Molly was pink in the face by moonrise, partially because of the Chardonnay Leon had brought up to the cabin as a peace offering and partially because she was delighted to see he and Thomas getting along so well after the day’s victorious outcome. The two men recounted their bravado like old friends over glass after glass of wine, and teased Molly all evening, prompting her to decide who had performed the best. Unable to get a word in, Molly was content to listen and smile and laugh as the two comically compared blade lengths and thrusting techniques.
Molly, always the liaison between the two—and quite literally, in this case—did her best to placate both men as they argued over the matter, dispensing a gentle touch on Thomas’s cheek here and a reassuring hand on Leon’s shoulder there. Getting them to hush for a moment and trying to cool the fires of debate, she declared she’d need to take future escapades into consideration in order to provide them a proper review. This didn’t satiate Tom and Leon, who declared that a contest be held then and there. Molly, rosy-cheeked, spilled a bit of her wine in her lap and clapped a hand to her breast, giggling as the men drew their weapons. She would have perhaps, under more sober circumstances, talked them down. However, their spirited insistence was too tempting to decline and she let them have at it.
****
As the second to last month of Thomas Crowe’s life slipped away, a looming darkness followed him across the Atlantic. Each day the sun shone less, until two weeks before the ship reached the south Caribbean, when no one could tell if it had risen in days. Thunderheads and masses of tropical storm fronts kept the crew under sullen grey skies without end. Some afternoons the clouds peeled away in olive green or cobalt, turning over in the sky and mumbling to themselves, but never yielding any rain. The bleak, colorless sea, or perhaps the nagging storm winds, put the deck hands in a somber mood. Many times they sat together in the early morning or midday and recited stories of monsters.
One of these stories in particular concerned the Yacumama. One of the older men, Portuguese by birth, captivated the mostly English crew when he began to describe the creature. According to stories he had been told, the Yacumama lived in the mouth of the Amazon River. The others implored him for a description. “No,” he would say, “it does not have any absolute shape, for it is a spirit that possesses creatures of the sea and makes monsters of them.” Tom particularly enjoyed this story because it was new to him as well. He and Geoffrey listened to it more than once during the second leg of the trip. Chera would always interrupt and challenge the old Portuguese man with stories of her own, and this normally escalated until someone in the audience would scoff and disregard every bit of it as lies and superstition, at which point most of the men would get up and return to work, not wanting to look like superstitious fools. One day when the crowd thinned out, Tom took the stage and recounted his struggle with the Leviathan. When someone pointed out that he couldn’t have seen the monster because no one lives through it, Tom gave up and left the men to their own tales.
Recalling his experiences was one of the only ways Tom knew to distract himself from the predicament at hand, but it never kept his mind busy enough. So he would turn his ears to Ine, who, when not occupied by Leon or Geoffrey, would sit in a corner on the main deck and dabble with a bansuri, a flute she’d picked up early in her travels somewhere in India. Because she had never been taught any particular style, her playing borrowed both Eastern and Western musical impulses. The sounds she produced were soft and otherworldly, belonging to no place or time. Though Tom found it only intensified his apprehension of the ship’s surreal surroundings, it also warded off the depressing silence that only the whine of wind across the deck interrupted. Ine’s music often lured Molly outside, and for this reason, Tom especially appreciated it.
Leon, though not as interested in music for its own sake as Tom or the others, would lurk on deck just to observe Ine at practice. Her focus with the flute was as attentive and graceful as it was with Yatagarasu, and this led Leon to wonder if the arts were similar. Never before had it occurred to him, but he enjoyed music. In Paris, he and his associates attended performances frequently, but not until he associated the sound coming from an instrument with its performer had it intrigued him.
Geoffrey, also terribly interested in Ine—mainly because of the fascinating tidbits of knowledge she exposed at random—could not keep away from the bansuri or its owner. He was a most bold audience, never hesitating to sit near Ine until the last note, waiting patiently to speak with her about her music when she finished. The young woman did not mind him, and she was always ready to hear his criticisms and praise, though he knew only how to judge her tunes by a Western standard and admitted this in an apologetic way to her each day.
