بخش 06

CHAPTER 10

DEAD EYES

SLANK LED THE WAY DOWN the overgrown jungle path, followed by Lord Ombra, Captain Nerezza, and the dozen large scurvies.

Head of the line was not a place of honor. Slank knew that if the natives were unfriendly, he would be the first to take an arrow or spear. His eyes nervously roamed the darkness ahead. A lifelong sailor, he’d never taken to land, especially when he could barely see it. He didn’t care for the squishy things underfoot, the crying things in the darkness overhead.

Another step, and he shuddered as his face was suddenly caught in an invisible, clinging, and sickeningly sticky spiderweb. He clawed at it, trying to untangle himself, spitting to keep the acrid taste out of his mouth. Just then, its creator—a hairy spider the size of his hand—landed on his head, apparently planning to eat him.

Slank grabbed at the spider, felt its thick fur and scrabbling legs. He was about to emit a most un-seamanlike scream when he felt something touch his hand from behind…something very cold. In an instant, the spider stopped twitching and slid from Slank’s head. A dead thing now, it landed on the jungle floor with a muffled thud.

Slank stood still, panting, sweating, not wanting to turn around. Then came the groaning voice.

“I will lead,” Ombra announced.

Slank gladly stepped aside to allow the dark form, near-invisible in the jungle gloom, to glide past. With Ombra in front, the raiding party moved quickly, soon reaching the base of a steep mountain slope. They turned right, following a narrow trail that led through a berry patch—the prickly branches grasping at the men but seeming to have no effect on Ombra—then across the crunch of volcanic rock and down to a small creek and a larger path that curved to the left, into deeper gloom.

Ombra raised an arm and groaned, “Halt”; the sound of his voice causing the unseen screeching creatures overhead to suddenly go silent. Ombra waved Nerezza forward, and Slank watched as the captain loosened the leather strap securing his wooden nose to his face. Holding his nosepiece at his side, he sucked in the jungle air, making a harsh, wet sound that reminded Slank of a wild boar. Nerezza pointed to the right, and the raiding party moved that way.

Another fifty yards; another halt. Nerezza again sniffed the air, then said something to Ombra. Ombra nodded—at least there was a movement of his hood—then said, “You will wait here.”

“Yes, lord,” said Nerezza.

This reply turned heads among the men. Nerezza, brutal ship commander, never showed this kind of deference.

Ombra moved off, but to Slank’s surprise, did not take the path. Instead, he melted into the jungle, making no noise whatsoever. Slank knew this was impossible—the vegetation was far too thick for a man to move through it soundlessly. But there was no noise, no rustling of vines, nothing.

Five minutes passed. Ten. Then Ombra reappeared in front of Slank, coming not from the jungle, but from down the path ahead. He halted, a dark wraith in a flowing cape, and beckoned.

“Move,” Nerezza ordered his men.

The group started forward. Ombra in the lead, followed by Nerezza, then Slank, then the rest. Another twenty yards and the trail widened, the tree branches overhead parting enough to allow some pale moonlight to reach the ground.

Slank peered ahead, and froze.

Not ten yards up the trail stood two men—natives, one on each side of the trail, each with a spear in his right hand. Sentries, apparently.

Slank drew his knife and held his breath, waiting for Ombra and Nerezza to react. But there was no reaction from them, and—incredibly—none from the natives. Ombra, with Nerezza right behind, glided toward the men, closer…closer…and still the sentries stood motionless. Ombra, taking no notice, glided right between them and continued up the path, followed, after a moment’s hesitation, by Nerezza.

When he reached the sentries, Slank paused for a moment to study them. Their dark eyes were open, but their faces were blank. Slank waved his knife in front of the eyes of the sentry to his right: nothing.

Resheathing his knife, Slank passed between the sentries and moved up the path, followed by the men. Behind him, a voice from somewhere in the line whispered, “witchcraft.” Nerezza, hearing this, spun and glared back. There were no more comments from the men.

Twenty-five yards down the path, they passed through another pair of sentries, also standing like statues. Shortly after that, they came to still another motionless pair, these two stationed at the entrance to what appeared to be a large compound. The compound was surrounded by a high wall made of thick logs sharpened to points and lashed together with stout vines.

Keeping in line, the raiding party passed by the sentries—neither of whom moved a twitch—and into the village, a group of several dozen huts made of jungle thatch. The ground was packed sand. Fire circles, some still smoking, dotted the areas between the huts. The only light in the clearing, aside from the moon, came from a torch burning in the center of the village. Other than its flickering flame, there was no movement. The villagers, believing themselves protected by the sentries, were asleep.

The invaders, following Ombra, moved quietly into the village. As he glided past the torch, Ombra waved a cloaked arm at it, and Nerezza pulled it from the ground.

Ombra led the group directly to a hut that was larger than the others. Without pausing, he glided inside, followed by Nerezza and Slank, who ducked through the opening, Nerezza holding the torch low.

