Scrambled Eggs
****
Scrambled Eggs
The stone ship steamed as it sank, the distance too great to hear any sound from the crew. Cries for help, cries of pain no doubt. Instead all they could hear was the wind, the waves and the gulls screaming outrage, circling the great tower by the sea. Portmaster Miranda looked away. “Tell me, in detail, exactly what happened.”
The Courier Officer kept staring, feet shuffling on the dock. Miranda prompted her again. “It was, it was the usual delivery. A sensitive one for sure. Time was of the essence.”
She tipped back her hat. Down below the lifeboat crew were reluctantly pulling their boat back up the slip. There was nothing they could do. They would risk their lives against wave, wind and tide. But not this.
“We arrived at the Royal Bestiary, to discover another wagon there. Like ours, softly sprung, filled with straw and padding. A military one. The new wizard was there overseeing everything. Making sure we knew our jobs. Of course we did! I have never lost a transportee, never broken a potential.”
A gull screamed, plummeted from the sky, crashing down into the water. Miranda looked up, then down again, then up. The aperture was narrow by design, only facing the sea, which had saved the port. But not the ships out there.
“They brought out the crates, the egg boxes. We sealed the wagons, you saw. They were locked, and unopened until you brought out the duplicate key. We took the box up to the top room, opened it up. You saw the bright white egg. Then we closed it in until… it hatched.”
Miranda peered upwards. “This was not the Phoenix Egg, hatching to light the everlasting flame for the great lighthouse. Some other creature’s egg was substituted. But how?”
As they stared out to sea, there was a moment where something seemed to sweep across the waves, weighing on them. A clatter of feet arrived, another Courier. “Portmaster, portmaster! Grave news. Greathaven fort, the new Basilisk Tower. It has exploded!”
Comments