Michael Mathias - Kings, Queens, Heroes, and Fools

“Where’s that flask?” asked Brady. He still looked a little green around the gills, so Hyden reached down and pulled the tin from his boot and gave it to his friend. Brady drank from it deeply.

“Oarly likes it when I read to him.” Phen nodded at the privy door with a grin. Brady sighed and slid into the booth next to him.

“Let me finish. I’m almost done with this passage,” Phen said. “Where was I? Oh yes… ‘It seemed as if we were doomed. For long hours the rowers pulled and pulled for their lives. It was as if we had come to a standstill. The water rushed by and the rowers rowed against it, and we didn’t move any further away from the siphon, but at least we didn’t get any closer to it. Captain Spratt called on the gods of wind and sea, and when they didn’t respond, he cursed them and urged his men on. Then, finally, we broke the grasp of the vortex. A finger’s breath, and then two. Then we moved a foot. Ever so slowly we crept away from that hole in the sea. That night the Captain tapped a cask of rum and we all drank ourselves into a merry stupor. Then we thanked the gods, and more properly the brave Captain, for our lives.’ ”

Phen slapped the old book shut with a boom that made Hyden and Brady both Jump. Even Talon squawked and flapped his wings at the sudden sound. “See,” Phen said, amused that he’d startled them. “It ended well.”

“Ah, but the very next day a giant thresher shark ate the bottom out of the ship and they fed the fishes at the bottom of the sea, like they say happened to King Glendar,” Brady said.

“Could you tell if it was day when you were out?” Hyden asked Brady.

“I think daylight has come and gone,” Brady replied. “It’s as dark as dark gets out there.”

“Aye,” Hyden nodded.

The door to the privy creaked open and a waist-high jumble of wild matted hair, with a bulbous nose in its middle, peeked out. “Did I hear somebody say something about a flask?” the haggard dwarf ventured weakly.

Brady took another small sip and, after Phen and Hyden both refused it, he stood and stumbled over to the dwarf. Oarly took the flask and emptied it in one gulp. The ship swayed and rolled, sending him stumbling back into the privy. The door slapped shut and Brady stood there long moments before he realized that Oarly wasn’t coming back out.

Just as Brady resumed his seat beside Phen, the door atop the stairs opened again. A moment later, a gust of rainy wind and Captain Trant came blasting in. The Captain’s wet and bedraggled monkey, Babel, was sitting on his shoulder looking miserable. As the Captain gained the carpeted floor, a curious look came over him, and after wrinkling his nose a time or two, he turned to look at the privy with distaste.

“Still won’t come out of there, eh?” He chuckled and shook his head in wonder. Water trailed from his matted beard. He wiped his hand across his face and plopped down onto the divan with a slosh.

“Cookie was bringing you a meal, but he lost it on that last lurch. He’s gone to fetch another for you,” said the Captain with a wry grin. “Quite a storm, huh?”

“Yes it…” Brady started to reply but Phen cut him off.

“Have you ever sailed around a whirlpool?” the boy asked Captain Trant.

“Nay, lad, and I hope to never have to. But I can say, and so can you, that we’ve sailed through a true tempest. I don’t know what else to call a storm such as the one we’ve just bested.”

Phen grinned. He couldn’t wait to tell the other apprentices back in Xwarda that he had sailed through a tempest.

Thunder rumbled outside, and lightning flickered in the window again. “So we’re through the worst of it then?” asked Brady.

“Just so,” Captain Trant answered with a strange look at Hyden, who was staring at the lantern swinging above the booth again. “It’s near to impossible to break one like that.”

Hyden glanced at the Captain and flushed with embarrassment. “When will we see the sun again?”

“Not so long from now. This time on the morrow we might be able to see the Isles of Kahna.”

“Are we going to get to go ashore there?” Phen asked excitedly.

“That’s precisely what I came to discuss.” Captain Trant leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. His burliness made him look like a wet bear. Babel the monkey shivered away the excess water from her blue fur, crawled on the back of the divan and made herself comfortable.

“We’ve taken some damage…” The Captain saw Brady’s look of alarm and quelled it quickly. “It’s nothing to lose sleep over, mind you. We’ll make the islands just fine, but we’ll be ashore there for a few days while we’re getting the Seawander right again. She’s a strong ship. She got us through the storm. We just need to make her ready for the next one.”

“How long do you think, Captain?” Hyden asked.

“Two days at best, but more likely four. Five if we have to cut and fit our own timbers.”

Hyden nodded his understanding and Brady seemed relieved. He glanced at the privy then back at the Captain and a devious look came over him. “If we can get Master Oarly out of there while we’re on the island, can you have someone affix a lock at the top of the door?”

“Yeah,” Phen chimed in with a giggle. “Make sure it’s high enough that he can’t reach it.”

The Captain roared out a laugh. “I think we may be able to do that. I’m certainly going to have to replace this shag when this adventure’s through, and that smell…”

“What is there to do on Kahna Island while we’re stuck there?” Phen asked the Captain.

“There’s great line fishing along the landward docks, and there’s those old tombs to explore.” Captain Trant looked more to Brady than the others and winked. “There’s also fire dancers after the sacred moon feasts. We might be in store for one. They have them often enough. They say the native girls go into a trance as they gyrate.” The Captain grinned. “I seen ’em once. They were far too naked for me to notice if they were really in a trance or not. I can assure you that they know what parts to gyrate, and just how to gyrate ‘em.”

Hyden seemed just as interested in seeing that spectacle as Brady was. Phen wrinkled his nose. His mind was still on the tombs.

“What’s in the tombs?” he asked, determined not to let the subject wander again.

The Captain sighed with an understanding smile on his bearded face. “The islands are full of primitive folk. They have juju wizards and the like. There’s a cavern full of shrunken heads, and some spectacular underground lakes and tidal pools.” Seeing Phen’s growing interest, the Captain leaned closer and spoke in a creepy conspiratorial voice. “Legend says that there’s a giant emerald hidden down there in the depths of one of those sea tunnels, but no one can find it because it’s hidden by spells and guarded over by ancient juju creatures.”

Hyden felt a sudden chill climb up his spine. Tempting things hidden in the depths of the earth was exactly what had drawn his younger brother to his demise. The look of excitement and determination on Phen’s face was exactly as Gerard’s had been after the crazy old soothsayer told them their fortunes. The resemblance literally scared Hyden to the bone. He had to forcefully draw breath and remind himself that Phen was not Gerard, and that these tunnels and tombs that the Captain was speaking of probably didn’t lead down into the darkness of the Nethers. He decided that, if Phen wanted to go into them, then he would go too and make sure no harm came to him. They wouldn’t waste time looking for lost jewels, though. One treasure to find was enough.

“I wonder who or what is guarding Barnacle Bones’s treasure?” Phen asked out of the blue. “Actually, I guess it was Cobalt’s treasure last. What sort of magics would an ancient dragon put up to guard its hoard?”