FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I submitted this draft as an initial post for possible publication but it was rejected on length... too long. *LOL* A second submission cut out a lot but was still quite a bit too long and I chose not to present it here.

Edit:

August, 2010.

This story has been selected for publication, in it's slightly shorter and much corrected form, in an anthology of other Furry themed stories published by Anthropomorphic Dreams Publishing (http://www.anthrodreams.com/) sometime before the end of the year.

Sorry about some of the glaring flaws in this version... wow, I need to edit it properly at some point. *laugh*

---

###

Worlds Collide

Things were not right with the world and the storm knew it. It had been founded upon a small seed of meteorological chaos in the local weather and begun building late that evening much to the confusion of forecasters. It was only now approaching the boiling point, ready to unleash it's fury on the world below. The mischievous fingers of its wind found an empty steel trash can and sent it clattering nosily down the street, batting it about like a cat toying with a mouse. When the trash can finally lodged itself against the curb the wind went looking for other toys. At the back of one house it found a screen door and playfully thrummed the thin screen covering the wooden frame. After a few swats from the wind the flimsy latch sprang and the door crashed open against the side of the house with a resounding crack.

The sound brought Guy out of a deep sleep with a start that shook the whole bed. He snorted in surprise and hastily rubbed his face with one hand, listening for more gunshots. He could have sworn that was the sound he heard, that sharp crack so unsettlingly close. He could hear the shrieking howl of the wind outside but that did not immediately register with him. Unsteadily he swung his legs off the bed and grabbed for his sweat pants in the dark, snatching them from the footboard while his toes felt after the house shoes kept near the same spot. His eyes darted to the digital clock on his nightstand only to find it dark.

A shooting had occurred only five houses down the street a week before between rival criminal groups and he had listened to the entire fight in fear. The sounds of the guns that night had been numerous but distant. The sound that had wrenched him from his sleep had been a hell of a lot closer and that sent a shiver of fear down his spine. Just the idea that organized criminal groups had established enough of a toehold on his quiet suburban street was unsettling enough, but when they began waging war it was something far worse. The idea that they were at it again made him seriously consider moving; immediately, in the middle of the night.

He grabbed his cellular phone from the dresser and staggered to the bedroom door that was just a darker void in the tomb-like darkness of his bedroom. The light of the display was so blinding he had to use a hand to shield his eyes while he read its information. 12:53 AM, July 3rd, 2009. The weather display said clear and cooler with no chance of rain but it had not updated since nine the previous night. He grumbled when he saw that there were no signal bars; the storm had damaged more than just the power lines.

Even the streetlamp across the street offered no diffuse light to see by; it was as dark as his clock. Considering the rage of the wind outside he would have been surprised had he not lost power. In the distance he could hear the growl of thunder. Again came the resounding crack of sound and Guy froze at the top of the stairs in heart-racing fear followed a second later by a protesting metal squeal ending in a lesser smack. Guy frowned upon realizing it was just the back door on his porch swinging in the wind to strike the side of his house. He pondered slinking back to his bed but knew the rattling of the door would keep him awake even if the coming storm did not.

Using the illuminated display of his cellular phone as a very poor flashlight he awkwardly shambled through the house. Guy lived alone and worked alone working remotely as a software troubleshooter for several major application and web developers. He had almost been married, once, but it had atrophied to the point of disillusion without either of them ever really noticing. Sometimes he even missed having someone close with which to share his triumphs, but then work would busy his life again and such concerns faded into the background of Code.

Carefully he groped down the hallway into the kitchen and made his way to the utility room. From there he opened the back door and stepped out onto the screened porch where his bicycle was kept. The wind had actually managed to tear some of the screens at the far end of the porch and knock his bike over but by the dim glow of the phone's display he saw it before he fell over it.

He was bending over to right the bike when some movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. It was not the madly swinging back door but the shadowy form that surged through it that caught his eye. By the time he registered that he was not alone the intruder was upon him. Straightening he half turned only to find a strong hand shoved into the center of his chest pushing him bodily back toward the open door into the house.

"Back, back!" a voice, harsh and growling, reached his ears as he staggered backward. "Shit, shit, shit! Get back inside!" Guy fell back through the utility room door and only kept upright by leaning heavily against the clothes washer. Whomever the intruder was he could not see, their head was turned back toward the swinging screen door. The phone in his hand did not offer enough focused light to do more than define a general shadow. Guy reached for the open back door but before he could slam it on the intruder the shadow-cloaked form lurched into the house and pushed him back once more before grabbing the door and slamming it. Outside the sky flickered dimly etching the neighboring house in brief light and creating a vague silhouette of the intruder in the window of the back door.

Guy moved back reflexively toward the kitchen trying to put some distance between himself and whomever had chosen his house to seek shelter in. Another flicker of lightening outside the house etched the heavily cloaked form in pure black for a heartbeat and something about it did not strike the right chords but Guy could not at that moment understand why just the shape put an even greater chill of fear in his gut. "What the hell?" he managed to squeak past the lump in his throat and his own racing breath. In his chest he felt his heart trying to beat a hasty escape restrained only by his ribcage.

"They're nearly here, get down!" the intruder growled angrily, turning toward Guy and finding him out of arms' reach. Ducking below the window of the back door the shadowy form darted through the utility room and into the kitchen with surprising speed. When he, for its voice seemed male enough, reached out to pull Guy down his grab was blocked by a panicked sweep of Guy's arm. The cellular phone was a glaring square of white that illuminated nothing enough to see beyond general dark shapes. With a snarl the intruder moved to the window over the sink and, leaning forward over the counter, looked out into the storm brightened darkness beyond.

"Who is?" Guy hissed while he dodged away from the intruder. With one hand he felt along the counter top for anything he could use to defend himself but only found the toaster and coffee pot. That meant that his knives were well out of reach near the sink where the intruder stood. With his other hand he hastily tapped out nine-one-one on his phone but it just buzzed when he hit the send button; no signal. He scrabbled around on the counter top looking for anything he could heft, be it a coffee mug or rolling pin. The pans were also out of reach hung from a rack above the stove.

"Decievers." Reported the intruder, half turning his head to speak over his shoulder. A flash of lightening outside the house created a brilliant white square of the window above the kitchen sink that silhouetted the intruder starkly. Guy felt his heart suddenly halt in startled surprise before it resumed its earnest attempt to escape the cage of his ribs when his eyes picked out the details he had only glimpsed previously. A long protuberance like some sort of ventilator mask stood out from the intruder's face but the gleaming point at its tip, and the white line of jagged edges along its length, froze him in place like a deer in headlights.

The gleaming point that tipped that strange out-thrust length was a nose and below that it was stitched down the half open mid-line by a zipper of glistening white teeth. Guy let out a squeak of surprise but could find no words to voice his horrified realization. Another stroboscopic flicker defined the form a little more clearly even as the crashing thud created by the earlier flash shook the entire house. Guy's rapid moving eyes picked out a long extension jutting from the back of the coat. What he had earlier assumed was only the billowing of the coat in the wind turned out to be something else entirely.

A tail!

"The rain will blind them," the intruder panted in that strange growling dog-voice as he stepped back from the kitchen window, "they'll lose my scent." Moving past Guy, who hastily scrambled out of his way, the queer monstrosity swept into the living room. "But we have to stay away from the windows, their eyes are sharp even with the storm."

"FUCK!" Guy finally managed to find his voice but the sound that emerged was more a croak than outraged bellow. "Who?! What the fuck?"

Turning back to him in the middle of the living room the shadowed silhouette shook himself. He strode back toward Guy who scrambled back with his backside sliding along the edge of the counter top. He braced himself with one hand and raised the other to ward off his unintended guest. "Decievers." The intruder said once again, "Hunters, they are looking for me."

"What the fuck are you?!" Guy felt the edge of the knife block with the hand behind him and grabbed clumsily at the hilts thrusting from the wooden holder.

"Keshari Anator, clan lupus." The intruder explained while lightening flickered outside lighting the house like an old style movie theater. Guy could see his guest more clearly in the intermittent light. It, he, was indeed some sort of canine but like none that Guy had ever seen and, outside of fever dreams, would have ever have imagined seeing. "The Deceivers have captured my ship and crew. I alone escaped and now they are hunting for me."

"No shit why not!" Guy felt the hilt of the butcher knife at the top of the block and wormed it free, "Animal control should be after you!"

The intruder, who in total actually stood a few inches shorter than Guy, who only was only of average height, growled and shook his head. "Look, I'm as freaked out here as you are." He took a step forward and Guy sidled a hasty step away. He brought the butcher knife around and brandished it before him defensively only to find that the intruder had a blade of his own, one much better suited to the task of fighting. Where he had produced it from so swiftly was beyond Guy's ability to fathom but the shining length of polished steel in the wolf's hand was enough to make him want to wet himself. The man-wolf's blade was a basket hilted double edged blade almost two feet from hilt to tip and he held it as if he knew quite well how to use it. He stalked toward Guy with the blade held steadily before him with one black gloved hand, "Put the blade down, human, I am not here to do anything but get away from the Deceivers."

"Stop talking!" Guy shrieked in horror, holding the cell phone up with his other hand with the display pointed toward the upright beast in the hope that it would blind him All it did was cause him to turn his head slightly, his near eye gleaming a muted green in the phone's wan light. "You're a god damned dog! Dogs don't talk!" he yelled as he was pushed back into the corner of the kitchen by the sink. Thunder cracked like a cannon shot on the heels of a blinding flash of blue white that lit the entire interior of the house with the intensity a magnesium flare. The wolf's eyes flashed a bright, startling green and his shadow danced around the room like a demented bat. Guy let out a startled cry as his eyes told him that the wolf was charging and he leaped forward, bringing the butcher knife across in a savage sweep. He never heard the whistle or metallic ring of metal on metal but before he could reverse his sweep he realized that his hand held only air.

And the wolf was in his face.

A strong hand pushed against his naked chest and shoved him back against the counter while a cold tip of razor edged steel pricked under his jaw. He could smell the wolf, a strange mixture of wood incenses that was hardly what he would have expected of a wild animal, musty half-damp animal fur, and the hot breath that struck his nose was dank and beastial. Small beads braided into the creature's pelt clicked as the beast leaned in, "I am not a DOG! Calm your ass d... urf!" The wolf started to growl but was silenced with a grunt when Guy drove a fist into his gut so solidly it lifted him up and pushed him back a pace. With surprising reflexes despite the punishing blow the wolf twisted and raised his weapon to strike the panicked human with the basket hilt.

