by David Talon
“I can definitely keep going.” Pepper laughed as we began again, asking me to roll onto my back and I did so, finding I could keep control of myself better as she rode on top of me, both of us gasping in pleasure for a brief span before I lost control once more. She sucked in her breath and I asked, “Did it happen again?” Pepper nodded, her eyes closed as her face became peaceful, and as the ocean waves rolled in, speaking in soft voices, I etched the memory of Pepper’s face shadowed in the firelight onto my mind for all time.
Suddenly from beyond the wrecked sloop I heard the sound of voices calling our names. We both groaned in frustration, but then Pepper frowned. “I hear Dava’s voice, and he sounds more worried than angry,” Pepper disengaging herself from me as she stood up. “Maybe we should get dressed and see what they...”
A stick snapped. We both turned towards the forest as, from half a dozen yards away, a red-eyed man aimed a gun at Pepper and smiled as he pulled the trigger. Fear seized me by the throat as I willed time to slow, the gunpowder exploding with a bang and a pistol ball streaking out from the barrel towards Pepper. She could only gape as I pushed against time and past it, scrambling to push Pepper out of the way as the metal ball hurtled towards her chest. I threw myself forward with my hands up...and the pistol ball passed between them. Pepper’s face spasmed in pain as the pistol ball tore through the side of her belly and out again, blood spurting out both sides in a slow, crimson stream.
Time returned to normal as she fell into my arms. I grabbed the dress she’d been wearing and pressed it down on both sides, the white cloth rapidly turning red as Seth stepped into the circle of candlelight and laughed. “You shoulda killed me when you could. Now you gonna suffer like I did when I was alive. Every day you gonna hate me like I hated you, and every day I gonna laugh knowing she as dead as my pet, whatever her name was, and there nothing you can do...”
The back of Seth’s head exploded in a shower of black blood and gore on the white sands as a gun roared. Arabella came out of the darkness with an Artifact pistol in her hand as Seth dropped to his knees and fell face forward, finally dead, but I only noticed it in passing as Pepper’s eyes began to close. “Oh, no,” I yelled at her, “You’re not going to die tonight...Jade!”
Jade spoke next to my ear in a quiet voice. “Tomas, all is well.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “It’s not well! You’ve got to take strength from me so you can heal her.”
“There is no need...”
“What’s gotten into you? We aren’t letting her die; you’re going to heal her right now!”
“Tomas, there is no need; Pepper’s flesh is healing itself.”
I stared at the spot her voice was coming from in confusion then pulled back the blood soaked dress I’d been pressing against the wound. The blood coming out had slowed to a trickle, and while the inside of the wound glistened wetly, I could see where strings of flesh seemed to be coming together. “I don’t...I don’t understand.”
“I still understand love hurts,” Pepper said in a weak voice as her eyes fluttered open. I gripped her hand, the drying blood making our fingers stick together as she smiled up at me. “You aren’t rid of me yet, Swamp-rat.”
I clung to her as the voices calling our names grew louder, and I saw men with torches coming around the wrecked sloop. Arabella knelt down beside us. “Tomas, cover your nakedness while I wrap the blanket around Pepper.” I shook the sand from my white trousers and put them on while Arabella wrapped the edges of the blanket around Pepper, who nestled into my arms as I sat back down. We looked up as Redbeard came storming up followed by Sally, Jeremiah moving past him to kneel next to me as a multitude of people arrived, all shouting questions. Arabella got to her feet. “Quiet, good sirs,” she called out. “Pepper was shot but is out of danger, thanks to Tomas and myself. Quiet yourselves and I shall explain all.” It took a few moments and a good deal of cursing by Redbeard, who looked as if he was regretting not cutting my throat after all, before everyone became relatively still. “I gave Seth to Captain Black’s gaoler,” Arabella continued, “but I asked the little dragon-spirit Grey-mouse to keep watch over Seth. When he overpowered the guards and escaped, she came back to me and I went in search of Tomas.” Arabella gave Pepper a sympathetic look. “I regret I was not able to prevent your near tragedy, for if Tomas had not pushed you at all, the pistol ball might have hit you square on and damaged you so severely even the Dragon seed inside you would not have been enough to save you.”
“You nae be making sense,” Redbeard growled, thankfully turning his dark look on Arabella. “Speak plain, evil witch.”
“As you will. The pieces of the puzzle were there in front of me, but until now they did not make sense. Shape changing without being merged with a dragon-ghost, being recognized by the Bo, who still remember Atlantis through their rituals and traditions, poisoning a Dark Sister with your strength, manipulating time with a bone ring clearly not an Artifact...”
“All that can be explained using logic,” I said as everyone began looking at me intently.
“Perhaps,” Arabella replied, “but one thing cannot: the only thing that will cause torn human flesh to heal itself is the seed of an Ancient Dragon... or a mated pair’s pure born child.” Speculative muttering began among the crew, but stopped when Arabella added, “I also know who Tomas’s Atlantian father was.” In the silence that followed she looked at Captain Hawkins. “Tomas’s father is the Dragon, Sir Francis Drake.”
