The Boiling Seas Not-Christmas Special

To round off 2022, here’s a little treat for you all.

Because I write every day – every day – I end up writing during the festive period. And because it’s not particularly jolly to write bloody battle scenes on, say, Christmas Eve, I like to take a break from my main narratives and give my characters a festive break too. ‘Christmas’, of course, doesn’t exist in the Boiling Seas universe, but there’s something close enough.

Happy New Year, everyone.

“I do miss snow,” said Lily. She set down her bundle with a thump and stretched, looking out to the steam-wreathed horizon. “Really made it feel like winter, you know?”

“We had two white Solstices when we were kids,” said Tal, putting his own bundle down with significantly more care than his sister’s and rolling his scarred shoulder. “Two, out of fifteen. We didn’t exactly grow up in the bloody North.”

“These things make an impression,” Lily replied. “On clever children, at least.”

“I’ll make an impression in your face if you’re not careful,” Tal grumbled, but he grinned, and Lily stuck her tongue out good-naturedly.

“Two hundred and thirty years ago,” said Max. Her bundle practically shook the earth when it fell, and she leaned heavily on her knees for a moment.

“What was two hundred years ago?” Lily asked.

“The last time it snowed on the Corpus Isles,” Max said, straightening. “The coldest winter in recorded memory. It melted by the next morning. But it was two feet thick.” Lily whistled. Max smiled. “When there’s all this moisture in the air, it’s got to go somewhere,” she said.

It certainly didn’t look like snow today. Even the day before the winter Solstice, the coldest time of the year, the Corpus Isles and the Boiling Seas around them were positively balmy. Tal had put on his leather jacket, but the scalding water and the steam that rolled constantly off it were more than enough to keep things pleasantly warm. More so down here at the shoreline, in a little sheltered beach just west of the charmingly-named Murder Point, tucked into the cliffs below the towering Lantern. Tal had found it when examining a very old map, and had been pleased to discover that the cove was not only still there, but appeared to have been left untouched for all the intervening centuries. Or at least whoever else has been here tidied up after themselves, he thought. It wasn’t like it was a difficult journey down – they hadn’t even had to climb, though the path had gotten a bit treacherous in the wind. But all three of them had made it down to the beach, and now it was just them, and the sand, and the warm salt wind.

“Come on then,” Lily said, rubbing her hands with glee. “Let’s get started!” Tal rolled his eyes. For as long as he could remember, she’d woken him up with the dawn on Solstice – at least when they’d been living together as children. Clearly her convalescence hadn’t dulled her spirits.

They unrolled a colossal chequered blanket to lay on the sand, and Max produced a couple of bottles of wine and a very fine set of glasses in a leather case from her enormous bundle.

“You didn’t need to lug those all the way down here,” Lily protested as Max poured wine into the glittering crystal glasses.

“It’s Solstice,” Max said firmly. “If you don’t get the fancy stuff out then, when do you?” She flushed a little. “Besides, I got given these years ago and never used them. Never had anyone to use them with.”

“Well, I’ll drink to that,” Lily said, raising the glass Max handed her. They all followed suit. It was good wine, Tal thought, taking another sip. Very good. And still cold, by some miracle of artifice – or, he thought it more likely, by the rime of frost that Max was surreptitiously brushing from her fingers.

They sat back in the warm breeze for a moment. Tal closed his eyes and felt it rushing in from the sea, flowing over them, up the cliffs and spilling over onto the island behind them.

“Come on then Tal,” said Lily. She was practically bouncing in her seat, as excited as if she were still eight years old. Tal rolled his eyes.

“She’s never changed,” he said to Max. “When we were at home, when we were on the street. I caught her trying to escape the bloody hospital back when she was ill.”

“You’d have tried too, stuck in that place.”

“To get out into the world, yes. To open my Solstice presents?” Lily scowled. Max laughed.

“Well, we’re all here now,” she said, “and we’re all well. Unless anyone’s got any bombshells to drop?”

“Tal’s going to be missing some fingers if he’s not careful,” Lily said, patting the buckle of her sword-belt. Tal raised his hands in mock surrender.

“Get the presents out, Max,” he said, “quickly. She’ll be drowning us in the Sea if we don’t hurry up.”

They wedged their wine-glasses upright in the sand and each unwrapped their bundles. Each of them had two parcels. Tal’s were neatly wrapped in brown paper. Lily’s were just as neat, but the paper was brightly coloured and wrapped in equally bright ribbons. Max’s were twice the size of the others, but it was unclear how much of that was present and how much was the many crumpled layers of paper, tissue and what looked like note-paper, complete with notes.