Guy saw it otherwise, the long blade rising up to slice and he responded by sweeping his arm in a wide arc, intercepting the wolf's forearm and pushing the strike down and across the wolf's body while he sidled rapidly in the opposite direction. His arm slid over the wolf's, hooking under his shoulder, and jerked the wolf's forearm up into Guy's armpit. The sudden movement dislodged the cell phone from his hand and it landed on the counter to slide under the microwave. With his own arm barring the wolf's elbow, upper arm, and shoulder he effectively locked the wolf's arm out straight while he brought his free hand up to the nape of the man-like animal's neck and pushed downward. The wolf's muzzle slammed down onto the counter top solidly enough to cause a yelp but Guy did not stop his rotation. With the wolf's weapon arm trapped under his own arm he threw his weight into a wide turn, dragging the animal's muzzle down the counter top and sending kitchenware scattering from counter to floor with a series of loud crashes. Staccato detonations of deafening thunder only accentuated the sound of destruction taking place in Guy's kitchen.

The wolf tried to brace his free hand against the counter top and ward his head against its painful travel through Guy's kitchenware but with his weapon arm pinned he could hardly maintain his footing. Guy, with the rubber soles of his house shoes, had far superior traction on the linoleum and had the upper hand. The wolf's paws seemed to lack any sort of footwear and his pads could find no traction whatsoever. He was flung about like a rag doll while Guy tried to remember the rest of the technique he had started.

How the hell to disarm his enemy.

Around and around the kitchen they spun scattering appliances until the wolf managed to grab the faucet of the sink. It was an antique steel affair rather than the newer plastic gadgets and arrested the wolf's spin as effectively as an anchor. Holding onto the faucet the wolf jerked violently at the arm Guy had pinned in that tight serpentine lock. Such jerking only aided the homeowner for, as the wolf's elbow slipped a little loose, Guy abruptly shifted his locking arm and grasped the wolf's forearm. With his other arm he hammered the back of the wolf's upper arm, locking his elbow and shoulder and slamming his muzzle soundly into the enameled interior of the heavy cast iron sink. Dishes were swept from the drying rack to shatter on the floor and, under the strain of Guy's adrenaline pushed panic, the wolf could barely control how his body was thrown about much less his own weapon. His hand lost its grip on the sword and it clattered over the bar to land in the dining room, the direction of its arc lost in a momentary dark lull between lightening strobes.

Releasing the faucet the wolf twisted to drive his free hand into the center of Guy's face with as much strength as he could muster. Guy grunted at the sudden flare of pain, rocking back as he felt his nose deform under the gloved fist of his unwanted house guest. Stunned by the assault his grip loosened and, like a furred snake, the wolf writhed free. With his shoulder the wolf drove Guy back even as the wolf ducked beneath his flailing arms and tried to dart out of reach.

Guy kicked out with one foot and hooked the wolf's ankle, however, arresting his flight and pulling them both to the floor. Reaching out he snagged the nape of the wolf's coat and hauled him back across the floor, trying to wrap his arm around the intruding animal's throat. He only half succeeded, getting one arm under the wolf's chin, but a rapid series of sharp blows into his ribcage from the wolf's elbow drove the breath from his lungs. He refused to release his hold, however, and struggled to a crouch that bent the wolf over double underneath him.

Moving his free hand up to the top of the wolf's head Guy tried to press the beast's head into the crook of the elbow around his throat even as he gathered his feet underneath him. He had lost a shoe when he tripped the trespasser but that hardly hampered his traction on the linoleum and slowly but steadily he put pressure on the back of the wolf's head. He was not sure if he would come out victorious despite his superior position, strength, and weight due to the harsh, bruising blows the wolf kept delivering with first one elbow and then the other into his unprotected ribcage driving the breath from his lungs. His vision swam with stars and flickering light that had nothing to do with the storm outside but he held on and lifted the creature bodily from the floor.

That was a mistake.

Twisting his lower body the wolf planted his feet against the edge of the counter and kicked back with surprising strength. Guy staggered under the force and weight of the wolf and slammed back against the refrigerator. The wolf's head snapped back at the impact and hammered the back of Guy's own hand into his nose producing a blinding flash of agony. Guy's vision swam and each gasping breath of air came with its own attendant ache. Stunned weakness loosened his arms and the wolf writhed free, falling to his knees and hastily scrambling across the kitchen floor toward the living room with a skitter of claws.

"You dirty bitch's cunt!" the wolf gasped in fury from the safety of the living room as he held his own throat with one hand. The other felt his muzzle to see if it was still correctly attached to his face. "Calm down, damn your tailless ass!" his voice was a choked croak, "The Decievers may hear this war despite the storm!"

Guy stood in the middle of the wreckage of his kitchen and panted heavily, eyes casting about for a new weapon, "Calm?!!" he shrieked, likewise breathless with the pain of bruised ribs, "Calm! You fucking invade my house and tell me to be calm?!!" He swept a toppled glass from the countertop and flung it at the wolf. The missile struck its target in the shoulder producing a pained hiss. "You come at me with a fucking sword and tell me to be calm!?"

The wolf stabbed a finger toward him, "You drew steel on me, you furless ape! All I wanted was a place to hide, not a damn melee!" He had to brace his unsteady crouch with one hand while he panted heavily for breath.

"Shit, find a doghouse!"

Lightening flared the wolf's eyes green as he glared across the distance of the living room and kitchen, "I am not a fucking dog!" he growled, a low sound that was almost lost under a crash of thunder. "I am Clan Lupus, not some piss ant mongrel begging for scraps from the captain's mess!"

Guy slumped back against the counter and wiped the back of one arm across his nose. Pain blossomed freshly in his face and he moaned, his legs quivering like jelly. Dimly he noted the streak of blood that was left behind on his arm and the taste of blood in his mouth. Abruptly he let out a whooping bark of laughter, a vaporous spittle of blood exploding from his mouth, and he saw the wolf's ears come upright, briefly, before flattening back against his skull. During their skirmish his hood had been ripped from his greatcoat. It lay like the carcass of a small dark animal on the pale linoleum of the kitchen floor. "You're a furry!" he guffawed, pointing at the wolf and spattering blood from his mouth with every word. His nose felt like a shard of glass attached to the front of his face. A shard of glass wrapped in a pillow.

The wolf's head tilted slightly and his tongue gleamed briefly in storm light as he licked his own bloodied nose. "A what?"

"A Furry! Holy shit, a real one!" Guy shook his head stupidly and leaned back against the countertop. His backside hammered a half opened drawer closed with a rattle of silverware. "Anthropomorphic animal... a talking dog, hah!"

"Wolf." The intruder growled.

"What the FUCK ever!" Guy snapped, giggling stupidly as his adrenaline crashed and his knees turned to water. Slowly he sank down against the cabinets until he was sitting amidst the wreckage of his kitchenware. The wolf settled back on his haunches with the long bush of his tail extended horizontally behind him. One hand was braced on the floor beneath his knees while the other clutched the end of Guy's settee. "Dog, wolf, what does it matter? Screw a bitch in the alley and it's all the same; mutts."

The wolf snorted derisively, "You humans... it doesn't matter the world, you're all damned crude."

Guy snorted a giggle and gagged on a gobbet of blood that he had to clear from his throat before he could speak. He spat it heedlessly on the debris strewn floor. "An alien furry, holyshit." His head bobbled from side to side, "'It doesn't matter the world.'" He pantomimed in a false growl. He rubbed his aching nose with the back of his arm again, awakening eye watering pain afresh, and only spread more blood on his skin. He finally noticed that he had lost a shoe in the scuffle and his sweatpants where half down around his hips but he did not care. "Beam me up, wolfy." He giggled a little more maniacally, leering across at the wolf, "Take me to your leader."

The wolf cocked his head and one corner of his muzzle lifted exposing sharp edged white teeth in a disgusted moue. Outside the rain was a steady roar that choked the wind's howl to a drowned moan and lightening flickered almost constantly. Thunder carried on a deep-throated conversation with itself and the entire house shook in wood framed fear. Dimly the screen door hammered the outside wall fitfully. "Have you cracked, human?" the wolf growled curiously.

Guy feared that he had, indeed, cracked. He could not stop giggling stupidly. Blood was dripping from his chin and he dared not try to sniffle lest the pain of his very possibly broken nose make him pass out. The white linoleum around him was littered with the amassed goods of his solitary life; a shattered dry goods bottle lay amidst a churned swath of ground coffee, scattered cutlery, and smashed dishes. He saw the base of his too expensive blender dangling by its cord in the corner by the sink but where the carafe was he could not see. "Furry invasion, news at eleven." He chortled and grasped his head with both hands, letting out a frustrated howl.

"Look, man, just take a deep breath, okay?" the wolf growled advise, "Sorry I scared you, I didn't expect you to meet me at the door."

Guy slowly raised his head and sank down fully until he was sitting on the blood smeared floor, "Why my house?"

"The door was open." Shrugged the wolf with a sigh. He rested both forearms on his knees, hands dangling between them while he squatted in the same place looking for all the world like he was trying to defecate. "I was just going to duck under cover until the storm came in and wiped my trail."

"Animal control'll be all over your furry ass." Guy warned, "What are these Decievers you're running from?"

"Hunters, thieves. They attacked us during transit tuning and we had to crash slide." Slowly the wolf rose and Guy watched him warily but all he did was stalk to the windows of the living room to peer out through the curtains. What he could see through the downpour Guy could not guess. He watched as the wolf moved from window to window cautiously, not moving with any apparent discomfort despite Guy's best attempts to remove his head minutes earlier. "I was on the foredeck during transition. I got thrown overboard during evasive maneuvers and managed to swim ashore while the Decievers took the ship."

"Fell overboard? Not a space ship, but a water ship?"

The wolf looked back over his shoulder, body silhouetted briefly by a blinding blue-white flash that seared the after image into Guy's retinas like a photo negative. The deafening crack of thunder that rattled the windows and shook the house caused the wolf to crouch reflexively and even Guy ducked his head. Something struck the roof of the house and noisily rumbled down the pitched incline to crash noisily in the front yard. "Of course a water ship, what other kind is there?" the wolf said after the thunder faded. He crossed the living room awkwardly on all fours until he was a few feet away from Guy. Despite being a wolf he looked about as coordinated on all four limbs as Guy would have.

"Oh, I don't know... a space ship?" Guy fluttered his fingers in a hovering motion and made a laser-pistol whistling sound.

"If I knew what this space was you spoke of... but no, it's a sailing ship. A tri-hull planes slider." Crossing his legs the wolf sat down and draped his arms over his knees. Up close Guy could see that he wore some manner of legging like Renaissance Faire costuming that was tied just above a deep, narrow knee covered in thick fur. The lightening strobes did not offer enough light to tell what color it was other than 'dark'. His legs were typical canine, with a short calf from knee to hock and a long cannon ending in a broad, five toed paw complete with pads and surprisingly stout claws. The wolf tugged the gloves off of his hands which turned out to have features identical to his paws; pads and neatly polished black claws.

