Isle of Fire

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  She did not answer him directly. “It must wait,” she said. “Go, do what you need to do.” Blake hesitated a moment more and then whisked Hopper off the floor and charged through the crowd toward the throne.

  “Sir!” called one of the guards, trying to catch up to Blake. “Sir, you must leave!

  “Your Majesty, Master Vogler!” Blake cried out. But at first, the crowd’s clamor drowned out his voice. “Please, I must be heard!!”

  The people nearest Blake began to quiet, and they turned to look. Blake yelled, “Your Majesty, grant me an audience one last time!” But the king had already turned and was walking away. Vogler and Wetherby were still deep in conversation.

  Blake banged into several dignitaries. White wigs flew, and spitting mad faces turned to Blake. But the commodore paid them no mind. His rage, fueled by betrayal, gave him the volume he needed. “I MUST BE HEARD!!!”

  Silence spiraled out from Blake, and the chamber became as still as a forest moments before a storm. Even the guards stood still, wondering what to do. The king turned around and walked slowly back to the step before the throne. He looked at Vogler. Vogler looked at Blake.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Vogler asked, his eyes flitting between Blake and the peculiar bald child in his arms.

  Blake placed Hopper by his side. Blake looked at the king and said, “What did Nigel tell you? Did he tell you that the pirate threat was diminished now . . . that Bartholomew Thorne was dead?”

  Nigel started to speak, but Blake pointed at his former second-in-command and said, “Close your mouth, snake! You have loosed enough of your poison here.” Nigel’s face burned, his cheeks near burgundy, but he dared not speak.

  “I have sure evidence that Bartholomew Thorne is alive!” Blake said. The words went off like a grenade. The crowds murmured. “This young man was there,” Blake said, putting his arm around Hopper’s shoulders. “He was at the fort on New Providence the night of the great wave. And he saw a man come to Bartholomew Thorne’s cell and take him out just before the waters came. Hopper saw the man who set Thorne free. It was Nigel Wetherby.”

  The color in Nigel’s face drained. Blake went on. “Why would Nigel do this? He is a traitor . . . that is why, a bitter, reprehensible man. And now he is in London to see the end of the Wolf fleet. I am sure this is none other than Bartholomew Thorne’s scheme, a scheme to weaken England.”

  Nigel looked away from Blake and nodded ever so slightly to Vogler. Vogler hurriedly translated for the king. The chamber stirred, but all eyes were on the king, who listened intently to Vogler. In spite of the new evidence, the king seemed strangely unmoved. Without changing expression even once, the king replied to his translator.

  Vogler spoke up. “The king is used to desperate pleas, Mister Blake. Desperate pleas from desperate men. Do not think for one moment that you can bring some—child—into this room and make such claims. How far you have fallen to resort to this. Guards, take Mister Blake from this chamber at once. And see to it that he does not enter into it again unbidden.”

  “You will regret this!” Blake yelled even as the guards took his arms and pulled him backward. “Thorne has no love for England! Mark my words!”

  The carriage passed a gated cemetery. The dusky sun painted the white headstones lavender and red. Blake stared at the markers solemnly and wondered how many men had died because of Wetherby’s treachery. He wondered, too, how he could have been fooled for so long. How long? How long had Wetherby been Thorne’s spy?

  So many times, Thorne had seemed within England’s grasp only to slip away. Ross would want to know. But how? The Oxford was no longer Blake’s to command. Blake shook his head and gazed at the graveyard. The ride back to Dolphin’s family estate had been silent until this point. Even Hopper, who chattered like a squirrel most times, was quiet. But then Blake felt Dolphin shudder, and he remembered.

  “My darling,” he said, taking her hand, “I am terribly sorry. You have something to tell me. Is it about Wetherby, about Thorne . . .”

  Dolphin shook her head. “No.” She took her hand back from her husband and clutched one of her father’s journals in her lap. She squeezed it so hard her knuckles whitened. “While those irate Scotsmen appeared before the king, I delved deeper into my father’s writing.” He looked at her quizzically.

  “I now understand why my father never wrote of me as a baby,” she said, her body quaking. “I now know why he never wrote of my mother being pregnant with me.”

