by Ken Brosky
“You Corrupted sure do enjoy your dark, cramped quarters,” I muttered.
The captain ignored me, pulling the red-hot steel rods from the furnace and setting them on the wooden workbench. He banged them together with a massive hammer that rang in my ears, then began twisting the hot steel, using his hook to hold them down. When his bare skin touched the hot steel rods, a sickening hissing sound filled the room. Then I smelled it. I nearly puked. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, watching him work. It took only a few minutes, an inhuman amount of time to twist the rods together into one long, reinforced spear. All it needed was the pointy part.
“The barbs,” he ordered, holding out his burned palm. I grabbed the barbs, flipping them around so the sharp end was aimed at his soft blue skin. His hand drew back. He cackled. “Careful now, hero.”
I flipped the barbs over. He grabbed them and immediately his hand began to burn. He quickly placed them on the tip of the spear between the twisted metal rods and set the spear on the table, hammering the barbs into place.
He held up his spear. It was the perfect weapon for a Corrupted: only the sharp tip had been made with my magic pen. As long as the captain clutched the base of his spear, it wouldn’t burn him.
“Who will give me their blood to temper this?” he asked.
Ishmael and the blacksmith remained silent. Ahab laughed and looked at me. “How about you, little hero?”
“Don’t even try it,” I snapped.
“Then the glory is mine,” he said, cutting the skin on his arm with one yellow fingernail. A few drops of dark blood streamed out, landing on the razor-sharp barbs.
“Gawd, you are so melodramatic,” I said.
Ahab glared at me, then pointed to the ladder under the hatch. “Up ye go, lass. It’s time to see just how good yer drawing skills are.”
I walked with Ishmael, praying that the captain wouldn’t stab me with his spear just yet. All I needed was one chance. One chance to draw a weapon of my own and level the playing field.
All of a sudden, the ship seemed to slow. The lanterns stopped swinging. Ishmael looked to his right, as if he’d seen something in the shadows. Then, suddenly, the hull of the ship groaned and the boat lurched violently, knocking us all off our feet. Water leaked in slowly between cracked boards.
“Patch her up!” Ahab shouted to the blacksmith. He pointed his spear. “Up! Up! The whale calls me into battle! I can hear its song in my ears and taste its blood on my tongue!”
“That’s probably your blood,” I muttered, hurrying up the ladder. The jolt had caused my teeth to clatter together and my body was still shaking. The whale was strong and the Leviathan … well, she wasn’t exactly in the prettiest shape. A few more hits like that and we’d all be swimming home.
On deck, the sailors were hurrying from mast to mast. The wooden boards were wet. Ropes were being hurriedly tied down. The foremast had a long, diagonal crack along its surface and the sails were flapping in the wind, their ropes either ripped apart or torn loose by the impact.
One of the men had lit a lantern, shining it on the black water to better see the giant whale. The other shadowy sailors cowered on the port side of the boat, at least temporarily fearing the whale more than their captain. Ahab reached out and grabbed the lantern from the sailor’s shaking hand, then turned and began to advance upon his terrified crew. “Listen to me!” he called out. “You are bound to me! Until this infernal creature is dead, you are my wards in body and soul, lungs and life! The curse which carries us is also our finest weapon, for we are immortal! So with this flame I extinguish the last vestige of your humanity. Give yourself to my cause, and help me slay this beast once and for all!”
He blew out the lantern’s flame. The shoulders of the shadowy sailors seemed to slump a bit more, as if a heavy weight had landed on their backs. The terror slipped out of their faces, replaced by … nothing. With blank expressions, they returned to readying the nets.
“She’s coming again!” someone cried out. Ahab ran to the starboard bulwark, digging his hook into the railing just as the whale crashed into the ship again. I landed on the deck with a thud, feeling my palms scrape on the rotten wet wood.
“Get her into my cabin!” the captain ordered. He glared at me. “Pray this spear ends this once and for all, lass. Or we die tonight.”
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” I muttered.
