by Kevin Hearne
“Does anyone see Vic and Qobayne? We can’t save the Peach, but we can save them,” Morgan said. When there was no answer but Luc’s mangled squawk, the girl ran toward the ship, and Al followed her, with Tempest on his heels. The rest of the crew was waiting for Luc, but the captain seemed trapped in his emotions; he looked like he was choking on a nut.
As they got close enough to feel the sizzling heat rolling off the Peach, Morgan pointed out to sea, where a rowboat bobbed a bit away from the POPO ship.
“I don’t get it,” Morgan said. “Why aren’t the POPO shooting at us? And what is that great lump of a thing sitting in their dinghy?”
As they watched, a figure appeared at the rail of the POPO ship and threw down a rope ladder. He joined the great lump in the dinghy and rowed laboriously toward them. Al pulled his barbecue fork, as did everyone else, but something was clearly amiss. The rower was traveling alone, which wasn’t something one did en route to fighting a horde of strangely dressed pirates armed with spatulas on a beach, if one could help it. And as the rower drew closer, Al recognized his back.
“That’s Qobayne!” he shouted, pleased to have such excellent eyesight thanks to a lifetime of carrot soup.
The waves eventually pushed Qobayne and the rowboat ashore, where it became clear that the great lump was in fact an unconscious centaur. Everyone gabbled their questions until Captain Luc finally broke through. “What’s all this, then?” he barked. “What’s happened to the Peach?”
Qobayne flapped his tired arms and rubbed at his blisters, not quite able to meet his captain’s eye. “ ’Twas the POPO, sir. They fired on us and hit the powder belowdecks, and the Peach went up like a ball o’ cat hair. But it’s not so bad as it looks.”
“Not so bad?” Luc squawked, flapping up off Feng’s shoulder to batter Qobayne about the face with his wings. “My ship is on firrrre!”
Qobayne, amazingly, smiled. “Aye, sir, your old ship is. But your new ship ain’t.” He pointed at the POPO ship. “Sails are in good shape, and there’s a crew on the gun deck ready to be recruited or keelhauled. I’ve got the hatch battened and the cannons silenced.”
Luc settled down on Feng’s shoulder and ground his beak. “It’s too easy, lad. Did the crrrrew not mutiny? Did the captain not choose to go down with his ship?”
Qobayne glanced back at the ship and then to his captain, nibbling his sunburned lip. “It was mostly Vic, sir, if I’m honest. That magic o’ his you mentioned. Ain’t never seen the like, and he took out most of the crew, but what’s left of ’em on the gun deck should be easy to persuade to sign on with us. I got ’em secured just now, an’ they’re terrified that Vic’ll concuss ’em with starchy muffins if they step out o’ line.”
Luc fluffed his feathers and shook his head. “Ain’t norrrrmal, that,” he muttered. “Not the magic, I mean—that’s a foine thing. But crrrrew shouldn’t give up. They eitherrrr fight ye or beg ye. Let’s load up and go see why the morrrrally rrrrighteous POPO would so easily consent to join a pirrrrate crew. Must be some kind o’ legerrrrdemain.”
The entire crew wouldn’t fit into the dinghy, of course, especially with Vic taking up so much room, so the first folks across were beefy sorts who could help get Vic aboard, which included Feng. Al and Morgan and Tempest were a bit lacking in the muscle department, so they remained behind, kept an eye out for cannibals vomited forth by the jungle, and waited to board the new ship once Qobayne and the other sailors had rigged a harness to the cargo pulley system to load Vic aboard.
“What can you see?” Morgan asked Al.
He squinted, wishing for his spyglass, which had perished along with his beloved crow’s nest. “There’s a big mess on deck. Sludgy brown stuff, knee deep. They’re tossing it overboard in chunks, along with bodies.”
“And no sign of Mingo?” Tempest asked.
She’d been pacing the beach since Qobayne informed her that Mingo had flown off into the jungle once the bombardment of the Peach began. Without knowing where Tempest would be, Mingo might never find her again. Al didn’t know why she was attached to the cantankerous creature, but he hated to see her in distress.
