A skeletal arm was digging itself out from under a pile of rocks and rubble. As Larinna watched, frozen in horror, a bony cadaver began to emerge out of the ground where it had lain, half-buried, until the crew’s passage had disturbed it.
It should have been impossible, the stuff of childhood nightmares, but within a few short seconds, the remains had erupted fully to stand just a few short steps away, and Larinna was staring at a skeleton a few inches taller than she, clad only in a few rags but clutching a sword of its own. She could see the moonlight streaming straight through its ribcage as it turned, slowly, as if taking in its surroundings.
The dead, dark eye sockets met her own mortified gaze. The lower jaw, yellowing and incomplete, fell slackly open to the accompaniment of a rattling hiss. It was not a happy sound; worse still, it was answered by other calls from farther up the trail. Dragging her gaze away from the shambling creature long enough to glance up the path, Larinna could see Faizel and Adelheid backing slowly toward her as two more of the creatures advanced on them. They weren’t just under attack, she realized. They were surrounded.
RAMSEY
At first it seemed as though Ramsey’s rage would last a lifetime—the fury burning white-hot in his belly and bubbling to the surface with every savage kick, every hack of his blade, every blow he inflicted upon the ruins of their supposed Thieves’ Haven. He stomped back and forth until his footsteps had traced deep grooves in the sandy floor, ranting and threatening the unknown villains who had plundered their hideout.
Finally, when there was nothing left on land on which he could take out his anger, he stormed wordlessly past his crew and into his cabin on the Magpie’s Wing. For the first time any of them could recall, they heard the door lock click, and then an eerie silence seemed to spread out until it permeated the entire cavern.
Rathbone leaned against the ship’s railings with his head in his hands, staring moodily upward through two of the arches and watching the seagulls wheeling overhead. After being spooked by Ramsey’s rampage echoing up from the caves below, they were now cautiously returning to their perches, their gray-white bullet heads peering reproachfully down through the gaps between the stone. Rathbone heard a scraping behind him and turned to see Shan dragging a large chest out of the hold. With everything that had happened, he’d forgotten the plunder they’d taken aboard.
“Where are you going with that?” he asked, gloomily, making no move to assist. “You don’t really think he’ll let us stay here now, do you?” This was accompanied by a tilt of the head toward the darkened windows of the cabin. “Not now that our little secret’s out.”
“Oh, things’ll look better in the morning,” Shan replied, cheerfully. “It’s like my old dad used to say: When someone knocks you down, it’s no good lying there feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got to get back up and spit in their eye. He was a bit of a brawler, was my dad.”
Rathbone permitted himself a thin smile. “Good in a tussle, was he?”
Shan paused. “Never saw him win a fight. Still had all his own teeth, though.”
“Well, that’s—”
“He used to keep them in a jar by his bed. For luck, he said.”
Rathbone stared at Shan for a moment and wished for the thousandth time that he could tell whether or not the man was joking. Finally, he gave an exasperated sigh and moved to help with the cargo. Together, they carried the haul into the deepest recesses of the caves, a large, bowl-shaped room open to the sky but almost completely enclosed by a canopy of trees so that only slivers of sunlight made it through. The floor was covered in a thick carpet of leaves, twigs, and moss, and it was here that Shan dropped suddenly to his knees and began to root around on all fours.
Rathbone watched incredulously, deciding what insult he should hurl in Shan’s direction, then spotted the glint of metal from underneath the leaves. Shan grasped a large iron ring in his hands and tugged as hard as he could, and the hidden trapdoor sprang open in a cloud of dust and mold. Beneath it was a square of inky blackness into which a rope ladder descended, and Shan dropped into it with an easy familiarity. Rathbone shook off his surprise and moved to join him, easing himself onto the ladder and clambering cautiously into the hidden chamber below.
