by Simon Archer
The creature tested my demands with its own will and intellect and then grudgingly acquiesced. Minutes passed as more and more of the waking sailors crowded on the shore and watched as the tip-top of the tallest of The Golden Bull’s masts slowly rose above the level of the frothing water. Inch-by-inch and foot-by-foot, she ascended from the depths in the invisible hands of the water elemental before gliding towards the shore. After a few long moments, The Bull beached at last in a crash of waves and creaking of sodden timbers.
From the ships anchored nearby, sailors lowered dinghies and rowed their way towards the island at speed. I allowed myself a moment’s satisfaction as my glance picked out Bardak and Tabitha Binx on the lead boat rowing from The Hullbreaker . My act had certainly rousted the Splitter of Skulls from his bed inside the Black Cat.
After the moment’s distraction, I forced down my smug pride and refocused my will on the elemental that now lurked within the sea’s eye. Once again, it tested me, and I almost staggered under the sheer weight of the spirit’s might. The pain in my jaw flared, and the strength lent me by my personal sacrifice so many years ago surged. I straightened and gestured as I called to mind the thought of dismissal.
Once again, the sense of the sea spirit was sullen. It wanted to stay and play in return for serving me. I could force the thing, but what good would that serve? If I needed it again, it would resent my summons and resist me even more than it had, and I didn’t want that.
Through the link I shared with the elemental, I queried it. Would it be willing to come to me again if I granted it a bit of freedom?
After a moment’s consideration, the spirit’s emanations took on a positive tone, and I felt another warm moment of satisfaction. One by one, it accepted the stipulations I placed upon it, which basically amounted to little more than stay away from and do not harm people who sailed upon or dwelled near the sea but otherwise gave it the freedom to wander and investigate whatever it wished. Then, with a sharp gesture, I released it and severed the link.
For a single moment, the sea around the island grew still, and then the elemental was gone.
33
W e all stood on the beach and gazed in wonder at the beached wreck of The Golden Bull that had once rested on the floor of the sea at the bottom of the nameless island’s sea’s eye. I scratched my beard thoughtfully and then turned my gaze on Adra Notch-Ear, who stood smugly nearby. Despite her posturing, though, the shamaness looked tired.
While I had hoped that all of us could help in bringing the ship to the surface, I was impressed that she had accomplished this feat all alone.
“Adra Notch-Ear,” I said solemnly, drawing the attention of the gathered pirates. “Ye did good, an’ I salute ye.” With that, I pounded my chest with my right fist. “Now go an’ rest yer bones. We ain’t done yet, and the storm gets closer.”
Then I looked at the rest of the cutthroats, buccaneers, and ne’er-do-wells of the four crews that had gathered. “The rest o’ ye, listen up!” I bellowed. “Cap’ns, get yer crews t’ start unloading that thing. Main hold only. I’ll be handling the special cargo along with the witches. Somethin’ among those items already tried t’ wreak mischief, an’ I’d rather those o’ us with a touch o’ magic handled ‘em.”
Unfortunately, I hadn’t had the chance to peruse the manifest in more detail to try and figure out what in the locked hold might have tried to seize upon Tabitha Binx, but once I had those crates locked away about my ship, I meant to figure it out. Now, though, we had no time to waste.
With Mary, Nagra, and Ember in tow, I directed the crews to get into the holds by the simple expedience of breaking open the hull around amidships and using the interior stairs. A significant amount of water, lascu-slime, and ink drained out once we’d holed the ship, and I led the way up and in.
The sailors fell to with gusto, setting up a relay chain to pass the heavy crates and chests of treasure down and out where Kargad, Tabitha, Mocker, and Shrike accounted for each and sent them on to their ships. The Black Cat would carry the least as the smallest ship, then The Wasp, followed by Sirensong and The Hullbreaker.
After that, it’d be a race for a safe port before the ghost ship overtook us. I had an idea, but it would be risky, and we’d have to face The Indomitable and Commodore Arde after another fight. We’d face them on land, though, which might lessen the undead’s advantage by forcing him to abandon his ship and come to me.
