Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates

by Philip Caveney

  'Kelfers?' Sebastian was mystified. 'What are kelfers?'

  'Hideous sea creatures,' said Lemuel. 'The deadliest, fastest beasts in the ocean. One of them took the captain's legs before we could haul him back aboard. Took 'em both off with one snap of its jaws.'

  Sebastian blanched and felt his face drain of colour once again. 'How . . . terrible,' he said.

  'Aye, it was that.' Lemuel shook his head and his one good eye looked misty, as though he was reliving the incident. 'It's a miracle he didn't bleed to death, but we had a good ship's surgeon and he managed to staunch the blood with boiling tar.'

  Sebastian winced, imagining the agony it must have caused.

  'When we got back to Ramalat, I was faced with a difficult decision,' said Jenna. 'My father had survived, but it was obvious he could never captain the Sea Witch again. He gave me a simple choice. I could sell the ship or I could take his place. And I knew that selling her would break his heart, particularly as he hated the man who wanted to buy it.' She extended her hands in a pantomime of helplessness. 'It was no choice at all, really. It was difficult at first. There were many of the crew who felt that I couldn't handle it . . .' She glanced accusingly at Lemuel and he held up his hands in playful surrender.

  'Not me, missy! I always knew you could do it.'

  She smiled. 'True enough, not Lem. But many of the others took some persuading. Luckily my father had taught me everything he knew. He still is teaching me, and I've added a few ideas of my own.' She smiled proudly. 'I've been running the ship for three summers. I don't think any of the crew have a problem with me now.'

  'Apart from the fellow we saw you arm wrestling,' said Cornelius. 'How did a slight thing like yourself become so strong?'

  'Oh, it's a tough life aboard a ship. Muscles become powerful. But I'll let you into a secret about Cassius. He's much stronger than I am. And he could beat me at arm wrestling, there's no doubt of that.'

  Sebastian was puzzled. 'Then how . . .?'

  'He's sweet on me, of course. He thinks that constantly losing to me will make me feel the same affection for him. But of course, the effect is quite the opposite. No woman wants that which she can have too easily.'

  'I . . . don't understand,' said Sebastian.

  'She's talking about playing hard to get,' Cornelius told him. 'The more a man shows disdain for a woman, the more she wants to win his heart. Everyone knows that.'

  Sebastian frowned. He still wasn't quite getting this. 'So the way to win a woman's heart is to be . . . horrible to her?'

  Jenna grinned. 'Not too horrible,' she said. 'Just disdainful enough to make her work harder.' She laughed and Cornelius laughed with her, as though the two of them were sharing some kind of private joke. Sebastian looked from one to the other and wondered what they found so funny; he was way out of his depth here. Jenna looked at Lemuel, who was still fussing with the charts, making measurements with a metal compass.

  'Looks like we'll be heading out over the Angel's Lair,' he told her.

  'What's that?' asked Sebastian.

  'Oh, that's something you'll need to see for yourself,' said Jenna. 'I'll give you a call when we come to the place. Should be some time tomorrow. People who've never seen it before are usually astonished by it. We'll also be passing very close to the pirate stronghold of Lemora,' she added. 'Hopefully, if we keep our sails full and our heads down, it shouldn't bother us too much.'

  'We've fought off enough pirates in our time,' said Lemuel fiercely. 'They should have learned by now to give us a wide berth.'

  'Perhaps,' she said. 'But some of them take a lot of convincing.' She threw another mocking look at Sebastian. 'Mind you, why should we worry? We have the Prince of Pirates with us. I'm sure he'll protect us!'

  But Sebastian hardly noticed the jibe. 'You know,' he said thoughtfully, 'you've succeeded where I've failed.'

  Jenna looked puzzled. 'What do you mean?'

  'Your father wanted you to captain his ship and you've done that – very successfully by the look of it.' He sighed. 'My father wanted nothing more than for me to succeed in the role of jester. I tried after he passed away, but sadly I had no talent for it. I failed him.'

  'But I thought you said you were Court Jester to King Septimus?'

  'I was, but only for a day. Then I was sentenced to death.'

  'Goodness me, you must have been bad!'

  'Oh no, that's not why! It was a little matter of the disappearance of the king's niece, which he thought I had a hand in. But, if I'm honest about it, I was pretty dreadful.'

  'I think you're being a bit hard on yourself,' said Cornelius. 'You weren't that bad.'

  'How do you know? You weren't even there – you were fighting fifteen Brigands in a barn at the time.' Sebastian looked at Jenna. 'That's why I'm on this ridiculous expedition. Trying to discover what I am good at.'

  Jenna put a hand on his and he almost flinched away in surprise. 'I'm sure you'll find something,' she assured him.

  'That's easy for you to say,' he muttered. 'You're a sea captain. And Cornelius here, he's just about the finest warrior that I've ever seen. All I've managed to do on this trip so far is throw up and have an enchantment put on me.'