“No wonder your bags are always so heavy,” Lily commented, mock-wincing as Max passed her one of the huge presents.

“It’s fragile!”

“There’s such a thing as cotton-wool.”

“I know, there’s half a reel in there as well.” Max blushed scarlet as Tal tried to read a page of notes on the bottom of his package. “I ran out of good paper, alright?”

“Aren’t these from the Marr heist?”

“We didn’t need them anymore!”

“A Solstice miracle,” cried Lily, raising her glass. “Max has voluntarily thrown something away!” There was laughter, and even Max joined in once Lily and Tal had both given her warm smiles to show they meant nothing by it.

“Who’s first then?” Lily asked, eyeing her two presents eagerly.

“I mean, obviously you,” Tal began, but Lily shook her head.

“No, no, me last.” She looked at her gifts in Tal and Max’s hands. “The only thing better than getting presents is giving them. Come on!”

Max began to carefully slice open the paper with her fingernail. Tal held his present up, turning the oblong over gently, flexing it.

“Book,” he said, “hardback… but a newer printing. That’s cloth, not leather. Three, four hundred pages?”

“You’re really still doing that?” Lily asked. “You can’t just let it be a surprise?”

“The surprise is better if you narrow it down,” Tal said, finally starting to tear open the paper. “Too many possibilities otherwise!” He beat Max’s meticulous opening, unveiling a cloth-bound hardback book of three hundred and fifty pages. Tales of the Moribund Kings was etched in gold along the spine. Tal beamed at his sister.

“Been wanting to read this for ages,” he said.

“I know,” Lily replied, smiling. “You forget, I know where you keep your list.”

“I thought someone had been through my bag!” Tal immediately opened the book and began to read. Max leaned over his shoulder.

“I’ve seen this one around,” she said. “DuChamp does good folklore compilations.”

“Stop looking at his and open yours, woman!” Lily cried, throwing her hands up. “You’re as bad as each other!” Max obediently finished slicing her paper open. Within was a wooden box – polished mahogany, Tal noted – which bracketed a sleek reservoir pen, brushed metal and gilded accents, and a series of ink-bottles in several different colours.

“You’re always using pencil,” Lily said – a little nervously, Tal though – “and you write so bloody much. And it dries fast, and they said it ought to work at altitude as well. And under pressure.” Max carefully took the pen out, examined it. Deft fingers took it apart to reveal the ink reservoir, which she filled, shook the pen, then wrote a few careful letters on a scrap of paper from her pocket. She grinned.

“Smooth as silk,” she said, and beamed at Lily. “It’s perfect.” Lily sighed with relief.

“Should be a travel case in there too. I was praying you didn’t already have one.”

“You knew she didn’t,” Tal pointed out, “because you broke into her office last week and checked.” Lily elbowed Tal hard in the ribs and knocked him off the blanket, but he was laughing as he fell.

“I gave both of you keys!” Max protested. “You could have just walked in!”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” said Lily. “You need a new lock, the one on your door’s rubbish.”

“You can get me one next year,” Max said, shaking her head.

“You were the one who decided to befriend a pair of thieves,” Tal pointed out.

“You showed up on my doorstep with a crossbow bolt in your shoulder,” Max retorted. “It was hardly my decision.”

“And yet here we all are,” said Lily cheerfully. She raised her glass, and they all clinked them together once again. Tal uncorked the second bottle of wine. We should probably have brought some food, he thought.

“Right, me next,” said Max, pointing at the misshapen parcel each Wenlock had been given. Tal hefted his. It was lighter than its size would suggest, but there was so much paper crammed around it that it was impossible to tell what its real shape was. Lily chuckled as she watched Tal turn the package over in his hands, holding it to his ear and frowning as he heard nothing.

“I might get you to wrap all of his next year,” she said to Max.

“It’s… hollow,” Tal said weakly. “I think?”

“You are correct,” Max said with a smirk. Tal shook it gently, once more, then sighed and began to tear away the layers of paper. It took him some time. Lily started on hers, too, in the interests of not being there for a month. After many layers and an awful lot of string and glue, Tal triumphantly pulled free a long leather cylinder with caps of beaten metal, and two metal rings to attach an adjustable strap that he found inside the cylinder.

“A map case?” he asked excitedly, testing the stiffness of the leather before slinging the whole thing around his shoulders on its strap.

“Better than shoving them in your bag,” said Max. “And with what we’re off to do I figured you’d need a bit more storage space.”

“Definitely beats folding them up,” Tal said, grinning. To prove it, he rummaged in his satchel for a crumpled map of some distant island chain, smoothed it out, and furled it carefully before slotting it neatly into the leather tube. There was plenty more room to spare. “Thanks, Max.” The scholar smiled, satisfied.