"Space... as in between stars." Guy grunted. He felt like a sack of one-hundred percent pure grade-A shit. He doubted he had the strength at that point to stand if he wanted to and every muscle was beginning to ache. His nose sent stabbing jags of pain through his skull with each breath but at least the bleeding had slowed. The crust of drying blood on his face and arm was hugely irritating but he could not bring himself to move enough to reach the sink. "How did your ship get here, then? Sure as shit this ain't your home world."

The wolf waved one hand impatiently in Guy's general direction, "Look, what is your name, human?" he growled, slumping down to sit fully and crossing his legs at the hocks. Guy noticed that, other than the loose leggings and greatcoat the wolf wore nothing. Not that he would need to, Guy imagined, with a full coat of fur. "I'm Keshari Anator, as I said before."

"Guy." Guy grunted, dropping his arms to his knees and leaning heavily back against the cabinets behind him.

"Guy? Just... Guy? You've no surname or clan?" Keshari tilted his head and pricked one ear forward curiously. The other twitched rearward at a thump against the house from some storm whipped foliage or debris.

"Guy, short for MacGyver. Surname is Adams, clan of Me." He found himself also scanning with his eyes with each stroke of lightening, which was pretty close to constant, fearfully expecting whatever the wolf's enemies were to come crashing through the windows at any moment.

Keshari nodded slowly, "I did not scent anyone other than yourself here." Abruptly he grinned, white teeth gleaming in the stroboscopic actinic flashes. Thunder cracked with sounds like whole trees being rent asunder by titanic hands, often so loud they either had to pause their conversation or shout over it. "Lucky for me, yes? You had me damn worried there for a second, you fight like a cornered rabbit. Two of you and my pelt would have been decorating your parlor floor by dawn."

Guy snorted, "Rabbit?" and then winced in pain and covered his nose delicately with one hand.

Keshari licked his muzzle and winced, touching one side of his nose with his fingertips, "Hmmm, yes, rabbit. Never push one back into its warren, Guy of no clan, they'll beat you every time."

"I'll take your word for it, I've never seen a bunny fur fight." Guy shrugged exhaustedly, feeling every minute of his missed sleep. He cracked a huge yawn and winced as his nose objected to the motion of his facial muscles.

"To answer your question, we sail the ley lines from plane to plane. The worlds are all geographically the same, but the magic potentials are always different." Keshari explained, shrugging out of his great coat. It rustled to the floor to pool around his hips while he snaked his tail free to let it drape around his hip and lay across his lap. "The cultures and people, too." He added with another white toothed smile. Strange, Guy thought, how he didn't find the flash of teeth threatening after their earlier tet-a-tet.

"Magic?"

"Mmhmm, magic. This world's magic is a frightful mess, but there's a lot of it. It's locked up in chaos because of your reliance on technology, but there's an ocean of the stuff. Unfortunately you'd spend half of what you could tap just stabilizing it enough to use." The wolf ran a hand over his head slowly, looking just as exhausted as Guy felt. "There's enough latent stability for some small things to keep working, like my speakstone." His hand came down to tap some manner of pendant around his neck. There were many small objects on that lanyard and braided into various bits of fur. On his upper arms were bronze or some similar metal cuffs, likewise around his wrists. "That's why we can understand each other's speech."

"That's a plus, an English Werewolf in Pittsburgh," Guy giggled a little but stopped himself before descending into hysteria again, cracking another yawn. "Where is this ship of yours now? How will the Deceivers keep the local police from getting curious about a trimaran floating down the Allegheny?"

"They're the Decievers, that's what they do... they deceive. No one will see anything out of the ordinary even if they look right at it." Keshari sighed and shook his head, "They have to wait a few days for the charge banks to recover because of the chaotic magic here so they'll probably find a mooring somewhere."

"What will they do with the crew when they're ready to make way again? Where will they go?" A particularly startling crash of thunder made both of them duck and somewhere beyond the house a long, slow cry of tortured wood heralded the fall of a tree. Guy felt a shudder through the floor when it hit the ground but luckily it did not come through a wall.

"Put them off if they don't kill them out of hand and pitch them overboard. They don't need them to crew the ship enough to slip it back to a less hostile plane where magic can be more easily tapped. Lacking the ability to manufacture the line runners they have to capture them." Keshari's ears pinned forward while he tilted his head, "You should try to sleep, you look like you're going to pass out where you sit. I can keep watch until dawn." He frowned, an expression Guy could read even on the strange facial structure of the wolf. "Unless you want me to leave."

"Fuck that." Guy waved a weak hand, "You're here and I guess if you were going to kill me we wouldn't be talking." Guy reached up and tried to pull himself up by grabbing the top of the counter but could only lever himself half way up before the exhaustion of his adrenaline rush, and lack of sleep, put a stop to that. Keshari pushed lethargically up onto his feet and stepped over to help him up. The feel of the wolf's fur under his arm was strange but Guy was well beyond caring at that point. Claws pressed against his skin as he was helped up to his feet. "Tomorrow, though, we'll figure out what to do with you."

Keshari helped him stagger his way through the lightening lit house to his bedroom and let him flop back onto his bed heavily. He sat on the edge of the bed panting at the exertion and yawned hugely, the length of his tongue curling up along the roof of his impressively wide maw. Guy noted that the wolf's teeth were distressingly long and in good care. He was thankful the wolf had not chosen to chew on him during their melee. He flinched when the wolf reached over with one hand, knuckles prominent in long fingers tipped with claws. "A moment, if you would. I mean no harm." Guy steeled himself but did not protest as the wolf reached down and drew two fingers down along either side of his nose.

"What're you doing?" He asked timorously.

"Fixing your nose, Guy, hold still a moment." Bowing his head the wolf rumbled some strange phrase that did not translate, "This is going to hurt." He warned. Guy felt a sharp sort of heat rushing to his face that was far from pleasant in his current condition. "A lot." Abruptly the wolf squeezed his fingers together and made a short, sharp pulling gesture. Pain exploded through Guy's face eliciting a cry of pain and a sound like grinding rocks cracked through his skull. Consciousness swam alarmingly and he fought to keep hold of himself but failed. Lightening flickered brightly beyond the bedroom windows but was only a distant gray illumination that fled away with Guy's consciousness.

---

Consciousness returned with light, but it was only the diffuse gray aura of an overcast, stormy day. Guy could still hear the rain but it had faded to a steady fall rather than the deluge of the previous evening. He lay there a moment hoping that the whole previous night was just a bad dream but the bone deep head to toe ache disabused him of that wish. A glance toward the nightstand showed that power had not yet been restored; his clock was still dark. He lay there taking stock for several minutes, looking about the room and seeing nothing out of the ordinary. His face felt as if he'd gone five rounds with a baseball bat but the sharp agony of his broken nose was not present. He raised his hand to give his nose an experimental rub with a fingertip and was pleased to find that, other than a skull throbbing ache, it was intact and did not hurt nearly so much. He saw the smeared remnants of his own long since dried blood along his forearm and winced at what his sheets must look like.

He swung out of bed and stood shakily with one hand braced on the headboard while his feet quested for the house shoes he usually left at his bed side but found nothing. He quashed the habit and wove his way unsteadily to the master bathroom, once more giving in to habit as he reached up and tried the light switch. Of course it did not work but that did not stop him from giving it a half dozen frustrated flicks. Going to the medicine cabinet he poured a handful of painkillers into his hand without bothering to count and gulped them down with a glass of water.

One small blessing was that his hot water heater was gas and he availed himself of it, standing in the shower for several long minutes soaking his weary muscles in almost scalding hot water before getting to the task of washing himself. He spent a good thirty minutes soaking up the heat and waiting for the painkillers to kick in before bathing and finishing his shower. The house was silent and he considered the thought that his strange alien intruder had snuck out in the night. He dressed in a fresh set of sweats which were his normal attire since he did much of his work from home.

Habitually slapping the light switch before walking out of the bathroom he stumbled back downstairs to see if his intruder had left.

He had not.

Guy found his strange guest in the living room sprawled out asleep on the couch, muzzle hanging open, feet thrust beyond one end of the couch while one hand draped the floor and the other was flung over the back, when he reached the bottom of the stairs. By the light of the day the wolf looked no less alien than the night before. His fur hue was that of a typical wolf in deep grays and pale creams and in a sorry state of disarray on what looked like a generally fastidious half human, half bestial body.

"Hey, wolf, it's morning." Guy grunted, giving the end of the couch a thump with his foot as he wandered past toward the kitchen. The floor was still littered with the debris of their late night melee; shattered glass, scattered silverware, appliances, coffee, and blood. He had left quite a smear on the floor and cabinets where he collapsed after the fight. At a glance it looked like someone had met an unpleasant end in the kitchen.

Keshari grunted and closed his jaw with a snap, struggling with the couch to sit up and look over the back of the sofa at him. "Mmmhnuah..." he grumbled, scrubbing his face with his hands. "Still raining."

Guy peered out of the kitchen window at the steady fall of rain beyond, "Looks like rain all day, probably tomorrow."

Keshari levered himself to his feet and padded into the kitchen, whiskers and ears drooping as he surveyed the damage. "Aww, shit, man." He whined and heaved a deep sigh, "Sorry about your galley."

"S'just stuff." Guy muttered at the damage, finding and filling the carafe for the coffee maker from the sink where it had landed. "How much sleep you get?" Luckily he had a fresh container of coffee in the shelf over the counter so he did not have to collect the grounds from the floor.

"Enough to run with, I guess." Keshari stretched hugely, arching his back and reaching toward the ceiling as he growled loudly. Guy busied himself preparing the coffee machine and forced himself not to look over his shoulder at the sound of that groaning growl though a lance of ice raced up his spine.

"Any idea what you're going to do now?" Guy set coffee pot into the brewer and flicked the power switch on. Nothing, of course, happened. Guy hissed angrily and snapped the switch off. "Ah, fuck."

Keshari chuffed a small breath of humor upon realizing that his human host was lacking some sort of motive force to make his machinery work. "Ugh, I don't know, to tell you the truth. Find my ship, though I know not how or where." He watched as Guy rested both hands on the counter and glared at the coffee pot as if he could make it brew by sheer force of will. "Then try to wrest it away from the Decievers."

"How many of those are there? What do they look like?" Guy asked at length as he looked up at the ceiling for a moment and rubbed his chin with one hand.

"Twenty or thirty, enough to crowd the skiff they used to attack us." Keshari leaned over to peer at the device curiously but evinced no surprise at what he was looking at. "They're much like us, from various clans and families, but they have talents that make them distinct from the rest of us."

"Their ability to trick the eye?"