  Blake felt heat radiating from his wife, and his heart wrenched for her.

  “My mother,” she whispered, “was barren. She died of malaria having never given birth to a child of her own. I was an orphan.”

  “Like me,” said Hopper quietly. Dolphin smiled sadly and put a hand on his knee.

  “My father,” she continued, “took part in an attack on a pirate stronghold here in England. He wrote about many dying in the battle, and the huge fire that ensued. And from the carnage, they pulled a woman who was with child. The mother perished, for her burns were severe. But the child survived unscathed.” Tears came in greater torrents as she said, “I was that child.”

  “Miraculous,” her husband whispered.

  “Was it?” Dolphin asked. Her eyes glistening. “I am not so sure.”

  Blake pulled his wife close, embraced her with a gentle but firm touch. “You are a miracle to me,” he said softly. “It doesn’t matter how you got here.”

  “But it does,” she said, pulling away. “Do you not see? This changes everything. I am not the daughter of an English naval officer. And I have never known my real parents. Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “I’m sure he planned to,” Blake replied. “But you were too young when—”

  “That never stopped him before. My father always told me things.” She sighed. Sadness and exhaustion flooded out of her, and she collapsed to her husband’s shoulder. “My real father . . . I don’t even know who he is.”

  “Yes, you do,” Blake assured her. “Your father was the man who adopted you and cared for you all the life you remember. He was real; his love for you was real. When you adopt a child, that child is sewn so deeply into your heart that he becomes your own. Your father loved you as his very own.”

  Dolphin’s chin trembled, and a brave smile curled on her lips.

  “S’cuse me, sir,” said Hopper, tugging at Blake’s cuff. “Is that the way it is . . . with all children who get adopted?”

  “Yes, it is,” Blake replied, and Dolphin drew Hopper close by her side.

  Blake said nothing more, but his mind reeled over recent revelations. And something more troubled him. Dolphin’s father had written of a horrible fire . . . of a woman with child pulled from the burned wreckage. Why did that sound familiar? He thought it might have been something Declan Ross had told him, but Blake couldn’t remember for sure. Ross. Blake felt a chill race along his spine. Ross needs to be warned, but how? A message by courier to New Providence, perhaps? Blake sighed. The nightmare of nightmares had come true. Bartholomew Thorne lived, and the only ones who might be able to stop him had been rendered unaware . . . or powerless.

  18

  LA ISLA DESVANECENTE

  Cat felt uneasy. He hadn’t had any real rest the day before because of a wicked storm that had rocked the three Brethren ships as they sailed from Jamaican waters toward Pine Island. He knew he ought to be exhausted, but still he could not sleep. He covered his eyes with a hand and turned his head into the fabric of his hammock. Anne had the helm of the Constantine, and Cat knew she was as capable a sailor as anyone. And Father Brun was there if anything went wrong. So Cat couldn’t blame this disquiet on fear for the ship. The sea at last was relatively calm, and if Scully’s information was to be trusted, they had a long stretch of open water ahead of them. So it wasn’t the sea that stirred his innards. Cat tried to convince himself that he was just too keyed up over the possibility of capturing the Merchant on La Isla Desvanecente.

  No, he th
ought as he turned again in the hammock. The ominous shadow of the Merchant inspired fear of another sort. The dread that tingled in Cat’s mind and grasped at his gut came from a different source. . . . The damp, heady scent and the warm, stagnant air of the cabin reminded him of another place, but Cat didn’t want to recognize it for what it was. Even as he finally began to feel drowsy, he knew it was still there—faintly scratching at the back of his mind.

  There was no sound at first. Only images. Cat was back on the island of Dominica, but it was night. Men carrying oil lanterns walked in front of him, and swaying light reflected off the wide swords at their sides. There was someone else there, leading their train. But he was a shadow, a dark blotch passing noiselessly up the alleyway. Gray buildings loomed up on either side of them. Black windows stared out like the sockets of skulls in a charnel house. Cat could feel the wind on his arms, on his forehead, on his chest—like tiny spiders creeping along his flesh. Even though he could feel this tingling breeze and watch it sway the palm leaves, he still could not hear it.

