Emily Rodda: Isle of the Dead

Barda turned to close the door behind him. He stared.

‘Certainly, something has happened here,’ he said. ‘This door is damaged. It looks as if it has been kicked. And these marks…’

He lowered his lantern and bent to peer at the ominous dark smears that stained the dented, splintered wood of the door.

Lief was looking around him. Plainly, they were in the lighthouse keeper’s sitting room.

Dim light filtered through two round windows, one looking back to the land, one looking out to sea. Many more paintings decorated the walls. Two easy chairs sat together in front of an old black stove. There was a bright woollen rug on the floor. There was a small table with wooden benches on either side of it, and a shelf stacked with blue-striped plates and cups.

It should have been a cosy scene, but it was not. Instead, the room chilled the blood. The very air seemed to taste of misery and horror.

On the far side of the room, near the stove, there was another door. Lief knew that beyond it must be a second staircase that led to the bed chambers and at last to the viewing platform.

Yet he could not make himself move. And nor, it seemed, could anyone else. They stood in silence, crowded together, as if no-one was willing to take the first step.

A cold breeze brushed Lief’s cheek. He caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye.

He turned his head slowly. He blinked.

The room had been deserted only moments before. Now he could see, as if through a light mist, two men sitting on either side of the table, playing cards.

Cups stood at the men’s elbows, and empty stone bottles lay in a jumble on the floor around their feet. The candle flickering between the men had burned down to a lumpy stub, swimming in wax.

Visions from the past…

Lief opened his dry lips. ‘Do you see them?’ he whispered.

‘Yes.’ His companions’ voices were like the rustling of leaves in the wind. The Kin sounded terrified.

The man facing them had a broad face, dark red hair and a bushy red beard. His blue eyes were bloodshot and deeply shadowed. His shoulders were bowed. His blunt fingers trembled as he threw down his cards.

‘You win again,’ he said thickly. ‘It is nearly dawn. I—I will play no more.’

The other man nodded.

He had his back to Lief. Lief could see nothing of him but a dark coat and limp black hair pushed behind a pair of large ears. But something about the way his narrow shoulders tensed showed that this was the moment he had been waiting for.

‘Then pay me what you owe, Red Han,’ he said softly. ‘And I will leave you.’

‘I cannot pay,’ the bearded man muttered. ‘You know it, Gant! Why, at midnight I told you I was ruined. You yourself urged me to play on, saying my luck was sure to change.’

He put his face in his hands. ‘Ah, what a fool I was to listen to you!’ he groaned. ‘Instead of winning back what I had lost, I now owe three times the sum I owed before!’

‘You had better keep your voice down, or you will wake your daughter,’ the man called Gant murmured. ‘Let her sleep while she can. She will find out what has happened soon enough.’

The bearded man gave a muffled sob.

In one smooth movement, Gant drew a sheaf of papers from his pocket and put them on the table.

Lief, Barda and Jasmine leaned forward and caught a glimpse of the top sheet.

James Gant flicked through the papers with long, thin fingers.

‘Why, it has been a long night, my poor fellow!’ he said softly. ‘You have signed ten notes in all, I see. And each is for ten gold coins.’

Red Han thrust his fingers through his hair and tugged as if to tear it out by the roots. ‘I cannot pay!’ he repeated. ‘Where would I get a hundred gold coins?’

The thin man shook his head. ‘You should have thought of that before,’ he said regretfully. ‘You signed the notes. You swore a solemn oath to pay.’

‘It was madness!’ groaned Red Han. ‘Madness!’ He looked up, glaring at his visitor with haunted eyes. ‘You—you encouraged me! You filled out the notes, and gave me them to sign. You made it so easy!’

His visitor shrugged. ‘I was merely trying to help,’ he said. He paused, then leaned forward, clasping his bony hands on top of the pile of papers.

‘Perhaps—perhaps there is something I can do for you, even now,’ he said, raising his voice to a normal tone for the first time. ‘There is nothing I like better than helping those less fortunate than myself. Why, I live to do good. And you seem such a worthy fellow.’

Lief went cold. Those words… That voice! He heard Jasmine draw a sharp breath, and knew that she, too, had recognised them.

Why had he not seen it before? This vision from the past, this man calling himself Captain James Gant… was the man they knew as Laughing Jack.

4 – A Matter of Honour

Jasmine clutched Lief’s arm. ‘Laughing Jack!’ she breathed. ‘I did not know him! He reminded me of someone, certainly, but before he spoke I was racking my brains to think who it was. His hair…’

‘He is younger,’ Lief whispered back. ‘At least eighteen years younger. What we are seeing happened before the Shadow Lord invaded. Red Han was still keeper, and the Light was still burning.’

The lighthouse keeper’s face had filled with hope. ‘You will forgive me my debt?’ he exclaimed.

‘Oh, no, I cannot do that,’ said his tormentor calmly. ‘It is a matter of honour—and of business, which is even more important. But… perhaps you could do me a service, in exchange for what you owe.’

‘Anything!’ Red Han gasped. ‘Anything!’

‘Excellent,’ purred Laughing Jack.

He bent forward, and began to whisper, so low that Lief could not hear him.

Red Han’s eyes widened. His hopeful expression faded, changing to a look of stunned horror.

‘But why—why would you want such a thing of me?’ he stammered. ‘If the Bone Point Light goes out, any ship that sails to this coast will be in danger. Foreign ships will stop visiting our shores.’

‘No doubt,’ said Laughing Jack.

Red Han leaned forward, his broad brow knotted. ‘But those ships come to trade,’ he said. ‘And more and more Deltora needs the food they offer in exchange for goods. I do not know why we cannot grow enough food for our own needs. But it is so. Would you have our people starve?’

The thin shoulders were raised in a shrug. ‘You need not concern yourself with such matters, Han,’ the soft voice said. ‘Think only of your debt, which must be paid. And bless the good fortune that made you the only one who can enter the chamber of the Bone Point Light.’

Red Han’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. ‘By the magic of Tora, that is true,’ he whispered. ‘But how do you know it?’

The next moment, he had leaped to his feet, overturning the bench which crashed to the ground behind him.

‘You are a servant of the Enemy!’ he hissed. ‘You tricked me! You came here with one purpose, and one purpose only! To corrupt me, and darken the Light. Snake! Traitor! Get out!’

The other man laughed. ‘And what of the debt you swore to pay? Swore by all you hold dear?’

‘Hang the debt!’ roared Red Han.

His visitor laughed again. ‘Ah, it is not so easy,’ he said softly. ‘You will pay. One way or another, you will pay.’

Red Han lunged at him. With astonishing speed, Laughing Jack slipped from his bench and twisted aside. Han crashed into the second bench, and fell.

The door to the second stairway flew open. A girl stood there, her eyes still blurry with sleep. A mass of curling red hair framed her startled face. A blue cloak had been hastily thrown over her nightgown.