The little room they were in was cramped and lit only by a lamp perched on a craggy ledge overhead, but Rathbone could just about make out the shapes of boxes and barrels in the gloom. A few cannonballs, a chest of gold or two. A pittance compared to everything they’d lost but the foundations of a new fortune nevertheless, all squirreled away by their consummate quartermaster. “Does Ramsey know about this?” he breathed, his voice sounding strange to his own ears as the echo bounced back and forth.
Shan shook his head. “Never got around to telling him. Besides, it’s not really finished yet. I was hoping to turn this place into a proper workshop and get a few of my special projects ready first.” He indicated a few scraps of paper and a handful of books, most of which seemed to be about tripwires, spring-loading mechanisms, intricate locking mechanisms, and—Rathbone squinted to get a clearer look—what appeared to be a crude drawing of a man sticking out of a cannon.
“You are a very strange person,” said Rathbone slowly, “but I think I agree with you. Pirates don’t just turn tail at the first sign of trouble. Let’s get the Wing unloaded and take a proper look at what we’ve got left.”
“Let’s,” Shan agreed. “And then you can show me where you’ve been hiding the good drink.”
“Damn.”
“Mercia.”
Mercia, who’d been sitting cross-legged at the map table, staring dreamlike at her charts and notations without taking in a single word, jumped slightly at the sound of her name. Ramsey was framed in the stairwell, his huge figure outlined there in an unusually weary pose. “Am I disturbing you?” he asked.
Coming from the typically loud and boisterous Ramsey, the question seemed absurd. Mercia had to fight the urge to laugh. “Not at all, Captain. Please join me.”
“Just Ramsey will do for now,” he said, moving to straddle the opposing bench. “I haven’t behaved much like a captain today.”
Mercia tilted her head at that. “You got us out of an ambush without so much as a scratch and filled our hold while you were about it. That’s the captain I’m used to. Besides, we both know how much we’ve still got buried out there. What was taken from us here was nothing more than spare change, if you think about it.”
If Ramsey was cheered by the attempt at a compliment, he didn’t show it. “It’s not about how much was taken, not really,” he said carefully. “I gave up everything to come here because I believed that the Sea of Thieves would be a better way of living—that we’d have freedom, that we’d make discoveries and find ways to live how we wanted to live without making the same old mistakes.”
Ramsey paused, and took a deep swig from a mostly empty bottle Mercia hadn’t even realized he was holding before continuing. “When I was very small, my father told me a story about a village—a magic village that only appeared in our world for one day every hundred years. Whenever it appeared, the people in that village wouldn’t have aged a day. Just them and their village, contented, as the rest of the world happened by.”
“And you hoped the Sea of Thieves could be like that village,” Mercia said sympathetically.
Ramsey nodded. “Somewhere that the pirate life could always exist, even if the rest of the world fell under the rule of law and people forgot what it meant to be free. Now we finally have that place, and what are we doing? Wasting time and supplies on petty squabbles. Stealing from one another when there’s still so much to see and do. Although . . .” He took another deep draft from his bottle and wiped his lips on the back of his sleeve, looking at Mercia slyly with just a hint of his old vigor returning. “There is one way this place is like that village. You’ve noticed it too, even if you won’t admit as much.”
Mercia groaned. “Please, Cap—Ramsey, not this again!” She threw up her hands in
exasperation. “Yes, I’ll admit I’ve heard some strange tales in recent months, and yes, we’ve all encountered things that are hard to explain. That doesn’t mean we have to start believing in . . . in . . .”
“Magic?” Ramsey pressed, earning an exasperated sigh. “Well if it isn’t magic, I can think of no one better suited to find out what it is than you, Mercia, with your books, your brains, and your Natural Philosophy. Remember the first night we arrived, and you told me about the importance about keeping an open mind? Here’s what we’re going to do,” he continued firmly, even as an irritated Mercia opened her mouth to interject.
