by Kai Meyer
“How did you get here?” Jolly asked the Ghost Trader. He ran his hand over the dark plumage of the two parrots sitting on his shoulder.
“As fast as the wind.”
“Yes, yes,” she said with an exaggerated yawn, and she imitated his deep voice: “For there are means and ways, which are beyond our—”
The Ghost Trader interrupted her. “In this case, there are, in fact.”
She pressed her lips together and examined the Ghost Trader closely. In the shadows of his hood his face had become serious again. She wondered if there weren’t even more lines than a few days before.
“The sea eagles have brought bad news back to New Providence.” He drank up his rum in one draft but didn’t order a new glass, “There is greater danger threatening than I feared.” He paused. His one eye rested on Jolly for a while, then wandered farther to Munk, Jolly thought she saw sorrow but also determination in it.
“It is time to arm,” said the Ghost Trader, “The hunt has begun, the polliwogs are awaited.”
“The Maelstrom?” asked Griffin.
The Ghost Trader seemed to notice the pirate boy consciously for the first time. Then he looked at Jolly. “Have you told them everything?”
Jolly shivered under his searching look, but she nodded. Then she reported to him about the host of deep-sea tribes and the invisible being that had led them.
The Ghost Trader clenched his right hand into a fist. “That only confirms what our allies in the east reported to me.”
“Our allies?” asked Walker skeptically.
“The allies of all free men!” said the Trader sharply. “And of those who wish to remain so.”
Walker snorted disparagingly, but he was silent. Jolly had the feeling that he had much greater respect for the Ghost Trader than he wanted to admit. Even Buenaventure uttered no sound. The landlord had first offered him a bone, in all seriousness. For a long moment Buenaventure had looked as if he’d have rather eaten the entire man instead of a bone. But then he’d only asked for another beer.
“Who are these allies?” Munk asked the Ghost Trader.
“I cannot tell you. Not here, where the walls have ears.” He cast a meaningful look over at the landlord behind the bar, who was polishing the same glass for the third time. “But you’ll learn to know them if we come safely away from this island.”
“Do you doubt that we’ll manage to do it, then?” asked Jolly.
Walker’s eyes widened. “The Carfax! Kendrick will try to sink it.” He leaped up so quickly that his chair tipped over backward. “Damn it all, we have to get to the harbor!”
“Calm yourself,” said the Trader, “and sit down again. The ghosts are taking the best care of your ship. If Kendrick tries to board, he’ll receive an unpleasant surprise.”
“You’ve been aboard, then?” Jolly asked.
“Before, yes. And I ordered the ghosts to kill anyone who tries to set foot on the deck without permission.”
Jolly shuddered.
“Could Silverhand help you with the spider?” asked the Trader.
“No. He only said it probably came from the mainland.”
Sighing, the Trader shook his head.
“He sent us to this oracle in the harbor,” said Jolly.
The Ghost Trader waved a dismissive hand. “The last living oracle I saw … oh, long, long ago. In Delphi. Whatever that thing down in the harbor may say, it is not an oracle.”
“Delfin?” Walker perked up. “I knew this beer joint on Jamaica that was called that.”
“That I most certainly did not mean,” replied the Trader with a reproving look. Insulted, the pirate pursed his mouth and looked back into his pitcher of beer.
“As always. Bannon must wait,” said the Trader.
“No!” Jolly flared at him angrily. “It’s on account of him I’ve gotten involved in this whole madness in the first place.”
“Some heroes have gone on their journeys for the least thing and instead returned home with the crown of the world.”
“I don’t want any crown,” she said snippily, “only Bannon.”
“Now wait a minute,” interposed Griffin. “You were the one who told us all about the Maelstrom. And about how important it is to do something against him. Did that all mean nothing, then?”
Munk also turned to her. “Griffin’s right, Jolly. If polliwogs are necessary to bring this business to an end, then we both have to try it.”
Jolly looked at the Ghost Trader again. “Munk can help you. He’s a much better polliwog than I am. He can give orders to the ghosts, and then this business with the mussels….”
“You can do that too, if you only give yourself a chance. And perhaps even more.”
“Me? Bilge. I don’t understand anything about magic. And ghosts give me goose pimples. I can walk on the water, that’s all.”
“Where I intend to take you, you’ll learn to handle magic.” The shadows around the Ghost Trader’s eye were suddenly as deep as well shafts. Jolly grew dizzy. “In Aelenium you will understand everything.”
“In—”
He kept her from saying the word with a wave of the hand and again threw a warning look over toward the landlord. “Quiet! There’s been too much said already.”
“Anyway, I’m not going anywhere where I can’t find Bannon.”
“Bannon is dead,” said Walker abruptly. “Everyone knows that.”
“He is not!”
“The ship must have sunk, Jolly, Otherwise someone would have found it. Believe me, no one could have survived.”
“And what about me?”
“You’re a polliwog.”
She felt the tears come into her eyes, and that angered her so much that she fell into a grim silence.
Griffin slipped his hand over hers and stroked it gently with his index finger. She wanted to push the finger away angrily, instead whack him one—whack anyone in sight!—but then she thought that it really didn’t feel so bad, and she even felt a little comforted.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Munk turn away.
