by J. P. Sheen
“We live on an island, Blake,” he pointed out.
“To sea!” Blake added, his dark eyes flashing. He almost lashed out again but stopped when he saw Jaimes was looking.
“And leave us all behind? What about Mother?”
“She doesn’t want me around anyway,” Blake muttered, kicking the sand.
“You don’t know that,” Jaimes said quickly, “Besides, what about me? Who would be my fishing partner?”
Blake considered this. His eyes met Jaimes’s solemn brown gaze. His brother was seven years his elder and the wisest person Blake knew.
“You can come with me,” he conceded with an authoritative air, “Even though you’re mean.”
Despite the insult, Jaimes looked relieved.
“Maybe I will,” he replied. He directed Blake’s wounded hand back to the bowl.
They sat in silence for a while. Blake stared absently at the stars. Then he stiffened.
“Look, Jaimes!” he cried, quivering. He pointed at the sky with his unburned hand.
“What is it?”
“The full moon!” Blake shouted, “I must go to sea! She’s walking on the water tonight!”
“Who? Blake!”
The water bowl flipped over, splashing water everywhere. Jaimes shouted a protest, but Blake had already shot off like lightning, bent on his wonderful idea.
Blake opened his eyes and shut them with a gasp.
The light was blinding.
Even with his eyes shut, it seared his eyelids. But how could sunlight penetrate so far into the deep? It wasn’t possible. Unless…
Blake summoned all his courage. Opening his eyes a crack, he squinted like an infant seeing the world for the first time. White rays streamed through the stern window’s shattered remains, piercing the fog of ashen flakes and ship debris. Blake moaned and weakly threw up an arm, nearly as blinded by the light’s radiance as he had been by the darkness. He tried to push himself off the deck, only to discover that his legs were pinioned down by wreckage.
Then the light dimmed, and Blake realized that he was not alone. He stopped struggling to free himself. Terror etched itself into his sunken cheekbones and bloodshot eyes.
You’re dead.
A sea captain stood before him, tall and straight, his lacerated skin draped in what had once been the proud uniform of the Eliothan Royal Navy. His ribcage showed under his blue rags, and his skin dangled off his frame more loosely than the single gold button on his bloodstained lapel. Barefoot and covered with gashes that chilled blood and bone, the Navy officer looked down on Blake, neither moving nor speaking. He had been maimed beyond recognition, beyond life itself. But it was from his wounds that the white rays emanated, brighter and purer than moonlight.
Blake lay there, battered and bleeding, his own body emaciated from years of living off scraps of spidercrab meat. He panted viciously as he glared up at the silent ghost.
You’re dead! And I’m mad.
Blake snarled and feebly shifted, but he couldn’t get free. So he slammed a furious fist against the deck instead.
Go ahead! Gloat! Your prophecy came true after all!
The Sea Captain didn’t gloat or say a single word. He merely looked down at Blake who roared a mute curse and helplessly pounded his fists, for the Sea Captain’s expression revealed a wondrous peace, a peace that was tranquil as the sea at dawn and deeper than the ocean depths. Blake couldn’t stand the sight, and rather than be tortured by it, he smashed his skull over and over against the slimy planks, a torrent of bubbles issuing from his mouth as he screamed out his hatred and fury.
“I will do it.”
At once, Blake stopped ranting and raving. He raised his battered face, looking terrified. But the ghost didn’t do anything to him. He didn’t have to. His serene gaze was torment enough. But this time, Blake couldn’t tear his eyes away, for in the Sea Captain’s eyes, he beheld the morning star, softly agleam.
“I will be your advocate,” the Sea Captain said. That broke the spell. Blake ripped his gaze off the white herald of the dawn and spat out a silent curse, but the Sea Captain continued to stand there in his own resplendent light while Blake writhed like a worm at his feet, reduced to nothing.
“…and your light,” the ghost said.
Get away from me!
Blake couldn’t scream aloud like he wanted to, so he grabbed a tarnished candlestick from the deck and flung it at the specter. It floated lazily back down to the deck, but before it settled there, the Sea Captain transformed into a ray of light and retreated through the stern window, taking his light with him. Blake slumped back, panting.