  'An enchantment?' Jenna was intrigued.

  'Yes,' said Cornelius. 'That was courtesy of a shape-shifting witch back in the forest of Geltane—'

  'I keep warning you – stop calling her a witch!' yelled Sebastian.

  'You see?' Cornelius spread his hands. 'He can't help himself. She's put some kind of love spell on him and he can't shake it off.'

  'A love spell?' Jenna's lips curved into a smile. 'And what's it like, Sebastian, being enchanted by a strange woman?'

  He gazed back at her across the round table. 'It's . . . weird,' he admitted. 'I don't know why, but whenever she's mentioned I want to . . . protect her . . . be with her.'

  Jenna was still holding his hand. She squeezed it gently. 'You poor thing,' she said. 'We must see what we can do to distract you.'

  CHAPTER 15

  THE ANGEL'S LAIR

  Sebastian and Cornelius spent a fitful night in their cramped cabin, but at least the sickness seemed to have left them, and by the following morning they felt recovered enough to stomach a little breakfast. But the bowl of thick salty porridge, served up by the ship's cook, Thaddeus, down in the stinking, damp confines of the galley, did little to encourage them to eat.

  Afterwards they made their way up on deck to discover that it was a fine sunny morning and the ship was moving across a stretch of calm blue water. There was no sight of land in any direction, an occurrence which made Sebastian feel vaguely anxious; but on such a beautiful day he could not allow himself to be in low spirits for long. Then Jenna came striding across the deck towards him, a welcoming smile on her face. He noticed that she was carrying a three-cornered hat, much like her own as well as a pile of clothes.

  'Ah, gentlemen, just in time,' she said. 'We're approaching the Angel's Lair – I thought you'd like to take a look at it.'

  'This is the place you mentioned yesterday?' said Sebastian, intrigued. 'But what is it, exactly?'

  'You'll see soon enough,' she assured him. 'I don't want to spoil the surprise.' She lifted the hat and clothes she was carrying and handed them to Sebastian. 'I found these down in my cabin. I thought they might be more appropriate and since you no longer have your jester's hat, you might like to wear a tricorn instead.'

  'Why . . . thank you.' Sebastian took the clothes and lifted the hat and placed it carefully on his head. It felt strange, quite unlike the soft, three-pronged hat he had worn for so long. He looked doubtfully at the others. 'What do you think?' he asked.

  Cornelius shrugged. 'Not bad,' he said.

  'Oh, better than that,' said Jenna. 'The perfect headgear for a vanquisher of pirates.' And she gave Sebastian that mocking smile. 'How many is it you've killed, Mr Darke?'

  'Erm . . .' Sebastian shrugged. 'I haven't really kept count,' he said.

  'Not since he
polished off the first fifty,' added Cornelius, and Sebastian glared at him, wondering why his friend couldn't seem to stop exaggerating his prowess. True, Sebastian had finished off the odd brigand and had even engineered the death of a king back in Keladon, but he had never so much as seen a pirate, let alone killed one.

  'Now,' said Jenna brightly, 'the wonders are about to unfold.' She took Sebastian's arm and led him over to the port side of the ship. 'We'll have a good vantage point here,' she said. 'Captain Drummel, if you cannot see over the rail, you could always perch yourself on that barrel.'

  Cornelius did as she suggested. 'You're being very mysterious,' he said.

  'Not really. It's just that the Angel's Lair is one of the most astonishing sights in all the known world. Everybody who sees it is amazed. I'm sure even two men of your experience will be suitably entertained.' Sebastian noticed that the crew were all pausing in their duties and moving to positions where they could see over the side. Jenna pointed at the water a short distance from the ship's hull, beyond the churning wake made by its passage. 'Keep looking down there,' she said, 'and soon enough you will start to see its secrets.'

  The water was unusually clear here and Sebastian noticed that the rays of sunlight seemed to penetrate to the lowest depths. In fact, in certain places he could actually see the ocean floor, a carpet of swaying grasses, illuminated here and there by rays of flickering light.

  'It's not very deep,' he observed, and Jenna nodded.

  'We have to be careful. There's many a ship that's come to grief in the Angel's Lair. But I know this place as well as any sailor; I must have passed over it a hundred times. And if memory serves me correctly, the wonders start . . . just about . . . here!' She pointed again, and Sebastian looked down in the direction she had indicated. At first he saw nothing and he started to think that she had been pulling his leg; but then something came into view, something he at first took to be a series of large, straight-sided, rectangular rocks. But then he realized what he was looking at and he couldn't hold back a gasp of astonishment.