The timbers underfoot were slick with years of algae and other, less-pleasant things, but we reached the broken door of the artifact storage hold in short order. The two witches who hadn’t been here before paused and gazed around in amazement while Mary and I just walked on in.
“Start with everything that happens to not be bound away by lock and spell, I think,” my witch observed.
“Aye, but I’d like to know what it was that drew Tabitha’s attention,” I said, then pointed to the crates secured within the barred cabinet. “That one, methinks.”
“Tabitha, hm?” Mary smiled and shot me a knowing look at the use of the Ailur’s first name as opposed to rank.
I nodded and shrugged. It wasn’t like the changeling woman had discouraged us. She’d practically pushed me the Ailur together. A grin spread over Mary’s face at that, and she waggled her eyebrows at me. I just sighed. There was no telling what my witch was playing at unless it was just to bring the people around her that she liked together.
Not that I had any complaints.
Ember and Nagra finally picked their jaws up from the floor and entered. Mary intercepted them and started pointing at various crates that were secured but not nearly to the degree of the cabinet or what we suspected was the Black Mirror.
With Ember’s talent with fire and Nagra’s orcish strength, something I was fairly sure she was augmenting hexes, they broke straps, melted padlocks, and began to spirit the things Mary deemed ‘safe’ outside.
Meanwhile, we turned our attention to the cabinet. Getting close to it caused my skin to rise up in goosebumps, and I caught Mary shivering.
“Worth the trouble, ye think?” I had to ask.
My witch nodded but didn’t say anything. She bent close and studied not the lock, but the bars and the frame of the cabinet itself.
“They put a lot of work into this,” Mary observed finally. “I fear it will not be easy to unwork the spells that hold it tight.”
“Could we break it?” I wondered as I looked it over from every angle.
“We could, but it might kill us,” she replied.
“P’raps a key might be in order,” someone said behind us.
We spun to see Drammond Screed lounging against the frame of the door. “I thought ye’d want to claim these things for yerself, Cap’n, an’ in truth, I don’t blame ye.”
I let out a low growl, and Mary put a restraining hand on my arm. “What do you want?” she asked before I could.
“Just wanted t’ be of assistance,” the man drawled and tugged up the chain he wore around his neck. At the bottom of the loop dangled an old, tarnished skeleton key. “Y’see, this just might bloody work.”
Mary straightened and frowned. I simply narrowed my eyes. Screed had put me on edge ever since his attempt at rumor-mongering back in Winemaker’s Run.
“That ain’t all ye want, I wager,” I said as I crossed my arms over my chest. It was as much to keep my urge to draw a flintlock on the man or hurl one of the axes at my belt through him as it was to posture.
Drammond stabbed a finger at the large crate on the table with its five heavy locks and encircling chains. “I want to lay eyes on that damned thing.” His eyes burned madly. “I want to see with my own eyes the thing that brought ruin to my damned house.”
Behind him, Ember and Nagra loomed silently out of the shadows. I caught both their eyes and gave a nearly imperceptible shake of my head. Meanwhile, Screed stepped forward and placed a hand on the wood, then drew it back with a hiss of surprise.
“Dry?” he exclaimed in surprise. “How in the
hells is it dry?”
Mary rolled her eyes and said, “Magic, maybe.”
Drammond looked up sharply. “Of course,” he muttered. “Of course, it be dry.”
“What does the damned thing do, Drammond?” I asked with a tone that brooked no backtalk. It would be easy to kill him, but we had him surrounded, and he obviously knew things. Perhaps it would be easiest to just coax the information out of him while he raved.
“I know only a little, Cap’n,” he replied. “‘Tis a thing of power and evil that connects our world with others. It gives visions, and… it lets things come through.”
Drammond removed the key from around his neck and reached for the first lock with a trembling hand. The four of us watched as he stuck the key in and turned it. With a simple, loud click, the lock fell open.
The man let out a laugh. “Yes!” he cried, then raised his head and looked me right in the face with eyes gone completely black.