“No pink that I can see,” he told her. “But…well, there are worse fates for a flamingo than to be set free in a series of tropical islands, even if he’s forever doomed to cry out for mail that will never be delivered.”
“I’m just not ready to say goodbye,” Tempest murmured, staring off into the jungle, and Morgan put an arm around her shoulders.
“Well, you still have us,” she said, and that, at least, made Tempest smile.
Once Vic was safely hoisted onto the POPO ship, Brawny Billy returned to ferry them over in the empty dinghy, and it was a quick enough jaunt. Al was only too glad to board the new vessel, for he was relatively certain that no one on the ship wanted to eat him while wearing a bib. But since Al was a pudgy elf whose asthma had been exacerbated by running through a jungle full of pollen, the actual boarding was a bit of a trial. This wasn’t his favorite part of being a pirate, as he didn’t like bobbing near a bunch of murderously sharp barnacles while getting thwacked in the face with salt water and clambering up splintery wood as he banged against the ship’s hull over a swarming sea full of hungry eating machines, but he had to remind himself: It was still better than the Morningwood. No one had given him a wedgie in ages, nor had he found a sign on his back reading KICKETH ME, rendered in beautiful elvish calligraphy. He would soon find his stride on this new ship, and they’d continue on their quest to find Angus Otterman, whoever he was, and end the EATUM empire, thereby doing real good in the world.
Otto the otter was certainly glad to see Morgan again. He squeaked and leapt from Qobayne’s shoulder to hers and chittered at her as he nuzzled her neck. The snap of sails was music to Al’s ears, and the new crow’s nest looked particularly inviting. As the ship swayed beneath him, he smiled. It felt like home, even if a slightly new home.
“What’ll you call her, Captain?” Al asked, gesturing to the deck of the ship.
Luc blinked his single eye and minced side to side on Feng’s shoulder, his beak clicking. “The Pearrrrly Clam,” he finally said. “And may she hold many hidden trrrreasurrrres for the likes o’ us.”
Al found The Pearly Clam an altogether different sort of ship. For one thing, everything smelled like black tea and twists of lemon, and chunks of what appeared to be donuts were all over the place, floating in puddles of brown liquid. For another, Vic wasn’t clopping around on the deck; he was awkwardly lying down, only half conscious, cramming apple fritters into his face, one after another, from a small pile of them collected nearby. And for yet another thing, the remaining original crew members were clean, tidy, and utterly silent, quaking in their boots as they watched each new stranger climb up on the deck.
“You therrrre,” Luc said to a man in a very nice red coat. “You the firrrrst mate?”
“For now,” the man said, his eyes darting everywhere.
“What’s yourrrr name?”
“Gorp, sir.”
“And yourrrr crrrrew is willing to stay on and submit to my orrrrders?”
“You’re the captain, sir? But you’re—”
Luc flapped into the man’s face, talons spread in fierce rebuke.
“I’m the captain, boy! Clean Captain Luc, also known as Filthy Lucrrrre! And this is now my ship, rrrrenamed The Pearrrrly Clam, and you can show me rrrrespect orrrr walk the plank!”
Luc’s crew all raised their fists and shouted, “Luc!” and Al was just a few moments behind, as he hadn’t seen this sort of display before. Gorp gulped and gawked at the rest of his crew, men and women from all walks of life, all dressed in shades of red and cream.
“Did you hear that?” the man cried. “This is our captain now, and anyone who doesn’t like it can go kiss an eel!”
As no one appeared to want to kiss an eel
, Captain Luc merely bobbed his head, steered Feng over to the ship’s wheel, and ordered Qobayne to divvy up tasks; Gorp was to be second mate on The Pearly Clam going forward, thereby coopting any argument that the new captain disrespected the veteran crew. Gorp’s first task was to direct his men in chipping the fruitcake off the anchor, which would keep them too busy to cause trouble.
“You three head down into the hold,” the boatswain said to Al, Morgan, and Tempest. “Do a quick inventory of cargo.”
“Oh, you don’t want to go down there,” Gorp said.
“And why is that?” Morgan put her hand on her commandeered cutlass and raised an eyebrow.
