“An enigma, this mortal,” she whispered. “Caleb Blackthorne is merely a vessel which houses the soul-shard, one of many such hosts over the centuries. And yet he is something more. Why does this one remember? I cannot fathom his role in this. His true nature is unknown to me, but he may yet prove to be of some use in our grand undertaking.”
“He will bleed and die like all the rest,” the giant man rumbled, his voice deep and cold.
“Dreams have compelled him to seek the truth,” the woman breathed, pressing her lips close to the man’s ear. “Dreams sent by my former paramour. The spells are strong, but my curse is stronger.”
“I will wait for this mortal,” the dark giant hissed. “He will be no match for me. I will send his ship to the depths, and carve my name in his flesh.”
The woman moved her hand to gently stroke the jagged scar which encircled the giant’s bull neck. “I have remade you for this task, my love. I have recovered your soul from the pit so that you may fulfil your destiny. Do not fail me.”
The azure man’s rutilant eyes narrowed. “The scion cannot hide forever. I will have my vengeance.”
The woman fixed the giant with a cold, baleful gaze. “You will my love, you will.”
And a serpent’s smile curled her blood-red lips.
Part II
A Voyage on Benighted Seas
From the log of Captain Caleb Blackthorne:
Entry I:
Damn these treacherous seas! To what cursed, devil-haunted expanse of ocean has Doctor John Dee’s hoary chart guided us? Four days out from Southampton and the tempest struck; the brooding black clouds massing in an obsidian sky, the heavens roaring their thunderous ire as rain like arbalest bolts lashed the deck, all while a searing demoniac wind threatened to rend our sails and splinter our lofty masts. But we are no strangers to the storm, and our oaken prow drove onwards through the tumult, cleaving the murderous waves to carry us through the ravening vortex. As suddenly as it had descended upon us, the witch-storm was gone; the wrath of the heavens mercifully spent, our battered vessel a living testament to the cruel whims of the pitiless oceans. Now, the sea is like ebon glass. The corposant haunts the rigging. Only a noisome wind conjured from the east deigns to fill the Starfire’s sails, pushing us ever onwards to our baleful destination.
Entry II:
The nights here are preternaturally black, as if the moon herself seems reluctant to shed her silvern light upon the fathomless depths. And by the gods, such dire fiends dwell in those lightless ocean vaults! Strange and squamous beasts whose passing is marked only by the faintest glimmer of green in the stygian water; bloated, tentacled things writhing and slithering through the pitch, their luminous eyes peering up from the gloom and promising some unspeakable, insidious malignity yet to be wrought. The brood of the mythic Leviathan? The vile children of the fabled Kraken itself? Or mayhap something far worse… the dread spawn of the arch-fiend who sleeps and dreams in death within the basaltic tombs of the ancient sunken city? Bah! My musings get the better of me, I fear. And yet, the red jewel given to me by the old wizard sits ill about my person. Does it truly whisper to me in the fevered depths of the darkness, or is that naught but the endless creak of the boards and the sighing of that fell wind in our sails? Each night I have dreamt of the vortex, that desolate black maelstrom in which all briny devils dwell; but in place of the sea is an endless void of shimmering stars, and the infernal reaches of an eternal abyssal night. Surely some shuddering nameless blasphemy lurks and seethes in that blighted bitumen gulf!
Entry III:
We are not alone. Thrice now have we spied the Black Ship prowling the waves behind us, trailing us like some vengeful ghost; a predator locked in its spectral pursuit as it hunts us across these wine-dark seas. ’Tis an argosy of the deep night, appearing and disappearing like mist, ever poised on the distant horizon like a darkling sentinel, never closing, never altering its course save to match our own. Who sails aboard that shadow-ship? Who commands its unseen mariners to dog our wake and track us upon this eldritch voyage? I harbour an uneasy feeling that we shall find out ere long, as Doctor Dee’s counsel warned that we would encounter a myriad deadly foes on this grim expedition. The crew are fearful, murmuring. But they are stout and hardy men of the sea and they will not shirk their duty. At any rate, our cannons are primed, and our blades are sharp. We stand ready.