Keshari nodded soberly. "And, if you are wondering, my crew is not all Clan Lupus. There were only four of my clan in the crew. The rest are a mixture of species, mostly water favoring clans like mink, otter, and seal."

"How many were in your crew?"

"Over sixty."

"Sixty?" Guy shot him a sidelong glance with one eyebrow raised, "A raiding party of less than thirty took a ship crewed by sixty?"

Keshari regarded him archly, "Sliding is a complicated process that our foes did not have to bother with, we did. Anyone not trying to defend against the boarding action were at their stations just trying to keep us afloat. Crash sliding is never easy. Doing so while repelling boarders is harder still."

"I concede your point, I don't know ships, but I think I can find a way to salvage your ship and crew."

The wolf's ears pricked forward alertly, "Oh?"

"I'll have to think on it and see what I can come up with. Go get yourself cleaned up while I work." Guy showed the wolf to the shower and how to make it work. He retrieved an entire stack of towels from the linen closet and left them in the bathroom that the wolf had left open.

Retiring to the kitchen he dug his cell phone out from under the microwave. Now it showed that he had his usual four bars of signal and he shook his head with an irritated sigh. Where was the signal when he was having his ass thrown about the kitchen by a wild swashbuckling wolf? He tabbed through his contact list on the phone until he found the number he was looking for; a fellow programmer who was off duty for the weekend to attend a local event. He dialed the number and waited for it to be picked up.

"Nuh?" came the woozy voice from the other end, "Guy? What you want, mon? Is like... ugh, daylight out." There was a momentary pause and more half-awake groaning, "Kinda."

"Hey Raime, got a situation I need help with. You know any local police at your con?"

"Cops? Mon, wot you want wit a cop?" the sleepy voice of Raime at the other end of the phone sounded slightly more awake.

"Legal matter, but one at your con would be ideal, they'd know what I should do."

"Nhuh... mmmkay, I tink one o' th' Dorsai might be one, I'll check into it. Call ya back?"

"As soon as you can, mate, I'd really appreciate it as soon as possible."

"I get right on it, mon." without any further conversation the line went dead.

Guy sat down on one of the dining room chairs and pondered what he could do while he listened to the rain drum steadily on the house. Cars passing on the street outside were distant hisses of tires on wet pavement. Somewhere a chainsaw buzzed showing that, despite his own strange situation, life went on in perfect normalcy elsewhere. He nearly jumped out of his skin at a loud knock on his front door. Scrambling to his feet he crossed to the front door hastily, pulling back the curtains to look outside.

Two dark clothed men and a woman stood outside, their long gray trenchcoats dripping water. "Yeah?" Guy snapped at them through the glass.

"Could you open up, sir?" the woman asked impatiently, her hawkish face drawn into a barely concealed scowl. Guy cracked the door open but did not unlatch the hasp holding the screen door beyond.

"What?" Guy dropped his cell phone back into his pocket. Something about them was just a little skewed from normal but nothing that Guy could put his fingertip on. They just looked like typical plain clothed detectives, complete with cheap suits and long gray coats all cut from the same bolt of canvas. The wolf's paranoia had percolated deep into Guy and he distrusted pretty much anything his eyes told him.

"Sir, we're looking for anyone who may have come by that looked... eh, out of place. Different, to you, or lost." One of the men asked in a flat baritone growl. Had he hackles Guy was sure they would have lifted in alarm at that voice. That basso growl, the hulking, broad shouldered frame of the man and his unkempt mop of damp blonde hair sent chills racing up and down Guy's spine. At the curb was gray government issue looking sedan with a fourth person seated behind the wheel.

Not a single one of them had flashed a badge.

"Aint no one been knocking on my door since the firefight last week, 'cept you three. Who're you?" He leaned on the half open door and tried not to look nearly as scared as he felt.

"Pennsylvania Bureau of Investigation, sir." The man growled without offering any sort of identification. His companion, a slim looking alert eyed fellow, said nothing. His sharp eyes cased the inside of Guy's house and he moved to block that one's view toward the kitchen. Much of the destruction was hidden behind the kitchen bar but Guy felt it better not to risk any bit of the wreckage being spotted.

"Ah, whatever." He shrugged, "You want strange, go five doors down, on the corner. Local pushers like to shoot it up down there." He hooked his hand in the intended direction without taking his arm from the edge of the door he was leaning against.

The woman heaved an angry sigh and tapped the back of the speaker's shoulder, "Well, sir," said the male as the other two turned to trudge off his porch, "if you do see anyone that looks like they don't belong here, please let your local law enforcement know."

"That could be half the city, detective." Guy observed blandly, "Care to tell me what to watch out for?"

"Average looking male, dark coat."

Guy rolled his eyes, "Great description, I'll report the next goth I see. Good day, detectives." He let the door fall shut and dropped the curtain back over the glass. Through the thin material he watched the three talk amongst one another on their way to the car. The slender, overly alert one looked back over his shoulder and Guy could have sworn he made eye contact through the veil of fabric. It sent a shudder down his spine and he turned away once they got into the car and started down the street.

When he turned around, he saw Keshari standing in the top of the stairs wearing a whole lot of nothing. "So those were deceivers, huh?" Guy asked. Keshari padded down the steps with his eyes directed toward the door alertly.

"Aye." Keshari stopped at the bottom of the stairs, satisfied that there was nothing to see, and used the towel to work down along his front. He regarded himself with a frown, plucking at his disarrayed pelt. Guy's eyes couldn't help traveling down the wolf's frame at the same time. He was certainly male in the appropriate canine way and Guy had to admit he was a handsome enough looking fellow. Had he been human he certainly would have turned heads in a crowd. Being a five-foot-and-change tall bipedal wolf Guy imagined that he'd likely get a tad more attention than that. "The female was an owl, the others a lion and ferret by the smell." A wolf that talked, to boot. Guy hastily diverted his eyes, looking back through the thin curtains, but the grey sedan had already vanished down the street. "When they get that close your ... your other instincts start picking up on things they can't mask. There's a scent about them even you can pick up when you get really close. And then there's this predatory aura, with the hunting types like those three, that pricks your hackles right up."

Guy blinked, "Ohh shit, they may have smelled you, too."

"Could have, yes, though the air was coming in from outside." Kesharki gave up on the hopeless task of untangling his pelt without a brush, "I cannot stay here any longer." He turned, tail sweeping in a smooth arc behind him, and retreated into the room. A moment later he emerged pulling up his short, bloused leggings with his coat draped over one arm. Guy moved past him without paying any care for their proximity and went up into his room to retrieve proper clothing from the closet. Keshari followed to continue their conversation rather than yelling up the stairs.

"We're leaving, find your sword." Guy said while he shed his sweat pants and replaced them with a pair of denim jeans. Keshari watched him while he changed but he ignored the same appraising stare he had shown the wolf a moment earlier. Whatever society the wolf came from obviously had a very loose concept of modesty and Guy was in a hurry.

"I already did, I'm ready whenever you are." He patted the sword once more sheathed at his hip, "Where are we going?"

"Convention hall, downtown." He pulled on a comfortable shirt and snatched his keys from the top of the dresser. "You'll blend in there while I try to figure out where your boat is and see if I can wrangle up some help."

He heard the wolf chuff as he cast a glance around his room to see if there was anything there he could use but came up empty. He simply had no idea what he was getting into. "I don't have the Deciever's ability to blind your true sight, how will I blend in?"

Guy shot him a wicked grin. "You'll see when we get there, c'mon." With the wolf a stride behind him he strode through the kitchen, glass crunching underfoot and scarring the linoleum, without a second glance at the untouched wreckage and stepped out onto the similar devastation of his back porch. Not one of the screens had escaped the storm's fury the night before and his bike was still spilled across the floor. The screen door had been wrenched loose at some point and lay on the grass with the tattered screen folded back like the skin of a gutted animal. He stepped over it and looked around for the gray car or its occupants, in case they had circled around, but they were nowhere to be seen. With luck they were pestering the police still picking over the house at the far end of the street.

His car, a Jaguar XKR coupe convertible he bought with his bonus the year before, was parked next to the porch. Guy pushed a couple of buttons on the key fob and it chirped as he approached. The engine throbbed to life even as he pulled open the door and slipped into the driver's seat. Keshari figured out the door handle as easily as someone familiar with such things and dropped into the passenger seat after carefully pulling his tail around his hip and rearranging the sword carried in the scabbard on his hip. "Sorry, we don't design seats for tails." Guy said apologetically as he pulled on his seat belt and plugged his phone into the car charger. Putting the car in gear he twisted about in his seat and backed down the drive.

Keshari only shrugged and followed Guy's lead, pulling on the seat belt with an economical twist. "Cultures lacking tails don't design for them. Luckily there are relatively few of them."

Save for a city crew cutting up the maple tree lying half across the street in a tangle of high tension lines the street outside was empty and Guy made for the main road with more speed than was wise. "More furry cultures than not, eh?"

"Furry, you use that word a lot, but yes. What does that word mean?" Keshari hunkered down in the seat and pulled the collar of his coat up in a vain attempt to hide his head while at the same time keeping his eye alert for the gray car and its occupants.

"Furry is a social... hobby, I guess. I don't know much about them, I only know a couple that I've met over the years. They're humans who believe that they have animal spirits or like to look or act like various animals." Traffic was light for the hour due to the rain and the previous night's destruction. Trees and power lines were down everywhere, it seemed. More than once he was forced to slowly creep around debris left behind by the fury of the storm.

"Ever think that they might be right?"

Guy spared him a brief sideward glance before returning his gaze to the rain shrouded road ahead, "Up until last night I thought they were just funny kooks, but now..." he heaved a deep sigh and extended his fingers in a helpless gesture from atop the steering wheel while they sat at an intersection where a police officer was directing the sparse traffic. Guy made his way through as quickly as he could, hoping that the policeman would not see his unusual passenger but the cop only waved him through the intersection without a second look.

"Shit, Kesh, now? Now I just don't know what's right. Here I am sitting in the peak of my material wealth talking to a wolf, for fuck's sake, volunteering to take on a ship full of pirates hiding under magical guises." Guy's fingers flexed helplessly on the steering wheel in frustration at his own confusion. Life had been so simple, so straightforward, only twelve hours earlier. Now it seemed unimaginably hollow and pointless.

The wolf reached over to touch his forearm gently with claw tipped fingers, "You're a good man, Guy, don't let it eat at you."

Guy's eyes fell to the touch of those fingers for a moment before the cop waved him through the intersection, "Got a mate, wolf?" he hooked his fingers from the steering wheel in a quoting gesture, "A girl in every port and such?" he asked, eyes forward on the road ahead. They merged onto the highway leading in toward the city of Pittsburgh. Keshari dropped his hand back to his lap and craned his head to look back over his shoulder and then checked the side view mirror.

