At this rate, Moonlit Bay will be full of half drowned sailors, I thought with a grin.
Caroline subdued a man as he slipped down from the mizzenmast, a dagger in his teeth. She knocked it out of his mouth and held her scimitar at his throat, screaming for his surrender. He’d signed on to sail, not to battle, and gave up without a fight.
Tupu and Kym were right beside me as we fought.
“AHHHH!” screamed Christianne, perhaps remembering how it felt to be held in chains on this pirate ship. She sparred with a rough-looking sailor missing a leg, and soon had him on the ground and tied up.
Tam the sailor just looked on in amusement, and refused to fight me when I challenged him.
“Hey, I hate this job. I won’t fight you,” he said, holding up his hands.
I whirled around and grimaced at him, “If you’re not going to fight us, then lend a hand, will you? This is not as easy as it looks!” I turned back to fight another man who came at me with an ax.
Tam jumped up then, and rushed forward. “Hey, now Kishon, that’s an ax.”
Tam made a grab for Kishon’s ax, and the pirate swung it hard at his shipmate. Tam moved fast, though, and ducked to the side, grabbing the ax out of Kishon’s hands at the same time.
Hmmm, I thought. He’s got skills.
I slammed the hilt of my scimitar down onto Kishon’s head, and the man crumpled. My eyes met Tam’s and my eyebrows raised in an “Oh, well” look that had Tam throwing his head back and laughing. I blushed.
“Charlotte! Concentrate on the task!” Tupu yelled, and I swung around just in time to see two more sailors rush me together. For the next few minutes, I sparred with them simultaneously. I was beginning to believe I could hold my own. It was a good feeling.
Tupu joined me, and we fought the two off, advancing on them and pinning them, then slamming our swords against their skulls, knocking them dizzy.
Then Kinah came out of her cabin, she had a strange set of weapons. She held small swords in either hand, and waved them together in a blur, brandishing them in front of her and advancing on Tupu.
Tupu seemed unsure how to fight an opponent with two weapons, but she was so much taller than Kinah that she had the upper hand. I joined the fight, and we stood side by side against the pirate captain.
I swung my scimitar, and Tupu swung hers, and we sparred with Kinah over and over. Kinah laughed as she fought, and we realized she was having a grand old time. We were holding our own until Kinah backed up onto the bow and started fighting us from above.
She swung around and climbed higher, onto the fo’castle, and it was then she stabbed forward, and one of her swords pierced Tupu in the side.
Tupu cried out and fell, clutching her wound.
Kinah laughed.
“AAHHHH!” I screamed. I charged her in anger and desperate fury, dashing the two swords from Kinah’s grasp and subduing her with my scimitar at her throat. I screamed in her face, tears running down my cheeks.
“You evil, evil …” I was at a loss for words. I was sure she’d killed Tupu, and I saw red. I swung my fists at her over and over, and Kinah’s face soon ran red with blood. I paused for a breath and she gasped for air, her arms swaying back and forth in pain.
I began pummeling her again, so great was my anger. This stupid captain had been responsible for so much misery in my life, for selling me, and Caroline, Christianne, and Akim into slavery, for death and destruction, anguish and despair.
After a while, Tam pulled my arm down and begged me to stop. I looked down, Kinah’s face was a bloody mess, her nose was broken, and her cheek was split. Her eyes looked out from behind this mask of gore and up at me angrily, and she spat a tooth out at my face.
I made a fierce grimace at her, and she quieted down.
“Charlotte,” Caroline said. “She’s all right. Tupu’s going to be okay.”
I swung around, hope springing alive in me. I looked at Caroline and saw she was serious. I looked over and saw Khepri and Christianne helping Tupu, and the relief I felt nearly had me passing out.
In the end we had all of the pirates lined up, and tied together in a row.
Khepri tended to Tupu, and we were relived our friend had just sustained a flesh wound.
“She’ll be okay,” said Khepri.