My hackles rose, and my heart skipped a beat at that look. Mary started forward as I nodded to the other two witches, and they fell on Drammond, disabling and securing him in mere moments. We left him propped up in the corner of the room while I took his key to undo the rest of the padlocks holding down the mirror. As I was about to insert the key into the second lock, I paused, watching as it changed in my fingers to match the lock itself.
“A magic key,” I observed to the witches.
Mary leaned in to inspect it before either of the others could. “Aye,” she confirmed. “‘Tis something jokingly referred to as a skeleton’s key or a universal key. Useful and quite rare indeed.”
“What are their limits?” I asked as I undid the second padlock on the mirror’s crate.
“Very few,” Mary replied. “They happen to be outlawed by the Empire and the Sisterhood both, though. I’d wager Mister Screed inherited that little piece of magic and likely squandered it undoing the chastity belts of impressionable young lasses.”
“He’ll be right pissed when he wakes and realizes ye took it,” Ember said, chuckling as she and Nagra retrieved more items. “What in the hells was wrong with his eyes, though?”
“More bloody magic. I still am of half a mind to feed the bastard to Tiny,” I grumbled, “but in all truth, he broke none of our laws. He’ll get his look at the black mirror, but not before I’ve had all o’ ye and Adra look it over. Something happened with the bastard when he unlocked that first lock.”
“I will admit, my Captain,” Mary said with a nod. “That the thing makes me nervous. I’ve a sense that it grows more aware as you shed its locks.”
“It has a bloody mind?” I snapped. “Did none o’ ye notice this before?”
“Only when you opened the second lock,” Mary replied. “It’s aware, but I’ve got no real sense of it beyond that.”
“I don’t like this,” Ember muttered, and Nagra nodded in agreement.
I closed my eyes for a moment and gathered myself. Three of my witches had a bad feeling about this mirror, so it was my turn to use my newly awakened senses to get a feel for the thing. My right hand went to rest upon the unusually dry wood of the crate, and I opened my mind to the spirits.
Darkness, slaughter, cold, and a deep, deep hunger reached out from the crate and threatened to overwhelm me. Even with three of the bindings intact, the mirror was strong. It was alive, and it desired freedom and food.
I steeled myself and unleashed a roar of anger from the deepest core of my being. Somehow, that stopped it. A sense of baffled wonder replaced the initial threat, and then curiosity. Somehow, it had never experienced my like before.
“What are you?” I asked.
“I am death. I am darkness. I am hunger,” it responded. “I am the brilliant horror of slaughter and the shadow of the murderer on the wall behind you. I am fear.”
“What can you do, then?” I snapped. The spirit in this artifact was old and powerful, but it was trapped.
“I am a hole in the world,” the mirror replied. “A way to the shadows between and the hunger that waits beyond the barrier of death. What are you?”
“I am the Splitter of Skulls,” I answered, my rage boiling in my heart. “The Hullbreaker, and the Captain of my clan. I am an orc, and that is all you need to know.”
Pressure built behind my eyes until I exerted my will and forced it back with a snarl of anger. “Attempt that again, and I will ensure that you never see the light of day.”
A reluctant sense of acknowledgment came to me, and the thing waited.
“Fine,” I said at last. “We will speak later. For now, I need to transport you elsewhere and prepare to fight the dead.”
“I can help you,” the mirror whispered desperately as I pulled back and slammed shut the doors in my mind. I opened my eyes to the concerned faces of the three witches.
“I will be locking the damned thing up again,” I proclaimed. Whatever help it could offer, I didn’t want. “We’ll transport the whole table back to The Hullbreaker. No one gets near it that can’t defend themselves against… whatever be in there.”
“What is it?” Nagra asked.
“An old god, mayhap,” I replied. “A demon… I ain’t sure, lass, but it ain’t a thing to be taken lightly.” That said, I started replacing the chains I’d removed and locking them back into place. The presence lurking within the crate faded to nearly nothing as I set the last padlock into place and drew away.
Mary put her hands on her hips. “Well, are ye sure we should not just throw it right back into yon hole?”