Entry IV:
As Dee’s crumbling chart promised, we discovered the island on the sixth day, surrounded by its wreath of lambent mist, nestling in a ring of crystal clear, azure water. The heat is damnably oppressive! The sun beats pitilessly down upon us now. Such an infernal clime as this should not exist so far north. Strange black birds soar above the isle’s twisted trees on great leathern wings, bellowing their vile cacophony to the unheeding sky. We make ready. I have given the order to drop anchor and launch the pinnance. What perfidious villainy awaits us on this emerald atoll? What answers shall I find here? Aye, destiny beckons. My sword is honed.
* * *
The verdant maelstrom of the jungle seemed to press ever more heavily upon the men as they hacked their way through its teeming, sweltering depths.
Growling an oath, Captain Caleb Blackthorne hefted an ivory-hilted cutlass and hewed a path through a mass of twisted, quivering vines. His buckskin boots were soaked through, and his wool shirt and leather tunic clung to his muscular frame, sodden with sweat and the perpetual kiss of the crawling green. At his side was his deadly basket-hilted broadsword in its black leather scabbard. An ornate snaphaunce pistol was thrust into his wide belt, while a long-bladed dagger rested in its sheath at his hip.
Sunlight filtered down through the vast canopy of titanic trees which loomed above the men, casting a dappled golden glow upon the jungle floor. The constant, maddening drone of the seething forest was an insistent cacophony in Blackthorne’s ears, as the coarse cry of unknown birds mingled with the hum and chatter of countless colossal insects which swarmed blackly in the writhing shadows.
Caleb stopped, running his fingers through his sweat-matted grey hair and taking a swig of tepid water from a goatskin gourd which hung from his belt. Then he wiped his beard and pulled an ornate leather cylinder from the folds of his shirt. Removing a crumbling parchment from the cylinder, he studied its yellowed surface and turned his gaze skyward, shielding his blue eyes against the fragmented sunlight. Nodding silently, he secreted the ancient map and once more took up his stained cutlass, pressing on into the crushing embrace of the jungle.
Five men followed Blackthorne through that vast sea of flaying fronds and gnarled, mossy boles. They had been handpicked to follow their captain ashore into the impenetrable vault of towering trees and treacherous undergrowth, and they were amongst the finest fighters ever to sail aboard the far-famed ship called the Starfire. Warriors, buccaneers and steel-hard men of the sea; each a master of the cutlass, basilard, arbalest and wheel-lock, each the veteran of a score of sea-fights in every wild weird clime from the cliffs of Dover to the dire shark-glutted waters of Cape Horn.
Gunnar, the heavily muscled blond reiver from the snow-shrouded Jarldoms of the North, strode through the jungle carrying his huge rune-carved battle-axe, its iron head curved like the beak of a deadly bird of prey. His voluminous flaxen beard was braided into a trident configuration, each plait secured by a bronze ringlet. The burly Northman’s scale-mail cuirass gleamed in the half-light, and a black leather patch covered his left eye.
Kattikouda, the ebon slayer from the beast-haunted plains of distant Nubia stalked the undergrowth like a hunting cat, clad in his panther-skin tunic and wielding his cruelly serrated twin short-swords with their polished rhino horn hilts. A leather thong adorned with lion’s teeth hung about his great scarred neck.
Ryo, the steel-thewed shadow-assassin from the mythic isles of the far Orient, marched silently through the green labyrinth, garbed like midnight and gripping his ornate razor-edged katana, its slender hilt bound with blackened shark-skin.<
br />
At the rear of the column, Drustan the red-bearded Celtic giant trudged sullenly. He swatted an insect the size of a sparrow which had settled on his corded forearm and a luminous yellow ichor instantly exploded from the creature’s shattered carapace. Scowling, he wiped his befouled hand on his black breeches, clutching his great notched cutlass ever more tightly.
“I hate this damned place,” the Celt growled. Rivulets of perspiration ran down his face, stinging his eyes and collecting in his crimson beard. He had stripped off his leather jerkin to march bare-chested through the jungle, and his powerful frame was now studded with leeches and black beetles.
A lean, sandy-haired young man with a hefty matchlock slung over his shoulder and a bronze-panelled arbalest in his grasp turned to Drustan, taking a moment to survey the myriad duelling scars and old wounds which had carved their mute testimony upon the clansman’s flesh.
“Well, at least we finally made landfall,” the man said, checking the slender snaplock pistol holstered at his belt. “After that storm hit us, I’d have sworn the captain had lost his way.”