Inside they found a woman and girl sleeping in rope hammocks. By the smoky torchlight, Slank could see that the girl was perhaps nine or ten years old. Next to the woman was a third, larger hammock, empty. Ombra, standing over the empty hammock, groaned, “The chief is not here.” He did not sound pleased.

At the sound of his voice, the woman stirred, rubbing her eyes and uttering strange soft sounds. She opened her eyes and, seeing the dark form of Ombra looming over her, screamed. This awakened the girl who, seeing the intruders, emitted a loud, piercing shriek.

Instantly there were shouts from the nearby huts, then the sound of running feet.

“Cap’n!” shouted a voice. “Men coming!”

Nerezza ducked his head outside, then turned back to Ombra. “Too many for us to fight,” he said.

“There is no need to fight,” said Ombra. He turned to Slank, who noticed that, even looking directly at Ombra in the flickering torchlight, he could see no face—only darkness under the black hood.

“Take the girl,” groaned Ombra.

Slank reached down and yanked the fear-frozen girl up by her arm. The girl shrieked again. The woman, wailing, moved to stop Slank, but Ombra glided between them. Slank, busy trying to hold the struggling girl, didn’t see what happened next, but suddenly the woman’s wailing stopped. When Slank glanced down, she was absolutely still, with the same vacant expression as the motionless sentries on the jungle path. The little girl saw it, too, and lapsed into shocked silence.

“Bring her outside,” Ombra said, moving to the hut opening. “Hold your knife to her neck.”

Slank unsheathed his knife and, pressing it against the terrified girl’s smooth, brown neck, dragged her through the opening behind Ombra and Nerezza.

Outside, they found a tense standoff. The raiding party, knives and pistols drawn, faced a semicircle of at least two dozen Mollusk warriors holding spears with blades fashioned from razor-sharp shells and turtle-shell shields. The natives, aware of their advantage in numbers, were spreading apart, clearly preparing to attack. They were directed by a compact, muscular man who spoke in strange sounds. When he caught sight of Slank holding the girl, his eyes widened, and he shouted something that stopped the others cold.

For a moment the two sides stared at each other, with the Mollusks focusing most of their attention on Slank, and the knife he held pressed to the throat of the girl.

She’s the only thing keeping us alive, thought Slank.

Another tense, silent moment, then Ombra oozed forward into the space between the two groups—looking, Slank thought, more like a moving cape than a person. The Mollusks eyed the dark, advancing shape nervously, but did not back up.

Ombra stopped in front of the compact man, the leader, and spoke—his voice filling the silence like a chill wind.

“Your chief,” he groaned. “Where is he?”

The leader frowned, then said something in clicks and grunts.

“He doesn’t speak English,” said Nerezza.

“No,” said Ombra. “Bring the torch forward.”

Nerezza, puzzled by the order but not daring to question it, stepped forward.

“Over there,” said Ombra, waving a dark arm to the right of the Mollusk leader. Nerezza moved slowly to the right, watching the Mollusks as warily as they watched him.

“There,” said Ombra, and Nerezza stopped, perhaps five feet from the Mollusk leader. Nerezza’s face glistened with sweat in the flickering torchlight.

“Now the girl,” said Ombra. “Bring her next to Nerezza.”

Reluctantly, Slank dragged the whimpering girl forward, still holding the knife to her throat. He placed the girl next to Nerezza, to the right of the Mollusk leader. The eyes of the warriors were on Slank: he could see their helpless rage—their desire to kill him, and their fear of causing harm to the girl. Slank could also see that, as the warriors’ attention was focused on him, Ombra drifted slowly, silently forward.

What is he doing?

And then Slank saw it. As the bottom of Ombra’s cloak drew close to the torch-cast shadow of the Mollusk leader, the shadow elongated and curled toward Ombra like a dark snake. As it touched Ombra’s cloak, expression drained from the warrior’s face. His head turned slightly in Ombra’s direction, then toward the Mollusks. As his gaze swept past, Slank saw a lifeless, flat blackness in his eyes.

Then the warrior spoke. He made the same clicking and grunting sounds he’d used before, but his voice had a strangely different tone—deeper, breathier. The other Mollusks noticed this and were clearly disturbed. But whatever the warrior said disturbed them still more. When he finished, two of the younger Mollusks sprinted out of the village, into the jungle night.

“Where are they going?” asked Slank. “What’s happening?”

He addressed the questions to Ombra, but it was not Ombra who answered. Instead, it was the Mollusk leader who turned his face toward Nerezza and Slank.

As the Mollusk leader turned, Slank again noticed the strange deadness in his eyes.

Then the Mollusk spoke. But not in grunts and clicks. A chorus of gasps arose from the men watching, sailors and Mollusks alike; a chill slithered up Slank’s spine.

The warrior spoke English. And he spoke in Ombra’s voice.