  They passed around the back of one building and paused. Two of the men gave a mighty heave on a pair of heavy doors that protruded from the ground like a massive grave marker. Cat watched the doors open and saw a red light glowing from below. The two men started to descend, but a gnarled staff barred their way. The shadowy figure stepped before them, and Cat knew him. The man’s cold blue eyes flickered with torchlight and found Cat. A snarl curled under the man’s moustache, and he motioned for Cat to join him. Cat found himself hurrying forward. They walked together down a short but very steep set of steps. Cat felt his heart beating, pounding in his chest.

  When he reached the basement floor, his vision slowly adjusted to the strange red light. Cat’s stomach churned and tightened as he saw them at last. Five men and two women, straining at their chains, pulling as if they might break free and burrow into the earth at the back of the chamber. Then he watched as his father, Bartholomew Thorne, took up his walking stick and slowly unscrewed its spiked head. It fell away without a sound and hung by its chain at his side for a moment. Then, as Thorne walked toward the captives, the spiked head swung like a pendulum. Back and forth . . . back and forth. The prisoners were frenzied now, jerking and flailing, lunging so hard that their manacles cut the flesh of their ankles and wrists.

  Bartholomew Thorne whirled his weapon around and struck. And at last, Cat heard everything: screams from the man Thorne had hit, shrieks and weeping from the others. There were other sounds too: the crackle of a great fire pit, from which the red light shone, the clanking of chains and manacles, and the horrible impact of the weapon.

  Some part of Cat urged him to do something . . . to stop this. But he did not. He watched. Soon, Bartholomew Thorne turned away from the prisoner and carried the weapon over to Cat. “Your turn,” he said, his voice raspy and cracking, “. . . son.”

  Cat clutched the hammock so hard his fingers tore the material and his own nails cut into his palms. He woke suddenly, disoriented and flailing, falling to the floor amidst the echo of screams. Cat hunched on his hands and knees, and sweat ran in hot rivulets down his cheeks and dripped on the deck. “What have I done?” His voice came in breathy heaves. The door to his cabin flew open, and someone was there kneeling at his side.

  “Cat?” Anne moved her hand lightly from his back to his shoulder. She feared he might be hurt and wasn’t sure if she should touch him. “Are you . . . are you all right?”

  “What have I done?” he whispered.

  “What?” There were other footsteps in the room. “Cat, what did you say?”

  He lifted his head and saw her, but his eyes seemed to look through her and far away. He blinked several times and squinted.

  “Anne?” he said.

  “Is he hurt?” Father Brun asked, standing in the doorway.

  Cat shook his head and sat up. “No, I’m not injured . . .”

  “Are you sure?” queried the monk. “I’ve never heard such a scream . . . like a demon pursued you. The whole crew heard.”

  “I am sorry,” Cat said with a heavy breath. “Really, I’m fine now. It was just a dream.”

  Father Brun nodded thoughtfully. “Can I help—”

  “No,” Cat replied sharply, but realizing his tone, he softened and said, “No, thank you.”

  “After such a dream, you may not wish to sleep,” Father Brun said. “But in truth you’ve only been below deck for a few hours. Rest if you can.” Father Brun eyed Cat a moment more and then left.

  Cat stood up and rubbed his forearms. He wandered slowly over to his hammock and saw the place where he’d clawed through. Anne saw too. “You did that?” she asked.

  Cat didn’t answer. “Cat, did you remember something?”

  He couldn’t lie to Anne, but he wasn’t sure how to tell her what he now knew. “Yes,” he whispered. “The island.”

  Anne thought she understood, thought Cat meant the day his own father had flogged him within an inch of his life. “Cat, I’m sorry,” she said. Cat was grateful that she didn’t ask anything more.

  “Anne?” said a faint voice from the hallway. It was Father Brun.

  “I’ve got to get back on deck,” she said. “Will you be all right?”

  Cat nodded. Anne smiled and left the room. Cat carefully got back into his hammock. He thought of Father Brun’s words, “. . . sounded like a demon pursued you.” But, Cat wondered, what if I am the demon?