  It was a house. He was gazing down on the roof of a house that somebody had built on the ocean floor. It was encrusted with coral and clumps of vegetation, so that it looked as though it had been carved from a block of half-melted, multi-coloured candle wax, but it was a house nonetheless. He was about to say something, but at that moment more houses came into view and he realized that he was looking at a whole series of dwellings, with what looked like roads in between. And they weren't like any houses he had ever seen before; they were neat, oblong shapes and there were rows and rows of them, laid out like a patchwork quilt below him. Here and there, some buildings had collapsed in on themselves, but many were intact. Sebastian could even make out the shapes of doors and windows beneath the covering of coral.

  'I . . . don't understand,' he said. 'Who could possibly live down there?'

  Jenna laughed. 'Nobody!' she said. 'But obviously they must have done, once. Before the waters covered them.'

  'You mean . . .?'

  'I mean, at one time this was dry land. And this city was built on its highest point. But for reasons we can only guess at, the waters swept in and engulfed it. Now . . . look there!'

  Another building had come into view. It too was partially collapsed and encrusted with a multitude of sea creatures, but it was like some great palace, set much higher than the surrounding buildings. It was decorated with strange carvings and details, and at one end rose sheer up to a tower, which extended almost to the surface of the ocean. Sebastian could see that the top of the tower was broken off in a ragged point.

  'There used to be a big metal pole on the top of that thing,' Jenna told him. 'Came up to just below the surface. But a clumsy sea captain ran his ship across it last winter and broke the pole off. Made a big hole in the bottom of his ship too – he was lucky to get back to port without sinking!'

  'But what kind of a building is that?' asked Sebastian.

  'Must have been the palace of a mighty king,' mused Cornelius. 'I've never seen anything like it. Such craftsmanship! It puts even the palace of Queen Kerin of Keladon to shame.'

  'Keep watching, Golmiran,' said Jenna. 'The best is yet to come.'

  Sure enough, as the ship ploughed onwards, she passed over a whole series of incredible details – so many that Sebastian was quite overwhelmed and afterwards could only recall a succession of brief images.

  There were gigantic flat-roofed buildings, long raised roadways into which countless arches had been cut, a whole series of tall stone chimneys, bigger than any that Sebastian had ever seen. There were row upon row of buildings all packed tightly against each other and forming intricate geometric designs. There was even what looked to Sebastian like the curving, twisting line of a river bed that had been swamped by a much bigger mass of water; and, most amazing of all, a tower with a mighty metal bell hanging in it. As the Sea Witch passed over, unseen currents made the bell swing back and forth, and Sebastian could actually hear its muffled peal rising up from deep below the waves.

  'That's a good omen,' Jenna told him. 'When you hear the Angel's Bell, you usually have a good voyage!'

  Finally the ocean floor seemed to drop rapidly back into the depths. For a while there was still the occasional glimpse of half-seen things down there, but then it became too deep to discern anything much and Jenna clapped her hands with a sense of finality.

  'The show's over,' she announced, not without a trace of regret. 'But I expect we'll return this way and see it again.'

  'Why's it called the Angel's Lair?' asked Sebastian. 'And what exactly is an angel? I've heard the word but I don't really know what it means.'

  'I have some notion that it's a man with wings like a bird,' said Jenna. 'There are old stories that speak of them.'

  'And do people really believe that such creatures lived down there?'

  Jenna shrugged. 'It's what the old sailors call it, and if you ask them, they say they learned the name from their fathers and their fathers learned it from their fathers before them, and so on. I suppose it must have meant something once.'

  'And have any of the old sailors heard of a time when there was no ocean in these parts?' asked Cornelius.

  She shook her head. 'Whenever this happened, it must have been in ancient times,' she said.

  'But who could build like that in those days?' asked Sebastian. 'We can barely do it now. That great palace we saw . . .' He shook his head. 'It was out of this world. Like something a god would create.'

  Cornelius looked thoughtful. He stared down into the water as though looking for clues. 'I do not know of any race of people that can build the kinds of things we just saw in those depths.' He lifted his eyes back to Sebastian. 'Perhaps our world is much older than we imagine. Perhaps people have been here before us . . . great empires that have risen and fallen away into ruin.'

  Sebastian followed Cornelius's gaze and was about to put forward some speculations of his own; but was distracted by a big, streamlined shape moving through the water. He was looking at a long supple sea creature with massive jaws and distinctive dark stripes across its back. It was the length of two ponies standing end to end and it was skimming along at incredible speed just below the surface. A tall curved fin jutted up from its back, leaving a V-shaped wedge of foam in its wake. Now Sebastian could see that other, smaller fish were leaping out of the water in their haste to get out of its way.

  'What's that?' he whispered.

  'A kelfer,' said Jenna, putting a whole wealth of loathing into the word. 'I hate them.' She stepped quickly away from the rail, shouting to Lemuel to fetch her a bow. As Sebastian gazed down, more kelfers began to appear, moving to join the first creature as though hunting in a pack.