“At first light we’re going to set sail and we’re going to visit every last watering hole where a pirate might be found. I’ll bluster and bellow and make out like we’re looking for the wretches who ransacked our hideout, but what you’ll be doing is seeking out more of those ‘strange tales,’ as you call them. You’ll prod, poke, and ask questions just like you always do. If we’re lucky, we’ll start to see some patterns, some rhyme and reason to it all. Maybe even learn about somewhere we can see some of this ‘magic’ for ourselves.”
“Are you talking about breaking up the crew?” Mercia challenged him. “The others signed up for excitement and adventure on the high seas. I’m not so sure they even believe there’s anything mag—anything unexplained out there to find.”
“We’re stronger together,” Ramsey said emphatically. “Besides, what pirate could say no to a tour of the local drinking dens? Who knows, they may overhear something useful.”
“We’ll tell them what we’re planning, then?”
Ramsey scratched his beard for a moment, mulling this over. “Only that we’re going hunting for the ones who robbed us,” he said at last. “We’ve lost more than our fair share in recent weeks. The fewer people who know what we’re searching for, the more likely we are to lay our hands on it.”
It’s no use, Mercia realized. I’m not going to be able to talk him out of this. Not now that he’s got the idea in his head. Out loud, she said, “And if you do find some of this so-called magic you’re so desperate to see for yourself, what are you going to do then?”
Ramsey smiled, grimly. “What any pirate would do, of course. I’m going to steal it.”
Despite her reservations, the crew spent the next few days sailing from outpost to outpost, arriving just as the sun was setting and the taverns were at their liveliest. Having stopped at a few old haunts along the way and put their shovels to work, they’d reclaimed several stashes of gold and jewels—enough for Mercia to ply tight-tongued pirates with as much drink as was necessary to get them talking.
Almost everyone, as it turned out, had some fanciful tale to tell. One grizzled pirate, bare to the waist and coated with a fine spider web of tattoos, claimed to have discovered the phantom of some long-forgotten emperor within the crumbling rules of an overgrown palace. He had, he insisted to the pub at large, been appointed the old ghost’s successor—and was, thusly, natural heir to the Sea of Thieves. His attempts to extract tributes from his subjects in the tavern had seen him firstly mocked, then batted aside, then finally pummeled and thrown into a nearby stream to sober up.
Others spoke of musical instruments that had begun to play themselves after a layover on a distant island, or a cup that could never be drained, but when pressed for specifics, it was remarkable how few of them could remember what had happened to these miraculous belongings.
Through it all, Ramsey threatened and swaggered, describing with gruesome detail what he’d do to the cowardly crew who had robbed him of his rightful hoard, while Shan and Rathbone lurked in the background, both bored and bemused at the nightly routine. Rathbone in particular seemed dissatisfied with the lack of treasure flowing their way and began excusing himself earlier and earlier each evening.
It was not until the fifth night that Mercia learned of anything that seemed even remotely plausible. She was squeezed into the corner of a bustling tavern, forced to share a table with an elderly pirate whose rheumy eyes had assessed Mercia with a keen intelligence as she took her seat. The woman was far and away the oldest person Mercia had seen upon the Sea of Thieves; her wizened face was partially obscured by stray wisps of iron-gray hair, and her chin jutted forward like the prow of a galleon.
The old woman said nothing by way of greeting, but sipped periodically from a bottle filled with a clear and sparkling liquid. Mercia couldn’t remember seeing any pirate, young or old, come to a tavern craving anything other than grog in their bellies, and at last her inquisitiveness overrode her desire to monitor the crowd’s conversations.
“That’s an interesting choice of drink,” she commented, continuing to scan the room offhandedly. “Is it alcohol?”
The old woman gave a low and melodious chuckle, her voice a stark contrast to her wizened appearance. “My my, love, no. I swore off the stuff years ago. This is my special spring water, found on our last voyage. I’ve taken quite the fancy to it, and it fizzes just the same!” She poured a small measure into an empty tankard for Mercia to try.
Mercia sipped. “Not bad,” she said diplomatically, though in truth the taste put her in mind of the privy. “Not quite the magical elixir I was hoping for, though.”
