The Lost Kingdom

by Matthew J. Kirby

  My father called to Mr. Faries. “How close are you to being finished, William?”

  “Ten minutes!” he said.

  My father nodded. “Jane, you need to pack up whatever it is you’re doing there. Quickly, now.”

  “Beg your pardon, Mr. Bartram,” Jane said. “But the stew isn’t ready yet.”

  “You’ll have to leave it,” my father said.

  “What’s the matter, John?” Mr. Godfrey asked.

  “Billy spotted a bear-wolf track,” my father said. “It appeared fresh.”

  Mr. Godfrey stood. “How fresh?”

  “Fresh enough. Even five miles away, it will still be able to smell us, and especially the food on that cook-fire. It could be upon us in no time at all.”

  Jane looked at the kettle. “I’m sorry.”

  My father ignored her. “Is Phineas back yet?”

  “He and Andrew haven’t returned,” Mr. Godfrey said.

  My father looked up and down the line of trees. “Let’s get everything else loaded. We need to be ready to pull up the ladder as soon as they’re on board. With any luck, the beast will be on the trail of the incognitum, but we should take no chances. We are in no position to fight off a bear-wolf.”

  He and Mr. Godfrey went to Mr. Faries’s equipment and began to break it down, while Mr. Kinnersley helped lift it up to the deck. Jane was looking at her stew.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “I think I’ll dump it in the river for the fish,” she said.

  “Jane,” my father said. “Please board the ship now. It will be safer there. You, too, Billy.”

  So I was supposed to go with the girl now.

  “I suppose we should do as he says.” Jane hoisted the kettle down to the river and tipped its steaming contents into the water. Then she lugged the empty pot to my father to be lifted up with the other gear.

  “Coming?” She took hold of the rope ladder.

  “Coming,” I said, though I begrudged each step I took toward her.

  By the time I had reached the base of the ladder, she was almost to the top. And then someone yelled behind me.

  “Bear-wolf!”

  I spun. Phineas came sprinting out of the forest down the river from us, followed by Andrew. And behind them charged the behemoth. A surging mass of brown fur and power. When it hit the riverbank, it saw all of us. It saw the ship. And it stopped. Then its broad jaws opened in a roar, exposing its fangs. But it didn’t come at us. Instead, it stood up on its hind legs, towering twice as tall as the tallest man I’d ever seen, and roared again.

  “Everyone on the ship,” my father hissed. “Quickly.”

  “What about the equipment?” Mr. Godfrey said. A pile of Mr. Faries’s gear remained to be loaded.

  “Leave it,” my father said. “Billy, go now.”

  I struggled up the ladder, one eye over my shoulder.

  The bear-wolf dropped to all fours. It sniffed the air, its huge nostrils lifting and flaring. It paced back and forth, inching closer.

  I reached the deck and scrambled over the rail. Below me, Phineas started climbing.

  The bear-wolf seemed to be overcoming whatever apprehension had kept it at bay. It approached directly now, pausing and sniffing along the way.

  Phineas reached the top, and my father pushed Andrew toward the ladder.

  “Up you go,” he said.

  The bear-wolf roared again, a different sound this time. An angry sound. It charged right at my father.

  “Look out!” I yelled.

  But Andrew pushed my father aside and flung something into the fire just as the bear-wolf reached it. A bright flash, an explosion of flame and smoke, and the bear-wolf backed away. Gunpowder. The animal’s roar sounded of pain and confusion.

  “Go, Mr. Bartram!” Andrew shouted. He threw another handful of powder into the fire, and a second explosion sent the bear-wolf back another few feet.

  My father shot up the ladder, and once he’d reached the top, Andrew threw a third handful into the flames before making his own climb.

  When he reached the top, we pulled him over.

  “Mighty clever trick, young man,” Mr. Godfrey said, panting.

