Styx & Stones, page 23
part #1 of Tales of the El Defensor Series
John finished his slow meander to the prow and tucked himself in behind the figurehead. He peered over the side and watched the waves crashing against the woodwork. The sky was beginning to turn slightly pink as if embarrassed by the kiss the sun was beginning to bestow upon it.
This was the best part of the day, the time he always loved. Watching the coming dawn. Every morning a different canvas painted by a major artist, no two ever the same. Somehow, the feeling of the first rays of sunlight on his face made the old sailor feel cleansed and young again. Today’s sunrise was only moments away; he would have to hurry.
He reached inside his jerkin and retrieved a smooth wooden pipe. The grain of the wood so lovingly polished that it appeared to give off its own Inner Light. This pipe was his oldest and dearest friend and he never saw a dawn in without it. He tapped the bowl against the side of the ship to knock lose any dregs from his previous lighting, and then plunged his hand into a pouch at his belt for some tobacco. Seconds later a warm mellow aroma rose from the bowl of the pipe and tickled the old man’s nostrils.
John leant his head against the figurehead and relaxed. There was nothing in his opinion quite like smoking a pipe whilst watching the sunrise. This was indeed the life!
A muffled thump broke his concentration and John frowned, turning around to see who would dare to disturb his morning ritual. There was no one there, just a load of boxes that had been haphazardly stacked here upon their rather hurried departure from Catterick.
John turned forwards once more, but mentally flagged the fact that he would have to have a word with Thomas about how the items had been stacked. Granted things had been rather hectic recently, but the Rinaldo brothers should have stored the extra cargo they had ‘borrowed’ from the shore safely into the hold by now. From the sound of the thump, the boxes were probably already starting to shift and that could be a danger to the crew. After he had finished his pipe, it would be straight to the captain’s cabin to report this problem.
“Where is it?”
He jumped at the unexpected question and dropped his pipe, which slid across the deck towards the figurehead. He looked around; really annoyed, but saw no one who could have said anything to him. Someone was playing a practical joke!
John did not like practical jokes! Jokes got people killed.
“Who’s there?” he asked, his tone of voice ensuring anyone listening would know he was not impressed.
“Where is it?” The voice came again, louder this time and definitely more determined.
John could not help it, he jumped again and this just made him even angrier. Someone was definitely having a joke at his expense! Well, he would not give them the satisfaction! He turned away, confidant that the joke would soon wear thin if he failed to respond. Now, where was his pipe? He glanced around the deck and spotted his pride and joy sliding about with the movement of the ship. He bent down to retrieve it, hoping that the coal in his tin would be warm enough to re-light the tobacco if it had gone out.
His hand tightened about the pipe just as a heavy, unseen weight pinned both hand and pipe to the deck. The voice repeated the question for a third time, this time right next to his prone ear.
“Where is it?”
John tried to remain calm and collected. He thought logically as he had done all of his life. He had no weapon; he could not fight something he could not see. The next move would have to come from his attacker. Even as he looked on, he observed a red pressure mark appearing across his crushed hand. It was in the unmistakable shape of a boot heel. Whoever, or whatever, had him pinned, was standing on his right hand. He tensed, preparing to grab whatever was above the invisible boot.
Twin scarlet lines streaked across his arm, startling the sailor and making him curse aloud. Blood welled in seconds and began to drip steadily from the wounds, but the edges of the lacerations started to discolour and necrotise before his eyes. John found he had to grit his teeth against the pain. He reached over instinctively to staunch the flow his eyes going wide, as he looked around the area desperate for help to appear.
“Where is it?” the voice asked again, anger now clearly audible in its tone.
“I … I … I don’t know what you are talking about,” John pleaded.
Something grabbed the sailor by his hair, pulling his head up and back in a painful grip that brought tears to the man’s eyes. He gasped reflexively as two cold pinpoints touched his throat before being savagely drawn across his flesh, ripping and tearing his skin, severing muscle tissue and cartilage. Blood gushed from his exposed throat making the sailor gasp, desperate to draw breath and scream an alarm. The scream died in barely more than a whisper.
John Hodge’s corpse slid to the deck, his pipe falling forgotten from his crushed hand. The first rays of the dawn slid over the horizon, deep orange rays tinting the white water crests and painting the ship’s woodwork a deep and striking auburn. The clouds above streaked with reds and pinks, mirroring the streaks of blood pooling at the prow of the ship. It was a most glorious sunrise, one that the grizzled sailor would now never see.
The Raven had arrived.
Part Two:- Into the Storm
“A maiden so tempting, it’s never a task,
Her colours the clearest that be,
Cool curves of velvet, right there to touch,
An embrace that’s so total and free.
So who is this siren? I hear you ask,
And what is her hold over me?
Well where do you go when there’s time on your hands?
But down to the edge of the sea.”
A Sailor’s Lament.
Chapter Fourteen
‘I buried my friend today…’
Thomas Adams, Captain of the Spanish Galleon El Defensor paused in mid-thought; his quill poised an inch above the page of parchment before him. As he sat contemplating what to write the quill’s black ink began to run to the sharpened tip, collecting to twin the teardrop currently forming in the captain’s eye. He tore his blurred vision from the parchment and looked around the cabin desperate for some form of comforting figure or icon of support, but wherever he looked memories of his friend assailed him.