"A mate? No." He tilted his head as he turned to look at Guy, grinning a little at the corners of his muzzle, "Why?" One of the wolf's brows lifted curiously, "Though yeah, I've got a few port wives here and there."

"Just curious, I'm not sure how your society works when it comes to couples." Guy glanced aside toward him briefly before returning his eyes to the road ahead as rain steadily beaded on the windshield to be slapped away by the wipers. "Or groups. Packs, herds? However families and such are handled where you're from." The highway was as sparsely populated as the suburban streets and they made good time. The windshield wipers snicked and whacked at the rain, the only other sound in the car besides their conversation and the drone of tires on wet asphalt. Guy did not bother turning on the radio.

"It's couples," Keshari responded with a throaty chuckle. "When it comes to pups, we hold to our clan blood first, above pair-bond oaths." He glanced at the car passing them in the next lane over, its driver staring rather pop-eyed at him. He flashed the driver a quick, toothy smile before turning back to Guy, a much larger grin framing his face. "Outside of that, though, the rules are much looser. Most species will fit well together, the males and females mixing to whatever their preference in gender or kind. Some of my shipmates tell me there there's few things more fun or enriching than getting a whole interwoven family mating group going, but I've never felt the need to try that." He chuffed and shook his head, "I can only imagine how frightfully complicated having more than one berth mate at a time would be."

"Ahh, okay. Where we're going, mind, they've got a similar view as yours... don't hold much to gender roles at all. You may find males as attracted to you as females." He checked the rear view and then glanced across at the wolf and let out a short chuckle, "Considering how you look, you'll be mobbed I think."

Keshari favored him with an arch look and one focused ear, "How I look?"

"Good, for a wolf, I guess." Guy shrugged and changed lanes to navigate around a semi. "Too real to be fake, which may cause some problems." He pondered that and dug into his pocket for his phone and fished his earpiece from the coin bin in the dash to snug it into his ear. The phone only rang twice before being picked up on the other end.

"Guy, mon, good timing!" Raime exclaimed before Guy could offer salutations, "Dorsai let me know who were da cop here, a fella goin by de name Whitefox. He can call ya as soon as dey done with de parade, if dat's good?"

"Don't worry about it." Guy said, earning a glance from Keshari as he appeared to be talking to himself. Of course the wolf could hear the dim, tinny voice from his earpeace so said nothing. "I'm on my way in now, be there in twenty minutes. Can you pull him aside after this parade thing?"

"Ya, no problem, mon. What de fuck's up, mon? Ya sound edged as hell."

"Long story. Hey, look, I need some clothes. Think you can hook me up?"

"Clothes? Wot kinda clothes? I did no bring spares fer drop bys, ya kno?"

"Gay, the more flaming the better, man's small. Think you can find a shirt that says 'Don't touch, I bite'?"

"Saw dat one already, mon, dey got 'em in da dealers' room. Why you suddenly want to be a'wearin flamer gear, mon? You not gay."

"Not for me, for my guest. He needs to blend."

"Blend? Mon, yer harsh, mon!" Raime exclaimed with affront, being gay himself.

"Can you do it?" Guy asked, ignoring Raime's complaint. Guy, for himself, just didn't care either way; his life was in his work. After his almost marriage drifted into pointless atrophy he had never bothered trying to build another. "What's your room number? I'll be coming in the Westin lobby in a bit."

"Yah, mon, I figure something out. Nine-tirteen, I'll see if I can get Whitefox up dere."

"Great! Raime, you're an ace! See you there and oh, please, get room service to bring up some food and for god's sake some coffee. I had no power at the house." He cut the call as they entered a long tunnel through the mountains surrounding Pittsburgh proper.

Keshari let out a hissing growl when they emerged from the tunnel and downtown Pittsburgh came into view. Guy spared him a glance and a wan smile at one corner of his mouth. "Impressive city, used to be the crown of the iron industry in our country for a while. That's fallen on hard times but the city's still going."

"Considering the places I've been and things I've seen... no. The city of Hardeshanpul would make you weep with its magnificence." Keshari said as he scanned the skyline, "But there's still a strange allure to this solid expanse of stone and iron." He turned to look over at Guy and reached up to touch his muzzle with one finger, "And it stinks."

Guy grunted a flat laugh, "We know, and our noses are not nearly so keen. Made a lot of mistakes with this world, but we're trying to get them worked out." He paused briefly and glanced over at the wolf, "Thanks for whatever it was you did with my nose last night."

Keshari ducked his muzzle in a nod, "Some tiny bit of magic I can do, hardly worth more than mending the occasional bruise." He shrugged and nodded out the windshield at the city. "Every society makes mistakes at some point. It's when, and how, they recover that saves or dooms them. How old is this city?"

"City's probably a couple centuries, our entire country is not much older." He said as they approached one of the many bridges spanning the Allegany.

"Hardenshapul is over two thousand years old, and some areas show that age. A view taken from afar is amazing, but when you're down on the streets.... Shit!" he turned abruptly and almost leaned over Guy to look out the driver's side window. Guy leaned back with a startled grunt and tried to watch the rain slick road ahead and look to his left to see what had so violently captured the wolf's attention. "Shit, its my boat! Down there!" he pointed energetically. Guy's attention flicked from road to river and back several times while they crossed the bridge. He took his foot off of the accelerator and let his jaguar slow a bit.

Finally he saw it, or thought he did; a triple-hulled ship with three slender trubo-sail towers rising from the slender central keel rather than traditional canvas sails he was expecting. It was docked at the end of the luxury slips across from the central hotel complex of downtown Pittsburgh. "The one with the three wind towers?" he asked.

"That's what you may see, but I see her canvasses down and no visible crew. Their magic cannot deceive my eyes from seeing my own boat for what it is." Keshari sat back in his seat, "The many tailed god is being kind to let us find it so easily."

"This god of yours is very kind, it's within a mile of where we are going." Guy was feeling similarly elated. Having the ship so close put many pieces of a fragmented puzzle together in his head.

He pulled off the highway and made his way into the city were traffic was much as he would have expected for that time of a working day. The steady rain kept pedestrian traffic down to nil and, even as they neared the Westin hotel it did not pick up despite there being a large convention taking place. When he pulled in the circular receiving area under the hotel awning there was an impressive crowd around the entryway, mostly convention guests out getting their nicotine cravings satisfied.

A valet quickly stepped from a booth near the entry with an umbrella and crossed to the car to catch the door as Guy opened it. The valet handed him a parking tag as Keshari emerged and once the passenger door was closed the Jaguar growled smoothly away toward the garage.

"I have not a clue what we're about to walk into, Kesh," Guy advised as they stood looking toward the crowd in the hotel's lobby. Many who were standing outside seemed to take notice of Keshari but few made any great deal of him, being too interested in staying out of the rain and smoke their cigarettes. "But I know where we're going. Follow my lead and ... shit, I don't know, act natural." The wolf gave him a sardonic look as he fell into step with him.

The hotel lobby was crowded with people and... others. Animal costumed con-goers in the form of gaily hued foxes, wolves, and other species identifiable and not mingled with others in normal clothes or fetish clothing. The amalgam of sizes, shapes, and hues confused both the eyes and the brain. When Keshari stepped through the door, however, all eyes were quickly directed toward him and then the crowd surged as one with various exclamations of awe and glee.

"Wow! Great costume!" someone encased in a massive rabbit costume yelled in a voice several decibels over what might be considered socially acceptable even despite the crowd. On the mezzanine above hands were pointing and a susurrus of conversation suddenly shifted to the word 'wolf'. People crowded close and Keshari shoved against Guy's side in surprise. Hands reached out to touch his fur without a whole lot of permission being asked and certainly none being given. A few attempted to ask if they could touch but their inquiries were lost in the rumble of excited conversation.

"Careful!" Guy bellowed, "It's fragile, don't touch!" He grabbed Keshari's furry arm and pulled him toward the shattered queue near the elevators. The red clad con security workers moved away from their posts at the elevators and pushed the crowd back with gentle force. They helped Guy lead his presumably costumed associate toward the bank of elevators. The pair was unceremoniously shoved through the first open door and into the arms of a rather startled and obviously drunk feline costume that looked a lot like an ocelot. A couple of people clad in street clothes retreated to the corners of the elevator and one hastily stabbed the door close button as the crowd surged toward the barricade of Dorsai. Thankfully the doors swept closed before the crowd joined them in the confined box.

"Wow," Keshari muttered as he extricated himself from the ocelot's uncoordinated embrace, "that was startling." Guy shot him a glance and touched his lips with a shushing fingertip before he said more.

"Great costume." one of the other occupants of the elevator offered but did not reach out to touch, "Is that real fur?"

"Yeah." Guy offered as he pushed the ninth floor button, "It's, uh, let's just say, all natural." The man scowled a bit but said nothing further. Probably the idea of someone making a costume out of real animal fur was not a popular topic in the crowd of animal-friendly types. Their ride up the elevator then progressed in silence with a few stops to add or subtract from their number. Very few joined them each time the door opened as the elevator was going up rather than down but still people pointed, slack jawed, at the wolf in his long black jacket each time the elevator stopped. They reached the ninth floor with no further distractions and made their way to the thirteenth room and rapped on the door.

It was opened a moment later by an un-costumed con attendee wearing an assemblage of loud clothing decorated with a plethora of badges. Like everyone else the slim black man stood slack jawed at the sight of Keshari and only stepped out of the way when Guy pulled the wolf hastily into the room, shoving the door closed behind him with a rearward shove of his foot.

"Woah, who's dis guy, Guy?" Raime asked in his heavy Dominican accent as he backed into the hotel room and sat down heavily on the bed.

" Keshari, Raime. Raime, Keshari." He made the introductions perfunctorily. Leaning close to the wolf he whispered in his ear. "Show him your tongue, let him see how real you are."

Keshari lolled his tongue as he sat down and then licked his whiskers. Raime stared for several seconds, his jaw hanging open in surprise before he made a short, strangled squeak. "'Oly shit, be he for real?" He surged up from the bed to step closer to Keshari, leaning in to look at his face. The wolf's nose twitched and his whiskers angled back along his muzzle as he let his lower jaw hang a little, the tip of his tongue curling from the end of his muzzle. "Oh, my god, he be!" He leaned back abruptly as if singed by flame, "Holy shit... Guy, where dis dude come from?"

