through them."

Lyra blinked "What wards?"

The healers face slowly morphed into a mask of pure horror.

"How exactly did you get to this island with the bridge down?"

Lyra, still puzzled, answered immediately and truthfully "We flew down, there was only one set of wings, so I carried him and dropped him in the lake just before I landed."

The healer buried his face in his hands "You broke the wards."

"How?"

"We bought them from the guild, to prevent people from flying in and dropping things into our water supply to poison or taint it. But we aren't a rich town, so our wards aren't perfect. If something overpowers them, they'll shatter."

Lyra suddenly saw it. The men back at the inn had been journeymen and they'd been right there to put their strength into the barrier. Although she didn't know much about magic, she did know that having a person there actually casting and maintaining a spell was orders of magnitude stronger than a permanent enchantment. Plus, there had been two of those guys yesterday.

Epsilon might not have even noticed the shield over the water, even in his weakened state.

The woman from earlier walked in, carrying a bowl of steaming broth in both hands.

"How is he?" She asked the healer anxiously.

"He'll be fine. He just needs time to recover."

The woman turned to Lyra "You have no idea how much it means to have him here, I'd almost lost hope, but with your help, friend of Epsilon, we actually have a chance!"

Lyra sank into the chair next to Epsilons hospital bed, while the healer fed the broth to the boy.

"Can't you just magic him good?"

"I haven't had him as a patient before, I don't have a sample to identify the substance and by the same token I've never seen its effects. Lastly and this is most important, if I had more than but a spark of magic in me, do you think that the healers guild would send me out here?"

His voice was sharp and biting.

Lyra was about to apologize when something in her snapped and the meekness, uncertainty, confusion and sadness that had jellified her composure to a shadow of her assertive self, snap-froze in the dark fires of rage.

"How dare you! I may not know anything about magic yet and my request may have been silly, even impossible, but I refuse to allow you to cow me into thinking that I was at fault here.

I wouldn't even be here if Epsilon hadn't tried to hide out at the Rocky Road and he wouldn't have escaped the archmagister if I hadn't sent him to sleep. So instead of simply telling me what we cannot do for him, tell me what we can!"

The old man didn't flinch away, instead he eyed her with a new respect.

"Earlier, you saw Epsilon try and fail to tap into his magic. That means one of two things. He did not correctly invoke the spell, or something is affecting the interface between his mind and his powers.

I can just about invoke a single specific cure for serious ailments per day, but that's nothing unless I know what has happened to him. So we need to deliver the contents of that cask to a volunteer, who I can then observe and monitor. They might suffer for a day, but I'll be able to see what I need to do to cure the boy and that, is the important part."

There was the blare of a horn from somewhere above them.

The man was suddenly wary.

"Pirates. They've been sighted by the sentries. Are you capable of any combat magic?"

Lyra gave it a moment's thought "Maybe?"

"Then take his staff and go up above. Unless they have mage, they won't attack."

Lyra grabbed epsilons staff and hesitated "And if they do have a mage?"

The man didn't answer.

Lyra dashed out into the corridor and paused. The island was riddled with tunnels throughout its base and if she got lost, it would all be over… although by the same token, if she didn't run, it would be too late.

There was the rapid trip-trap of footsteps and Lyra turned to see a small boy approaching at speed.

"Miss mage, is Epsilon okay? They want him up top to uh, negoo… negotiate."

Lyra bit her lip and then leaned over to talked to the message runner.

"No, he isn't okay, not yet. But could you take me up there instead?"

The boy nodded and set off at full pelt down the corridor.

Lyra did her best to keep up, but in the narrow stone corridors it wasn't easy and she was relieved when she arrived the last set of steps. At the top, light bled through the gaps between the wooden boards of the trapdoor.

The boy nodded and then retreated to the nearest side passage.

Lyra stepped up and pushed the wooden cover open. Immediately there was the tinkling crack of a glass phial shattering somewhere up above. Lyra jumped out of the trapdoor and stepped smartly to the right, narrowly avoiding the burst of flame that washed over the stairway.

"Stop!" she raised the staff like Epsilon had, although for her it was more a cane than a full sized stave.

She hadn't quite worked out where to look for the ship, so she just kept looking forward as immobile as a statue, trusting her ears to tell her if they had decided to fire upon her.

Lyra tried to picture herself as the pirates might see her. Apron, dress and staff… not quite as magical as Epsilons unusual hood, but hopefully the fact that she was waiting for them to come to her instead of looking around for the ship, would make them think twice before shooting at her.

Everyone knew that if you tried that sort of thing on a real mage, you could get into some serious trouble.

Would the lack of guild markings make her seem more or less threatening?

Probably more, since guild-member's had to follow rules and everyone knew the fireside stories of rouge mages wreaking havoc on a whim… although, according to Epsilon, those weren't actually real.

Well, they were, but- Welp!

Lyra felt her train of thought derail as the airship rose above the edge of the island in front of her.

She fought the urge to swallow in fear as half a dozen rifles were leveled at her, and wooden flaps on the side of the vessel were pushed out to reveal the wide bore mouths of cannons.

To take her mind off the impending death, she took a look at the first and perhaps last sky-ship she'd ever see.

It was like the ship in a bottle that a travelling tinker had once traded for a pint of mead.

A curved wooden bow and a flat, beveled back- only this ship had two large propellers affixed to the top of the ships rear. The ships sails had been trimmed and the propellers were still. The entire affair was held aloft by a gigantic patchwork balloon. The canvas oval was tethered by innumerable ropes and ties to the main hull of the sky-ship.