“Because it’s…that is…you don’t…” Gorp had gone as white as a sheet. “Those were standing orders from Captain Kronch.”
“Well, the old captain is gone, and the new captain’s orders are to do an inventory, so that’s what we shall do.” Morgan gave the man a nod of daring and headed for the ladder. Tempest followed her, and Al came last.
“Keep a lookout for maps,” Morgan said. “We still need to find Mack Guyverr, and I’m sure this POPO captain has confiscated all sorts of atlases and goodies.” Otto chittered around her neck, and Al thought he heard fear in that cheerful little voice.
“Don’t worry. You’re not going to get stuck in the hold again,” she told him.
Al stepped from sunlight into the shadow belowdecks. As the velvety darkness swallowed him whole, all the little hairs on the back of his neck stood at full attention.
“Do you feel that?”
“Feel what?” Morgan asked as she climbed down below him, but the moment her feet hit the boards, her voice went low. “Oh. That.”
“That feeling like a slug is climbing down your spine,” Tempest added.
“Like it’s twenty degrees colder down here and we’re knee-deep in penguin vomit, yes.” Al snatched a lantern off the wall and held it aloft. The short hall down below had two doors, one to either side.
“Should we split up?” Morgan asked.
“No!” Al and Tempest blurted at the same time, as Otto said, “Eep!”
“Ooookay. I guess I’ll go first.” Morgan held out her hand for the lantern, and Al gladly handed it over. Whatever was happening belowdecks, he had a bad feeling about it.
Al waited to see which door Morgan would choose, and she went left. That room did seem to call to him somehow, as if it had a heartbeat, a pulse. As if it wanted something. As if it yearned. He paused on the threshold.
“Riches beyond measure,” a voice whispered from inside the door, but no one said anything about it, so Al hoped it was merely a side effect of the recent stress of nearly being boiled alive and eaten with gravy.
He wanted to stay with his friends and go through the door, but then again, he very much didn’t. Ultimately, he had no choice. After seeing Morgan flogged, Al was going to do his best to follow the captain’s orders. He had very thin skin that scarred easily, a low tolerance for pain, and a scream that could at best be called high and wobbly and at worst could be described as sounding like a llamataur mating.
Up ahead of him, Morgan crept into the hold, the boards squeaking under her bare feet, as they hadn’t bothered to stop the cannibals and ask their shoe sizes before fleeing and were therefore all shoeless. Tempest followed her, and Al followed Tempest. Taking up the rear, sword in hand, he told himself, was a chivalrous duty, such that he could defend the women from the back. But mostly he was just terrified and didn’t want to go in the whispering room first.
The hold wasn’t much different from their last hold. It was smaller, that was certain, but also longer and contained even more cargo. Looming shadows suggested the usual sorts of things one found under the deck—casks, traveling trunks, and skeletons.
Wait.
Skeletons?
Al looked at the place where he was sure he’d seen two skeletons splayed companionably side by side, but all he saw were two sacks of meal.
“Come closer,” someone said. “Look within. All the gold.”
“All the gold?” Al asked. “Because I don’t think that’s possible.”
Morgan turned to stare at him. “What?”
“I was just responding to that whispering voice.”
Morgan and Tempest looked at each other, aghast and pale. “What whispering voice?”
Panic sweat bloomed on Al’s back, instantly freezing there. Either he was going crazy or they were, and the odds were that the guy hearing voices was the one with the problem.
“The voice in the back of my head,” he said, affecting nonchalance. “Figured the POPO would be up to the gills in gold.”
“Maybe,” Tempest said. “But this mostly looks like the regular sort of stuff. Bags, casks, skeletons.”
“Aha! Skeletons!” Al chortled, pointing.
Morgan put a hand on his shoulder. “Why are you talking about skeletons?”
“B-because Tempest did?”
The women shared an even more horrified and pitying look. “Al, I didn’t mention skeletons. I said there were bags, casks, and chests.”
“Ha ha. Sure. Of course. Must still have turnips in my ears from that tureen.”
Morgan gave him a look—specifically, the look, the one that suggests you’re going a bit potty and might need to have a snack for your blood sugar and make an appointment with the local healer for some strategic sextopus treatments.