Everyone looked as stunned as I was before they started arguing, the voices growing louder until Sally put her fingers to her lips and gave a piercing whistle. Once we’d all taken our hands from our ears, Captain Hawkins said, “That’s impossible. Sir Francis was human; a strong Dragon, yes, but he was born in England.”
“He let you believe he was born in England,” Arabella countered. “When he met Long-Mu during your voyage around the world they only pretended to be meeting for the first time, for in truth they were renewing a friendship thousands of years old. But that is not all. Evidently, a young Atlantian of pure blood cannot control when he goes into heat, but an older one can suppress it for a time, and both of them were doing exactly that when they rekindled their friendship. When their passion flared they both went into heat...and Tomas was the result.”
Captain Hawkins snapped, “How can you possibly know this?”
“Because when Bill left me for dead on Three-Day Island, my dragon-spirit sought out the strongest Dragon there to rescue me. Francis Drake came by himself, and even though he explained why he was going to use me carnally I still thought it to be a final shame before I died. But then I felt a wave of heat pass through me,” Arabella glancing at Pepper as she and I exchanged a wide-eyed look, “and my body began to heal itself. I was clever, and guessed his secret, realizing he might well murder me to keep the knowledge hidden. But that is not his way. Instead, he gave me the chance to strike back at those who had taken my life away from me, and gave me to the care of another Shadowhunter who was keeping watch on Three-Day, who taught me everything I needed to know. When Francis returned to England after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, I became his mistress, and was there when Long-Mu sent word she was pregnant and coming to meet him. He was sick to his heart when she died, and always thought the child had perished as well.” Arabella looked at me with a sly smile. “He will be pleased beyond measure to know his son is alive.”
Mr. Smith rumbled, “Sir Francis Drake is dead. I helped wrap his body in sailcloth, and it was cold and lifeless when we delivered it to his dragon-ghosts.”
“He faked his death,” Arabella replied, “as he has so many times before. He lives a new life now under a different name, but his war against Olde Roger goes on.” She gave Captain Hawkins a hard stare. “You said if he were the son of Sir Francis you would teach him what he needs to know. If you are...or ever were, a man of honor, you will do exactly that.”
Captain Ha
wkins gave her a hard stare in return before he turned to me and regarded my face for a long moment. “While I’m aboard the Davy,” he finally said, “I will be her captain. You will still act as my apprentice and learn everything I’m going to teach you, even if we don’t swear an oath. You’re going to learn discipline; in fact, I’m going to start running the Davy the same way Sir Francis did his ship, with discipline.”
“Only if it’s also run with fairness and honor,” I replied. His eyes narrowed but I matched him stare for stare. “I won’t do this any other way.”
I thought he’d get angry, but instead he suddenly smiled. “You truly are Sir Francis’s son. With fairness and honor, then,” he said as he held out his hand.
“With fairness and honor,” I said as I shook it.
Then Master Le’Vass stepped forward. “If we are to be at war with Olde Roger, we should enlist ze help of ze French. Which means travelling back to the court of the duke of Anjou, and...”
“England will be the first country we plead our case to,” Captain Hawkins shot back, “and another thing: if you believe I’m going to tolerate any more eroding of my authority...”
They began shouting at each other as the Mulatto called out, “We should work out how the shares will be divided among Tomas’s brothers, as I’m about to become.”
“Tomas has all the brothers he needs,” Jeremiah yelled at him. “He doesn’t need fair weather friends.”
The Mulatto’s men began yelling and the Africans yelled back as the crew began arguing. Redbeard helped Pepper ease to her feet while Sally hovered like she was her child, and as Pepper wrapped her arms around me, Redbeard chuckled. “Be like old times again. Lad, they be saying the days of the Dragon pirates died when Drake did, but I be thinking those days be only a shadow of the days to come.”
Glancing at the crew shouting at each other all around us, I gave Pepper a helpless look. She smiled. “It’ll be alright in the end, Swamp-rat. You’ll,” and we finished together, “figure it out.”
Then she kissed me.
AUCTORIS
POST-VERBUM
The genesis for this story was a novel by the author Lois McMaster Bujold, titled ‘The Spirit Ring’, set in renaissance Italy, where magic was not only accepted but also used by the Catholic church (among others). However, I wanted to set the story in the New World and give it more grounding in reality, so I came up with the idea of Atlantis being a colony for a group of aliens, who met with disaster (obviously not an original concept), and the dragons who died during that calamity being the basis for the world’s ‘magic’ system. In the next books (at present I want to cap this at three books total) there will be more to say about the Atlantian’s and the organizations that sprang up after their fall.
For the world of the 1600’s and especially the pirates, I decided acceptance of the Dragons (especially their dragon-ghosts) had not been around long enough to make a serious difference in the way the world operated (except for places like China), so life goes on much as it had in our own world (though change is in the air, like gunpowder becoming obsolete). The pirates were either based on actual people (Thomas Tew, the Mulatto), or came straight out of my own warped imagination (Redbeard). All errors in logic, research, or translation I take full responsibility.
As for myself, I grew up in Chicago, served in the U.S. Marine Corps as an infantryman, and now live in Asheville, NC. You can find me on Facebook as well as on the web: davidtalon.net