  By that time, the bear-wolf had skirted the fire and now circled the bottom of the rope ladder. As my father tried to pull it up, the bear-wolf snagged it with one of its paws and yanked it easily from its anchor on the ship. The whole length of it fell to the ground. The bear-wolf sniffed it and then approached the hull of our vessel.

  “Mr. Faries!” my father shouted.

  Mr. Faries still hung up in the rigging, working furiously on the spheres.

  “How soon?” my father asked.

  “Two minutes!” Mr. Faries shouted back.

  The bear-wolf stood on its hind legs, looked up at us, and slammed both of its front paws against the ship’s hull with its full weight. The de Terzi jolted, and I felt the reverberation through my boots.

  “We don’t have two minutes!” my father shouted. “That thing is strong enough to crack the hull!”

  The bear-wolf heaved itself against the ship a second time, and I heard the sound of wood splintering.

  “I’m working as fast as I can!” Mr. Faries shouted. “Someone take the helm!”

  Mr. Kinnersley raced to the controls. “I’ll do it!”

  “Wait for my mark!” Mr. Faries said.

  The ship thundered with a third blow from the bear-wolf. The animal roared, and something in it sounded triumphant. Almost as if it had realized it was breaking through.

  “Mr. Faries?” my father said.

  “Now!” Mr. Faries said, letting a rope loose in his harness. I shouted in alarm as he plummeted toward the deck, but he pulled the rope tight just as he was about to hit and stopped his fall.

  Mr. Kinnersley threw a lever, and the de Terzi eased upward out of the bear-wolf’s reach. We all looked over the edge, watching the animal grow smaller as our ship moved slowly down the river, and I began to feel safe enough to relax a little. But the bear-wolf pursued us, never taking its eyes from us as it stalked down the riverbank, parallel with the ship. The beast wasn’t giving up any more than the French had.

  “Mr. Faries,” my father said, “deploy the sails.”

  “Aye,” Mr. Faries said, staring at the bear-wolf. He went to the controls, raised the sails, and we jumped forward on the wind.

  But still the bear-wolf came. It galloped after us, matching our speed, and it was fast. As fast as a horse. I stared at it in disbelief, but as we increased our own speed, the animal fell farther and farther behind. I eventually lost sight of it in the trees, but even then, in that last moment, it was still running.

  Still hunting us.

  “It would seem,” Mr. Godfrey said, “that we are now being pursued by both the French and a bear-wolf.”

  “It would seem that way,” my father said. “We can only hope the two parties meet one day. For now, all we can do is continue to put distance between us and them. The French are still far behind us, and the bear-wolf will have a difficult time not only tracking our scent but also traversing the terrain below.”

  “Your escape was narrow, John,” Phineas said.

  I looked at Andrew. Were it not for his quick action, it was likely my father would have been killed. I felt a sickening weight in my chest at the thought of it.

  “Yes,” my father said.

  Phineas clapped Andrew on the back. “A brilliant tactic, that gunpowder, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes,” my father said, but with little enthusiasm. It seemed the others waited for my father to say more, but he didn’t.

  Why could he not admit that Andrew had done an astounding thing and saved his life?

  My father turned to Mr. Faries. “I take it the repair is complete?”

  “It is.” Mr. Faries squinted up at the spheres. “But I was rushed at the end and pray I made no mistakes.” He looked back at us. “We left my equipment behind in the attack. Further repairs of this nature
will be impossible.”

  “Understood,” my father said. “We’re safe now. I suggest we resume normal activity, and continue to follow the river.”

  Everyone agreed and went their separate ways, that is, as separate as they could be aboard the ship. I caught up with my father as he went below to the Science Deck. He set his bag on his desk and began to unpack his specimens, the ones we had found together. Even after what had just happened, he hadn’t forgotten about his plants.

  “Father,” I said.

  “Hm,” he said.

  “I …” I lost the words.

  “Yes, Billy?”

  “I’m — I’m just relieved you’re unhurt.”

  One corner of his mouth smiled. “As am I.”

