by H. N. Klett
“So what’s this all for? The masks, the mists, the flying?” Hailey tried to not sound incredulous, but after all she had been through, it was just too hard to believe anything.
“That’s easy. Freedom. Like I said, most of the crew are descendants of the first pirate crew, but not all of them. Take me for example.” She held out a curl of long red hair to show her. “I was once a slave.”
“You mean a servant?” Hailey thought of the servants around her father’s house. All of them had the same red hair, and now that she thought of it, the same haunted look.
“No. A slave.” She was curt with her response and folded her arms, shifting her posture and jutting out her hip. She continued.
“Most redheads come from the northern regions of the mainland of Phesin. We try our best to hide, but the Crown regularly hunts us down and rounds us up for labor. The lucky ones get sold to the colonies as servants, the unlucky ones are bound for the mines in Vregora. I was one of the unlucky ones.”
Hailey stood there, horrified. She had no idea that redheads were actually enslaved. She always thought that they were hired hands and liked their work; that was what they taught in the Church-run schools.
As if reading her face, Kyra stepped to her and put a friendly hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. You probably didn’t know. Most people don’t.”
Hailey remembered learning in school about the only people in the world who looked different from everyone else. Other than differences between the sexes, there wasn’t much else different from one person to another save a slight variation of how brown your skin was or the occasional blonde streaks in your brown hair, like Hailey’s. Anything different was considered abnormal and inferior. Almost freakish.
In the Church schools, they taught that those with red hair were not just physically different from everyone else. They were not as developed or refined as everyone else. They were certainly less intelligent than everyone, but they had a saving grace—they were incredibly hard workers. The Church and the Crown believed that giving those with red hair menial work was a blessing to them. It gave their lives a place and a purpose. It was the will of the Ancestors that these rare people serve normal people, and they were happy to do so. Why else would the Ancestors have marked them so? No one ever said anything about slavery.
Kyra continued, her voice now lowered with an edge of bitterness. “I was a kid when it happened. My family and I were caught and thrown into the hold of a ship bound for Vregora. Luckily we ran into a squall that dashed us against the rocks off the coast. Not many of us survived—my family didn’t. Those who were still alive clung to the rocks for all their worth as the sea boiled around us. One by one, people slipped off the rocks and into the cruel waters. Not me.” She grinned at Hailey. “I was the last one left. I was just about to let go when out of the clouds floats this ship. They rescued me, brought me aboard, broke my chains, and I’ve been a crewman ever since.”
Hailey stood there, stunned. She searched for the right words to say, but couldn’t find them. Thankfully her body decided to break the awkward silence. Hailey’s stomach began to growl loudly again. Kyra looked down at Hailey’s stomach in surprise and then up at her.
“I think it’s time we get you something to eat,” she said, laughing.
On their way down below decks, Kyra showed her the gun batteries, several lines of cannons all nestled home in their berths, waiting for the moment to spring out from behind their outward covers. There were more cannons than Hailey expected, thirty-six in all, and a full gun crew of people who sat idly by playing cards. They didn’t pay Hailey or Kyra a moment’s regard as the girls passed by and headed down to the galley.
Kyra motioned for Hailey to sit down at one of the long empty benches and disappeared into the kitchen. Hailey looked around. She was impressed with how neat and tidy their galley was. Kyra emerged from the kitchen with two large steaming bowls and placed one in front of Hailey.
Hailey delighted in the smell of the beef stew set before her. It was something she hadn’t had for a long time, beef being so rare now. As hungry as she was, she could have eaten a whole cow given the chance.
“There you go. There’s plenty more where that came from, so eat up.” Kyra sat down across from her. Hailey began to wolf down the stew.
If her grandmother had seen how Hailey attacked her bowl, she would have been horrified and called her a wild animal. Hailey didn’t care, she shoveled in the food as fast as she could. Once empty, Kyra took the bowl and refilled it for her, which Hailey promptly finished as well. After her second bowl she started to slow down and regained some small resemblance of humanity.