Guy had already zeroed in on the room service tray and was pouring himself a full cup of precious, precious coffee. "He broke into my house last night." Guy said as he sat down in a chair. There was a large tray in the small table between the hotel room's large chairs. Guy grabbed a danish and sipped the life restoring coffee as he sat back into the deep embrace of the chair. The wolf examined the offerings on the tray and took much of what remained when Raime gave him a permissive flick of his fingers. Taking the other chair Keshari settled into it, letting his tail drape around his hip and lay beside one leg. He gnawed on a piece of cantaloupe and a bagel while he let Guy talk.

"We had a bit of a ... disagreement before making peace." Guy said around a mouthful of cheese danish. He left the breakfast meats for the wolf but Keshari took just as much interest in the fruit bowl as the meats. "He's not even from our sidereal universe as far as I can understand. Came here by a sailing ship, but it's been captured. That's why I want to talk to a cop." He refilled his cup of coffee and then extended the metal carafe toward Keshari. The wolf took one sniff of the drink and jerked his head away in horror, muzzle wrinkling to show off his cantaloupe speckled teeth. Guy chuckled at his response and shrugged, setting the carafe down.

Raime sank back down on the edge of the massive bed that dominated much of the room. "Damn." He breathed, "Just... just damn... dis is going to go over like a nuke. You tellin' anyone?"

"As few as I can get away with. You got those clothes?"

Raime stood up and went to a suitcase propped in the corner, "Yah, yah mon. Figure my stuff'll fit yer friend there. Snagged a shirt from de dealers' room during da parade."

"Keshari." The wolf rumbled past a muzzle full of breakfast ham and bagel, speaking for the first time since entering the room. Raime came up with a pair of faded black denim jeans and a surprised expression on his face.

"Eh? 'E talks, too?" He said as he stood and looked over at Guy, then Keshari.

"Of course I do." Keshari said as Raime handed across the pants and a belt and then a tee shirt in a plastic bag. Keshari set aside his food and took the garments, holding them up to examine them with a bemused lift of one eyebrow. The pants were festooned with buckles and buttons from waist to knee. Below the knee they belled out considerably. The tee shirt was a loud pink affair with 'Don't touch, I Bite!' silk-screened across the front. On the back was an open maw of vampire teeth dripping black blood.

He examined the clothes. He shrugged out of his jacket and dumped it into the chair. Raime let out a slow breath and fixated on him, dark brown eyes rising and falling as they raked the wolf's form.

"Damn, you look good, mon."

Keshari favored him with a glance and a toothy half smile, his long tail giving a lazy swish while Guy chuckled drily. Raime blushed hotly and looked at his own feet. Without any apparent concession to modesty the wolf unlaced his lightweight baggy linen leggings and stepped out of them. Raime stared, slack jawed, but said nothing though he swallowed loudly and muttered to himself. Guy focused on his third cup of precious coffee, studiously ignoring the tail sweeping the air a few hand spans from his face.

A knock on the door brought all three heads around and Raime hastily stood to see who it was. A moment later he opened the door and let someone inside. That someone was wearing the full body costume of an over-sized white fox but had the head tucked under one arm. Like Raime he was black but with the bald countenance of a no-nonsense professional. While Raime let him pass and closed the door he strode in, eyes raking over the half clothed wolf and Guy. His eyes came back to Keshari almost immediately and one naked black brow lifted in curiosity.

"That getup's pretty nice. Hollywood stuff?" the big man in the fox costume asked, striding over to stand at the foot of the bed. A huge faux tail swung behind him heavily. "Why's he need a cop?"

"Keshari, Whitefox. Likewise, aye? I'm Guy." Guy said from his seat. "It's a long story, but I'm the one asking after you. I've got a bit of a legal situation to deal with that you're probably in the best position to help me with. I don't know the laws to deal with it."

The man with the character name Whitefox sat down on the bed and Raime returned, crawling up onto the bed to sit on the stack of pillows along the headboard. "Yeah? You guys steal that costume or what?"

"It's not a costume." Keshari explained as he belted the pants in place. It was an awkward looking fit due to the construction of his canine genitals but he suffered it with aplomb. He shrugged into the shirt while Whitefox digested that bit of information, his dark face inscrutable.

"You shitting me?" Whitefox said and put the head of his costume down on the bed next to himself. He took a towel offered by Raime to wipe sweat from his brow.

"Not at all." Keshari snugged the shirt down over his shoulders and shifted it about until it fitted comfortably. "I'm as real as any of you."

"You're a wolf, dude." The man's rumbling baritone voice was incredulous and he stared at Keshari with one dark brow raised. "A wolf that stands on two paws and talks. Can you get a grasp on how hard that is for me to take at face value?"

Guy harrumphed a rueful laugh and nodded, "Imagine how I took it when he introduced himself to me in the middle of the night; in a house with no lights; during a storm for the record books?" he rattled off flatly, "Think you can help us out?"

Whitefox shrugged his broad costumed shoulders and tugged off the gloves of his suit. "Depends on the legal shitpile you're wading through, I'm just a beat cop not a lawyer. What's the situation?"

"I came here by ship, a sailing vessel that's moored not far from here. Enemies of my people attacked and captured it. I need help recapturing it."

"Hmmm, damn, a whole ship of talking wolves captured by pirates? That's a tricky one. If I bring in the law they're not likely to just let that slip out of their fingers." Whitefox rubbed his huge, dark hands with the towel and pondered his options. "Probably the only, and safest, way to get that ship back would be law enforcement action though."

"Oh, there's more, White. These pirates have the ability to trick the eye flawlessly, they can look and act like pretty much anyone. I've already had three of them, looking like PBI detectives, come calling at my house earlier today. Keshari here said they smelled like a lion, an owl, and something else."

"Ferret." Keshari offered while he arranged his clothing. The belled length of the pants draped almost the floor effectively hiding his paws. "We call them the Decievers because that's their most powerful ability. They can blend into almost any culture they come into contact with by fooling the eye. They'll look just like ordinary humans to you." He toyed with the many buckles on the pants, "And to me, for that matter. I can only tell them apart by smell."

"How many of them are there? Where is this ship moored?"

"Twenty to thirty, depending on how many survived the boarding." Keshari reported.

"It's docked at the marina just down the road, across from the hotel district."

Whitefox rubbed his jaw contemplatively and regarded the wolf with a long look. "Okay, I guess bringing in the Special Response Team might be out. Puss-in-Boots is here, too, if you don't mind me calling her in. She's on the SRT. We might be able to field law enforcement response if you have some idea about capturing the ship without bringing in the police."

"I've an idea." Guy spoke up, "How many suits can you get together in the next few hours?"

"Fursuiters? I dunno, it depends on what they think they're getting into. You don't want the existence of your friend here to get out too widely, it'll cause complete chaos."

"Let's say... tour of a movie set?" Guy said as he worked the idea over in his head. "Let them think they're filming a Redwall flick on that ship and offer them an exclusive tour if they're in costume?"

Whitefox let out a bark of laughter that sounded so in line with his costume it was surprising, "Guy, you think like a snake; twisted as hell. I like it. I can run this past the locals on patrol for the con and let them think it's just a planned event." He slapped his costumed knee and grinned with a flash of white teeth in his dark chocolate face. "Hell, they'll even provide security while you troop over there, it's only three blocks direct from the convention hall exit."

"And if the shit hits the fan and these pirates start shooting? Kesh, what kind of weapons should we expect to see?" Guy turned to the wolf. Raime leaned over to his suitcase and started rummaging about.

Keshari shrugged a bit, "Everything from arrows and swords to particle pistols. I saw at least two of the pirates using blasters during the boarding but most were using older technology that's a lot more reliable across many planes."

"Planes? What, exactly, kind of ship is this?"

"It's a ley line sloop, designed to slide along the shared magical flowes between planes. The Decievers attacked us while we were tuning the rigging for a slide. The Captain initiated the slide prematurely, something we call a crash slide, hoping that their skiff would be stripped from the hull during transit. That's how we ended up on this plane rather than where we were tuning for." Keshari's ears backed self consciously, "Doing that causes a hell of an emergence wake and was very likely the cause of that storm last night. We were unable to repel them on this side and I ended up going overboard during maneuvers."

"Fucked up and more fucked up, wolf, that's what this is. I'm getting a headache just wrapping my brain around what you're saying. Alternate realities and worlds is just too far beyond my grasp of what's real and what ain't."

"No shit." Guy grumbled, "Puts my entire sense of the purpose of life right on its ass."

"Sure as shit. Let me call Puss-in-Boots and let her in on the plan... Guy, this is illegal as all hell just on the merit of it. Pirates and sea-going wolves on extra-dimensional ships. That's too much to even make a believable piece of fiction out of."

"Not just wolves, sir. Otters and mink and other species make up my crew, and the Decievers. There's not even a human among my crew."

"Not many of us out there, eh?"

"Oh, plenty, just none among this crew. Humans and other human archetypes in plenty, but like the animals they vary widely."

"Elves and dwarves and pixies, oh my." Whitefox shook his head as he fished around inside his suit to produce a cellular phone. He tapped at it a few times before holding it up to his ear. "Hey, Janet, got a minute to come meet somebody?" He paused for a few moments and then nodded to whatever the person on the other end said, "Nine-thirteen, see you in a few." He folded the phone and laid it on one of his shed gloves. "I'm Brandon, by the way. Whitefox is just my fursonna." He offered the wolf one massive black hand. Keshari leaned forward to shake it.

"What do you have in mind, Guy?" he asked.

"A mob, pure and simple. These Decievers will probably want to avoid being too conspicuous despite being able to blend in. If we overwhelm them with numbers we may be able to mob the ship and take it without any actual fighting. The fursuits should keep Keshari from being picked out among the crowd until it's too late for them to do anything about him." Guy explained, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He turned toward the wolf, "Where are your crew likely being held on the ship?"

"If they're still aboard they're likely locked up in one of the secondary hulls, or both. Cargo space there is mostly for ballast so the Decievers would put them there. Access is by two deck hatches at either end of the beam."

"Hey, be dat de ship?" Raime asked from the window. He had a floppy, wide brimmed hat hanging in one hand that he had been working on. Guy and Keshari rose to walk over to the window, their shoulders brushing as they looked out. The rain had tapered to a misty drizzle and in the distance blue sky could be seen beyond the tattered edges of the rainclouds.

"That'd be it, yep." Guy said. The ship was visible past a nearby building at the end of the marina pier. "Those pirates have masked it with their ... magic ... " he found saying the word still strange, "to make it look like something we might expect to see." Whitefox joined them at the window.

"That's a big damn boat." He commented over Guy's shoulder, "Two gangways out, though. That'll make swarming her a hell of a lot easier. I only see three on deck from here. How many ran by your house this morning, Guy?"

"Four."

"Hopefully those are still out trying to pick up this wolf's scent and won't be back any time soon."

"They're masquerading as detectives, they may try to sway whatever police you have help us out."

