“Still with us. Yande curse them,” Jess replied invoking the Sea Goddess with the traditional globe of spittle over the side. The sea was rising rapidly as they ran for the deeper water of Shimmersea and the Witch was riding troughs that were half as tall as she was before sliding down the other side to plow her prow into the water. The foam that came off her bow glittered with the multicolored phosphoresce that gave the sea its name. At the top of each trough the topmen called the bearings on the Glimmers. The seemed to be shadowing the pirate vessel, forming two points of a triangle which prevented Jess from coming about one way or the other. Disturbingly, the ghostly vessels always semed to be riding the crest of the swell, never slipping down into the troughs.
 
“Shouldn’t we … put on more sails or something,” Galt asked, clearly nervous and probably miserably sick from the unfamiliar sensation of standing upon the rolling deck. It was a wonder he wasn’t casting his accounts to Yande as they spoke. Jess looked skeptical up at the rigging. The Witch was running almost directly before the wind with mainsail and topgallants set as well as a jib and storm spanker. The running rig was already fairly humming with the tension.
 
“If we put on any more canvas we might take the sticks out of her,” Jess explained, though she privately considered reefing the mainsail and running up royals and studding sails to better deal with the high seas. If the ships pursuing here were of normal human construction she might have tried it, but she dare not surrender even the few knots such an evolution would require.
 
“He is a jynx!” a hard faced man with scarring over both his arms snarled turning from the braces to glare at Galt. “I say we put him over the side!”
 
“Tend your line and shut your mouth!” Jess snapped as she glanced down at the binnacle compass.
 
“I got as much say as anyone here, and I say we put him over the side to appease the Glimmers!” the truculent crewman snarled, gripping the handle of a cutlass in emphasis. Jess pulled her own weapon free, a small sword that was longer than the fashion at sea, engraved with seashells and possessed of the slightest sweeping curve.
 
“I’ll not take second guessing from you Branch, not on this, or on any dammed thing,” she snapped pointing the sword at his mid section. Branch didn’t try to draw his sword, but ran his hand over a shaved head and glared. Branch was a bosun and the next senior officer after Krycek in the informal hierarchy of the ship. He had long resented Jess but while a dab hand at his craft of handling ropes and sails, lacked the skill of navigation.
 
“I call for a vote,” he snapped. Pirates near him began to take note, clustering around and shouting their opinions. Most weren’t even aware of what the issue was merely shouting ‘Branch’ or ‘Red Jess’ depending on where they personally lined up. Jess didn’t bother to enlighten them.
 
“Me or Branch?!” she demanded, not lowering her sword.
 
“Red Jess!” came the shout from the majority of the crew within earshot.
 
“Anyone for Branch?” she demanded, turning a slow half circle with the point of her blade. No one responded, even previous partisans unwilling to voice what would obviously now be a losing vote.
 
“Then trim the sheets and stand by to…”
 
“Light!” one of the topmen screamed.
 
“Where away?!” Jess demanded, though she was already running for the ratlines, scrambling agile up towards the dangerously swaying tops.
 
“Two points off the starboard bow!” came the reply but Jess, having already reached the crosstrees could see it well enough. She unsnapped her spyglass and peered at the smudge of reddish light on the distant rolling wave tops. It was bigger than the ship, a rend in the sky that crackled with red energy. A Rift. Rifts were another of the strange phenomenon of Shimmersea, like the Glimmers they were known only from tavern tales and stories told on the orlop decks in the dark. Allegedly they were portals which took you to a different place in the sea, sometimes hundreds of leagues from where you entered. Jess didn’t hesitate.
 
“Helm! Two points starboard!” she shrieked down to the deck.

 “Two points starboard aye!” came the response and in a few seconds they were headed right for the glowing red portal. Jess slithered down the rigging and dropped to the deck beside Galt with a thump.
 
“Where are we going?” he demanded. Jess grinned, teeth flashing with distant lightning.
 
“We are about to find out.”

 ____
 
A half hour later no one needed a glass to see the rift. It towered before them, twice the height of the ship, crackling with scarlet bands of energy that rimmed a vision of a different seascape viewed as though through dirty glass. Jess was pleased that Branch had already challenged her, because otherwise the crew might well have refused to follow her order to steer straight for the portal.
 
“Are you sure about this?” Galt asked nervously as they rode up the swell to look down upon the glowing portal.
 
“I’m sure,” Jess lied, glancing behind them to where the ghostly forms of the glimmers were now hull up and closing fast. The crew had already attached lines to anchor themselves to the ship and Jess hastily added one for herself and Galt The Weather Witch plunged down the swell in a flare of rainbow water that splashed up over the deck to soak the crew, then the bow was lifting and they struck the face of the rift.
 
 
Jess blinked as she came to. She was lying atop Galt on the deck. Torn sails and parted lines snapped above her, but the wind was light and the storm was gone, replaced by a sunny sky and a gentle breeze. She pushed herself to her feet, to find they were all but drifting. Off to starboard was a large island, covered with green jungle and close enough that she would have to get a sea anchor down in a few minutes. It was covered in a beach of pristine white sand and the arms of a shallow bay extended around them. The smell of greenery and flowers was heavy on the air. All around her other members of the crew were waking up, shrugging of the effects of arcane transition.
 
“Are you alright?” she asked Galt.