Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull

by James Raney

  “How is that possible?”

  “If this island were simply invisible,” said Cornelius. “The Spectre would have crashed into it before we even reached the Devil’s Horns. But this island is at least ten miles across, filled with forests, rocks, fields, and hills. I think this isle is more than just hidden from the eyes of men. I believe it may be its own world entirely. A magic world.”

  “Speakin o’ magic,” said George, holding his head for all the head butting he had done with his brothers. “You used some, didn’t you Jim? On the ship, right before we all went tumblin’ down. There was this flash and smoke, and then that wind came up outta nowhere. How did you do that? You never told me you knew any magic! Was Dread Steele givin’ you extra lessons or somethin’?”

  “Magic?” Jim said, feigning surprise. But his throat went dry and Lacey and Cornelius’s gazes were suddenly very heavy upon him. So, at last, Jim sighed and confessed the truth.

  “I never lost my mother’s necklace,” he said. His eyes drifted down to the sand. He began drilling a hole in it with one of his fingers to keep from meeting his friends’ eyes. “That night, when we came to Morgan Manor and found it all burned to the ground, when I ran away down the beach, there was this old man – a magician or something. He gave me a rose, a magic rose thorn in exchange for the necklace. He said that it would help…he said it would help me get back at the Cromiers for all they’d done to me…to us.”

  “Oh, Jim,” Lacey said. Jim felt an unpleasant heat rush up into his face at the disappointment in her voice. Cornelius, however, refused to let Jim hide his eyes. The raven hopped right under Jim’s nose and gave him a black gaze.

  “Magic is a dangerous thing, young Morgan. You remember the Vault, do you not? It very nearly killed us both! Then there was the amulet – which tempted you to abandon your friends, and afterwards devoured the King of Thieves whole when it shattered! What possessed you to again take hold of such dark enchantments?”

  “Now hold on a sec,” George said, taking up for Jim. “It worked didn’t it? I mean, those stinkers, the Cromiers and that blighter Splitbeard, woulda got on this island and done who knows what if Jim hadn’t done that trick. I just wish you’d a told us, mate, that’s all.” There was a little hurt in George’s voice, but Jim was glad enough to have at least one of his friends on his side.

  “It’s supposed to give me the chance to turn the tables on the Cromiers – to get revenge for what they’ve done.”

  “Perhaps,” Cornelius said. “But at what cost? For good or for ill, my boy, magic always costs something, doesn’t it? Let us take a look at your hand.”

  Jim hesitated, keeping his fist balled up by his side. He was partly afraid to show Cornelius and Lacey, but he even more terrified to look himself.

  “Show us, Jim,” Lacey said quietly. Jim pulled his aching hand up from the sand and slowly unfurled his fingers. George sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth. Lacey gasped. Cornelius let out a long caw and even Jim’s stomach sank deep into his gut.

  On Jim’s thumb, where the thorn had struck, a deep blight darkened his skin - black as pitch. From the wound, dark tendrils crawled into his palm like vines on a wall.

  “Does it hurt?” Lacey asked.

  “It hurts something awful,” Jim admitted. “Is it bad, Cornelius?” he asked. For the first time since Jim had known the bird, Cornelius Darkfeather seemed at a loss for words. He shook his beaked head and ruffled his feathers.

  “I don’t know, lad. I don’t know.”

  Jim stared hard at his hand with a queasy knot in his stomach. He was about to ask Cornelius if the bird knew any tricks to dull the pain, when loud shouting suddenly echoed down the beach. It was Peter and Paul. The wound momentarily forgotten, Jim, George, and Lacey leapt to their feet and ran toward the hollering. But drawing closer, they heard obnoxious laughter punctuating the shouts and found Peter and Paul leaping in circles around a row of grey rocks in the sand.

  “Jim, George!” Peter shouted, laughing at the top of his lungs. “Let’s have another head butting contest!”

  “Right,” said Paul. “You two go first and we can know for sure if your heads really are hard as rocks or not.”