Instantly, Drustan gripped the young man’s shoulder in a vice-like grip, his green eyes blazing like emeralds in the jungle.
“The captain has never been lost, boy!” he hissed. “He can tell where the Starfire is by the colour of the sea beneath her keel and the tang of the wind in her sails! Remember that.”
The man nodded, cradling his arbalest to his chest and grinning broadly. “I’ll not forget, old man,” he said, turning to resume his march through the clawing undergrowth.
Drustan called after him. “Get yourself a blade, young Malachi. You may be the best marksman I’ve ever known, but that matchlock’s damn near useless in this cursed damp!”
“Mayhap,” Malachi replied. “And yet it’ll serve well enough as a bludgeon if need be!”
Drustan cursed loudly and moved slowly up the column, finally reaching Captain Blackthorne and matching the muscular Yorkshireman’s long purposeful stride. “Much farther, cap’n?”
Caleb cast a wary glance at the undergrowth, one hand on the hilt of his broadsword, the other still curled about the ivory grip of his cutlass. “No. If Dee’s map is to be trusted, our destination is near.”
“Thank the gods!” Drustan spat. “This bastard place is eating me alive.”
Caleb nodded. “There are eyes upon us, old friend. Something’s been watching us since we came ashore.”
“I’ve felt it. But beast or man? I can’t fathom.”
“We’ll find out, ere long,” Blackthorne said, hacking at a tangle of broad green fronds with his blade.
“Do you really think you’ll find the answers you seek on this cursed isle?”
Blackthorne sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know. But it’s my last hope, Drus. The visions are becoming more powerful. Oft have I gazed upon thronged battlefields, seemingly through the eyes of another. I have seen vast cities, raising their jewelled spires to the stars. I have witnessed giants locked in pitiless combat with gods, and demons slaying paladins beneath the baleful light of two moons. I have seen gold-girded legionaries clashing with massed hordes of painted tribesmen on the heather, and armies of shining knights waging war beneath a rainbow sea of billowing banners.”
Caleb’s hand suddenly lashed out to grasp a mottled red snake which was encoiled around a mossy bough overhanging their route through the jungle. Dragging it free of the branch, he studied its scaly head intently.
“Venomous?” asked Drustan.
“I imagine so,” Caleb replied. He hurled the writhing serpent far into the undergrowth and resumed his trek.
“The dreams… visions or whatever they are,” Drustan said. “You’re slain in every one of them?”
“Aye,” Blackthorne replied. “Always, like a wolf hunting its prey, death has stalked these vistas. Each waking dream, each crystal memory ends with a mortal wound or a ruinous death blow. I remember each time I’ve fallen in battle, and always the last thing I see before death claims me is that dour sentinel astride his great winged steed who silently observes each descent into oblivion. Who is he? What does it mean? I fear my wits are being lashed like a vessel on a storm-wracked sea.”
“Fear not. We’ll discover the secrets of this blighted place,” Drustan said. “That old astrologer had best be right!”
“I pray he is. Sometimes I feel I’ve lost myself. Where do the other lives end and mine begin? By the gods! I swear I’ve been known by many names, old friend. Though the only one I recall is Blackthorne!”
Drustan was silent for a moment, then he grimaced and prised a bloated leech from his massive shoulder. “Well, whatever we find here, this voyage should vex your rivals if naught else.”
Caleb turned to the clansman, a wicked gleam in his icy blue eyes. “Damn right! That nefarious old pirate Drake’s never set foot here, and that’s a fact!”
* * *
At length, the jade labyrinth of enormous leaves and cyclopean boles began to thin somewhat, until the corsairs found themselves in a clearing ringed by jagged black branches which seemed to encircle the glade like dolent sentinels. Littering the grassy floor of the green expanse were bleached and broken bones of all shapes and sizes; fragmentary remains of large animals, birds, and certain other skeletal ruins which appeared vaguely human in origin. Blackthorne kicked idly at the cloven skull of a horned creature which to his eyes seemed to resemble the fleshless head of both a bull and a huge man, apparently fused together in some abhorrent corruption of nature. He shuddered and turned to the exhausted men who had assembled behind him at the perimeter of the clearing.
“We’re here, lads.”