I shook my head. “Nay, lass. Needs be something deeper than that, an’ I’d not risk it falling into Layne’s hands. Would ye?”
“Bloody hell,” Ember muttered as Mary just nodded and turned to the cabinet.
“Well, my Captain,” she tossed back over her shoulder. “Shall we see if Drammond’s key works upon this lock?”
“Aye,” I replied as I stepped around the table and its fearsome contents. “Methinks we all want to know what drew Cap’n Binx so strongly.”
The magical key did indeed unlatch the padlock that bound the cabinet shut, and I remembered which of the crates had drawn Tabitha’s almost violent attention. It was, like all the others, painted with a number, nine.
Since there was no other table in the room, I used the space between the chains that wrapped around the black mirror’s crate and pried the box open. Sitting in a bed of soggy hay was a skull covered in scrimshawed patterns. Jewels were set into the eye-sockets and decorated the long canines that protruded from the upper and lower jaws.
Curious, I opened my senses once again and found nothing active, only the sense of a slumbering intelligence.
“Odd,” I said.
The others leaned around and peered into the box along with me.
“It barely seems magical at all,” Mary observed.
“What d’ye think that’s the skull of?” Nagra asked.
“That,” Ember answered, “is an Ailur. Tabitha told me something about them and their funeral rites. They don’t burn or bury, like most of us do. Instead, the heads are removed from the bodies, and the flesh is stripped from them. After that, the skulls are decorated, then given a place of honor in the home. Supposedly, the spirit will watch over the families thereafter.”
“What about the bodies?” Mary wanted to know.
Ember shrugged. “The Captain did not tell me. Perhaps there is a spirit in there that wants to go home?”
“Maybe we be doin’ that after all else be done,” I grunted. “Pack it back up an’ let us be done with this hulk.”
34
T he contents of the secured cabin, along with a portion of the heavier crates, ended up aboard The Hullbreaker, as did the unconscious Drammond Screed. I did send a message to Kargad about the man’s whereabouts by way of his daughter, Nagra. For some reason, I didn’t want to bring either him or the skull up with Tabitha yet, not until I’d spoken with the man and given Mary time to examine the skull.
We four cap
tains gathered on the beach beside the yawing hulk of The Golden Bull. She was already starting to rot as her boards dried out in the air and under what little light of the sun reached through the clouds. It was near dusk on the same day Adra had raised the ship with her magic, the sailors having emptied the treasure ship in mere hours.
Nothing motivates a group of pirates like the promise of gold, after all.
“Where to next?” Kargad asked. My old friend and former first mate wore a bemused expression, likely pondering the sheer volume of wealth we’d just recovered, or perhaps he thought of something else like I did.
“The ghost ship Indomitable sails ever closer,” I said by way of reply. “We need to seek a place to make our stand, and I’ve an idea that just might give us an edge.” The thought had come to me while I carried the table with the mirror from the bowels of the old ship to The Hullbreaker.
Everyone looked at me in silent anticipation, and as Tabitha opened her mouth, I said one word: “Insmere.”
Shrike and Kargad both burst out laughing, and the Ailur just stared at me.
“What does that bloody mean?” she demanded, hands on her hips as she looked over the three of us indignantly.
“Insmere be where the Cap’n found me an’ Mary Night,” Shrike said between chuckles.
“‘Twas also the town we almost took with just one bloody ship an’ the element o’ surprise,” Kargad added. “It ain’t too far from here, is it, Cap’n?”
“A day under witchwind,” I answered. “If all o’ ye be game, I think we can take that port for ourselves with a bit o’ help from Tiny an’ Ligeia. We’ll need to hit ‘em hard an’ fast, but with surprise on our side, we ought to be able to shock the resistance right out of ‘em.”
Kargad nodded thoughtfully. “Ye mean to go in from land or sea?”
“Both,” I answered. “I’m thinkin’ we put about half the crews ashore on the isle, then sail the ships around to start shellin’ the emplacements an’ any Admiralty ships in port. Then, while Ligeia sings and Tiny does his thing, the shore crew enters an’ goes to relieve the governor of his duties.”