  Jim had no idea what Peter and Paul were talking about until he approached the stones. The gray rocks were not rocks at all. They were statues - statues of five men running toward the water. Their mouths were stretched into frightened maws. Their eyes were open wide and staring.

  “Oh, they’re awful!” Lacey cried. She stepped back from the statues and dropped her gaze to her feet. “Their faces look so real. Who would make such horrible statues?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s horrible,” Paul said. “This one’s got a hanger on his nose!” Paul pointed to a bit of moss growing inside one of the statue’s nostrils. Peter, of course, pretended to pick it, which sent George and Paul into hysterics.

  “That’s disgusting, Peter!” Lacey shouted.

  “It does seem strange, does it not?” Cornelius said, flapping down atop one of the statue’s heads. “Five statues just planted here in the middle of the beach? As I surveyed the island from above I saw no building, temples, or signs of civilization at all. It’s as though these sculptures were crafted, and with great skill I might add, then just left here on their own.”

  While the others joked and laughed, an appalling thought struck Jim. His heart dropped like a stone within him. “Stop playing with the statues, right now!” he shouted. “Don’t touch them!”

  “Oh, come off it, Jim!” George chided. “They’re just statues.”

  “No, they’re not. At least they weren’t. I think…I think they were real people.”

  The three Ratts stopped laughing immediately. Peter yanked his hand away from the statue’s nose as though his fingers had been burned. Even Cornelius leapt from statue’s head and flapped to Jim’s shoulder.

  “When we were in Shelltown,” Jim continued. “Do you remember what Egidio said about this island? He said it was protected by a curse. He said if you stay on the island for longer than one day and one night, you would be imprisoned here for all time. Don’t you see? These were sailors.” Jim’s mouth went dry as the sand beneath his feet. “This is what happens when you don’t leave the island in time. This is how the island imprisons you forever.”

  TWO

  im and friends stood before the statues, silent as the grave.

  “So,” said George. “It’s already mid-mornin’ here on this magic island. And you’re sayin’ that if we don’t get back through them Horns before it rises again, we’ll be statues just like these poor blokes?”

  Jim nodded. A cold shiver shook him in spite of the morning sun.

  “And someone’ll come and pick the moss bogeys from my nose?” Paul asked. He tried to smile, but his lips trembled.

  “Well, as much as I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, my friends, our situation may yet be more dire.” Cornelius cawed. “When I flew over the island I saw another boat set upon the shore a mile or so down the beach. Footprints led away from the vessel and up to the rocks.” Jim gritted his teeth. Pain lanced through his hand. He knew to whom the boat belonged.

  “The Cromiers and Splitbeard. They’re on the island too. And they have the map!”

  “What do we do?” Lacey asked, grabbing hold of Jim’s arm. “Maybe we should wait here for Captain Steele to come through the Horns? Or go back through now and have the Captain come back with us. Surely he’ll know what to do!”

  “Hmm, all of those would seem like wonderful ideas, young lady,” said a voice, crackly and dry as two stones rubbing together. “But you would be waiting a long, long, long time. All the way till the sun set and rose again, and the five of you turned to stone with a flash of light and a puff of smoke.”

  “Who was that?” Jim cried.

  “Show yourself, giver of unasked advice!” Cornelius shrieked. “We are five who have come through magical barriers, deathly traps, and battles with monsters of the de
ep! We will not hesitate to face you if you prove yourself a villain!”

  “Oh, I am no villain, sirs and lady,” said the voice in its slow, grainy rhythm. “In fact, I do believe if you were to add up my virtues and subtract my faults, all that would remain would be a pair of eyes. And these eyes have seen much on the Veiled Isle. Step around those poor stone souls and see for yourselves.”

  Bundled up against one another, Jim and his friends crept down the beach toward the voice. Just beyond the five statues sat a wide, flat stone, and upon the stone rested a long, green-scaled lizard. It was bathing in the morning sun, saggy neck craned up toward the sky and spiny tail curled up behind him.

  “A talking lizard!” Peter exclaimed. Seeing that the lizard seemed to move as slowly as it spoke, Jim and the others relaxed a little and even risked a few steps closer to the rock upon which the creature sat.