At the far side of the charnel-dell a dark stone structure squatted ominously, its slimy carven edifice starkly at odds with the verdant morass which surrounded it. Some forty feet tall, the black shrine was encarved with strange glyphs and sigils the likes of which Blackthorne had never before beheld on all his voyages to the distant shores of the known world. Fashioned in a vaguely pyramidal shape, the structure’s top most reaches had been hewn down by the assault of both time and the elements, and fragments of mossy black rock now lay strewn at its base. At the centre of the hoary ziggurat a single monolithic doorway brooded, sealed tight by a vast slab of stygian stone. And in the middle of that carven panel was a small, wedge shaped aperture.
Blackthorne reached into the folds of his shirt and produced the glimmering red jewel which had been given to him by Doctor John Dee, still fastened to its gold chain about his neck. The bright sunlight danced in the gem’s rutilant depths, and its multifaceted surface seemed to glow with a crimson luminescence.
“The good doctor said this was a key,” whispered Caleb. “Well, I think we’ve found the door.”
The red jewel seemed to thrum in Blackthorne’s grasp, a discernible heat building in its crystalline deeps and warming his calloused palm.
“Come on. This is what we’re here for,” Caleb said, striding towards the desolate black temple.
The mariners warily followed their captain across the bone-strewn expanse, their weapons held ready.
“What men built this?” asked Malachi, still clutching his arbalest to his chest. “It looks ancient.”
“Mayhap no men ever laid these stones,” growled Drustan, gazing at the darkling edifice with apprehension.
“Do you think there’s treasure inside?” Malachi said. “Gold? Jewels? There could be anything in there!”
“Aye lad, that’s what worries me,” Drustan replied.
Captain Blackthorne halted before the basaltic black door, gripping the red jewel tightly.
Malachi brushed his hand along the contours of the mossy stone, his brow furrowing. “It’s cold. Nigh on like ice.”
“Stand back,” said Caleb. He unfastened the jewel from its chain, carefully bending the golden claws which secured the gem. Slowly, he pressed the crystal into the aperture in the centre of the black door. With a barely audible click, the jew
el was pushed home to fit perfectly into the tiny, recessed alcove.
At once, the relative silence of the glade was shattered by a great grating and grinding din, and the black door slowly began to rise. A cloud of dust billowed forth from the shadowed rim, and fragments of moss and stone crumbled to the earth. The stone slab continued its noisy ascent until it had disappeared wholly into the black edifice above. Beyond the threshold, utter darkness roiled and writhed.
“What a waste. Do you think we’ll get that gem back?” Malachi asked, crestfallen.
Drustan grinned at the young man. “Forget the bloody jewel, laddie. It was a fell thing anyway. At any rate, your treasure trove might lie within.”
Blackthorne turned to the assembled mariners. “Drustan, Malachi, come with me. The rest of you, wait here. Give us an hour, and if we do not return, come after us with steel and shot. Be ready for anything.”
Gunnar, Kattikouda and Ryo silently took up their positions, vigilantly flanking the doorway of the time-worn shrine.
“We should fashion brands,” said Malachi. “I’ve flint and tinder in my pouch.”
Blackthorne stared into the brooding black maw before them. In the ebon depths, he could barely perceive a faint azure glow illumining the void.
“We might not need torches, boy. Follow me.”
And he stepped boldly into the glooming embrace of the darkness.
* * *
The dank, shadowy captain’s cabin of the great black galleon was illuminated only by the light of a single, guttering candle. The oaken walls were mould-mottled and dripping with sea-water, and the slimy black deck was encrusted with barnacles and other assorted detritus of the fathomless oceans. Dark, multi-legged crustaceans skittered and scurried through the muck, and the eerie creak of the ancient boards filled the darkness with its ceaseless dirge.
In the centre of the cabin stood a huge man, clad in a suit of blackened chitinous armour. His pauldrons were fashioned in the shape of twin skulls, their toothsome maws frozen in a perpetual rictus grin. His gauntlets were spiked at the knuckle joints, and each finger ended in a talon of black iron. Slowly, he removed his great horned helm and placed it on a low, rotting table before him. The man’s flesh was azure, and the veins at his temples seemed to glow faintly with a cerulean luminescence. His head was shaven and his eyes were bloodshot, seemingly aglow with a gentle crimson radiance. A jagged scar encircled his great corded neck.
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