Not you. I’d rather die.
He struggled to free himself, but after several attempts, he gave up. His head fell back against the deck. What was the point anyway? The Polaris, his sanctuary, was a mangled wreck. A sea monster would soon find him here, pinned down and defenseless. It was hopeless. He would just rest now and wait for this bad dream to finally come to an end.
It didn’t take long for such a creature to find its way into the captain’s cabin. A sickly yellow glow preceded it, trickling through the doorway. Then in floated a snaggletooth, its milky eyes pupil-less and blind. Blake saw it and went stock-still, hoping it would not sense his presence. But he smelt too strongly of fresh blood and fear. Languidly, almost lazily, the snaggletooth’s bulging white eyes rotated toward him. Blake’s heart pounded wildly, and blood trickled from his forehead, curling like scarlet smoke.
The snaggletooth charged.
Blake sprang into action, kicking and clawing at the wreckage with a ferocity he didn’t know he possessed. Miraculously, his leg tore free from its restraint just as the snaggletooth slammed into his side. Its razor-sharp fins cut into his flesh, and he soared backward and hit the deck.
Everything was a terrifying black-and-blue blur. Blake’s ears rang with the snaggletooth’s shrill scream, and his vision reeled frantically as he tried to figure out where it would come from next. As he jerked to and fro, something flashed silver in his pearl’s light. Blake’s heart leapt, and he clawed madly through the water until his fingers were scrabbling across the deck. To his amazement, they brushed cold metal. He snatched it up and spun around blindly, the knife outstretched. Charging like a mad bull and screaming like a banshee, the snaggletooth gutted itself on the blade. His face twisted up with horrified disgust, Blake hastily let go. A pool of red mist quickly stained the saltwater. The snaggletooth went berserk at the scent of its own blood and tore around the cabin, smashing into the bulkheads and against the deck. Then it stopped, and floated motionless.
After several nail-biting moments, Blake released his bottled gasp and stared as the scaly corpse peacefully sank, vanishing into a pile of shattered table legs and chairs. He couldn’t believe it. He had killed it.
As he celebrated not dying, light streamed back into the captain’s cabin. It burned his eyes like fire, but this time Blake welcomed the light. He swam over to the stern window, afraid of what he would see in the darkness beyond it. But the light gave him courage, and he dared to look out.
Black cliffs rose up into an endless night. Luminescent plants grew upon them, shimmering and twinkling like blue stars. But the only light that truly brightened the darkness of the deep was a beam of what looked like clearest moonlight, pearly-white and mesmerizing.
Blake hesitated and looked down at the knife in his hands. He hadn’t used it to slit his throat after all. He had used it to fight for his life…the life that hadn’t seemed so precious mere hours ago. Perhaps…
Jagged frown lines cut deep into Blake’s bony cheeks.
…Perhaps he ought to keep fighting for his life.
Perhaps he ought to follow the Sea Captain’s light and see where it would lead him.
Blake snorted at that. If Tolger could see him now! Blake Ransom, roving sea-gipsey and hardened pirate, following his guardian angel, a woebegone Navyman, out of the hell he deserved and back to a world of sunshine and laughter.
Mech.
But even as he made foul faces at the light, he glanced sideways at the demolished cabin. It was now or never. If he stayed aboard the Polaris, he was a dead man. If, on the other hand, he died on his way to the surface, he’d be no worse off than he’d have been cowering aboard this doomed vessel, waiting for Keel Cutlass to come and cut his soul from his bloated corpse. He had two choices before him: certain death and…almost certain death.
It was the “almost” that lit a fire in his gut. “Almost” meant he had a chance.
“Almost” meant he might live. And Blake wondered…
Could the Sea Captain have been sent by…?
Blake’s heart ached and whispered of a long-buried hope.
Could he have been sent by…?
Blake bowed his head and imagined that he heard a seabird’s faint cry. Though the sound couldn’t have been real, his heart throbbed with a longing he had never expected to feel again. He had believed that the sea itself had killed his sea longing, but now he felt its familiar thirst once more. He was no corpse.