God, she thought, whatever am I doing here? Even though, really, everything was clear—she had to find Bannon, someone had to conquer the Maelstrom—she was more confused than she’d ever been in her life.
The Ghost Trader took up the discussion again. “The important thing now is to take the two polliwogs to that place where they are awaited. Walker, will you help us with the Carfax?”
The pirate looked anything but happy. “There was talk before of a certain treasure….”
The Ghost Trader’s face turned gray with anger, but he said nothing.
“Very good,” said Walker hastily, “perhaps it will be enough if the boy does a few of his doubloon spells.”
“Doubloon spells?” The Ghost Trader’s eyes turned to Munk in surprise.
Munk shrank a little in his chair and shrugged.
“Ah,” said the Ghost Trader suddenly, “of course—the doubloon spell!”
Walker nodded enthusiastically. “And you say Jolly will also learn something like that?”
Jolly had stopped listening, but the Trader nodded. “Of course.”
Walker thought about it. “Hmm, then couldn’t I … I mean, I was certainly a good student, who …”
“Can you walk on the water?” the Trader asked him.
“No.”
“Then forget it.”
Walker sulked for a moment, then he straightened and exhaled sharply. “Anyway, the Carfax stands at your disposal. Right, Buenaventure?”
The pit bull man signaled his agreement with a wave and emptied an entire pitcher of beer in one draft.
The Ghost Trader stood up. He threw a handful of coins on the table. “Then it’s decided. We must get away from this island as quickly as possible.”
They departed, leaving the relieved landlord behind, alone.
Outside in the street, the smell of fire met them. There was the sound of excited voices in the distance.
> Walker grew pale. “That’s coming from the harbor! The Carfax!”
The Wisdom of the Worms
The mermaid was on fire.
It looked as though someone had laid a mantle of flame around her. Man-high flames flickered around her wooden body. Her head had vanished in a green-yellow flare, with only her coal black face shining through the glow now and then. The empty eyes looked accusing, almost reproachful.
The voice of the oracle was silent.
Men and women were running excitedly along the quay. Several had formed a bucket brigade to try to keep the flames from jumping to nearby ships. The wreck itself could no longer be saved.
Jolly and the others ran the last stretch, fearing that Kendrick’s bounty hunters had succeeded in setting the Carfax on fire. But when they turned out of a side street onto the quay, they saw Walker’s ship lying unharmed in the darkness. If in fact anyone had tried to attack the Carfax, the ghosts would have repelled the attack. But everything looked quiet there at the moment.
When Jolly came to a halt in the confusion around the burning figurehead and peered through the smoke and fire with tearing eyes, she saw Bill, the angry pirate they’d watched earlier, being held on the ground and tied up by several men.
“Was he the one?” she asked one of the pirates.
The man nodded grimly, “Threw an oil lamp at the head, the dirty, rotten swine!”
“She’s to blame!” howled Bill, trying in vain to defend himself against those holding him, “She’s—” A blow from a fist silenced him.
“String him up!” bawled a woman.
“Burn him!” cried another.
Several pirates clustered together and looked as if they intended to carry out the demands. But just then a troop of uniformed Frenchmen appeared from the fort above the city and led the arsonist away. For a moment it looked as if some pirates meant to challenge the soldiers to give up the miscreant, but then reason triumphed. The French administration on Tortuga tolerated the activities of the pirates as long as they paid their duties; it would have been foolish to put such a lucrative collaboration at risk for the sake of a burning shipwreck.
“To the Carfax!” said the Ghost Trader. “This is a good chance to disappear without attracting attention!”
Everyone except Jolly started to leave. Depressed, she stood there staring into the fire, past the bucket brigades. Again, one less opportunity to find out what had happened to Bannon.
The flickering prow of the wreck rose over the water like a pyramid of fire. The surge of the heat against Jolly was painful The air around her wavered.
She ran to the edge of the water. Someone almost ran over her, spilling half a bucket of water, and bellowed at her to get out of the way or help. Jolly paid no attention. Instead, she looked down into the harbor basin where the fiery, shimmering waters vanished under a ring of black smoke.
There was something in the water down there.
Something that was moving.
It was a bit longer than her arm, light-colored and hairless like a newborn, and it was curling and stretching in the water as if it were trying desperately to stay on the surface. But the smoke and fire clouded Jolly’s vision, and she wasn’t sure if her eyes were deceiving her. Perhaps that floating thing was just a piece of debris.
And yet, it was alive. Something that was threatening to drown if she didn’t help it.
Jolly looked quickly over her shoulder, saw that her comrades stood waiting, then jumped from the quay down onto the water.
The crash onto the waves was hard and hurt her knees, but it didn’t throw her off her feet. She immediately started running, earnestly hoping that the men onshore were too busy to notice her.
With rapid steps she approached the thing in the water. The heat down here was even worse, trapped between the burning wreck and the harbor wall. Sparks floated through the night in golden swarms and landed on the neighboring ships, but they went out without spreading more fire. Crew members stood behind the railings and threw buckets of water down onto the hulls. One man saw Jolly and shouted something to his comrades.