“So,” Hailey said, looking up at Kyra and speaking around a mouthful of stew, “you guys knew I had been taken and what, followed me?”
Her grandmother would have been appalled at her speaking with her mouth full. She didn’t care one bit.
“Something like that. It took a while for Hadyn to get back to us and tell us what was going on. I hear we got there just in time.” Kyra looked at her with an eyebrow raised.
Hailey paused in eating, lost in thought about her fighting off the drunken Gibby. She had never been more terrified in all of her life, but she had survived it with her dignity intact. She shuddered and grunted an affirmative and went back to eating.
The combination of the food and the gas wearing off jump-started her thoughts. She thought back to how she got there. Her meeting with Bishop Graver and then being taken away… She dropped her spoon and her eyes flew wide open. She bolted upright.
“Dad!” Hailey blurted.
Kyra looked at her, surprised.
“The bishop said he was going to arrest my dad. We have to save him.” She stood up and looked imploringly at Kyra.
Kyra reached across the table and took her hand. “Relax. Last we heard he wasn’t in jail. Even if he was, he won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.”
Hailey sat back down with an exasperated sigh. “What does that mean?”
“Don’t worry, we have eyes and ears everywhere.” She pointed her spoon at Hailey. “We found you, right?”
Hailey looked down into her half-eaten bowl of stew and pushed around some carrots. She had lost her appetite.
“We will find out from the captain during the meeting.” Kyra grinned at her.
“Meeting?” Hailey looked up at her.
“The senior staff meeting.” Hadyn’s deep, smooth, confident voice preceded him as he strode quickly into the galley. “Captain’s sent me to come get you.”
Kyra turned and looked up at him.
“Excellent timing, Mr. Winder! We were just finishing. Be a dear and clean up after us, will you?” Kyra said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
“Clean u— Kyra!” protested Hadyn.
Turning back to Hailey, Kyra took her by the hand and stood up.
“Let’s go talk to the captain.”
They both stood up and Kyra began to lead her out quickly before Hadyn could protest further. He grumbled to himself and began to collect their bowls.
Kyra and Hailey made their way back up the stairs and out of the hold and emerged onto the deck. Only the skeleton crew remained, mechanically taking care of the ship in flight. Kyra pulled Hailey past them and across the deck to the cabin.
Now Hailey would hopefully find out how they knew her father was still alive.
Chapter 14
The door opened and Hailey immediately felt the room’s eyes upon her as she followed Kyra in. The already small cabin was made even smaller by the press of people. Hailey counted six other people in the room, two sitting, the rest standing.
She recognized the captain behind the desk; he was dressed the same as before, but his dark face was much different from the skull and piercing red eyes he wore earlier. His face was scraggly with a rough beard speckled with white hair. But while his eyes weren’t the glowing red of the mask, something in them was just as fierce. Hailey tried not to flinch or look away as he appra
ised her.
Kyra motioned for her to take one of the two chairs across from the captain, the other already occupied with a bespectacled gentleman, his eyes obscured by the reflection of light in his glasses. He watched her with amused curiosity as she sat.
“So. You are the Navigator,” the captain’s deep voice rolled out. Hailey looked around the room to the mix of stoic and curious faces. There was a long silence. She wondered if they were waiting for her to tell them something.
The captain burst into motion and bolted forward, startling Hailey. She thought he was going to reach across and grab her, but instead in one swift and smooth motion, he opened a drawer and tossed a book on the desk. Her book. The Book of the Navigator. The sound of it hitting the table was like a thunderclap that made Hailey jump.
“Prove it,” he rumbled and sat back in his chair.
The ruby eyes of the book looked up at her from the table patiently. She wanted to snatch up the book, run with it, and keep running, but just looking at the towering hulk of a man to the captain’s right told her she wouldn’t get far without being stopped, or worse.