  “I told you everything you need to know,” said Scully. “Why must I remain on deck?”

  Father Brun tightened his grip on the rogue’s shoulder. “We are close now,” he said. “I want to be sure.”

  “But I already told you, you must approach from the west. This time of day, the sun will make the island nearly impossible to see.”

  Cat shielded his eyes from the descending sun with his hand and looked out toward the horizon. He was perplexed by what he saw: a curling strip of land crisscrossed with wiry vegetation and an occasional palm. But this was just the bending finger of the island. Its knuckle was a looming mound of white sand. Its fist was a great angular shelf of rock, and a forest of dark pines crowded its slope. “But I can already see the island,” said Cat.

  “Do you think that massive island, mighty trees and all, disappears below the water?” Scully made a clucking noise. “No, that is Pine Island, still miles from our destination. What we seek you will not see until you are upon it and that only if you know where to look when the tide is right.”

  “I don’t think he knows where it is,” said Anne, glaring at Scully venomously. “Why would the Merchant trust the likes of him?”

  Scully sneered at her. “The Merchant,” he said, his eyes half-hooded and a sickly grin forming beneath his pointed nose, “has many connections, but even he has a need for information . . . the kind of information that only I can obtain.”

  Cat involuntarily shivered. There was something slippery and dangerous about this man. Cat examined the ropes that bound Scully’s bonds as if, at any moment, he might slither out of his bindings and stab someone in the back. “I would not trust this man either,” said Father Brun coolly. He released his grip on Scully’s shoulder. “But there are some, ah . . . incentives for Mister Scully to be truthful here. Isn’t that right, Mister Scully?”

  Scully shifted uneasily and stepped a pace back from the monk. Cat realized at that moment that Scully was not the only dangerous man aboard the Constantine.

  “So what does this disappearing island look like?” Anne asked. Father Brun took a step closer to Scully.

  Scully flinched and began to speak. “La Isla Desvanecente is a . . . a freak incident of nature. A long time ago, molten lava spewed up from a fiery crack in the sea floor. As the rock cooled in the sudden cold of the sea, it formed a strange spiraling chamber not unlike the cavity of a conch shell. Again and again this vent opened, each time forming a new chamber until, at last, it rose up and breached the sea. Now, bone-white coral curls over its black s
urface and wraps around the column of volcanic rock like the skeleton of a great snake.”

  “It sounds charming,” said Anne. She started to say something more, but stopped short. “What’s that?” She pointed toward the glare of the sun and the silhouetted tail end of Pine Island. They all turned, squinting like Anne.

  “I don’t see anything,” said Cat.

  “Nor I,” said Father Brun. “What did you see?”

  “I . . . I thought I saw a sail out on the water,” she said, doubt evident in her voice. Scully stiffened. “It was there for a moment,” Anne continued, “but then gone.”

  Father Brun slid his fingers thoughtfully under his chin. “It is not uncommon for pirates to careen on desolate shores like Pine Island,” he said. “But given our position, so close to the Merchant’s lair, I am more concerned that he has ships in the area. Mister Scully, you have never said how your friend travels to and from his tidal hideout. He must have some . . . system, some way of alerting his ship.”

  Scully did not answer at first. Father Brun’s eyes, normally restless and darting, fixed on Scully and burned with pale intensity. Scully stepped backward. “He’s never told me how,” said Scully. “And I do not ask him. From the beginning he told me never to ask questions of him. That was our arrangement. Now, keep away from me, priest!” Scully backed away even more, but Brother Javier, one of the Constantine’s gunners, stepped away from the mainmast and drew a bright cutlass. With that sharp blade behind him, a sullen Scully stopped immediately and glowered at Father Brun.

  “Whatever the case,” said the monk, “we must be wary. We need to alert Bennett and Cascade.”

  Cat gave the command, and several of the Constantine’s sails were immediately reigned in. He looked up to Brother Keegan at the ship’s wheel. Cat still felt bad for the young monk. Father Brun had chosen Keegan to be the Constantine’s quartermaster before Cat had requested Anne. Keegan had accepted the news without a complaint—or even a frown. But since they left the Citadel, Cat had tried to give Keegan time at the helm.