He grunted. “Might be. Or maybe I’ll let the curse take you instead. We could use a good deck scrubber.”
Ishmael led me to the cabin, tying up my hands behind my back with a fresh piece of rope and throwing me into the captain’s cabin. “I’m sorry,” he said before shutting the door.
“Yeah, thanks,” I muttered, kneeling in front of Chase’s unconscious body and checking him for wounds. He looked OK—just unconscious. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing under the circumstances.
I looked around. It was dark, but with the full moon shining in through the rear windows, my eyes adjusted enough to make out more than shadows. The captain’s cabin was spacious, filled with all sorts of trinkets no doubt collected over the past 200 or so years. On his desk were statues of horses and warriors and gods and goddesses, each one intricately carved out of wood or ivory, most lying on their sides. On the wooden walls were paintings; two stuffed lions guarded opposite corners of the room, and a grandfather clock with a massive face and silver hands in the third corner, nailed down at its base. There was a chest beside the old desk, lined with brass trim, and another much bigger one made of older, rotted wood sitting next to me by door.
Nothing sharp. Nothing to cut this rope binding my wrists behind my back. I paced, searching for something, anything that I could use to get out of this. “Come on!” I shouted, stamping my foot on the old faded Turkish rug covering the floor.
“Ahem.”
I turned back to the door. Chase was still out cold, lying on the floor.
“Ahem!”
My heart nearly jumped through my ribcage. I hurried over to the old rotting wooden chest, nearly falling as the ship rocked again. I turned, fumbling blindly with the brass latch.
The top flew open. Briar popped up, smoothing out his vest. “I do say! A more uncomfortable experience I cannot imagine. Although there was that time in Egypt when I was chased on a camel …”
“Briar! I’ve never been so happy to see a giant rabbit untie me so I can hug you!” I shouted.
The rabbit glanced at the door. “Er … we should probably be quiet. I’m not sure how much you know about this ship, but those sailors aren’t exactly from Her Majesty’s Naval Force.”
I turned around. “Just untie me already.”
“Right-o.”
I felt the rope loosen. I threw it aside and spun around, hugging Briar. “How did you get aboard? How did you end up in here?”
“Dear hero!” he said in an offended tone. “I’m a trickster. You think this is the first ship I’ve snuck aboard? No. Really, the most difficult part was following Chase around. After receiving your email, I tailed him—pardon the pun—to the docks, and assumed it would only be a matter of time before the hero showed up. I didn’t expect a ship full of crazies, though.”
I squeezed his soft shoulders. “I’m sorry. For everything.”
His furry ears perked up. “If you would have just let me speak and listened to me, I could have told you …”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“But it does,” Briar said. His paws found his vest again, nervously smoothing out the wrinkles. “You see, this particular fish has crossed paths with a hero before. He granted a hero’s wish to no longer be the hero. But you see, in granting the wish … well, that is to say, being the hero doesn’t simply pass from one person to the other. Not until the current hero is dead.”
The breath in my lungs escaped in one fast whoosh. “You mean …”
“I mean that in granting the hero’s wish, the magic fish simply ensured that an unfortunate accident occurred. Killing
the hero thus ensured that he was, technically speaking, no longer the hero.”
“I would have died.”
Briar nodded. The boat rocked violently again. What few statues on the captain’s desk that hadn’t already been knocked over now came crashing to the ground. I tripped over Chase, nearly landing on top of him. Briar fell beside me, one ear flopping over onto my head. “Not to hammer the point home by any means,” he said, “but when you tell me to stop talking, I really must obey. No matter how dire the circumstances.”
My mind was already elsewhere. “If the last hero’s wish had a catch, then Chase’s wishes probably did, too. And now that the fish has become Corrupted ...” I thought back to the times his legs had given out from under him. Chase’s wishes were like a skinned apple: slowly rotting. “He needs to be stopped before the wishes he granted Chase turn Corrupted, too. We need to kill that fish.”
“Whale,” Briar corrected.