Besides, were she to escape the cabin, where could she go? She didn’t have wings, and a fall from that height would break her neck as soon as she hit the water. Once again she was trapped.
She felt the eyes of everyone in the room upon her, watching, waiting expectantly. She was dealing with seagoing people. Granted, they also flew in an airship, but they were seagoing nonetheless. That meant she had room for negotiation. If she wanted them to save her father, she would have to prove that she had something to offer.
Rather than pick up the book, she closed her eyes and felt for it. That itching in her brain increased and she could almost hear it whispering to her. She extended her hand over it and the latches fell away without her touch. She heard creaking, as if everyone around the table had leaned in to get a look.
She opened her eyes and reached over and opened the cover, revealing the first page, then sat back in her chair. The page she turned to was blank. They all looked at each other, confused, then turned to Hailey. She simply smiled and pointed back to the page. They all let their gaze follow her finger, and slowly bubbling up on the surface of the page, letters formed that all could see.
TO REACH THE TREASURE,
YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS GIRL,
MY BLOOD HEIR, HAILEY HEARTSTONE.
SHE WILL LEAD YOU THERE.
SHE IS TO BE YOUR NAVIGATOR.
A signature sprawled underneath the words in long looping letters, spelling out a name.
The Pirate Queen herself.
The smudge-covered girl to Hailey’s right broke the silence first. “Wow,” she said as she leaned back and buried her hands in her large baggy pants. Beside her, a tall, rakish man with a thin, well trimmed mustache whistled a descending note and looked at the smudge-covered girl. The others grunted their acknowledgment of what they had seen.
Hailey heard Hadyn’s voice from behind her. She hadn’t noticed him come in.
“I told you.” She didn’t even have to turn around to know that he was smirking at the lot of them.
“It seems that we are in good company, then!” said the captain. “Let me introduce myself. I am Telos Zordebran, the elected captain of the Dark Star.”
He motioned to the large burly bald man with the long mustache behind him to his right. “This is Olau Lucki, my first mate.”
The large man was shirtless save for a leather vest, under which there was a large tattoo of a skull across his chest. He nodded his head to her and raised his left arm in greeting. At the end of the arm, where a hand should be, was a long, curved hook that glinted wickedly in the light of the room.
The captain motioned to Olau’s right, where a short, stocky man stood hunched over, his face, wild dark hair, and beard covered in soot. “Gunner Malik Smit.” Hailey had seen him earlier on the way to the galley. He had a wild look in his eye and smiled a little too broadly for any sane man. Then again, being trapped below decks running the cannon crews on a flying pirate ship would test the limits of any man’s sanity.
The captain motioned to the man in the chair. “This is our ship’s surgeon, Ciro Vinkler.” The man tipped his tall hat at her and offered a small sterile smile to her.
“To your right are Chloe Winsor, our engineer.” She looked at the smudge-covered girl and then to the tall man with the pencil-thin mustache to her right. “And the sailing master, Dan Ellis.” Chloe gave a friendly wave and Dan did a simple nod of his head.
“You’ve already met our second and third mates, Hadyn and Kyra.” Hailey nodded her head.
“Good,” he said, leaning back in his chair and smiling. “Now we can get down to business. I guess I should welcome you to the crew.” The captain’s deep and lightly accented voice seemed a bit warmer to her this time, but only slightly. He sat forward in his chair.
“Wait a minute.” Hailey’s heart began to beat quickly. She knew that she had some leverage now. They wanted her on their crew. They wanted to find the treasure. She held the upper hand here, she just had to have the guts to prove it.
Hailey sat forward in her chair, looking as though she were about to jump out of it.
“What about my dad? Is he still alive?”
“Last report say so,” said the captain as he leaned back into his chair.
“Then we have to go get him!”