  There was something else I had to say to feel honest and right with myself. “I’m grateful to Andrew,” I said. Then I winced inside and waited for his response.

  “Yes,” he said. “I am grateful as well.” But his voice did not sound grateful.

  I pressed him further. “He saved you.”

  “And he saved himself. Do not forget that.” My father went back to his specimens. “I have to see to these. When I am finished, you will draw them. Understood?”

  He may have saved himself, but Andrew sent you up the ladder first. “Yes, sir.”

  “I will summon you when they are ready for you.”

  I was being dismissed. “Yes, sir.”

  My father remained working at his desk, while I went up on the weather deck. I felt the need for air and openness. I couldn’t understand why he treated Andrew so poorly, but I had to believe he had cause for his actions. There was no other way to reconcile the father I knew from this father I didn’t recognize. Perhaps one day he would explain his reasons to me.

  But having watched the bear-wolf charge at him, and having feared he was about to die, I felt even worse for Jane in her ordeal with her own father. So I sought her out.

  I found her sitting at the stern of the ship, staring at the countryside behind us. I sat down next to her, but didn’t dare disturb her thoughts. Several long moments passed.

  “I didn’t think it would be like this,” she finally said. “I wanted to come mostly because I heard you were coming.”

  What did she mean by that? “Oh?”

  “Yes. I didn’t think it was fair.”

  Oh.

  “And now my father is missing. Yours was almost killed by a bear-wolf.” She closed her eyes. “What a fool I am.”

  “You’re not a fool,” I said. “Your father certainly doesn’t think so.” I thought back to all the things he had said about her that night we shared a watch, and I remembered something that gave me an idea. “My father asked me to draw some specimens we collected. I could use some help.”

  Her eyes opened. “It feels like weeks since I’ve made a drawing.”

  “Would you like to make one now?”

  She chewed on one of her fingernails. “Yes. I think so.”

  “Good.”

  She stood slowly, and we went below. My father was just finishing, so I took out some paper and sharpened two quills. After he left, we each took one of the flowers and began to draw.

  It was hard for me to concentrate on mine. I kept sneaking glances at Jane and her drawing. She seemed to be completely engrossed in the petals and the stem and the leaves. Her drawing was very, very good. Much better than mine, I had to admit.

  I leaned over to her. “That’s very good.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Your father said you were more talented than me, and I think he may have been right.”

  She looked down. Tears gathered in her eyes, and I panicked. What had I said wrong?

  “It’s a very nice drawing,” I said again.

  She covered her face with her hands and cried. “It’s all my fault, Billy.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “But it is. If I hadn’t disobeyed and left the ship, none of this would have happened. My father would still be here.”

  She sat there, sobbing, hugging herself. This was a time a sister or a brother or a parent might put his or her arm around her and comfort her. But I didn’t know how to do that, or even if I should. So I lifted my arm up in an offer I only half meant, and seeing that, Jane leaned into me. I gave her a hug and patted her on the back, and tried not to hold her too tight.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “You couldn’t have known the French would be there. They’re the enemy.”

  She nodded against my shoulder, and a moment later, she pulled away. Her nose was running. She realized it, looked around, shrugged, and then smeared it on her sleeve.

  She laughed. “First I dress like a boy, and now I wipe my nose like one.”

  “Next you’ll be spitting off the side of the ship and singing bawdy ballads.”

  She smacked my arm. “Don’t be crude.”

  “Ow.” I chuckled. “Sorry.”

  She lifted an eyebrow at me, but a moment later it came down. “I just hope he’s safe.”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  She returned to her drawing, and I returned to mine. I found it easier to focus and had soon finished it to my satisfaction. I still didn’t think it quite as nice as Jane’s, but it was good. After we had both finished, we moved on to the next plants, and the next, until we had drawn all the new specimens.

  I sat back, satisfied. “Thank you for your help.”

  “You are welcome,” she said. “It was a pleasant distraction.”