She paid no attention and ran on.
One thing she saw now for sure: The creature in the water was no child.
It wasn’t even a human. In fact, it looked like … yes, a worm!
But this worm was almost two feet long and as thick as a man’s thigh.
“Help me!” cried the worm, although Jolly saw no mouth on it. “Hurry up and help me, you silly thing! I’m drowning!”
She knew that voice.
Jolly seized the worm in both hands and lifted him out of the water. Then she ran on, out into the darkness of the harbor basin, away from the fire and the bellowing men, away from the heat, the smoke, and the hundreds of eyes that followed her.
“What are you?” she asked the slippery thing in her hands. “Who are you?”
“Dumb questions!” answered the worm, and now all the fear had vanished from his voice. “Who should I be, you ninny! I am the oracle…. I am the Hexhermetic Shipworm.”
No one was charmed by the creature that Jolly had brought aboard the Carfax. Least of all Walker, who reminded her that shipworms nourish themselves on the wood of ships. And what was it made of, this whole damned ship, on which their lives depended out there on the sea?
“I can feed him,” said Jolly. She thought she’d seen some planks in the cargo hold, wooden beams and boards that were stored there for repairs. Certainly Walker could part with a little piece of one of them.
“If he takes one bite out of my ship, he goes overboard.”
“Boor!” retorted the worm.
“What did he say?”
“He’s thanking you,” Jolly hurriedly reassured him.
“Thanking, bah!” murmured the worm. “The ruffian isn’t worth the wood to make his coffin.”
Walker was already on his way to the bridge. “And no poems!” he called over his shoulder before he joined the Ghost Trader and Buenaventure, who were standing up there at the wheel and discussing the course. “One false rhyme on my ship and …” He drew his finger across his neck.
Jolly held the worm in front of her with both hands and stared into his face—at least where she supposed his face to be.
There were no eyes to be seen, only a broad shield of shell, at whose edge there was a mouth opening. He had six plump, stumpy legs, and his body twitched nervously when he was in a bad mood.
“How about a ‘Thank you, Jolly, for saving my life’?” she flared at him angrily. “And kindly stop insulting my friends.” Internally, she was surprised at herself: Was Walker her friend?
The discussion of this problem had to wait, for the worm launched into a tirade of curses and rude language.
“Walker’s right,” said Griffin, regarding the strange creature. “We should throw him overboard.”
“Oh?” retorted Jolly venomously. “I can remember when the same thing was supposed to happen to someone else. Weren’t you quite happy when Munk prevented it?”
The corners of Griffin’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing more.
Munk came to his aid. “That was different, Jolly. That … thing there is no human. It’s ungrateful and shameless, and it knows more curses than Walker and Buenaventure together. Besides, it looks as if it stinks.”
“I do not stink!” the worm said excitedly. “You little—”
“Quiet!” Jolly had to think, and she couldn’t do it when everyone was talking at once. The only one who wasn’t getting into it was Soledad. The princess was standing a few steps away and looking through the forest of ship masts back at the quay. The wreck was still burning. The smoke floating over the harbor might be helpful in their flight. The ghosts had been busy making the ship ready to run out. The powerful chain winch creaked as one of the wraiths hoisted the anchor.
The worm cleared his throat. “I would like to insist that I do not—”
“Take him below for now,” Munk interrupted. “Walker keeps looking over her
e, and the Ghost Trader doesn’t look exactly happy either.”
“That fellow pawed me over from stem to stern when Jolly brought me aboard,” the Hexhermetic Shipworm fumed. “What’s he got against me?”
“What’s he got against me?” mimicked Griffin in a squeaky voice. “I’ve heard that lime helps against shipworms. And salt.” A devilish grin flitted across his face. “We could try pickling him. Maybe heel be quiet then.”
“Eeeeeeh!” the worm squealed in horror, and he shrank in Jolly’s hands to something that looked more like a ball than a worm.
Jolly stroked him soothingly on his shield. “Don’t worry. The Trader was only afraid that you could be a creature of the Mael—belong to our enemies,” she amended quickly.
“Maelstrom?” asked the worm, stretching out to his full length again. “Were you just about to say Maelstrom?”
Jolly exchanged an uncertain look with Munk and Griffin. Both boys looked just as nonplussed as she was.
“Yes,” she said finally. The Trader had decided the worm was absolutely safe, so she assumed that she could trust him.
“Ma-Ma-Maelstrom,” stammered the worm and then uttered a nerve-shattering noise that sounded like a vocal bosun’s whistle.
“Now what’s the matter with him?” Griffin rolled his eyes.
Munk went to the cargo hatch and opened it. “Down there with him for now. We can talk more below.”
Jolly nodded and stepped onto the first step of the ladder. She turned around once more to the princess. “Anything suspicious?”
“Two ships over there are setting sails. That could be coincidence—or not.”
“Damn!” Griffin followed Soledads line of sight, but Munk pulled him toward the hatch.
“Walker and Buenaventure know what to do.”
Jolly went ahead, and the two boys followed her. The smell of the pigs still lurked in every crack of the empty cargo hold. She doubted if she could ever look at a pig again without its turning her stomach.
“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.