  “How many talking animals are there?” said George, exasperated. “I never heard no animal speak until old Darkfeather here. Now they’re poppin’ up all over. It’s just silly!”

  “I know a great many enchanted beasts in our world,” Cornelius said. “We run in the same circles, really. Once you’ve met one talking animal, you are bound to meet more in due time. Though I must say, I haven’t had the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr…”

  “Hmm…there may be no word for my name in the human tongues, good sirs and lady,” said the lizard. “And I doubt your rather short tongues could pronounce it in lizard-speak – as it is rather tricky. So for now, hmm, call me Twisttail, and it is a pleasure to meet you all.” The lizard lifted one claw from the rock in an agonizingly slow wave. He then flicked his forked tongue twice, which seemed to be the only movement he could make with any speed at all. “Hmm, and I would say the reason you have not heard of me, master raven,” continued Twisttail. “Is that I am not from your world. I am from this one, good sirs and lady.”

  “It would normally be good to meet you, Twisttail,” said Jim, shoving his left hand in his pocket and trying to ignore the pulsing ache. “But my friends and I are here for something very important, and there are some very dangerous people that are here for that same something as well. Now, we were talking about waiting for more of our crew to come ashore, or going back to get them, but you said we’d be waiting a long time. What did you mean?”

  “Hmm, I’m not sure I fully understand how it all works myself, good sirs, for I am no master of magic,” replied Twisttail. “But if you crane your short, little necks back round toward the ocean and look closely at yonder stones, you will see red light shining through the Devil’s Horns. Always it is this way when men pass through into our world. And always it remains until they leave again.”

  Jim and the others turned back toward the sea and stared hard at the Devil’s Horns. Indeed Jim made out a faint reddish glow between the rocks, and a smattering of glittering crimson upon the waves. It was the red light of the setting sun from his world, Jim realized. His shoulders slumped as he worked out the implications in his head.

  “The time on this island isn’t the same as the time back in our world,” Jim said, as much to himself as everyone else.

  “Oh, yes, that makes total sense, Jim,” George said. “To no one! What exactly are you sayin’?”

  “I’m saying we’re on our own, George!” Jim tried to hide the intense pain in his hand and clenching his teeth quite hard to bear it. “I think a whole day and night will pass on this island before the sun even sets in ours. When we cross back through the Devil’s Horns, it will be just the same moment we left. Right in the middle of the battle. We have only that much time to find the cave before the Cromiers and Splitbeard do, and then to get back through the Devil’s Horns.”

  “Or we’ll be turned to stone!” Lacey cast a nervous glance at the five statues beside them on the beach.

  “I’m afraid the odds of finding the shell in but a day and a night are stacked in our enemy’s favor,” Cornelius cawed, flapping his wings and shaking his head.

  “Well,” said George. “That all sounds pretty bad, don’t it?” But even then that irrepressible, Ratt Brother’s smile split his face. “Good thing we’re here or you all’d be in a real pinch, wouldn’t you? Me and Peter and Paul have gotten outta plenty of scrapes worse than this one back in London, I can tell you that!”

  “What scrapes, exactly, threatened to turn you all into stone and involved ancient magical artifacts, George?” Lacey folded her arms and glared at the eldest Ratt.

  George paused for a long moment. “Well, maybe not exactly like this one, Lacey…but close, really close. Just trust me, alright, there is nothing to worry about, at all.”

  “We’re doomed,” cried Lacey.

  “Despair not, fair Lacey,” said Cornelius. “We do have at least one clue, don’t we? Old Egidio said that Lindsay Morgan would have most likely hidden the shell in a cave beneath the mountain at the center of the island. I am sure I saw this mountain when I was flying overhead. If we make it there, perhaps we might yet find this cave.”

  “Hmm…did you say a cave, good master raven?” the lizard interjected, having moved not one inch the entire breadth of the conversation. His tongue flicked rapidly in and out of his mouth. “I have lived on this island for many, many, many years, good sirs and lady. Hmm…and the majority of them spent on this very rock, now that I think about it. But when I was a younger lizard I traveled here and there across the island. There is only one cave that Twisttail knows lies beneath the mountain. But if you can avoid that place, good sirs and lady, you would be wise to do so. Hmmm…it is a dark and dangerous hole, home to some ancient evil, so lizards even older than I say.”