Brandon chuckled, "Janet can be an utter bitch when she wants to be. I'll let her know a few fake PBI are running loose and she'll be on them like a terrier after a rat."

---

It took them nearly five hours to get word around and amass a surprising number of costumed con attendees in a massive group in the convention hall near the registration tables. The chaos was palpable but the con security, the local faction of the Dorsai Irregulars, kept some degree of relative order. Raime had given Keshari a hat, the one he had been working on in the hotel room to make ear-holes, so the wolf looked like a very good mask on an otherwise perfectly normal person after donning his black leather gloves. He stood back between the now fully suited Whitefox and a towering black-and-white striped tiger costume wearing a customized set of black tactical fatigues and positively monstrous black boots.

"Listen up!" Raime yelled and a hush washed over the crowd. Costume heads and ears, those that had been made mobile, turned toward him. "We be found out dat a Hollywood film crew 'as docked a ship at da marina just down the block! No ordinary ship be dis one, but a set for a upcoming Redwall movie!" He was silenced by a roaring cheer at the news of a movie featuring characters near and dear to many furry followers. "Da producer done slipped us word, if we show up in costume dey let us take a tour o' de ship!" Another cheer rose up from the crowd and Guy shook his head with a chuckle.

The Decievers had no idea what was about to roll right over them.

"Be keepin it orderly!" he yelled over the cheer, "Da marina don't have a lot of room fer so many, but dey gonna let us in, okay!" With a wave of one arm he jumped off the bench and strode toward the escalator with Keshari and Guy close on his heels. Whitefox and Puss-in-Boots fell in behind them and their solid frames kept the surge at bay as the huge mass of costumed anthro-animals filed onto the escalator behind them.

They paused in the breezeway between the hotel and convention hall while everyone maneuvered through the doors and onto the street, crowding it so thoroughly that they would have blocked traffic going both ways had there been any. A dozen uniformed police officers and four squad cars had already done that job and, as the mass of creatures began their processional, moved ahead of them to clear the two intersections they would have to cross.

Guy was dumbfounded by the sheer size of the mob, over seven hundred fully costumed creatures of every conceivable species and some wholly inconceivable. One was a towering white and pink thing that Guy could not figure out in the least. It had wild golden eyes, a long narrow muzzle, and a tail that bent in two places as if jointed. The craftsmanship was impressive to Guy who knew nothing of how such costumes were even imagined, much less fabricated, but it was not the only strikingly well crafted costume in attendance.

At the marina there was a wide security gate but it was already open, held by a man pulling a cooler up from the pier. The man looked up at the approaching crowd and backed out of the way so hastily he forgot his cooler. It lodged in the gate and prevented it from closing. Guy held the gate back and pushed the cooler out of the way with a smile and a jaunty salute to the very startled tenant. Keshari stopped outside the gate and Guy looked back to meet his golden lupine eyes but he only shook his head slightly; the man with the cooler was not one of the Decievers.

Someone in a fox costume relieved Guy of gate duty and he fell into step with Raime, leading the tight assemblage of costumed people onto the wide pier. Boat owners on their respective vessels or slips looked up at the mob in surprise and there was a marked response from the huge ship dominating the far end of the pier. Dark clad forms swarmed up from below deck on the main hull and crossed over to the massive outrigger moored to the pier.

As the mob squeezed through the gate Keshari fell in among their numbers, hiding behind their much taller costumed forms as they formed a line four abreast and surged along the pier in the wake of the two un-costumed humans. "See dat ship down dere?" Raime yelled back over his shoulder, "It be making way to a film set in da Sea of Cortez, what you might be knowin' as de Gulf of California, to de same set where da Titanic were filmed!" He rattled on in a loud theater voice as they closed the gap between their impromptu army of animal costumes and the boat. For such a slim frame he could belt out a crowd yell that made Guy's ears hurt.

Guy counted twenty crewmen who had come up onto the deck and stood along the near hull aghast at the throng approaching them. Many held bows or swords prominently in their hands but were garbed just like the trio that had knocked on Guy's door that morning. How alien it all seemed to him, his life suddenly disjointed by a mere chance encounter in the night, less than twenty four hours that completely changed his entire worldview.

"Da producer, dere," Raime pointed at a hulking individual standing at the top of the nearest gangplank with a hard expression on his face, "done promised us a tour if we be a comin' in costume." He halted at the foot of the plank and looked up at the man with a smile on his dark face. "Well, big mon, what ya say? We be 'ere!"

The towering man took a couple of strides down the gangplank and glowered down at Raime and Guy and the throng pressed close behind them. Guy recognized him as the speaker at his door, the one Keshari had identified as a lion by scent. "What the fuck are you blathering about, little man? What 'tour'?"

"Oh, now ya don' be rememberin'." Raime crossed his arms over his chest petulantly. "Dinna we just talk on da phone dis morning, yah, mon?"

"I haven't spoken to you, stranger. Who are all of these freaks?" he waved his arm at the crowd which was suddenly a lot less gleeful. At his appellation of 'freaks' a general rumble rushed through the crowd in a susurrus of discontent. He pointed at Guy, "Him I know, you freakish creatures I do not." In his other hand Guy saw some sort of alien device that looked unpleasantly like a large sidearm. Steeling himself he took a couple of steps up onto the plank and the big man took two more down quickly to block his path.

"I found your stranger." Guy said in a low voice, meeting the big man's glare with a steady glower of his own. "He comes with friends." He waved an arm back at the restive crowd milling about behind Raime. He could not see Keshari anywhere. "So," he said a little more loudly, "care to let us have a tour, or are you backing out, mister producer?" He took another two steps until he was within arm's reach of the disguised lion. He could sense it then, at such proximity; an aura of threat and a dusty scent that reminded him of Keshari's fur smell.

"Man, fuck you. Where is he?" the man snarled, looking over Guy's shoulder at the crowd. "I can smell him, he is here with your motley freakshow."

"Freaks!" someone in the crowd, the pink and white unidentifiable form, yelled loudly, "He's calling us freaks... who the hell does he expect to see his stupid movie, anyway?!" Gesticulating wildly the costumed form moved forward. The tactically clad Siberian tiger, Puss-in-Boots, stepped forward as well. One of her hands was thrust somewhere under the jacket of her uniform. "You gonna stop us all, el gigantor?" He turned and pointed a furry faux paw at the other gangway where a slim female stood with a device similar to the big man's in her hands. The crowd had spilled along the end of the pier and both gangplanks were ringed by a tight press of costumed people. On the other gangplank the woman who Guy realized was owl glared at those nearest her. They had obviously given up searching for their lupine prey.

"I don't have to stop anybody." Stated the big man in a flat voice and raised his weighty sidearm to point it directly at Guy's face from an inch away. The weapon whined a subtle, shrill sound that made Guy's ears ring at such proximity, "I'll just vaporize one of you and ..."

His statement was cut short as Guy half turned and repeated the same maneuver he had performed on the wolf the night before. His arm flung up as he heard a loud female voice behind him bellow, "Drop the weapon! Pittsburgh Police!" He struck the man's forearm and pulled it down under his armpit and, twisting his hips, hammered his free hand into the back of the man's upper arm.

He didn't move an inch.

In fact, he completely ignored Guy's attack. Under his hand Guy felt fur and he could almost make out a vague, shadowy animalistic form standing in the same spot as the muscular man; a form with a huge head and flowing mane and fierce golden eyes. With a growl the man tried to take a step back and twist out of Guy's grasp. Unable to control the lion's muscular arm Guy shifted his weight and pushed with all of the strength his legs could muster. The lion growled as, mid rearward step, his balance shifted to the edge of the gangplank. He tried to turn and regain his footing but Guy continued to push. With a furious roar the man toppled from the gangplank and fell into the water with a resounding splash. His arm slipped from Guy's grasp as he fell and suddenly Guy found himself in possession of the masquerading lion's weapon.

On the other gangplank the woman shouldered her own weapon in a swift gesture. Guy heard, and felt, something intensely hot shriek past his ear, singing the hair along the side of his neck.

The sharp crack of a pistol shot rent the air and chaos ensued among the amassed fur clad people crowding the entire pier. Some tried to turn and flee with cries of horror while others surged forward with an angry roar. A sharp pain lanced across Guy's ribs as an arrow tore through his shirt but he ignored it to charge up the gangway and fumbled with the heavy sidearm now in his hands. Getting his fingers wrapped around the butt of the weapon he pointed it toward the distant woman and depressed what instinct told him was the trigger.

The weapon whined a moment and then let out a sizzling chirp. A brief, startled cry escaped the woman before she simply disappeared in a cloud of feathers and tattered clothing. Her weapon fell into the water with a splash. Guy leaped onto the slightly curved deck of the outrigger and dodged a wild slash from a sword by scrambling sideways away from the gangplank. Puss-in-Boots was right behind him and bowled the man over with all of her costumed mass, quite literally slamming him to the deck and charging over him. Five other costumed forms, Whitefox among them, followed closely in her wake and charged over the fallen foe before he could scramble out from under their feet.

Arrows hissed through the air and thudded into costumes, spinning one fox's head around so violently the wearer tripped and fell blindly to the deck with a cry more of surprised anger than pain. Another crewman hacked at Whitefox but his sword could not harm the faux fur at all. The big man slammed an elbow into his face and spun around behind him to plant a heavy kick with his fur swathed boot into the man's back that sent him into the water.

Guy stood at the bow of the outrigger and just watched. The general swarming of angry furries was too thick for him to try wading into to join the chaotic melee. He saw Keshari, briefly, as a fast moving dervish racing across the unoccupied space between the vanguard and retreating Decievers, sword flashing like a hungry barracuda. Three Decievers turned to stand their ground and he disarmed two before they could begin a coordinated defense. They turned and fled while the wolf and the remaining armed opponent danced a singing metallic swiftlet on the flying deck to the far outrigger. While the furs mobbed the near outrigger, causing the boat to list substantially, Keshari fought alone like a beast possessed of demons.

Guy raised the heavy sidearm but the two were moving far too swiftly for him to risk a shot. A moment later the crowds on the near outrigger became too thick and he lost sight of them.

Within seconds it was an utter rout. The remaining Decievers fled across the flying deck to the central hull with a pack of angry costumed animals hard on their heels. Each time they tried to take a stand or slash at their attackers their weapons had little appreciable effect. Edges, regardless of their sharpness, could not penetrate the layers of faux fur and batting compromising many of the costumes. Throughout it all Puss-in-Boots and Whitefox hollered for them to drop their weapons in the name of the Pittsburgh police.

Pushed to the bow end of the outrigger Guy was marginalized by the fight. There were so many furs on board by that point he could not attempt to fire his strange weapon again for fear of atomizing any of his allies. He heard pounding below his feet and looked down to see he was standing on a large square hatch secured with a wooden stay pin and simple iron latch. Bending down he pulled the pin loose and released the latch.

