by Kai Meyer
“Over there,” she said, pointing to the pile of wooden planks. “Walker can afford to do without a piece of that, I guess.”
“What’s that mean, a piece?” The worm flipped out of her hands and wriggled across the floor on its short legs, much more agilely than she’d have thought possible.
“Hey,” cried Griffin, “watch out!”
“He’s going to eat a hole in the hull,” Munk prophesied darkly.
Jolly had noticed before that when things became serious, the two boys were always of one opinion—and that seldom coincided with her own. Anyway, that spoke against Soledads dark presentiment.
She made a leap after the worm and managed to grab him by one of his bustling little legs. He squealed and scolded like a drunken ship’s cook.
“I must protest most keenly! One does not treat a Hexhermetic Shipworm in this fashion!”
Jolly held him high. This time she clasped him firmly, and he soon stopped trying to defend himself. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
“My stomach is growling.”
“Then kindly listen to me: You will eat only what I give you, understand? No holes in the ship’s wall. No eaten-away masts. Is that clear?”
The mouth opening twisted into something that might be an offended pout. The shipworm sulked. “Yes, yes,” he said crossly.
“Umm, Jolly?” Munk raised his hand as if he wanted permission to speak. “Ask him how much a day he eats.”
“Ask him yourself.”
“I am not deaf!” thundered the worm anew. “And I speak your language, boy.”
“Then give me an answer,” Munk said.
“One plank a day might be enough to keep me from starving to death.”
“A whole plank?” Griffin groaned.
Jolly could imagine Walker’s face when he learned of that. “You don’t really need so much, do you?”
“Do you want to be responsible for my dying of hunger?”
“Perhaps,” said Griffin, earning a mean look from Jolly.
Naturally she was just as upset as the two boys over the shipworm’s brazenness. But something told her there was more to him than just an amazing stream of impertinences. She was about to rebuke him again when he slipped out of her hands and scrabbled over to the woodpile so fast that even Munk and Griffin were flabbergasted.
With an indescribable sound, the worm ate his way along one plank in a flash: He clapped his mouth over one end and then simply ran forward, while his jaws reduced the wood to a cloud of sawdust and splinters.
He’d already devoured half the plank when Jolly caught him by the back legs. His jaws ground and chewed on, but now they were catching only on air. After some moments he gave up. Instead, he deluged the three of them with a now-familiar flood of maledictions and invective.
“So,” said Jolly, “now you’re going to answer a few questions for us.” Turning to Griffin, she called, “Better close the cargo hatch. Walker doesn’t have to know anything about this.”
“Are you going to torture me?” the Hexhermetic Shipworm cried.
“Torture?” Jolly stared at him, dumbfounded.
Munk reacted faster. “Of course,” he said in a menacing voice. “You should know that I am a grand master of mussel magic, and if it pleases me, I can turn you from a Hexhermetic Shipworm into a grunting green caterpillar with the wave of a hand.”
“You … you’d do that?”
Munk pulled a handful of mussels from his belt pouch. “I already see,” he proclaimed ominously, “that what you need is proof of my skills.”
“Oh no, oh no.”
“Sure?”
“Jolly!” cried the worm accusingly. “Why didn’t you let me drown? A quick death would have been better than the company of such rude fellows.” As he spoke, his voice got higher and thinner.
Jolly bit back a grin. “They’re boys, you know? They’re stronger than I am. If they want, they can do what they like with you.”
“And they would love to,” said Griffin.
The shipworm, after a short hesitation, shook his rear feet free, cast a longing look at the remains of the plank, and then sighed. “Oh, all right. I bow to raw force.;”
“What do you know about the Maelstrom?” Jolly asked.
The worm wiggled himself upright on the pile of boards and gulped. “Well, he’s … big.”
“Have you seen him, then?”
“Not directly. But I’ve heard about him.”
“Who from?”