Kinah’s blade had pierced her side, but had not hit any vital organs, nor any main arteries. She would recover.
I felt myself release a breath I hadn’t realize I was holding.
The slaves that had been held captive on the black pitch ship were all brought forward.
“I’m releasing you,” I said. “You’re free to go.”
They looked stunned.
Tupu spoke then. “Charlotte, some of them have nowhere to go.”
“Well, maybe we can return them to their villages and families,” I said.
The slaves looked relieved, and two of them said they had villages with families nearby that they could return to.
One of the sailors we’d subdued and tied up spoke then. “Why are you freeing them?” he asked with a sneer. “They are worth a lot of money.”
I turned to him. “Pirate, I’m tired of slavery. It makes me sick to my heart.”
He made a skeptical sound. “So, what are you going to do? You can’t free all the slaves in Alkebulan. You can’t make a real difference.”
I walked up to him and pointed to one of the newly freed slaves, a young man of about seventeen. He was talking with Christianne and Kym, and he was smiling. “It’s made a difference to him.”
The pirate gave me a sullen look, then turned his head.
I walked away.
“Hey,” called out Kinah, “this isn’t funny anymore. That’s my property!”
I shrugged. “Not anymore it isn’t.” I smiled at her, then turned back to the freed slaves.
Kinah spat in disgust. “How dare you?”
I looked over at her again, my eyebrows raised.
I lifted my scimitar. “I’ve got you tied up, Kinah, not the other way around. I can do whatever I want.”
She shook her head. “You’re stealing our property.”
I just stared at her and shook my head.
She struggled against her bonds, raging at us. “You call us pirates, but you’re stealing from us, after attacking us. You’re the real pirates. You’re … you’re the Pirates of Moonlit Bay.”
It was then I heard an infectious chuckle that pulled my attention from the rude woman to the top of the fo’castle, where my eyes beheld the merry face of Jim.
“How long have you been watching?” I smiled and shaded my eyes to look up at him.
He shrugged and laughed. “I’ve been here the whole time. Very, very amusing.”
I shook my head, smiling.
Maybe getting away from a friendly djinn isn’t as easy as I hoped.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Discovery
The six of us decided to continue our adventures aboard the ship we’d taken. Tupu, Khepri, Caroline, Christianne, Kym, and I were all ready for a new horizon, but none of us were eager to split up. Our friendship had been tempered by the fire of fighting together, rescuing each other, and our shared camaraderie, and we thought of ourselves as sisters.
Akim stayed on board. We hoped we’d be able to find his family soon, but he could not remember the name nor location of his village. Khepri said this sometimes happened under stress, and that he might remember after a time.
We scrubbed everything clean from the black tar ship, repainted it, and rechristened it Pride of the Sea. Kym thought of the name, and danced back and forth in happiness because we had used her suggestion.
Mostly because it was far better than the other two names, offered up by Tam: Seas the Day and Ship Happens.
Tam turned out to be quite a help. With his assistance, we were able to hire a new crew. We dumped the old crew, including the captain, who turned out not to be captain at all, but a thief who’d stolen the ship from another cr
ew. With severe admonishments against crossing us in the future, they all grumbled and wandered off.
It took us a week to prepare for the voyage out, and the last reported sighting of Kinah was at the local pub, where she’d remained drunk for days.
Jim hung around, watching everything with great interest. He was fascinated with the antics of humans, and told us as much. He made friends with Tam, and the two got along very well, sharing rum around the table nearly every evening.
Finally, we set out on our maiden voyage, on our now ocean blue-hued vessel, pulled by the giant manta rays, and stocked to the rafters with everything we’d need.
We were out to sea and into the afternoon of our third day aboard ship, when our nets caught a massive school of Black Skipjacks and Bluefin. This haul would not only feed us for a month, but we could trade for spices and other necessities when we pulled into ports.
We were pulling in the nets, and depositing the fish in the underwater hold where we could keep them alive until we were ready to filet and salt them, when we caught some unexpected attention.