  Jim swallowed hard. His head still ached and the burning in his hand showed no signs of subsiding. But he hadn’t pricked his finger with that blackened rose to come this far and fail. He would not give up this quest without a fight.

  “We have no choice, Twisttail,” said Jim. “We must find the cave. Do you know the way? A shortcut perhaps?”

  “Hmm, I’ve not been to the black cave for many, many years, good sirs and lady,” said the lizard. He shifted his long head ever so slightly as though thinking quite hard. His dragon-like tongue lanced in and out between his teeth. “Yet, I may be able to set you upon the right path. Hmm…walk down this beach for nearly a mile until you pass a hill topped by a dead and leafless tree. Beyond that hill lies the crags. There is a path through the crags that leads to a field called the Sea of Tall Grass. The tall grass will hide you all the way to the River of the Mountain’s Tears. If you are able to ford the river, the Dark Forest waits for you on the other side. There is a trail through the forest that leads to the foot of the mountain. There will be found the entrance to the cave, good sirs and lady.”

  “That seems like a far way to go in one day and one night,” Jim said. His heart sank a little further at the thought of all the places the lizard had listed between the beach and the mountain.

  “It seems especially far, Master Lizard,” Cornelius cawed loudly from Jim’s shoulder. “When considering that I saw from the sky a vast stretch of rolling hills, just beyond these boulders. These fields would seem gentler travelling all the way to the mountain at center of the island, they would, they would.”

  “No, no, no!” roared the lizard. The green creature thrashed so suddenly upon the rock, that it took the clan quite by surprise. They jumped back in a protective knot, Peter and Paul sticking their heads between Jim and George’s arms. “Go not through the Field of Lights!” cried Twisttail. His little chest heaved in and out from his brief exertion and his pink tongue flashed like lightning.

  “Whatever happens, good sirs and lady,” said the Lizard, slowly regaining his composure, “risk not that awful place. Hmm, many men have been lured by the easy path and ensnared by the beckoning glow. Evil spirits inhabit those fields! They live only to ensnare poor and hapless travelers like yourselves. You must go around, good sirs and lady. It is the only way!”

  Jim looked at
the lizard for a long moment, thinking hard. Twisttail’s way seemed so long, and the cave so far away. But what choice did they have? The sun was already travelling quickly from morning to noon.

  “We have no choice,” said Jim, with a resigned sigh. “We take the lizard’s path.” The clan thanked Twisttail for his help and set off down the beach at once. But as they went, Jim snuck a glance at his aching hand. The black tendrils had already crawled a little farther down his thumb, slowly inching their way across his hand.

  THREE

  nd so,” pronounced Cornelius from Jim’s shoulder, stretching his wings in the morning warmth. “That was how Frederick Nine Fingers became Freddy Sevens, and also how we escaped the Marauders of Malta. Hopefully I haven’t done the old boy injustice in my story. Freddy really was a fairly decent pirate, you know, especially when it came to crossing blades with the enemy. But manning the cannons was obviously not his cup of tea, was it?” Cornelius cackled to himself. He held his belly with his wings as though his own story had been the funniest thing he had ever heard.

  The children had been walking down the beach for nearly an hour. Rows of large boulders barred their way from the hills and fields Twisttail had warned them to avoid. The morning sun crept ever closer to noon. Cornelius had decided to pass the time telling some sea stories. This began as a charming idea, but many of the tales really were quite alarming and hardly did the clan’s confidence any favors.

  “Blimey, Darkfeather,” George said tiredly, kicking at the sand with his toes. “How many stories do you know, anyway?”

  “Oh, countless tales from countless adventures, Master Ratt! I could regale with you epics from each of the Seven Seas seven times over.”

  “Oh,” said Peter as George groaned. “I was hoping you were going to say like eight or something…you know, like a more manageable number.”