“Never heard of the wisdom of the worms? We have at our disposal a knowledge that exceeds your powers of imagination by far, you pale, ugly bipeds.”
Griffin rolled his eyes. “Another one.”
“So?” Munk asked. “Who told you about the Maelstrom?”
“Other worms. Brothers and sisters who lived on the wood of ships that were caught in the suction of the Maelstrom. Most were drowned with man and mouse, but a few ships broke up beforehand, and one or another piece of flotsam made its way back to civilization. The inhabitants spread the information about the Maelstrom everywhere. There are shipworms on every ship and every island—although most of them naturally are smaller and do not have the advantage of my keen intellect.”
“Where exactly is the Maelstrom?” The Ghost Trader could have answered this question, but as long as he made a secret out of it, maybe the worm could help them along.
“Out in the Atlantic, beyond the outer islands.”
“Can you possibly be somewhat more exact?” asked Griffin impatiently.
“Northeast of the Virgin Islands. It’s said he arises from the bottom of the ocean, in a place that had a name from the time when there was still other life under there besides a few blind fish. ‘Crustal Breach,’ people called it then.”
Jolly recalled one of the countless charts that Captain Bannon had kept in his cabin. He’d often studied them with her, initiating Jolly into the meanings of the strange signs, lines, and nautical terms, as he maneuvered the ship surely through the Caribbean with the help of all these particulars. The Virgin Islands lay at the edge of the Caribbean island world, forming the northernmost tip of the Lesser Antilles. On the other side of them there was nothing but thousands of miles of open sea, an endless horizon, an empty waste of water above uncharted shoals. There were regions into which a ship never cruised—as if they’d been created for the powers of the Mare Tenebrosum.
“What else do you know about the Maelstrom?”
The shipworm wriggled backward and forward uneasily. “Well,” he began, “what do you actually know about him? Especially your oh-so-powerful master magician?”
It took Munk a moment to realize that it was he who was meant and not the Ghost Trader. He looked as though he wasn’t entirely comfortable about it. “That’s no concern of yours,” he said quickly. And, as if in corroboration, he shoved his hand into his mussel sack.
The worm drummed his feet on the wood, the way humans sometimes drum their fingers on a tabletop with impatience. “There are things going on, everywhere in the islands,” he said, and for the first time he sounded thoughtful. “There are extraordinary creatures around, and the kobalins are gathering in swarms, completely contrary to their usual habit. Before, the deep-sea tribes fought among themselves, but now they unite into mighty armies on the march, which all move in a certain direction.”
“To the northeast?” asked Griffin.
“Of course.”
“We saw them,” said Munk.
“Then I wonder why the one-eyed fool gave the order to sail the ship in the same direction.” The shipworm gnashed his chewing mechanism as if he’d just discovered a few delicate shavings within it. “Well all be swallowed up if we come too close to the Maelstrom.”
“He’s right,” said Griffin to Jolly and Munk. “I heard the Ghost Trader order the course to the northeast.”
“Aelenium,” said Jolly, lost in thought. “That was the word he mentioned. Our destination, I think.”
“In a
ny case, that’s no island I ever heard of,” said Griffin.
“Perhaps it has another name,” said Munk.
The shipworm had reacted when Jolly spoke the name, but now he was the picture of unconcern. She’d noticed, however. “You know what it is, this Aelenium. Don’t you?”
“Oh, yes?” The shell on the shipworm’s head turned greedily in the direction of the partially eaten plank. “If I weren’t so hungry, then … perhaps …”
Jolly bent threateningly over him. “You know it.”
“Possibly.”
“We could pull his legs off one at a time until he—”
“Griffin!”
“My stomach just growled again,” said the worm, unimpressed. Obviously he’d realized that Jolly would prevent any application of force. “And when my stomach growls, I can’t think. And I remember nothing. Especially things that are so many miles away … and that one or another here possibly has a certain interest in.”
“You’re a monster,” said Jolly.