“Ahoy!” called Tupu, high in the crow’s nest. She pointed out off the stern and into the sky.
We looked and at first couldn’t see them.
“They’re light blue with white, they’re coming to steal the fish!” cried Tam.
“What?” I called. “What is it?”
“Water dragons,” Tupu called down to us.
We watched them as they frolicked off the end of the ship. Kym and Akim threw fish for them to catch as Jim looked on and laughed in delight.
That evening, I was resting in the captain’s quarters, which Kym, Tupu, Caroline and I had taken over. Christianne and Khepri had made their home in the smaller first mate’s quarters. Akim and Tam were nearby and comfortable. The rest of the hired crew were happy in their rooms, and there was the first watch above decks, keeping an eye on the sea.
“Charlotte, have you seen this?” Kym was pulling out a small, hidden drawer that had been tucked into the built-in bookcase on the far wall.
“What’s that, sweetheart?” I asked, feeling very mellow.
She pulled open the drawer and was ruffling through the contents. Tupu relaxed on the bed chewing on blackroot as I studied the sea charts. I wondered where we should go next.
Kym had pulled out a large bag, then reached in and pulled out an old brass tube from inside. She grasped the tube and pulled, and finally got the end off.
Inside was an old scroll, nearly blackened with age.
She carried the scroll over to the small desk, unrolled it, and began to read.
I glanced over at her, amused at the sight of a chimera manifested as a little girl, reading a magical scroll.
Wait.
Magical scroll?
“The Book of Mys-te-ries,” she sounded out.
“ ‘The Book of Mysteries?’ ” Tupu sat up, her eyes growing wide. “Did I hear you correctly, child?”
Kym looked up, nodding her head. “Yes,” she simply said.
Tupu just stared at the scroll in Kym’s hands.
My interest was piqued. I finally looked closer.
Kym was looking over the open scroll, which, in the dim light of the captain’s cabin was giving off a faint, barely noticeable purple mist that rose slowly from the surface and drifted off into the room.
“Why does it smell of elderberries?” Caroline asked, looking up from her hands, where she’d been repairing the lacing on her boot.
She was right, it did smell of elderberries. I sat up, watching the purple mist coming off the scroll in Kym’s hands.
“Let’s see that for a second, Kym, eh?” I stood up and reached for the scroll.
Kym handed it to me, and I took it and pulled it fully open. The faint purple mist that was rising from the parchment was fluttering up from the figures I stared at. There were words and drawings, and someone had colored in part of the drawings. I saw oceans, and mountain ranges and one section on the bottom corner seemed to indicate underground tunnels.
The most prominent drawing was that of the oceans, and the tunnels drawn on the coast of the land’s edge seemed to go under the sea. But that couldn’t be, could it? Under the sea? A tickle began to form next to my ears, that grew to become a niggling sensation. Then I felt my heart beating faster.
The more I studied the scroll, and read the words off to the side, the faster my heart beat.
The words were formed in an archaic script, and I had to work to understand them.
“The Book of Mysteries,” I slowly read, “is foretold to hold all the knowledge of antiquity. It is said to contain wisdom given to man, from cures to all cancers, to the secrets of navigating the stars and heavens.” I gulped.
Everyone had stopped what they were doing, and had leaned in, listening to me intently.
I continued.
“Be warned, traveler, for man was never meant to know all the knowledge of the ancients, which came to earth from beyond the stars. It is foretold that man will wage war to fight for possession of the Book, and this war will devastate life on earth.
Therefore, the Book of Mysteries has been hidden from man, so that his life may be preserved, hidden away and guarded, by the horsemen of the mountains.”
I looked up.
“Horsemen of the mountains,” I said. “I’ve never heard of such creatures. What could they be?” I looked around to my friend’s faces. All looked puzzled except for Kym’s. My eyes met hers. “Kym, do you know what the scroll is referring to? ‘Horsemen of the mountains’? ‘Hidden from man’? Are horsemen not men?” I asked.