He was alive.
Blake faced the light and remembered how beautiful the ocean was, when its waves flashed with gold under the setting sun and sparks danced on their fiery crests. It was a sight worth dying for.
Blake’s eyes narrowed, and he stuck his knife between his teeth. He wasn’t going to play Keel Cutlass’s foul game or die the ocean’s victim.
He was going back, back to the sunlight.
4
Moonlight And Shadows
Blake swam toward the light.
Over his head, shadows larger than the Polaris slithered languidly in the gloom, reminding him of why he had given up hope of ever escaping this hellhole. Between the leviathans that lurked in the deep and the sharks that swam in brighter waters, there was no chance of making it to the surface alive. The sole reason he had survived his long descent was that he had been locked inside a cage at the time.
Blake kept swimming, his face set like flint. But his eyes betrayed his anger and his fear.
He had memories…of sharks and snaggleteeth ramming the cage, knocking it to and fro as they bit and tore at the metal bars and at one another, trying to get at the cowering man inside…
Blake stopped swimming. The light kept receding but he turned around, trembling, and beheld the Polaris sagging wearily on her port side, a haunted blue glow illuminating her from within. Torn in two, she teetered on the brink of a jagged crevasse. One gentle push from the sea and she would be lost forever.
He couldn’t go back. But could he go on?
What do you think, Tolger? Should I risk it?
Blake was hoping for a little encouragement, though he knew how fickle imaginary friends could be. Even at the worst of times, they couldn’t be relied on to actually reply. To his relief, his mental instability did not fail him.
“It’s your choice, captain, not mine,” Tolger said grimly, “I wouldn’t rest easy if I sent you to your grave.”
Oh, hell. Blake rolled his eyes. Why did he even ask Tolger these things?
He strained to catch up with the light. It was, he thought, like swimming through the night sky.
It had also been night when Hawkeye’s crewmen had led Blake out onto the Skull’s quarterdeck. The rest of the crew had leered at him in the torchlight, encircling a man-sized cage. Their captain had been standing next to the cage as well, wearing the Black King’s crown, Blake’s crown, the prize he had searched for doggedly for years, risking life and limb and forfeiting all other desires and dreams. He had sacrificed everything for the moment when he would fulfill Drake Ransom’s prophecy and triumphantly crown himself the Black King. No one else had believed in the old Sharid legend, the tale of the two Sea Kings. Hawkeye had mocked his fool’s hope for years, but in the end, Blake had found his coveted treasure, his heart’s desire…only to lose it in a matter of days to the traitor who called himself the Blood King.
The ratty-whiskered bastard had opened the cage himself with a mocking bow to the ragged man who called himself the Pirate King. Blake had resolved to meet his end without saying a word to the filthy traitor. But at the last moment, fear had gotten the better of him. He had already been locked inside the cage when he shouted at Hawkeye, “I’m not your enemy! Don’t do this to me!”
At that, Hawkeye had looked back at him. His cruel brown eyes had softened, and his thin lips had split. For one magical second, Blake had truly thought Hawkeye was going to release him. Then the pirate captain had started to sing.
“Heave-ho! Merry-oh!”
Hawkeye’s crew had eagerly joined in, their feet thumping to a slow, steady beat as they dangled their prisoner over the black water. Blake had stumbled stupidly about the swaying cage while the pirates’ song rang in his ears.
“To the home of Keel Cutlass you go!”
The pirates had slowly lowered the cage toward the water, singing like they were sending Blake to a merry gathering on the sea floor instead of a slow, hellish death. To keep himself from making a scene, Blake had fixed his eyes on the full moon right up until the water rose over his head. That shining white orb was the last memory he had of the world above.
The flashback lent Blake resolve, and when his arms began to tire, he pushed even harder. He kept his eyes riveted on the light, but that couldn’t prevent him from glimpsing the horrors that surrounded him…
A giant squid, drifting sleepily along, its translucent body puffed up like a hot-air balloon…any one of those razored tentacles could reach out, wrap itself around his chest, and drag him into that pulsating orange canopy...