“They are going to find the chief,” groaned the warrior. “They will tell him that if he does not return immediately, his daughter will die.”

Then Ombra glided back. Slank saw his cloak separate from the Mollusk’s shadow, which slithered back to its appropriate position relative to the torch. The warrior’s head slumped forward, then snapped up, eyes blinking, expression confused, as if he were awakening from a nap. He stumbled backward; two Mollusks grabbed him and held him up.

Regaining his bearings, the leader looked hard at Ombra, then grunted something at length to the others. When he was done, the warriors, keeping their eyes fixed on the dark, hovering shape before them, backed up several steps and stopped. They would wait from a safer distance.

Slank, still holding his knife to the throat of the whimpering girl, hoped the wait wouldn’t be long. CHAPTER 11

STRANGERS

WHEN JAMES HIT THE COLD WATER, his first reaction was shock. Why did Peter push me in?

He struggled to get back to the surface, and his confusion turned to terror as he felt something grip his left ankle and pull him down. He screamed underwater—losing more air—and kicked as hard as he could, but the grip only tightened, pulling him deeper into water that grew colder and darker.

James thrashed to free himself but could not. Seconds passed, and still the grip pulled him down. His lungs burned and he was weakening.

And then, as he started to drift into unconsciousness, he felt it.

A kiss. His first, actually. Soft lips, right on his. Suddenly his lungs stopped burning. In the underwater blackness, he felt the kisser—whoever or whatever it was—move around behind him, then felt arms lock around his chest. Water surged past James’s face as he shot forward, twisting and turn ing, apparently avoiding obstacles that James could not see. Then he burst into an underwater cavern, and he saw a silver disc overhead—the moon!—and veered sharply upward, breaking the surface.

James gulped the sweet air as strong hands pulled him up and set him on the ground at the edge of the pool. Wiping water from his eyes, he saw the face of Fighting Prawn; behind him were two other Mollusk warriors.

Then he saw a shadow flash across the sky. Peter.

“James!” shouted Peter, landing. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, Peter!” said James, his pale face brightening at the sight of his friend. “I…” He coughed up some water. “I’m sorry! I just wanted to watch you have some fun with the pirates, and they…they got me! I’m so sorry, Peter.”

Peter exchanged glances with Fighting Prawn.

“It’s not your fault, James,” he said. “It’s mine.”

“Peter, I was so frightened,” said James, the words tumbling out. “The hook pirate told me the most awful things…. Said he was going to kill me and you, and feed us to Mister Grin…. And then, when you pushed me into the water, I tried to come up, and next thing I knew something was pulling me down, and then…”

James stopped, looking puzzled. “Peter,” he said. “How did I get here?”

Peter smiled and pointed to the pool of water. Floating in a shadow at the edge of the pool was the mermaid known as Teacher. Her long, wet, blond hair flowed down each side of her delicate face, a face dominated by impossibly large brilliant green eyes. She gave Peter a lingering look that he felt as well as saw. Among the strange changes that had come over Peter when he’d been exposed to the starstuff—besides the ability to fly—was that he could understand the thoughts of the mermaids, who were also starstuff creatures. Teacher was quite fond of Peter, and what she was thinking now made him blush.

Thanks, he thought back to her, and she nodded.

To James, Peter said: “It was Fighting Prawn’s idea.”

“Thank you, Mister Prawn,” said James. “And thank you, too, Teacher. You saved my life.”

Teacher smiled modestly, then resumed flirting with Peter. Tinker Bell, who felt that Peter had paid quite enough attention to Teacher already, flitted between them; Peter brushed her aside, an act that resulted in an angry burst of chimes, which Peter hoped Teacher did not understand.

“But, wait!” said James, frowning. “Teacher lives in the lagoon. So how…?”

“The Mollusks,” answered Peter. “They made a sort of chair from sticks and vines and carried her here, like the Queen. She looked quite regal, actually.”

Teacher beamed. Tinker Bell sulked.

James turned once again to the Mollusks.

“You’re welcome,” said Fighting Prawn, before James could thank him a second time. “But from now on, you and your friends”—he gave Peter a hard look—“must stay away from the pirates, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said James.

Fighting Prawn glowered at Peter. “There are certain rules on this island,” he said. “Laws, you might call them. And now that you and your friends are living here—”

He was interrupted by two young Mollusk warriors bursting into the clearing. The warriors ran to Fighting Prawn, the one in front emitting a rapid-fire series of grunts and clicks. Fighting Prawn listened, his expression increasingly grave.

“We must go,” he said, when the warrior finished. He spoke in Mollusk to the others, and then to Peter and James: “Fierce Clam and Running Snail will take the mermaid back to the lagoon. You boys must return to your hideaway now, and stay there.”

“What is it?” said Peter. “What happened?”

Fighting Prawn was already running for the jungle. “Strangers!” he called back over his shoulder. “They have Shining Pearl!”