Geoffrey was not equipped with the same maritime experience and knowledge as others onboard, but Tom found him useful, for he brought a treasure trove of his own mainland knowledge to the ship and its crew, none of whom disliked the magescribe for his novice nautical skills.
The morning The Roatán Butterfly first saw Antigua on the horizon, Leon came up on deck earlier than usual. Geoffrey arrived shortly thereafter. Waiting for Ine to come play her flute, the two stood on deck in uncomfortable silence in the presence of only each other, save for a handful of deck hands. There was not so much a greeting of “good morning” for a long while.
Leon, the first to speak, approached Geoffrey, hands relaxed and clasped behind his back. “Mr. Mylus, I—”
“Oh, Geoffrey is fine,” said Geoffrey, not looking him in the eye and trying to sound polite, smiling weakly and rocking on his heels.
“Geoffrey,” said Leon, correcting himself, “has Miss Matsuda not come up yet this morning?”
“I wouldn’t be sure. Normally she is here by now, though.”
“I see,” said Leon, his meaning unclear. “I thought you might know, thank you.” Leon turned away as if he had nothing else to say, but next Geoffrey said exactly what Leon had hoped to lure him into saying.
“Sorry, why did you suppose I would know?” asked Geoffrey curiously.
“Oh, well I noticed you spend a great deal of time with her.”
“Do I?” Geoffrey sounded genuinely concerned, as if he were wrong to have done something or other. “Has she said something about it?”
“No, no,” Leon assured him. “Though,” he began, carefully leading Geoffrey along by the hook he’d walked into, “you might consider not tugging at her sleeve all the time. I speak from experience when I say swordsmen, like Ine or myself … are bothered with constant interruption. We value focus and peace.”
“Oh,” said Geoffrey, frowning, “I should hope I have not made a nuisance of myself.”
Leon kept his eyes ahead of him and pretended to wait patiently for Ine’s arrival, while nodding his head as Geoffrey fretted over the matter.
“If you’ll excuse me, Leon, I think it would be wise of me to work on my notes this morning. I really have a lot that needs expanding and such. Tell Ine to excuse me, she’ll understand.”
“Of course,” said Leon coolly, watching Geoffrey from the corner of his eyes as the young man disappeared below deck. Leon knew that Geoffrey was enamored with Ine, and did not honestly feel the same way about her as the magescribe did. However, Geoffrey’s odd and scholarly doting not only stole Leon’s sparring partner away, it reminded the vampire why he invested so much time in the sword in the first place—he hadn’t yet rediscovered his own sense of romantic captivation. He’d come close with Molly, and had tasted enough of her to spur a desire for more, but he wondered how much of those feelings were affection and not simply lust. He often confused the two.
Leon was Ine’s only audience that morning. Morgan and Chera were organizing the crew, bringing the ship into Antigua, while Tom and Molly discussed the remainder of the voyage privately in their quarters. Molly reclined, stomach down, on the bed while Tom sat at his desk.
“It’s been two months, two weeks and a day,” Tom estimated. The half day already bei
ng spent on a stop in Antigua threw off the count slightly. Pressured for time, he did nothing slowly anymore. Molly couldn’t sleep the night before because Tom hadn’t. By the light of a single lantern he had shunned rest in order to continue deciphering Alecandre Love’s scrawling and sketching. Most of the map of Nok dol Ghon made sense enough, but Tom could only guess which direction to follow to get there after Love’s footsteps stopped north of where the Amazon River emptied into the sea.
“Your eyes,” said Molly, “will you sleep soon?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Tom shook his head and looked up, having missed what she asked him. Dark shadows fell under his eyes. His gaze was tired and distracted.
“Never mind it,” said Molly. Straightening her blouse, she got up from the bed and joined him at his desk, leaning on both hands and looking over the maps. “How long do we have to get … here?” she asked, pointing to the unnamed place of landing Tom had marked near the Amazon.
