Rowley's Roar #5

For today's blog post, one of the fictional characters from my novels will be sharing a few messages. No, I'm not going crazy. I'm just having a little fun with writing from the perspective of one of my characters, to explain her music.

Without further adieu, please once again welcome Captain Edwina "Roaring" Rowley, who shall be taking a moment to explain another song from an album we're compiling.

Ripe for the Taking

Well, little itches, today I have to tell you about my lowest moment. In retrospect, it may also have been the turning point for my...life. Hehe. In a black sort of way, that's pretty funny, but today isn't the day to explain that.

At this point, I'd been working for the Dead Queen at least a decade and I'd proven myself well enough to become part of her inner circle, but I'd never forgotten my primary goal: to destroy the undead witch, once and for all. Every little thing I did was meant to bring me closer to that day, to free all of the pirates from the scourge of living under her rotting thumb.

The real ironic twist is how much I hate old women. I ran from Matron Talbot, to escape her ridiculous prejudice against my music, only to end up in the clutches of an even older witch.

However, I had to play my part, lest she destroy me. I attacked more courier ships than I could count and sold their crews into slavery. I killed more than my fair share of men, just because I valued my own life over theirs.

That's the trouble with the Dead Queen: she made us into dark little reflections of herself and I was no exception. All I truly cared about was my music, but to survive to play, I had to kill. However, I'm not apologizing or making excuses. I'm just telling my little tale of woe.

I heard rumors of a trio of sisters and witches that had recently rocketed into space from Cakana, the old harvest moon that used to feed the whole system.

The rumors claimed the youngest sister was a mathematical genius, able to chart direct courses through space, just like a Newt Witch. That's what caught my attention, because a witch with that kind of talent is worth a King's ransom in the pirate slave markets.

Between a little scrying magic and some old-fashion detective work, I found them just as they left Ice Palace Three, in orbit of Usdal. I never saw such a small ship move so fast and realized some rather superior engineering work had gone into the design. That's when they deployed their light sails, picking up even more speed.

I crunched the numbers and projected the course in my mind, quickly concluding they were on their way to Ice Palace Sixty-Eight at an unprecedented pace. Following the navigation tables of the Ice Palaces, that would have been a nine month journey, but they were going to pull off the same trek in mere days!

That told me all I needed to know: the rumors were true and a latent Newt Witch with no affiliation really had entered the space lanes.

I decided to go with the old 'remote empire' con, a trick it'd never seen used, but which was famous among the pirates, but which the common man has yet to catch onto, because the con only works every few centuries.

To summarize, the moon in the highest orbit around Junas, Taneas, is extremely difficult to reach, because it's in an elliptical orbit, rather than the usual circular shape. Since Taneas is so hard to reach, it has become the center of rumors and myth. Some claim it's a place of incredible wealth, while other insist it's inhabited by demons.

For my money, I think it's probably both, because every star ship that's approached for landing in the past hundred years (mostly pirates seeking the wealth) was shot down by long, solid tungsten rods flying at a significant fraction of the speed of light, making my ship's death ray look like a toy. I saw it first-hand, scrying from my ship while one of my compatriots entered the atmosphere.

We call such weapons Rods From God, all mass and velocity, with no exploitable weaknesses. When they hit, the impact is usually explosive, though I don't quite understand how, but I suspect it disturbs the nuclei of atoms, which can be a dangerous thing to do.

The first shot was a through and through that left the bridge wide open to space, then two more took out the engines and let me tell you, those were the slowest shots fired, at only ten percent of light speed, while the third and final gathered the energy required for the coup-de-grace: seventy-five percent of light speed. When that Rod From God hit, the entire ship was vaporized.

It would seem the people of Taneas want to be left alone and that suits the pirates just fine. Presumably, the Newt Witches know about that political situation, but they're not likely to share the details and I certainly never heard about it, at least until I became a pirate.

So, the essence of the 'remote empire' con is a personal invitation from the ruler of Taneas to come visit the world, to discuss acting as the ruler's go-between with the rest of those in orbit of Junas. Naturally, the go-between would get a percentage of all sales and they would be helping a people that have trouble trading with others, due to the orbital disharmony.

When the sisters were halfway to Sixty-Eight and just before I set off for Taneas, I dropped off one of my crew with a hand-written note, which was passed to the Port Commander, a nice little touch that gave the matter an extra measure of legitimacy. The sisters believed every word and wanted to help 'those poor people' that couldn't reliably trade.

I watched and waited, eager to earn more money than I'd made on any previous job.

If I'd know then what I do now, I probably wouldn't have done it, but on the other hand, I just don't know...

Marta, Iris and Amelia Blackwell were my greatest foes and facing them led directly to my greatest defeat. Marta smashed up my ship with a space rock, Iris somehow twisted a remote-viewing spell into something more physical, kicking the living crap out of my bridge crew and Amelia used perfect timing to fry all of my fighter pilots with the engines of her little ship, just as I was about to take them prisoner.

My pride was shattered and I was defeated, with Glass House left adrift in space. My poor first officer even lost a tooth and my mythril guitar got used as a club to beat me with, doing more than a little damage to it.

That left me in the unenviable position of acting on standing orders: I contacted the Dead Queen via a long-range bone transduction spell and told her of my defeat, because she has a taste for the souls of powerful witches.

I thought the Blackwell sisters were three lost, little lambs, because their reputation was so lily-white, but they proved themselves to be wolves in sheep's clothing, thrashing me within exactly an inch of my life. I sometimes wish they'd just gone the extra inch, but then I look back on all the sh...crap that happened after that and it almost makes up for the crow I had to eat.

The Queen's downward spiral and the ensuing feeding frenzy from her lieutenants is the subject of more than one song to come, so I'll leave things there, for now.

Here's today's song, named in reference to my flawed initial impression of the Blackwell sisters, Ripe for the Taking:

Here's a link to the MP3 file, if you'd like to download it.

Ripe for the Taking is copyright 2026, Owen Tyme, all rights reserved, but free for your personal enjoyment. Lyrics by Owen Tyme, music generated by ACE-Step 1.5. E-mail me if you want to use it for something else.

Tags: audio, music, roaring-rowley