The globe of Minera that doubled as a drinks cabinet, acquired during their earlier years pirating off the coast of Traquair; the Oriental rug that decorated the floor, a relic of bygone days carrying spices upon the Strontio Sea. It seemed John Hodge had been more than just a good friend; he had become adopted family. Thomas wiped his eyes and blotted the nib of the quill before returning to his tragic narrative.
‘He was buried at sea this morning by dawn’s first light. All crew were present. Somehow I feel he would have wanted it that way.’
He paused again, steeling himself for the next few fated words, as if, by not writing them, he could somehow change the outcome of what had occurred.
‘May he rest in peace.’
Thomas sprinkled a fine handful of white sand across the page of the ledger so that the grains could absorb any excess ink before he closed the ship’s log. The brown leather cover was faded and scratched with golden archaic script that scrawled across the front bearing the ship’s name. Thomas paused to look at the book, imagining all the joys and sadness recorded within before straightening it and squaring the book in the centre of his desk. He leant forwards to flick an imaginary speck of dust from the cover, and then turned his attention to his quill meticulously cleaning it before depositing the worn writing implement into a tankard set to the right side of his desk. He allowed a sad smile as he regarded the battered tankard, ‘borrowed’ as a departed friend had quaintly put it from an old drinking spot in Westport, only then did he turn his attention to the last item upon his desk.
The threat of tears returned as he looked down at the wooden pipe resting forlornly beside the ship’s log, the grain of the wood still warm and rosy to the eye with the scent of John Hodge’s favourite tobacco still permeating the air around it. The momentary illusion was so strong that Thomas could almost imagine his friend putting his scuffed leather boots up onto the opposite side of the desk and asking for a drink from the globe shaped cabinet in the corner of the room, despite the frowns and raised eyebrow that would have been bound to have resulted. He picked up the pipe and ran his thumb across the grain, his mind wandering far into the past sharing memories of happiness and poignant sadness, of a life of companionship never easily replaced.
With a sigh, Thomas slid open the top right hand drawer in his desk to reveal an emerald green velvet cloth upon which rested several small objects of personal significance. Each item represented a member of the ship’s crew who had moved on to ‘sail calmer waters’.
The first item to catch his eye was a cracked silver timepiece, the crystal cut face scratched and battered, the twin hands within frozen at exactly the time the owner had died. A tiny golden ring, so delicate and small that it would only fit a child or a halfling lay beside it. Now she had been a rascal!
An enchanted set of dice, which always knew the number required to win; then stubbornly refused to roll them, unless kissed first. A double-headed coin and a large sapphire that vibrated softly within its green velvet nest lay adjacent to these other treasures. The sapphire repeating enchanted ballads when held to your ear, a recording of the work its bard owner had created in his lifetime, the coin the only way he could make the crowd choose the songs he actually knew. Tails we will sing your song, Heads and we will sing mine!
There was also a small silver tankard, battered and well used, but never empty unless willed. Unfortunately, it only gushed forth cold spring water and not the stiff drink Thomas would have liked at this time, and even then, it would only work when up against your lips, refusing to empty into any other receptacle.
The other contents of the drawer included a black puzzle box filled with small silver balls that ran in every direction but where he wished them to go. A piece of slate with an engraving of a mouse upon its surface that used to be able to run off the slate and spy for its owner when commanded, although Thomas had never managed to get it to work. A petrified egg supposedly of a phoenix and finally a fist sized golden badge. Thomas gently laid John’s pipe amongst these items. There it would stay as a reminder of good times passed by.
He went to shut the drawer then stopped himself, reaching in to retrieve the badge. It still gleamed although the surface of the badge had several ball bearing sized impact points. If you looked closer, the deeper depressions held dark flakes of dried blood where Thomas could not get in to clean it. Of all the items in the drawer, this one did not belong to a past member of the crew. This badge represented a memory of Thomas’s life long past, a time he was still desperate to return to. Those corrupt men were still running free and he would hunt them down if he could ever get back home! He shrugged; it was all a dream. Replacing the badge, he slid the walnut drawer shut upon the golden shield, the engraved 3042 numbers catching the light just before the drawer finally slid closed.
“That was a long time ago.” He stated aloud, as if by voicing his feelings he could push the meaning of the four numbers to the back of his mind.
He stood to pace, and walked from behind the desk, his fingertips tracing along the top of one of several cases that were secured along the cabin walls, intricate models of sailing ships were painstakingly recreated within them. This was his hobby, a retreat from everyday life and the chaos and evil that often went hand in hand with it. Within these cases, everything was perfect and squeaky clean. The patience and steady hand required for the work kept the captain’s sanity in line with what the rest of the world demanded from him. He liked puzzles, and assembling sailing ships and slotting the pieces into place was the closest to a puzzle he could attain.
Now he had a puzzle like those he used to face in his old life, and it rankled him. How had those packing crates come loose on the foredeck and fallen on John in that manner, crushing his skull like an egg?
