فصل 06

CHAPTER 6

RUMOR SPREADS

LE FANTOME CHARGED THROUGH the roiling seas faster than she’d ever sailed before. Captain Nerezza pushed the vessel to her limits, putting up more sails even when it seemed the added cloth might tear the ship apart. Night and day, she surged forward, leaving a wake of bubbling white on the dark, open ocean.

The sailors were as eager as their captain to reach their destination and discharge their unwelcome passenger. Rumor had spread quickly through the crew that he was back—the hooded, shadowy shape living in the darkened cabin. At first, some dismissed the rumor, insisting that Ombra had died at Stonehenge—why, people had seen it.

But the rumor persisted. For one thing, there was the cold: the nearer one got to that dark, forbidden cabin, the colder the air grew, to where a man could see his breath.

Then there was the sound—a raspy, wheezing sound, like some kind of beast in pain. Sometimes late at night it could be heard on deck, moving from one end of the ship to the other, though the men on watch, when they dared to look, saw nothing but shadows.

With each new report of strange occurrences, the ship’s mood grew gloomier. What might have been a cheerful crew—for sailors loved a fast ship—became an ever less happy one. Captain Nerezza’s mood remained foul, with an almost frantic edge, as he stood for hours on deck brooding, always trying to eke another half knot out of a ship already shuddering under the stress of too much sail. The helmsman fought to hold the great wheel, never a song on his lips or a smile on his face. The cook produced uninspired gruel. There was no music to be heard, not a single laugh.

They all felt it—the thing in the dark cabin. Every man felt it. And then one night, as sailors lay in their hammocks trying to find sleep that wouldn’t come, a young boy spoke three words that carried through the lower decks like a bone-chilling wind. He spoke them just after prayers, when the only sounds were the swishing of water against the hull and the groan of the ship as it buckled and bent under the captain’s demands. Those three words rippled through the hearts of all those aboard, for everyone had been thinking the same thing: “It’s growing stronger.”