“Here we are,” said Lily, finally piercing the layers of paper. There was a leather-and-metal case within. When opened, Lily whistled at an array of vials of oil and a series of long, flat stones with a perfect colour gradient from pale grey to black. She held one up to the light; at the right angle, its surface glittered.

“I went to the Guard swordsmiths down in Malice,” Max said, a little embarrassed. “With a list from Willard.”

“I think he only meant for you to get one, Max,” Lily whispered, comparing the whetstones, one by one. “This is… all the grades. Chef’s knives to axe-heads. And all these oils…” When she looked at Max her eyes were filled with delight. “You’ve made her a very happy girl.” Tal ducked as Lily slid her belt-buckle – and the sword-blade that came with it – free of the concealed scabbard wrapped around her waist, some very clever magic stiffening the belt into a straight and slender sword. Lily ran her thumb across the edge and winced. “I think we’ll have to start from the coarse one.”

She put the sword down in the sand and gave Max a long hug. Tal examined his map-case until Lily let go of the furiously blushing Max. She was blushing herself, but Tal pretended not to notice.

“That leaves mine,” Tal said, motioning to the last two presents in their brown paper wrapping. Lily carefully closed her case of oils and whetstones and began to tear into her parcel. Max took a more sedate approach, but she was less precise than she’d been before… and Tal noticed that Lily was deliberately slowing down to let Max get there first.

The paper came away, and Max held up a thick journal, its cover heavy, carved leather, its pages heavyweight paper.

“It’s lovely,” she said, but Tal could tell she was slightly disappointed. He grinned.

“Check the spine,” he said. Max did so.

“Oh,” she said, “that’s clever.” She twisted the copper catches on the spine, and the whole cover came away from the leaves of pages within. Each segment of the book could be separated, as showcased by Max as she did so, examining the catches and connectors that held everything together.

“Now you can file your notes and keep one book,” Tal explained. “Or, well. Fewer books.”

Max frowned as she poked her finger into a gap in the cover, then brightened. She slotted Lily’s reservoir pen into place. It fit perfectly.

“Almost like we planned it,” said Lily, and she and Tal slapped hands with a grin.

“It’s lovely,” Max said, smiling broadly at Tal. “I’m sure I’ll find plenty of use for it.”

“A month,” Tal said.

“Six weeks,” Lily countered. Max frowned. “How long it’ll take you to replace the pages,” Lily explained, and Max chuckled.

“Depends where we’re going next!”

Lily had returned to tearing into her own present. Within the neat brown paper she found a padded wallet. She held it up, frowning.

“Nice,” she said. “I appreciate your optimism that I’ll be filling this up.”

“Look inside, for the love of all that’s holy,” Tal said, rolling his eyes. Lily opened the wallet – and it unfurled, rather than unfolding, revealing a velvet interior studded with slender lengths of metal.

“Oh, now we’re talking,” said Lily, face splitting in a huge grin. She slid one of the metal skewers free. It was carefully, meticulously jagged. She flexed it with her fingers. “Nice,” she murmured. “Very nice.” Tal dug in his bag and tossed Lily something heavy, which she caught deftly. It was an iron padlock.

“Give them a try,” he said. Lily smiled, found the torsion wrench in the wallet of lockpicks, and set to. She had the lock open within seconds, but immediately re-locked it and tried again with a different pick. There were almost two dozen, each a different shape, from waves to hooks to rakes, some stiff, some flexible, all useful.

“I know a guy,” Tal said, “near the docks. He’s good.”

“He certainly knows his business,” Lily said, unlocking the lock for a fourth time with a triumphant grin. She tucked the picks away and vanished the entire wallet somewhere into her clothes. “I’ll make good use of these. Thanks, little brother.”

“May the gods help the people of Malice,” Max muttered.

“Oh, Malice is far down the list,” said Lily. “I’ve got a whole tower full of interesting artefacts to nose around first.” Max groaned.

“Don’t worry,” said Lily. “I did your office already.”

As Max groaned again, Tal refilled their glasses with the rest of the second bottle of wine. He raised his.

“Happy Solstice,” he said. “Here’s to another… interesting year.” Lily and Max raised their own glasses.

“To mysteries,” Lily said, “and to solving them. And to making a profit into the bargain.”

“To friends,” Max said quietly.

“To family,” Tal said, smiling.

They drank. Then they sat together before the scalding horizon, in the warm wind. The Boiling Seas were endless, and so were the possibilities. It would be a very interesting year indeed.