What now? Did she tell them to go away?

No, that would make her seem weak. There had to be something she could say to intimidate them, but the words escaped her.

What had Epsilon said last night? Wait, Epsilon!

She gazed at the ship and with all her control, kept her voice level as she announced;

"I am Lyra, Apprentice to Epsilon the Red."

The rifles were lowered.

The cannons retracted and the flaps fell back into place along the side of the ship.

The makers of the ship had relied on cheap, non-magical methods in the construction, but they must have invested in an obfuscation field or something, because she couldn't perceive how many men there were on the ship's deck or where they were. Her eye's simply refused to focus on the deck, like they had with Epsilons staff yesterday.

There was a call from inside the blur.

"Do yer expect us to believe, that you're apprentice to the mage of th' inferno?"

"Yes."

Lyra waited. A brief gust of wind brushed her face, carrying the sound of the pirates frantic whispering.

"Where is he then?"

Lyra didn't blink, didn't flinch.

"Downstairs, we were just about to sit down to a nice meal, when you lot turned up.

So I'm up here to tell you to rack off, until he's finished."

There was a long pause and then the same raucous voice yelled out a reply.

"We think you're bluffing!"

Lyra smiled absently "Really. I guess you don't recognize who's staff this is then. Of course, If you really want me to, I can go and fetch him. Actually, Y'know what, I will fetch him."

Lyra turned towards the stairwell.

"WAIT!"

"Yes?"

"Ain't no one here heard of Epsilon the Red having an apprentice girl. How long you been with him."

Lyra considered her range of options.

"Oh, about four hours. He turned up in my town yesterday, got into a fight that blew up the inn where I worked and killed the man I was working for and when I tried to help him out, I became a fugitive in the eyes of the law and discovered I had magic. Is that all?"

Silence reigned.

"So, you don't actually know any magic."

"Yes." Lyra was serenely calm.

"So why would he send you up here?" The rough voice had become what would have been called crafty, if it wasn't being spoken with all the verbal acuity as a half-brick to the face.

She began to tick off points on her fingers.

"Firstly, I am his apprentice and as such do everything and anything he wishes… And I would ask you to stop thinking along those lines or else I will go and fetch him. Secondly, he can't actually be bothered dealing with you lot himself, since your crappy little ship doesn't have any fire-dampers- and even if it did he'd still break them in a single blow. Thirdly, he hasn't eaten for quite some time and after crossing wands with the Archmagister of the water, he's worked up quite an appetite and lastly, and this is the really important point, do you think I'd be insane enough to walk up here and without knowing a single word of a single spell, tell you all to bugger off if I didn't know that my lord and master downstairs would lay waste to your Entire Goddanm Fleet, if you so much as laid a finger on me?"

The obfuscation lifted and the men on the deck of the ship were clear for her to see. Three ten man rows of riflemen with crystal-locks, a dozen deck-men to tend the sails and crank the propellers, the Captain in his impressive hat on the bridge… and as the riflemen dispersed to the bow and fore of the ship, she saw the mages.

Five men with face-wraps that covered everything but the glass goggles over their eyes and wearing pirate hats, with long overcoats and staves decorated with skulls and blades.

The captain stepped down onto the staircase that ran up to the side of the ship to the bridge.

"Forgive us for doubting you, Lyra apprentice of the honored Epsilon the Red, but we'd like to just confirm that you ain't simply a silver-tongued liar. Will ye consent to a truth spell being cast on your person, just one?"

Lyra smiled "Of course, anything to keep my master from having to turn your ship to a cinder."

The middle mage of the five stepped forward.

"Igni veritas Probat!" He barked the syllables, his voice sharp even through the face-wrap.

A small ball of yellow-white fire burst into being in front of him.

The captain looked from the ball, to Lyra.

"Are you really the Apprentice of Epsilon the red?"

Lyra began and then hesitated as a red flag popped up in her mind "Ye… Actually, technically we haven't done the apprentice contract yet. It would be more accurate to say that I will be the apprentice of Epsilon the red."

The captain himself hesitated and the mage shook his head.

"Well, Is Epsilon the Red really here?"

"Yes. Epsilon the Red is on this island, down below."

Lyra was really glad that he hadn't asked if Epsilon was eating down below.

The ball of fire turned green.

The captain looked at the mage, who nodded very slowly.

As one, the mages all placed their staves on the deck, removed their hats and held them to their chests.

Respectfully, the captain removed his own hat.

The riflemen placed their crystal-locks on the deck.

The captain cleared his throat.

"Begging your pardon miss, we're all terribly sorry for disturbing Epsilon the Red's meal, but might I ask if you'd know how long you'll be staying on this 'ere island?"

Lyra shrugged.

"I honestly don't know. I could go and ask him if you-"

"No! No, We'll be off now! All hand's on deck, hard-a-port! Crank those propellers, everyone, full sail!"

The captain hopped up onto the bridge and spun the wheel, still barking orders.

"More heat! Increase our lift, get moving ye scurvy dogs!"

The ship pulled away from the island rapidly gaining altitude.

Lyra watched as the ship rose and saw that affixed to the bottom of the ship, a great, curved, fifteen foot blade hung. For attacking other ships and severing bridges she supposed.

The moment the ship was out of sight, she staggered sideways and collapsed against the trunk of the nearest tree.