Kym shook her head.
“No,” she said. “The horsemen of the mountains are not men at all.”
“What are they?” Tupu asked.
Kym could not think of the right word, so she grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and began to sketch.
After a few minutes she held up what she had drawn. A primitive depiction, to be sure, but an instantly recognizable one.
The horsemen of the mountains referred to …
“Centaurs,” said Caroline.
I took a deep breath and put my head down again to study the scroll once more.
“ ‘…came to earth from beyond the stars…’ ”
What could that mean?
I studied the scroll further.
“There’s instructions, and warnings,” I said. I reached and brought a candle closer to the scroll. “How would they be able to predict a war, though?” I wondered out loud.
“Humans will fight over control of just about anything,” Tupu mused. “If there was a book that contained all the knowledge man could ever want, I could see how that might start a war.”
“And what,” I continued, “does it mean by the book coming to earth ‘from beyond the stars’ and yet it fell into the possession of the centaurs, a mythical beast? How did this happen?”
“I don’t know, but I’m now extremely curious,” said Caroline.
I continued my examination.
After studying the parchment for a long time, I announced to the room at large, “This is not a scroll, this is a map.” I looked up at them.
“A map leading to The Book of Mysteries.”
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The Pirate Queen
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~Compendium~
This story takes place in an alternate magical universe, with a distinct yet familiar history. I chose as my foundation the area of northern Africa that borders the Mediterranean Sea, and began researching what these places had been called 1,000 to 1,500 years ago.
From there, I created a world in which gunpowder had never been invented, where magical creatures were part of normal life, and where my heroine could experience a true life-changing adventure.
So, Alkebulan was born. I still refer to the language spoken in this region of my world as Arabic. The geography, too, will
seem familiar. But other aspects of this story are quite different than what you yourselves know of the world in which you are reading this work. Since this is an alternate reality, history has followed a different path, dear reader: a path to adventure and the unexpected!
~ A Brief Summary of Terms ~
Abdü caliphate — The western sheikh’s territory, the sheikh who first bought Charlotte.
Abü caliphate — The eastern sheikh’s territory.
Akim — Boy, captured slave on pirate ship. Brown skin tone, brown hair. Age 10.
Alkebulan — The southern continent.
Amondine — The matron of the Abdü harem. Brown skin tone, brown hair. Age 54.
Aoudaghost — The fabled Oasis guarded by the Chimera.
Basilisk — A giant magical serpent, said to be able to cause death with a single glance.
Blackroot — Mild sedative/psychoactive plant; psychoactive properties found mostly in the outer twigs, which can be chewed for effect.
Book of Mysteries — A magical tome foretold to hold all the knowledge of antiquity. It is said to contain wisdom given to man, from cures to all cancers, to the secrets of navigating the stars and heavens.
Bow — Nautical term for the front of a ship.
Caroline — Charlotte’s maid. Caroline is the daughter of the queen’s maid, and is like a big sister to Charlotte. Pale skin tone, brown hair. Age 25.
Charlotte — Princess from Swerighe, kidnapped while visiting Prince Phillippe. Pale skin tone, blonde hair. Age 18.
Chimera — A large, nearly immortal, intelligent, magical fire-breathing beast with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. Has the ability to transform to human appearance. About ten feet tall, the size of a small adult elephant.
Christianne — Fellow captured slave on the pirate ship. Brown skin tone, brown hair. Age 13.
Djinn — Intelligent, nearly immortal magical creatures almost always mystically enslaved to a brass lamp. The lamp-djinn enchantment lends massive power to the djinn, much of which dissipates upon separation from the magical binding enslavement. When in djinn form, said to be half again as tall as a man, with skin tone of blue, green, and purple. Has the ability to transform to human appearance. Because of the lamp enslavement, they are easily the most coveted of magical beasts. The possessor of the lamp is given three wishes, with few limitations.
The Pirates of Moonlit Bay Page 24