“Whatever!” I bent down, tearing away the colorful Turkish rug so I had a smooth drawing surface. “Quick! Grab those two harpoons hanging on the wall.”
“Ah! A plan.” The rabbit hopped to the other side of the room behind the captain’s old desk, pulling the long harpoons off the hooks holding them up on the wall. They were old, made of wood, and the sharp barbs at the tip were tied to the spear handle with hemp.
Perfect.
“I do hope one of these is for the captain,” Briar murmured, untying the hemp. He pulled the jagged barb out from the groove at the tip of the spear, handing it to me. “I have to say, I can’t quite stand his peculiar dialect. Thou and ye and the such can be quite confusing.”
“Tell me about it. We’ll deal with the captain after we get the fish,” I said, studying the barb closely. I would need to get the base’s dimensions perfect so it could fit snugly into the groove of the wooden shaft. I drew it once, then twice, then a third time, adjusting the shape each time and pulling my creation out of the floor to study it more closely.
“Got it,” I said, fitting the third hero-ready barb into the groove. I wound the hemp around it, securing it in place with a good old-fashioned shoe knot.
“We should hurry,” Briar said, clicking his tongue.
I chuckled, shaking my head. “I never thought I’d be happy to hear your nervous ticks.” I untied the second spear tip, replacing it with another hero-ready barb. “I’m glad you came back.”
“I never left, dear hero.” His mouth cracked into his goofy rabbit smile. “Well, I did spend a few days stuck in the downtown library’s massive newspaper archives. My invisibility was on the fritz, no doubt because I was upset, and so it was impossible to escape because they locked up at night …”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m just glad to see you, friend.”
His whiskers twitched. “Me too. I take it a little fisticuffs are in order?”
“No.” I grabbed one of the coils of heavy rope sitting next to the door. The captain had no shortage of ropes, all of them stacked beside the old wooden chest next to the door. “They were human, Briar. They might still be, to some extent. Everyone on the ship but the captain.”
“Human!” A paw went to his mouth. One eye narrowed. “But that must mean … that must mean the captain used some kind of spell on them. The captain in the story was no wizard. He must have had help, just like that wretched mistress at the orphanage. Oh dear. Alice, I do fear all of this is connected.”
“We can’t worry about that right now. We need to save these sailors.” I opened the door a crack, peering onto the deck, then tied two coils of rope together with a zeppelin bend, just like Ishmael had taught me in my dreams.
“This is connected with the Order of the Dragon,” Briar said, hopping beside me. “I’m sure of it! And if there’s magic involved, then there is a mage. A wizard, that is. We must be careful.”
“We’ll be more than careful, pal.”
He tugged on my shirt. “Er, what are you going to do?”
I turned to him, smiling. “I’m going to tie a rolling hitch.”
Briar gasped as I ran onto the deck. I sprinted quickly between the shadowy sailors. My boots did their ridiculously weird trick, letting me cover twice the distance with each step. The shadowy sailors stopped their work with the sails and came at me. But they couldn’t follow, couldn’t spin quickly enough as I ran around them, wrapping each one in the rope.
“Get her!” cried one. More of the sailors pulled away from their stations around the two tall masts, sending the sails flapping wildly. The boat slowed while I sped up, moving between the sailors, dodging their wild punches by shifting my weight as I moved, just like Briar had trained me. The rope wrapped around each of their bodies, tightening when I reached my next victim.
“Stop her!” Ishmael called out. He was standing beside the foremast, clutching a heavy rope in both hands, unwilling to release it.
I gave the rope a strong pull, tugging them toward one of the loose sail sheets hanging near the center mast. “Come on!” I said, pulling the tangled sailors closer. They obliged, if only to try and get closer and attack me. Some fell, tripping on the rope. I held it tight, tying it to the sheet using a rolling hitch. It immediately grew tighter when the sailors began struggling.
What I ended up with was an impressive length of struggling sausage links.
“Let’s go!” I shouted to Briar, hurrying to the rowboat lashed to the starboard side of the ship. “No time to gawk at my impressive knot skills!”