“Can I eat now?”
“Only if you promise to tell us all you know about Aelenium afterward.”
“Yes, yes.”
Jolly pointed to the half plank. “And only the rest of that one, understand?”
The Hexhermetic Shipworm threw himself onto his food. In no time there was only a heap of fine sawdust left of the plank and two or three splinters, which he greedily gathered up with his mouth opening. “One shouldn’t waste anything,” he said as he chewed. “Never let anything go to waste.”
“We’re picking up speed,” said Munk, letting his eyes roam over the creaking sides of the Carfax.
Griffin nodded. “It’s about time, too.”
Jolly placed her hands on her hips and stared expectantly at the smacking worm.
“Aelenium,” she reminded him.
The worm gave a heartrending sigh, then bent his six stumpy legs in front of him and launched into a verse:
Aelenium, the beautiful,
I find no words,
she is—
“Enough!” Jolly placed her index finger against the head shell threateningly. “No poems, Walker said, and that also goes for us down here.”
“No rhymes,” confirmed Griffin.
“No verse,” said Munk.
“No feeling for poesy!” cried the worm indignantly, but he thought better of getting into another argument. “Aelenium is not an island,” he said after a short pause. “Aelenium is a city.”
“A city in the middle of the sea?”
“Certainly.”
“That’s nonsense,” Griffin declared with a dismissive wave. “He just wants to eat the ship out from under our behinds, that’s all.”
“I do not … or maybe I do. But nevertheless, I’m speaking the truth!”
Munk frowned. “Aelenium is a floating city?”
“Of course.”
Jolly’s eyes narrowed. “So it’s something like a ship?”
“No, different. Stranger. Aelenium lies at anchor, on a chain that is many miles long and reaches down to the bottom of the sea. Besides, it is—to my regret—not built of wood.”
“What, then?”
The worm trembled suddenly. A movement ran through its body like a wave—and gave vent in a noisy belch.
At the same moment, the ship shook. Jolly and the boys were thrown off their feet. She succeeded in grabbing onto a supporting beam, but then her hands slipped down and splinters bored into her palms. She let out a scream of pain, saw blood between her fingers, and instinctively let go.
Griffin, who was already back on his feet, caught her. Not especially gallantly, not even intentionally, as she supposed—but his hands shot out and caught her before she could hit the back of her head on the planking. He really is devilishly fast. Jolly thought.
“Thanks,” she gasped, wiped the drops of blood on her trousers, and looked for Munk. He’d fallen quite a distance from them against the side and was holding his head and cursing softly.
“Everything all right?” she asked with concern.
He nodded and made a pained face. “My head hurts. But it will pass.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.” Now he was more careful and didn’t nod again.
All three looked at the Hexhermetic Shipworm.
He’d rolled off the pile of wood, but he was standing on his short legs again—and he belched again.
This time the Carfax was not shaken.
“That was a cannon shot!” Griffin exclaimed. “A ball must have landed right beside the hull!”
Behind them the hatch to the cargo hold was flung open. Soledad leaped down the upper steps, looked around in the half dark, and finally discovered them around the pile of boards.
“Come on up!” she cried. “We’re under attack! Kendrick’s bounty hunters have found us!”
Sea Battle
Two ships had taken up pursuit of the Carfax in the moonlight.
One was a schooner with two masts, narrow hull, and great spreads of sail, which allowed it to gather speed swiftly. The shallow construction made it easy to turn and especially suited for maneuvers in shoaled waters.
“Few cannon,” said Walker as Jolly and the boys came to stand beside him on the bridge. “The scurvy fellow is racy but not especially dangerous.”
“Oh, yes,” said the Ghost Trader gloomily. “He’ll try to cut us off so that the other ship will catch us. These aren’t competing bounty hunters—they’re working together.”
Walker was silent while he considered this possibility.