Telos and Hailey stared at one another for a long, tense moment, neither of them flinching. Hailey remembered a phrase that had been repeated to her over and over again throughout her life. A simple rule in a life at sea. The captain’s hand is on the wheel, but it is the navigator who tells him where to go.
The surgeon, Ciro, broke the silence by gently offering, “We wouldn’t be able to even if we tried.”
Hailey looked at him and sat back in her chair to take the man in.
“What do you mean?”
“There are reports that after you were taken, your father found out and started an uprising.”
Hailey felt herself tearing up, but bit her lip. She was negotiating with pirates here. She couldn’t afford to show weakness. The doctor continued calmly as if delivering a report.
“They forced the bishop and his staff to flee the island. In response, the Crown has moved in and blockaded the port. We barely got our informants out in time. I’m afraid that no one is getting in or out of Daden for the time being.”
Hailey looked incredulously at Zordebran.
“You have a flying ship!”
“And they have an armada,” the captain replied.
Hadyn stepped forward and placed his hand on her shoulder. It was warm and his grip was soft, comforting.
“If you want to save your father, we need to get to the treasure. Quickly.”
Hailey saw that the captain and first officer both shot Hadyn a glance. What was going on? Why did they need to get to the treasure in order to save her father? Hailey’s mind raced to figure it out, but was stumped.
She looked up at Hadyn. “Why do we need to find the treasure first, and what’s the hurry?”
Hadyn nodded to the surgeon. Hailey turned and looked at Ciro as he removed his glasses and began to clean them with a handkerchief. He spoke, not looking at her.
“Our most recent reports tell us that the Queen ordered the area to be cleansed, I’m afraid. It looks like she put the plan in motion a few weeks ago when the book first appeared.”
Hailey looked at him, puzzled. “What does that mean?”
Kyra took a step forward and stood in between Hailey and Ciro.
“It means she’s planning to wipe them out.”
Hailey’s jaw dropped open as Kyra continued. “The Queen has a weapon, a man-made plague, that she uses to keep everyone in line. If a town or province acts up, she blockades them and releases it to wipe everyone out. After everyone is gone, she recolonizes the area with new settlers.”
Hailey felt numb, and the words fell out of her mouth like cann
on balls plunging into the deep. “Cowl’s Ridge.”
It was Cowl’s Ridge all over again.
The ridge had been a hotbed of insurrectionists with many factions, each with the goal to undermine the Queen’s rule. It was considered to be a poor area with little resources. Hailey’s mother, Rebecca, was there visiting, taking care of a pregnant friend in the last stages of labor. Hailey and her father were set to get them out of there a few days later. When Hailey and her father arrived at the edge of the town, the military had set up a quarantine. The soldiers said that some kind of plague had broken out and no one was allowed in or out. The plague killed everyone who was trapped there in the quarantine, including her mother. Hailey and her father weren’t even allowed to claim her body.
Now Hailey realized that Cowl’s Ridge wasn’t an accident, or chance, or the will of the Ancestors like the priests told her. It was genocide, and for all she knew, the priests knew, too.
Hailey’s hands clawed at the arms of the chair and her face felt hot with rage. She struggled to speak.
“So what does the murdering of all those people have to do with the treasure?”
The engineer, Chloe, stepped forward and stooped down to get eye level with her and placed a hand on Hailey’s knee, trying to comfort her.
“The plague is another gadget, just like these lights.” She pointed to the glowing light on the desk. “The blimp, the mists, the masks, even your book. They are all gadgets. Treasures from the cave that book leads us to. That only you can lead us to. One of the treasures in the cave turns the plague on and off. Right now they can’t control the plague, all they can do is set it off and wait till everyone dies. If they get their hands on that controller before we do…”
Malik, the gunner, jumped in. “The plague goes from being a cannonball to a time bomb that they can set off at any time.”
Hailey tried to talk, but her breaths were coming out too quick and sharp. Time bombs? Cannonballs? She felt as though there was a cannonball resting on her chest.