Blake shuddered.
Don’t turn back. Follow the light.
He looked away and right at a giant gulper eel, which offered him a hideous grin as it slunk toward him, its tiny eyes agleam...
“Remember, Ransom?”
Hawkeye’s whisper nearly sent Blake racing for the Polaris. Of course he bloody well remembered! That gaping mouth could snap him up whole. In fact, one of them already had.
At the start of his first escape attempt, Blake had left the Polaris practically smelling the salty air. He was leaving this hellhole, and nothing could stop him!
He had made it halfway up the chasm before running into a very hungry gulper eel. It had opened its jaws wide, and to his horror, Blake hadn’t been able to swing his sword in time.
Its cavernous mouth had closed around him.
Surrounded by darkness and hot spongy walls, Blake had stabbed and stabbed until the creature had finally spat him out with a shriek of pain. That day, he had fled back to the Polaris. In all the half-hearted escape attempts that followed, he never made it that far again.
Until today.
Fear shone in Blake’s eyes as the gulper eel kept pace with him, slinking leisurely along and eyeing him malevolently. Then the light disappeared behind a rock formation.
The eel streaked for him.
Blake panicked, but in a flash the light reappeared and pierced the eel’s beady eyes. The eel stopped charging and, with a shriek, tore away from Blake and the torturously bright light. Shaken to his core, Blake stopped swimming.
I can’t do it! I can’t do it, damnit!
Blake twisted around to flee back to the Polaris, only to find himself face-to-face with a leering vampire shark. The black hulk was barely visible in the gloom. At present, it was trailing after the Sea Captain’s light like a mesmerized snake following a charmer’s flute. If Blake abandoned the light, would it come for him instead? He had witnessed one of its kind capturing prey before. The leviathan looked slow now, but at the sight of food, it could shoot forward like a bullet. No poor fishy stood a chance. Neither did Blake.
“Keep going, captain!”
Blake took his first mate’s advice, but his heart kept pounding like a drum. He sensed the vampire shark tagging along just yards behind him, and knew that the light was what was keeping him alive, second to second.
Then, to his horror, t
he light descended deeper into the abyss.
Get back here, you son of a bitch! Lead me up! Go UP, damnit!
But the light…or the Sea Captain…or whatever the hell it was…dropped down, down toward the sea floor. Blake had no choice but to follow it. Wild with fear, he plunged past huge volcanic rock formations, all pockmarked with yawning tunnels. Every second, he expected something hellish to lunge at him from one of those black holes. But nothing did.
Soon he was skimming the sea floor, which was blanketed in a thick layer of gray…all the nastiness that had sunken from shallower waters. The light guided him on toward a small dark hole. The pirate swallowed hard.
Then he entered the tunnel.
Black stone gleamed in his pearl’s sapphire glow. The farther he swam, the more the obsidian walls seemed to close in on him. What the hell was he doing? He was going deeper into the sea, not up toward its surface! Very likely, he had hallucinated the Sea Captain back aboard the Polaris. After all, Blake was fully aware that his grip on his sanity wasn’t exactly the tightest. Maybe that bump on the noggin had been the last straw, and now he was actually following a giant anglerfish’s lure deep into its lair, where it would swallow him up in one terrifying gulp.
…Or maybe the Sea Captain was real, and the ghost thought it amusing to watch Blake struggle for his life. His own had been so brutally taken from him. Or maybe—
Blake stopped dead, unable to believe his eyes. His internal monologue was cut ruthlessly short. There was something at the end of the tunnel…and it wasn’t a tongue and two yellow rows of Blake-sized fangs.
It was the gate to the Sunken Slaughterhouse.
Blake raced across the seashore. Crashing through the waves, he flopped onto his belly, shrieking with delight. Getting up, he dug his toes deep into the sand and squinted at the starry horizon. A silver path shone on the water, but no one was walking on it.
Blake’s burned hand still smarted. He lowered it into the cool water. For several more minutes, he surveyed the bay. Then he got bored with the Lady in Blue and decided to explore the seashore instead. He sloshed ashore.