“I’m more worried about what they’ll do when they untie themselves,” Briar said, hopping over the nearest one.
The sailors would free themselves in time, but I doubted they would bring the ship any closer to the whale. It was more than a hundred yards away, splashing madly along the surface of the water. The captain was already headed toward it in the other rowboat, as I’d expected. He had two cursed sailors rowing for him. They’d already put two spears into the whale, the ropes tied to the fore of boat. But not the spear I’d helped Ahab build. He had that one in his hand, held high in the air as his sailors rowed closer to the whale while it circled the little boat, an anxious spray of water erupting from the blowhole.
I grabbed the spears from the captain’s cabin, then followed Briar to the second boat hanging from the starboard side. My fingers began immediately untying the hitch. To our left, Ishmael finally released the rope he was clutching, sending a massive block of wood from the mast crashing down.
“No!” he called out. “You can’t!”
Briar hopped into the boat. I followed, setting the spears under the bench with the tips carefully pointed away from my furry friend. “You can’t stop us, Ishmael.”
“But I have to,” he said, grabbing the ropes that kept the boat tied down. They were run through a winch that was currently locked, although a good kick right to the handle would probably do away with that problem. The boat would crash into the water below and our butts would be sore, but there was no way Ishmael was stopping us now.
“You can fight this,” I said. “You’re not like the other sailors. Not yet.”
He shook his head. His wet hair whipped against his face as the wind picked up. Behind him, the loose sails fluttered. Both masts were cracked, ready to break away if the whale chose to flee the captain and give the ship one more bump.
“Ptoo,” Briar spat. “My mouth was open … I do believe I swallowed some of your hair water!”
“The curse controls me,” Ishmael said. “I cannot let go.”
“But if you let go, I’ll most surely die,” I said. “I’m just a wee lass after all, right? What hope do I have against a terrible white whale?”
Ishmael’s grip loosened. “But … I don’t want you to die. The curse wants you to die.”
“Obey your master,” I said. “Let go. It’s the surest way to guarantee I don’t live. And that’s what your captain wants, right?” I held up my hand. Shadows danced over my skin. “I couldn’t escape even if I wanted to, could I?”
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“No.” Ishmael sighed, releasing his grip. “The curse has infected you.”
“Alice!” Briar exclaimed. He held out a paw, tracing the path of the shadow as it slithered across my arm. “Black magic,” he whispered.
“Lower us,” I ordered Ishmael.
Ishmael stepped beside the winch, grabbing the iron crank. He lowered the boat a foot, then stopped. “I do hope you survive.”
I smiled. “So do I.”
The boat slowly dropped into the water. We untied the knots and tossed aside the heavy strips of rope; they swung against the hull of the ship, hitting it with a wet crack. Briar grabbed the oars awkwardly with his paws, rowing toward the massive whale that was thrashing near the captain’s boat, pushing him left and right while his shadowy crew attempted to maintain control.
Holy crud, the whale was huge. Every time it thrashed in the water, it sent rolling waves that slipped under our boat and threatened to capsize it. We were still a good fifty yards away when Ahab stood in his boat, raising his terrifying spear. This was it. I knew. I totally knew even before he threw the spear that it wasn’t going to be enough to kill the whale … just make it angrier than ever.
The whale’s giant tail breached the surface, then slapped the water. Ahab threw the spear. Rope trailed behind, flapping wildly. The spear landed in the whale’s thick white hide. A burning blackness opened up around the spear.
It spread slowly. Very, very slowly.
“Get us closer!” I ordered Briar, reaching down for the harpoons. We had one spare rope attached to an anchor. I untied it, then tossed the anchor overboard and tied the rope to the blunt end of the harpoon, where some ancient whale hunter had at some point drilled a hole into the wood.
The whale splashed along the surface, sending more waves rolling across the surface of the water. Its tail came down next to Ahab’s boat, and his crew frantically paddled with their oars to keep themselves out of the way of the destruction.
“Why is the creature not trying to escape?” Briar called out.