He walked past the cases to pause before the cabin door, checking himself over in the mirror mounted on the wall. The reflective circular surface showed a man in his late forties, dark brown eyes, short salt and pepper hair and a square jaw with a day’s worth of stubble upon it. His hair was thinning a little on the top now, but his eyes still held a sharp gleam of intelligence. He sucked in his abdomen and turned to regard his silhouette.
“You’ve still got it!” he quipped. Although he recognised he needed to go a little bit more carefully with the pastries the ships chef made! He touched the glass, breaking into a slight grin that showed his misshapen lip more clearly. The upper lip on the left was slightly bigger than the rest of his mouth and malformed from when he had put his teeth through it in a particularly nasty barroom brawl. A large pair of scissors had saved his life that night, but the after-effects had lasted a lifetime. He also had numerous other scars including one that ran underneath his bushy eyebrows from when a thug had taken a motorbike chain across his face just before throwing him through a plate glass window. People had often told him he should not look at the age of something but at the mileage it had done. However, some of Thomas’s mileage had been very rough indeed!
Set into the original ship’s wheel was a polished looking glass. The king spoke, the most prominent part of the wheel, pointed straight up at the ceiling its splintered end signifying straight ahead. Somehow it seemed appropriate that the wheel hung here, sharing the secrets of the captains from both past and present. Thomas hoped it would share the secrets of many more…but not just yet…at least as long as he had anything to do about the matter!
He took one harder look at the now silent image in the mirror, rubbed his eyes and then straightened his leather waistcoat, before his hands reflexively reached to straighten a tie that was not there. Then he ran his fingers through his hair, brushing the stray hairs into place. It was time to take on the role of captain once more. He had a tragic accident to investigate, three stowaways to deal with and a crew who badly needed his presence amongst them for reassurance and morale.
Allowing himself one more quick visual check, Thomas set his face and snapped a smart salute at the man reflected in the mirror. It was quite ironic! Here he stood a captain! What would the cops back at the 17th precinct have made of that?
It took Justina several hours to recover from the strain of casting her teleportation and invisibility spells, and she awoke from a deep sleep with a throbbing head and shivers racking her frame. She lay upon her black silk sheets and stared at the canopy of the four-poster bed high above her, trying to put her conflicting thoughts in some sort of order so she could face the day.
Pelune was a fool! He had made several revealing errors today. Not only was he using The Raven in a desperate gamble, he had also inadvertently revealed to Justina that his own magical powers were already on the wane. Pelune was normally able to cast his own spells, strangely without the use of gemstones to power them, but last night he had asked her to do all of the magic required, something Pelune, with all his pompous gesturing would never normally permit.
It was the clearest sign yet all was not well within the Order of the Serpent. Justina knew it would soon be time to act, but even now, doubts swirled around her mind. What if Pelune managed to regain his dagger? It was clearly more than just a sacrificial weapon; it was obviously his source of power? The Raven was a legend from her youth and his ability to carry a job to its successful conclusion was as good as set in stone. When she also considered the added enchantments cast upon the assassin, Justina could not see how he could possibly fail.
If The Raven returned with the relic Pelune would continue his shadowy rise to power, something Justina needed to prevent. She required a contingency plan.
Justina slid from the bed and padded bare foot across the rugs that decorated her chamber floor, stepping around a small table and glancing at the fire blazing in the fireplace before coming to a stop in front of a huge mirror that hung against the wall. With a critical eye, she examined her body, scrutinising every curve and dip before she was satisfied that the drain on her body during spell casting had not affected her enchanted disguise in any way.
Satisfied, she leant forwards and touched the wooden frame, stroking her deft fingers across the polished grain, searching for a blemish in the carving. Once located she deftly twisted a small button secreted there and the mirror swung away from the wall revealing a small space behind. Spell books were neatly stacked on assorted shelves set in either side of the alcove, representing several life times of research from mages long since deceased.
Set at the back of the alcove was a glass cabinet, within which sat a collection of potent magical items, rings, wands, broaches, bracelets and assorted gemstones of varying value which all sparkled and gleamed within this dust free environment. She reached past all of these however to pull out a small smoke stained glass jar.
“Hamnet,” Justina hissed, holding up the jar to the light and moving her wrist gently sloshing about the contents within. Bobbing about within the confines of the jar was a small twisted skeleton, its overall length a little over eight inches. An enlarged head, swollen and distorted, with ragged clumps of hair regarded the sorceress with slime filled eye sockets, its body long devoid of flesh, had two gnarled little hands that extended from spindly arms. The feet of the creature were comically large, in a dark and twisted way; and coiled between its legs was the unmistakable bony cartilage of a tail.
Justina placed the jar on a table near the alcove and began to chant softly under her breath, sacrificing a small gemstone from her bracelet as she completed the summoning incantation. A small cloud of mist slowly began to form on the table alongside the jar and, as she looked on, a duplicate body of the twisted skeleton began to form from the mist, using the tendrils of opaque moisture as impossible building blocks to form small bones and jelly-like cartilage.