“Not too long. We have twelve-and-a-half days. I suppose we’ll have three or four to spare when we land.”
“To do what?” asked Molly. “Find Nok dol Ghon? What is there that will help us?”
“Something incredible,” said Tom, smiling for the first time in a day or two. Molly smiled and looked into his blue eyes, then turned her attention to his fingers as they scrounged for a particular scrap of parchment among the rest. “This is the genamite stone,” said Tom, showing her Love’s drawing.
“Which one?”
“The one, Molly. This one is where all the rest came from.”
“Can it help you?” Her spirits rose. Tom’s tone was uplifting.
“After reading the testaments on these drawings, I don’t know what it can’t do.”
“What is this?” Molly inquired, picking up another piece of parchment that Tom had set aside, holding it close enough to read and knitting her brow in curiosity.
“I don’t know,” Tom confessed. “There are four verses.”
“Are they from a book?”
“No, they’re all original, as far as I know. They must be important. Look at how the ink is heavy, and they are signed.”
“The Alchemist,” Molly read. “Maybe this is the name of the book the verses come from.”
“It’s possible. Each one is associated with a location we must reach before arriving at Nok dol Ghon, here, on the mountain,” explained Tom, showing Molly the maps Captain Love had left with the verses and other materials in the iron box.
A knock came at the cabin door. Morgan called from the other side to report an unidentifiable mass having just appeared on the horizon, north of the ship’s location. Tom called back, arguing that no significant landmass should be visible from where The Roatán Butterfly sat anchored, recommending that Morgan sight it again to make sure he wasn’t mistaken.
“Captain!” called Morgan a moment later, his voice hushed by the cabin door.
“Yes?” answered Tom.
“My report was incorrect, sir. Nothing there.”
“Good! Is the shore party back yet?”
“Aye, sir!”
“Weigh anchor! Let’s be off! You know the course! Don’t disturb me for at least two hours. I need to rest!”
“Aye, sir! Miss Rocha and I can manage!”
After the sound of Morgan’s footsteps vanished, Tom stood up from the desk and stretched. Taking off his coat and tossing it aside, he met Molly on the other side of the desk and pulled her close by the hips.
“Oh, I see,” said Molly, smirking. “Shirking your duties, Thomas?”
“Not at all,” he argued. “I’m actually dreadfully occupied.”
“Oh, you are a rogue!” she exclaimed, giving him a smack on the cheek and hooking her arms around his neck as he craned over to kiss hers.
“We’re so close,” he whispered.
“Is this why you’re so keen to cheat death? So you can do this three times a day?” she asked with a giggle as he robbed her of her blouse and skirt.
“Only three?”
“Thomas!” She gave him another smack and blushed.
With tired eyes pinching shut as he laughed, Tom scooped her feet out from under her and twirled her around as he delivered her to bed.
Exhaling all her worry, Molly laid her head back and closed her eyes as Tom roamed over her. She clutched at his shoulders when his hair would tickle her, just before a fiery kiss lit her skin. Twisting and curling her torso, she dodged his next attempts, folding one leg around him and rolling him over, clinging to his neck as his hands wandered over her thighs. A familiar heat rose between them, spurring hearts to race. Molly felt it beneath her and in her hands: fire. It escaped her, and then flared up again. This time she had captured it, and soon an ocean swelled to swallow the heat away.
****
Strange—the eleven days following the stop in Antigua could be described no other way. The sea and the sky mimicked one another, bickering one hour and not speaking the next. The sky’s blues were the ocean’s, and the sickly greens lacing the waves under the ship were the sky’s. Storm front after storm front charged the vessel from the east, hoping to coax her toward the continent and throw her against the rock. Staying afloat required Tom, Morgan and Chera to learn to speak over the gales and know one another’s thoughts before they became words. Chera was familiar enough with the Caribbean, but with the South American coast approaching Brazil, she was not. When Venezuela’s profile ended and Demerara (the youngest of three former territories then comprising British Guiana) began, not a soul was left aboard the ship who had seen any of the land scrolling in the distance. Tom took the genamite compass from its case and followed its every waver.