  Up on the weather deck, I discovered the sun had dropped almost to the horizon. Our work with the specimens had taken up the rest of the afternoon and the beginnings of the evening. I found my father and told him the drawings were finished.

  “You drew them all?” he asked.

  “Jane helped me,” I said.

  “I see. Good. It was right that you asked her. I think Mr. Colden would appreciate that.”

  I nodded. “Do you really believe he’s safe? Like you told Jane?”

  “Well …” My father looked from side to side and lowered his voice. “I don’t know, Billy. I told her what I pray to be true. And I do not make it habit to pray for things that appear completely out of reach.” He clasped my shoulder. “Try not to worry.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He left, and I remained there. I was assigned the first watch, which began before the sun had set, so I was able to watch its decline. The stars appeared, and I wondered if Jane would be able to acquaint me with them the way her father had promised to do.

  Andrew appeared beside me. “It seems it’s you and me for the first watch.”

  A slight panic seized me. Andrew and I had never shared a watch, something I suspected my father had engineered when he arranged the schedule. “I thought it was Phineas’s turn.”

  “He asked if I’d swap with him. He prefers the middle watch.”

  “He does?” I tried to keep my discomfort from showing. “I hate the middle watch.”

  “Me, too. I have to wake up when it feels like I’ve just fallen asleep, and by the end of it, I have to prop my eyes open. But afterward, when I finally hit my hammock, I can’t seem to get any rest.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. “Did you tell my father about the switch?”

  “No. Should I?”

  I knew my father would change the watch if he knew. But I didn’t want him to. Andrew made me nervous, but I felt somehow guilty about that. I wanted it to be acceptable that I shared a watch with him, to me most of all. So I resolved to do it and forced a stiff shrug. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  Andrew accepted this with a nod. “All right, then.”

  “All right,” I said.

  But I didn’t know what to say after that.

  “This is a —” he started, but stopped.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Please, speak,” I said.

  “Well. This is a very … peculiar group of men.” />
  I found myself chuckling. “You are right about that.”

  “Electrical fire, a flying ship, bottles and bottles of spring water.” He scratched his forehead. “When I was out there in the woods with Phineas, going from pool to pool, I kept wondering if he was playing a prank at my expense.”

  I chuckled again. “I don’t think most of these men know what a prank is, and I can tell you with certainty that electrical fire is not a joke.”

  “Oh, I’ve kept my distance from Mr. Kinnersley ever since he shocked you.”

  “A wise decision,” I said, already feeling much more at ease than I had a few moments ago.

  “Have you ever seen a bear-wolf before today?” Andrew asked.

  “No.” I thought back to its size, its ferocity, its awful strength. “And if it hadn’t almost killed my father, I think I would admire it.”

  He looked away in thought. “I admire it.”

  “But it almost killed you, too.”

  “That’s true. But what if it’s starving right now and needed to eat us to live?”

  “It looked plenty healthy to me.”

  “I suppose it did. And if I hadn’t left my gun behind, I would have tried to shoot it, for the little good it would have done me and your father. Bear-wolves don’t go down easy.” He turned to me. “Why are there no guns on the ship?”

  “The de Terzi is a vessel of philosophy. Not a ship of war. That’s what my father says.”

  “That is a good point. If Major Washington had wanted to conscript this ship, and I think he did, guns or cannons on board would have justified him. Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought my rifle.”

  “I’m glad you have it.” Without it, he would not have had his gunpowder. I cleared my throat. “I need to thank you for saving my father. I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  “You owe me nothing,” he said.

  But that wasn’t true. I also owed him an apology, though he didn’t know it. I had doubted him without evidence and thought ill of him without cause. I still didn’t know whether I could fully trust him, but until he gave me reason not to, I decided that I would. Hadn’t my father said that I must be guided by evidence and fact? Well, it was a fact that he had saved my father’s life, and I wanted my father to be wrong about him.