The old woman’s eyes creased into a smile. “Magic comes in all shapes and sizes out here,” she answered, coyly. “On that same voyage, we sailed right to the rim of the Devil’s Shroud and found ourselves making camp on a tiny beach. ’Twas barely even an island, not worth a name, but there was a sinkhole at its center. Well, I’d barely been at the cooking pot five minutes when my daughter’s calling to me. ‘Mam, mam, look what’s down here!’ ”
Mercia wasn’t in the mood for an old woman’s gossip, but something about the story seemed curiously plausible compared to the far-flung fantasies she was used to hearing in places like this. She found herself leaning forward, focusing intently on her companion for the first time. “And?” she pressed.
“When I was younger, my Charlie would take me dancing,” the old woman said wistfully. “Even, one brave night, to a prince’s reception at the palace. I’d never in my life seen such splendor! So when I tell you that the grand hall my girl showed me made that royal ballroom look like a pigpen, you’ll know I don’t mean it lightly.”
She took another draft of her bubbling beverage before continuing. “A chamber fit for a king, hidden under the waves at the heart of some flooded caves and lit by an eerie fire we’d never seen the likes of. We didn’t have to light our own path, you understand, the torches were already burning though there wasn’t a spot of kindling to be seen.”
An eternal flame, Mercia mused. A common legend, all the way back to the Promethean original, but it was an odd thing to boast about discovering nonetheless. You couldn’t get rich from fire. She decided she’d listened long enough.
“And I suppose when you woke up the next day, there was no trace of this mysterious chamber?” she challenged, for this was where the stories she endured tended to collapse into rumor and excuses.
“Of course there was,” said the old woman, so sharply that Mercia actually flushed. “I made a very detailed map, in fact. I was planning to pay the place another visit, see what else I could learn.”
“You did?” Mercia struggled to keep the impatience from her voice, for she’d been led along like this too many times in recent days. “And you know where this map is right now?”
“Certainly I do,” the woman replied, icily. “I’m not daft, you know.”
“Sorry.”
“It’ll be in the wreck of our galleon, I should think.” The old woman leaned back and began to fumble with a tobacco pouch. “We lost her in a firefight the next day. I’ve not been out to sea since. I’m too old to be salvaging scuttled ships, not at my time of life.” She sighed, and then fixed Mercia with a crafty stare. “But if you’ve got a ship of your own, you could find the map for yourself.”
Tenuous though the tale was, it was the closest thing to succe
ss Mercia had enjoyed all week, and she gladly bade the old woman tell her everything she could remember about the location of her abandoned vessel. Bidding her farewell, she forced her way to way to the bar where Ramsey was holding court and firmly gripped his arm even as he made to curse, once again, those who had plundered his hideout.
“It’s time to leave,” she said firmly. “There’s a chance I’ve found something. A slim chance,” she added at once, sensing his immediate change in mood and unwilling to raise his hopes too high.
Ramsey, though, was too full of residual merriment not to take the good news at face value. “I’ll take it!” he roared, staggering through the throng behind Mercia and spilling several people’s drinks as he did so. “It’s about time fortune was on our side. What are we searching for, eh?”
“That,” Mercia said diplomatically as she towed Ramsey through the tavern door and down toward the dock, “is very much a conversation for tomorrow.”
Mercia had returned to the ship feeling curiously hopeful, looking forward to getting back out on the waves after days spent in smoky taverns. Ramsey, once his head had cleared, was more cautious. He gave a terse, curated explanation of their destination to Shan and Rathbone, saying simply that they’d learned of a shipwreck loaded with valuable treasures.
Privately, Mercia wondered if perhaps Ramsey’s newfound interest in the supernatural was waning already, but she had no chance to put her question to him once they were out at sea. Their journey was a stormy one, and the driving rain pushed all other concerns out of their minds as they battled through to sunrise, until finally, Mercia found herself clinging to the side of the Magpie’s Wing, staring down at the broken husk of a galleon upon the sea bed.
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