The response from below was so swift he was almost thrown overboard by the powerful upward shove of the hatch cover. A boar surged out of the hole followed immediately after by an otter. Both were clad in the most stereotyped movie swashbuckler's garb Guy had to pause and grin despite himself. The third figure that came out of the hatch, a mink, flowed like an angry serpent swathed in fur and spun on Guy with a snarl, both claw armed hands coming up to rake at him. Only the hasty raising of his arms prevented him from an uncomfortable evisceration at the mink's claws.

It was over in less than sixty seconds and the boat was sitting considerably lower in the water under the weight of perhaps two hundred additional bodies, all of them garbed in a rainbow of faux fur. The last half dozen Decievers threw down their weapons and raised their arms in surrender but that was unsatisfactory for the angered furs.

All of them were summarily pushed overboard into the dark, cold waters of the Allegheny. Others who had fallen under the tide of angry furs were lifted into the air and likewise tossed into the drink to a chorus of cheers.

Puss-in-Boots and Whitefox finally managed to establish some sort of order once everyone realized that the ship was liberated. One uniformed police officer, the only one who had managed to navigate the crowd of furs now occupying every available piece of horizontal space on the pier, stood in shock with his pistol held in the air, looking for lawbreakers.

"Aaaaand... CUT!" Raime yelled during a momentary confused lull in the chaos. "Spot on, folks, spot fucking ON! Print dat, it be a great Easter Egg for da DVD!" He walked around swatting shoulders, and rumps, as he pranced victoriously around the deck. He approached the officer with a stupid grin on his face. "Hey, is cool, mon! Was all a production stunt, yah! You can put dat gun away, mmkay?" He waved his hands at the policeman with an effeminate flick of his fingertips. The officer eyed him distrustfully for several seconds before slowly lowering his weapon and holstering it.

"Okay! Okay, everybody, dat worked better den da director ever dreamed!" He resumed his circuit of the overloaded deck. "Someone fish da stuntmen out o' the water before dey drown... Gotta be kinda cold down dere." He pointed downriver where the unshipped Decievers were struggling against the current for shore. A few boats which had been cruising the river when the fighting began were beginning to close on the floundering pirates to help them from the water. A police boat, sirens wailing, roared up river to see what the commotion was all about. "Everyone back to da convention hall fer a post take! If anyone filmed dis, da production comp'ny will offer any publication rights desired fer a copy of yer film! Come on, all, let's get off dis thing before it sinks!" He caught Guy's eye and winked as he began ushering bemused, confused furries back down the gangplanks.

"Damn, that was too real..." he heard a few of them mutter from the muffled depths of their costume heads as they filed past. One woman, a fox head tucked under her arm, looked wonderingly at the arrow stuck through the ruff of her costume head.

"This is a real arrow..." she tried to say but Raime gave her a crushing hug and said something in her ear that appeared to mollify her enough to leave the boat.

"Officer, " Raime said to the bemused policeman now talking to Whitefox who had removed the fox head of his costume, "dem guys dat got tossed in da drink were our stuntmen. Dey were no told a single ting about dis staged event, so dey's gonna be rightfully pissed off. Could ya 'ave them escorted back 'ere?"

Whitefox, AKA Officer Brandon of the Pittsburgh Police, laughed and clapped his bemused companion on the shoulder. "It's all cool, all cool, we'll round 'em up and troop 'em back here like the good paid lackeys they are. I'll get the paperwork sorted straightaway. Raime, good stunt. It'll boost the movie sales like nothing ever before. Oscar worthy, I say, fucking Oscar worthy!" With one white clad arm across the officer's shoulders he led him down the gangplank to join the general exodus of furries.

"If Improv has an Oscar, Raime, you just won it hands down." Guy offered as the decks cleared of all but the liberated crew and those Decievers who had avoided the Fur induced dunking. Guy spotted Keshari, hale and alive, talking to a group of liberated crew on the central deck. Raime beamed hugely and gave Guy a crushing hug.

"Honey boy, dis one's fer th' record books." The young man laughed loudly, but Guy could feel him shaking like a feather. "I were so scared I swear me nuts was up hiding beside me kidneys." He left Guy standing, laughing, behind him and raced down the gangplank to join the last of the exodus. Puss-in-Boots, also out of her costume headpiece, looked back at Guy and winked with an amazed shake of her head. She had a lot of work ahead of her because she discharged her pistol at the outset of the fight.

As the furries filed off the pier a mob of Decievers passed them, all of them wet and furious and surrounded by a half dozen equally irritated officers. The lion had been fished out at the end of a slip by the liberated crew, a trio of otters and a seal almost as big as he was but none of them masquerading as humans. Snarling and spitting epithets at his captors he stalked up the gangplank onto the deck. His blue eyes, under which Guy had briefly seen the beastial golden glare of a predatory cat, met his across the length of the deck. "I'm going to eat you, human. Slowly. While you live." He spat. Guy felt a shudder of fear at the deadly proclamation.

"We just have ta be seein' about tha'." Chuttered the voice of a burly otter who crossed the flying deck with Keshari at his heels. He had the grizzled look of a veteran fighter and was festooned with silver jewelry in the manner of every movie swashbuckler Guy had ever seen. The otter trumped heavily over to Guy and looked up at him, as he was perhaps four feet tall. "Ye be the one named Guy, yeh?"

"I am." Guy replied, unconsciously standing more at attention under the Otter's hard stare.

"Captain Belovere, lad. Your gun, if you please." The otter held out his blunt, furry brown paw. Guy realized with a start that he still held the strange alien weapon he had managed to wrest from the lion. He surrendered it hastily. Captain Belovere took it from his hand and looked it over appraisingly for a few seconds and then, turning smoothly and raising the weapon, discharged it at the lion.

With a frightful roar that was cut off in mid utterance the lion vanished just as the owl had; in a puff of fur and shredded clothing. "Fer seven lives, yours is forfeit." The otter grumbled angrily and then heaved a heavy sigh. When he turned back around he seemed an entirely different creature, the hard fury was gone from his deep brown eyes as he gazed up at Guy and handed the weapon back. "And for our lives, our debt, Guy of no clan." He turned his head to look at Keshari while Guy accepted the weapon back. The otter rested his fists on his hips and regarded the suddenly timid looking wolf.

"As for ye, Keshari of Lupus, well..." he grumbled, and then smiled hugely, "I guess you don't have to be cleanin' th' bilges any more."

Guy blinked and looked up from the weapon in his hands, "Bilges?" he asked in surprise.

Belovere looked back to him and nodded, "Caught him a' nappin' on duty so 'e got bilge detail." The captain explained, "How he got off th' boat I don't ken, but luck of the many tailed were with him, and all o' us." Others of the crew were gathering around them while still more, some forty now, were securing their captives in the same holds they had been liberated from. All of them stared at Guy but none with scorn or anger, only curiosity at the strangely clad human who had helped orchestrate their rescue.

"It was Guy, Captain, who did the saving." Keshari said sheepishly, his hands clutched about the tail tucked around his hip. "I just pointed the way for him."

"Ah, aye, be tha' as it be, both o' ye are in our debt." The Captain reached up to give the penitent wolf a clap on the shoulder. "Ye did well, I be sure t' let yer clan know all about it when we get back t' port." He walked a few paces and scanned his crew with a well practiced eye. "Looks like we be a bosun short. What think you, lad?" He asked back over his shoulder toward Keshari and then shifted his gaze over to Guy, "An' we be twelve hands down on crew." He let his statements hang and crossed the flying deck to the central hull while Guy and Keshari stood by the now secured forward hatch.

"Is he suggesting..." Guy ventured.

"I think so." Keshari rumbled with the same voice of confusion. "If you want to crew a planes slider, my friend." He reached over and grasped Guy's upper arm in a gentle hand, leading him toward the central hull. "It's not an easy life, but you've a warrior's spirit. You took on a lion hand to paw and survived unscathed! We could do a hell of a lot worse for crew."

"Or better, but..." Guy looked around at the towering spires of Pittsburgh all around him, "Can I ever come home?"

Keshari followed his gaze and nodded sagely, "If the Captain wants to ride this line again, very easily so. You care to be my mate?"

Guy chuffed and blinked, "Whaaat?"

"Mate, aya, crew!" he stopped and turned to grasp Guy by both shoulders and met his startled eyes, " Brother!" He slapped the startled human on his shoulders and grinned a white toothed lupine grin. "I'm second bosun, now! Get to hauling on those yards!" he barked a laugh, "You'll get to see Hardeshanpul yet!"

Fin.

-Epilogue-

Furries Stage Mock Assault on Vessel at Port Authority Marina in Downtown. By Ryx, staff writer.

Pittsburgh, PA.

This afternoon a massive group of Anthrocon attendees, some seven hundred fully costumed Furs, tipped off that a ship comprising the set of an upcoming Redwall movie was docked only two blocks away from their hotel, moved en'mass from the Pittsburgh Convention Center to the Port Authority Marina on Forsyth Street. They were told that they would get a tour of the boat. What they got, however, was a brawl the likes of which this town has not seen in the past.

Apparently this event had been orchestrated by the Director of the movie and a few secretive associate producers but the crew of the ship, twenty or so stunt workers hired by the production company, had not been informed. In an unexpected and uncharacteristic display of aggressive behavior not typical of the Furries we've seen in the past, the costumed Anthrocon attendees swarmed the boat.

What ensued was a chaotic melee of stupendous proportions and considerable humor, videos of which have already been released on YouTube and other fan sites. Costumed Furries pushed the overwhelmed crew across their own ship and eventually cast them overboard into the Allegany River.

Apparently they had been as misinformed about the stunt as the surprised stunt crew. Many were visibly shaken by the unexpected boarding action while others seemed curiously elated at the fun of it all. At the time of this writing it is not known if any injuries were caused in the melee but no one this reporter spoke to seemed to recall any being mentioned. Despite the complete chaos of the event no arrests were made and once it was over the mass of costumed people returned to the Convention Center without incident.

During the combat action several amazing displays of Hollywood technology were put on exhibition such as the vanishing of one of the stunt crew in a puff of feathers and some amazing anthropomorphic costumes with more range of motion than ever previously seen outside of advanced computer generated graphics.

Raime Peterson, one of the Anthrocon coordinators party to the secretive staged event, was quoted as saying; "Behind the closed doors of a drunken bender the director, an old friend, and I came up with a stunt to beat all stunts. Today we pulled it off flawlessly! Be sure to pick up the DVD when the movie is released, you'll be amazed by the gag reel."

I know I will be awaiting this release with considerable expectation of an amazing piece of cinematic history.