The Hazards of the Old Ones

And the Duke continued on as he was, in search of his elusive self. One point rammed itself home as he dodged Josephina’s bullets and returned fire, he needed a son—if he knew anything it was that. None of the previous dolts he bedded down in matrimony had delivered the goods so to speak, and, if he died with no sons, then the Oyln Dukedom would be at an end—making Lord Milton very happy. If only to spite that lout, he will take a wife and have a son even if it killed him. Someone tough. Someone like Josephina, whom he remembered fondly and memorialized with a grand vault. And Lord Milton, ever the snake, ever the serpent in the grass had the answer … though the obvious connotations were sinister. Lord Milton told him that, of all things, Xaphan Black Hats made wonderful wives—exciting, loving, intelligent, powerful, and extremely dangerous to boot. Some idiot northern League Lord had broken a Black Hat and turned her, so he said … married her and now soars the skies with her at his side. Obviously, Lord Milton could not be trusted. Obviously Lord Milton was an old crutch eager to see him dead, but he was a good source of information. He might actually be onto something. A Black Hat for a wife? He’d not thought of such a thing before, and the idea titillated him. The Duke sat there smoking his pipe and considered the possibilities. The obvious problem with courting a Black Hat was clear: they’re evil. Having dealt with Xaphans for as long as he had, he knew they lived in terror of them—a sect of tiny murderesses in red and black scattered about Xaphan space in their foreboding Shadow tech temples. He recalled seeing one once, flying over Moane in his Goshawk, a black, sullen, windowless structure, seeped in evil, sticking up like a rotten tooth and given a wide-berth by the other buildings in downtown Moane. The Black Hats weren’t just evil, they were mean too, delighting in mayhems and cruelty, in pain and death, and they didn’t care who they inflicted their trade upon—any soul, League or Xaphan, will do. Their temples all featured a huge open door that spewed darkness, and those who happened to wander into the door were never seen again—killed inside like a bug in a web. So, in order to get to the allegedly sweet center of the Black Hat’s heart, the undeniably thorny exterior will first have to be dealt with in earnest. But maybe, just maybe a tamed, in-love Black Hat could answer the life-long question that Josephina nearly had: who am I? And so, the ululation coming from his dungeon. The Black Hat he had captured