“Al, you’re acting really weird. Do you want to go abovedecks?”
Al firmly shook his head. “No way. Captain said to do inventory, and there’s a lot to go through. I’ve got a notebook and pencil, so let’s get it over with.” He did not mention that he was nearly peeing himself with fear.
They developed a system that worked for Al, because it hinged on him sitting by a lantern and writing things down while the girls poked around the terrifying bounty of the hold. It truly was full of riches, and a life of piracy began to make sense. The pirates stole from the rich men, and then the rich men hired the POPO to take the riches back, and then the POPO most likely kept the riches for themselves and said, Oh, gosh, those nasty pirates sure are fast! A cunning system, and one King Thorndwall would admire.
“And that’s another cask of grog,” Morgan called.
Al looked down to make a hash mark and discovered that instead of the neat notes he was sure he had taken, he had somehow covered the entire sheet of paper with drawings of bones, bloody cutlasses, and skulls wearing pirate hats. The largest of these skulls sported a white beard, and Al had drawn a little speech bubble that said, I’m going to eat your gizzard!! complete with two energetic exclamation points.
“One cask of grog,” he said, firmly drawing an X over the biggest skull. “Nothing else. Nothing creepy, especially. Just normal stuff.”
“Over here,” someone said. The voice was beautiful and soft, and Al couldn’t stop his body from standing and turning to face the darkest corner of the hold. Step by step, his feet walked him over to a dingy chest coated in a fur of cobwebs.
“Let me out,” the voice said, a bit desperate, and Al fumbled with the rusty clasps. A soft blue light began to glow from within the chest.
“That’s another box of hardtack,” Tempest said. “I swear, has no one taught pirates about crackers? Or biscotti? Can they actually enjoy that stuff?” She paused. “Al, where’d you go?”
But Al ignored her as he opened the top of the trunk.
“Al, no!” Tempest yelled. “That looks spelled—”
Much to Al’s surprise, he was forcefully flung against the wall, which he slid down, landing roughly on his rump. Tempest and Morgan appeared and knelt beside him, but no one asked him if he was okay this time, because the room was full of that eerie blue glow from the trunk as it swirled around in a cold vortex, rattling chains and sending up gouts of dust and ensuring that no one wa
s okay just now.
“What is it?” Morgan screamed into the whirling ether.
“It’s ghosts,” answered an unfamiliar voice. “Obviously.”
Al’s eyes came back into focus as the coiling vapor coalesced into a crew of see-through pirates. Some of them did look a little bit skeletonish, truth be told, and the captain looked very much like Al’s sketch, right down to the skull and white beard.
“I am Captain Skullbeard,” he said, bones clacking around. “Welcome to my ghost ship.”
“Er, beg to differ,” Tempest said with an air of apology. “This ship is the property of the Clean Captain Luc. And it’s not a ghost ship. As in, it’s not ghosty. It’s corporeal. Because we are bodies and we’re standing on it.”
“Nonsense! I am here, and I am a ghost, and the ship has not been taken from me, and thus it remains under my command. A ship belonging to a ghost is a ghost ship. That horrid POPO fellow may have locked us up in this magical trunk and surrounded us with lines of salt, but we’re now free, which means we’re retaking the ship.”
Oddly enough, now that the ghost pirates were free, Al had lost his fear of them. “Just for argument’s sake,” he said, “can you steer the ship? Since you don’t have a body?”
“Well, no,” Captain Skullbeard admitted. “But I can still give orders!”
“Okay, but what happens if no one follows those orders?” Tempest ventured.
Captain Skullbeard’s visage trembled and became a hideous horror show of rotting flesh and bulging eyes. “Then I’ll haunt you!” he screamed. “All day and all night! I’ll screech and wail, and—”
“Okay, so that’s fun, but let’s get back to inventory,” Al said. “Bad news is that I was somehow ghost-hypnotized before, so I didn’t get an accurate count and we’ll have to start over. Good news is that I’m fine now, and, also, this cask of grog is dripping a little in a way that suggests I could—” He cupped a hand under the cask in question and soon raised a handful of grog to his lips. “Oh, yes. Inventory just became a party.”