Jolly looked over at their second pursuer, a sloop like the Carfax that lay as deep in the water as a fully loaded trading ship—with the difference that the sloop was loaded with guns, certainly far more than they had at their own disposal. If the schooner were to succeed in passing and holding them up, they’d be sitting ducks for the overwhelming firepower of the second ship.
The bounty hunters must have been waiting for the Carfax to leave the harbor. With a confrontation on land, too many other pirates would have mixed in, greedy for the gold that Kendrick had set on Jolly’s and Soledad’s heads. Here in the open waters, on the other hand, no one would interfere with their business.
Walker snarled orders from the bridge, Buenaventure clamped his paws onto the wheel, and Soledad stood like stone at the railing, a throwing knife in her hand, as if she expected to deal with the boarding crew of the bounty hunters at any moment.
As usual at the beginning of a battle, sand was strewn on the deck so that the crew wouldn’t slip and so waste precious time. In view of the ghostly crew of the Carfax, that was really unnecessary; the weightless ghost sailors moved without ever touching the deck. Many of them now gathered around the cannons and made them ready for the fight.
The wind freshened the farther Tortuga fell behind them. The bow struck the foaming sea and a deep throbbing and pounding came from the innards of the ship. The schooner was still on a level with them and sailing hard into the wind. The crew of the bounty hunter fired off their guns several more times, but all the balls landed in the churning waves far from the Carfax. Each time, the ship shuddered, but there were no hits that might have caused damage. Walker decided not to waste powder and iron until both ships were in a better fighting position. After a while, the schooner also gave up firing at the Carfax, trying merely to cut her off and not to sink her. That task was left to the sloop at her rear.
“They’re dumb to waste the first broadside that way,” said Jolly to Munk, without taking her eyes off the enemy ship. “The first loading is always the most carefully packed and targeted—at the beginning of a fight, the crew still have enough time for it. In the heat of the fight it has to go faster, and the shots are more uncertain.”
“Do you know these ships?” the Ghost Trader asked Walker.
“The schooner is the Natividad under Captain McBain. He’s not a bad fellow, if you don’t have passengers aboard with a price on their heads.” Walker sent Jolly and Sole
dad a dark look.
“Think of the gold,” Jolly said.
“Believe me, I think of nothing else.”
“You should, however,” countered the Ghost Trader. “For instance, how you and your hairy friend there are going to get us out of this alive.”
“I could always just hand the two of them over.”
There was a whizzing noise, and something struck the railing beside Walker’s hand with a dull thump—Soledad’s throwing knife. The blade was hardly an inch from his pinkie finger.
“Just try it,” she called over, “and the next one will stick in your forehead.”
The captain beamed. “Your charm is, as always, breathtaking, lovely princess.”
“So many have said that—and after that, nothing more at all.”
Walker laughed softly and turned to Buenaventura. “Not any closer to the wind,” he commanded. To the cannoneers on deck, almost invisible in the moonlight, he called, “All stand by for firing!”
Torches flamed up in the darkness.
Munk bent toward Jolly. “You said it was wrong to shoot right now.”
“Right now—but maybe not in one or two minutes. If the schooner stays on course, that will bring her nearer to us. Walker wants to be sure were ready at the best possible moment.”
“Bannon taught you a lot about fighting at sea,” said the captain approvingly. “Not bad for a little toad.”
Griffin bit his lower lip. “They’re going to fire any minute.”
“What about the sloop?” asked Munk.
“Still too far behind us,” Jolly said. “The Natividad made the mistake of challenging us too early. Instead of placing us under fire, she should have used her speed to catch up to us and cut us off.”
Walker agreed with her. “McBain always was an impatient fellow. He was trying it on his own, and that’s to our advantage.”
“Do you know the captain of the second ship?” asked the Ghost Trader.
“I know the ship, the Palomino. She last belonged to a pirate from the Lesser Antilles, but the word is that he lost her in a dice game to someone else. He may be called Konstantin.”