Eventually, during the middle of the day, Tom called Morgan to the quarterdeck to show him the compass. The needle had steadily pointed to land over the past few hours until finally it was clear that they would need to anchor the ship and go ashore. Tom shut the compass and gave Morgan orders to have the crew carefully steer the vessel inland toward one of several rivers emptying into the Atlantic.
Standing by the starboard railing and lifting a spyglass to his right eye, Tom could see no settlements or indication of recent human activity on the entire stretch of shore or the tropical forest beyond. He decided they must continue on into what appeared to be the Amazon wilderness.
For lack of time and resources, Tom decided a small but prepared group would go ashore and into the forest. Ten of the crew volunteered eagerly, fetching guns and other armaments. Morgan offered to stay aboard to manage the rest of the crew. Tom asked Ine and Chera to come along. Geoffrey and Leon needed no invitation. Both were in a shore boat before Tom had to ask for their company.
Molly changed out of her skirt and into pants, exchanging her boots for taller ones. She strapped La Flor to one leg, fastened the pearl pistols round her waist and donned her best rings. Tom carried Brother, his jades, the Uyl Talisman, Alecandre Love’s notes and the genamite compass. He and Molly were the last to enter the second of two shore boats. Morgan called for the shore boats to be launched, and soon after the party of sixteen crossed the choppy waves and rowed themselves upriver, into the depths of the forest.
The warbling of exotic birds and the calls of tree-climbers trickled down from the high canopy above, which kept the sky hidden and shaded the green underworld. Other than the sounds of the creatures roaming the branches above, the lush environment was quiet. The men whispered to one another, turning their heads this way and that, the taste of adventure, or perhaps thoughts of rare treasures, on their lips. A few of them watched every moving thing with hunters’ eyes, surely wishing they could bring foreign trophies back to boast or sell.
Geoffrey couldn’t fill his journals fast enough. Like a child with a box of candies, he couldn’t decide what to focus on first, settling for making quick sketches of every plant and animal he saw. Ine watched him as he worked, wondering if he knew the names of anything he was seeing.
Tom continually had to remind the crew to ke
ep rowing, and with speed. Not until the sea was long out of sight and the river began to wind, hours into the trip, did the genamite needle begin to point to the banks. Tired of standing still, Tom ordered the boats to land on the banks of the river, and the party began to hike. Tom, at the head of the expedition, cut back the vegetation tirelessly as he guided the rest. After another hour, the party stopped.
“There is something I am not seeing,” Tom muttered to himself, rubbing sweat off his forehead and looking around. “Ine!” he called over his shoulder. “Send Yata up!”
Ine drew Yatagarasu from its sheath and spoke to it as one speaks to a pet, holding it out and commanding it to transform. Yata burst forth in a crackling of flashes and flapped its wings, flying from Ine’s hands and up out of sight. Its shadow swept the foliage overhead, and Tom’s eyes followed it as it moved steadily away from them in slow circles. Where Yata landed, the genamite needle was pointed.
The party pressed on and headed for the sound of Yata’s chirping and squawking, as it stood out from any other sound coming from the forest life. There in the dense and seemingly unfriendly neck of the forest they found mountainous ruins—the remains of a temple. Geoffrey was first to notice that it belonged to no particular culture. A passageway, open at ground level and partially collapsed, was detailed with geometric carvings. Most of the language chiseled into the stone around them was Scriptic, but certain notations and words were alchemic in nature and meaning. This amused Geoffrey, who scribbled away in his journal as Tom and the others inspected the structure and surroundings.
“Mr. Mylus, can you read any of that?” asked Tom, tapping Geoffrey on the shoulder and stepping around him to look at the symbols in the stone entryway.
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