Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull

by James Raney

  The Captain tightened his grip on his sword. He leaned forward over the prow, staring hard at the rock. Stillness and quiet held over the waters. Beads of sweat prickled upon the back of Jim’s neck and on his forehead. In the distance beyond the rocks, the bottom curve of the blood red sun touched the horizon beyond the rocks.

  The rock shimmered again. The jagged edges of stone melted into a darkened shadow of mast and sails. The boulder twisted and turned and reformed into the hull of a ship, the iron letters of Sea Spider running along her flank. When the magical transformation was made complete, yellow light flashed and white smoke burst from the Sea Spider’s hull. Thunderous cannon fire roared over the waters.

  “Get down!” Steele cried. The Captain threw himself over Jim as the prow exploded in a shower of splinters. The entire ship shook and the mainmast trembled beneath the blows. “Turn us about Mister Gilley and return fire!” Steele roared again. He climbed back to his feet, leaving Jim on the deck with his ears still ringing. Yet even Mister Gilley, master of the wheel, could not turn the Spectre about fast enough. The Sea Spider had the jump on her and launched another volley over the deck. Barrels burst into bits and shudders shook the ship, throwing the pirate crew on their backs.

  “A curse upon Splitbeard and his damnable magic!” Dread Steele cried. “A trickster and a coward he is. He never shows his true face until the last moment. Get us about now, Mister Gilley! Return fire!”

  Finally the Spectre came about, blasting her cannons at Splitbeard’s ship. But the shots had been rushed, and the cannonballs splashed into the waves or sailed over the deck. The Sea Spider was not even slowed, and she continued to lurch toward the Devil’s Horns.

  “Captain Steele!” Jim shouted over the din. “They’re headed for the Horns! They’ve got us turned in the wrong direction and they’re going to trap us out here when the sun sets!”

  “Never count out Dread Steele and the Spectre until all is said and done, lad. Mister Mufwalme!” The Captain shouted. “Another volley if you please – slow them down!” The Spectre shook again with cannon fire. Thick, white smoke filled the air, but the blasts did little to impede the Spider, and the Spectre still sailed on the wrong side of the Devil’s Horns. Old Egidio had said that the ship must sail east through the Horns in order to pass onto the Veiled Isle, facing the setting sun. But Jim saw there was no way the mighty ship, stalwart and fast as she may have been, could possibly sail around to the other side and beat the Sea Spider through.

  “We’re not going to make it!” Jim cried. He slammed his fist onto the railings. The Cromiers were going to beat him again. Jim gritted his teeth so hard he could hear them grind in his ears. His skin tingled with heat as though all the blood in his body caught fire at once. But Dread Steele still stood tall and undaunted on the deck.

  “Take heart, young Morgan! I did not become Lord of the Pirates watching others perform feats of magic without learning a trick or two of my own. Follow me!” Steele sprinted to the quarterdeck, pausing only to kick aside smashed bits of wood blocking his path.

  “Mister Gilly!” the Captain shouted to the portly pirate. Gilly was, as usual, standing tall at the wheel, steering as easily as if out for some fishing on a calm day. “Point us for the Horns, if you will.”

  “But Captain!” Jim protested. “We have to go through the Horns travelling east if we want to pass into the Veiled Isle!”

  “True enough, Jim,” Steele said, almost laughing. “But we aren’t going to pass through to the Veiled Isle this night - and neither shall the Sea Spider. Watch and learn, my boy.” From his pocket, Dread Steele withdrew a small pouch. From the pouch he produced a few white feathers, like those fallen from a gull’s wings. The Captain rolled the feathers between his hands until the down crumbled to dust. Then he took a deep breath and blew the powder into the Spectre’s sails.

  “Hold on to something!” Steele commanded. “Hold on, all of you, for dear life!” Jim seized one of the few railings not blasted to bits by the Sea Spider’s cannonball barrage and squeezed his eyes shut…and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Jim peeked one eye open.

  “Well,” he said. “That was rather anticlimac-” The words had not even left his lips when the Spectre surged forward as though shoved in the back by a hurricane’s hand. Jim’s grip loosed from the railing and he tumbled backwards, head over heels as the great ship of the sea roared through the waves. Yet neither Dread Steele nor Mister Gilly so much as tipped backwards. Gilly steered back and forth, avoiding rocks as though they weren’t even there while Dread Steele laughed at the top of his lungs. He only grew grim again when he drew his sword.

  “Brace for impact! Prepare your hearts for battle, men! We shall take the Sea Spider for a prize!” Jim finally got to his feet again as the Spectre flew toward the horns. Mister Gilly aimed the ship to pass through the magic gate from the wrong direction and collide head on with Sea Spider as she attempted to enter.

  “Perhaps you’ll hold onto something a little tighter this time, eh, Lord Morgan?” Steele said over his shoulder to Jim. Jim took his advice to heart. He grabbed hold of the railing once more and shut his eyes tight. The two ships slammed into each other with a crack like thunder.

  Jim pitched forward and nearly flipped over the railing. His hands burned on the rough wood as he held on for dear life. Dread Steele once again hardly wavered from where he stood, holding forth his sword.

  “Draw blades!” the Captain commanded. The metallic ring of cutlasses, knives, and daggers leaping from scabbards echoed in the evening air. A howling battle cry erupted over the two decks and Splitbeard’s rough-necked crew poured over the railings and onto the Spectre.

  “CHARGE!” Steele bellowed. His pirate crew loosed their own cries and ran forward to meet the Corsairs. The clash of men and steel filled the air.

  “Get below, Jim! Get below now!” Steele ordered. Then he was off. He leapt down onto the main deck and joined the fray. Jim was halfway down the steps to the captain’s quarters when his eyes drifted above the melee and over the sea to the distant horizon. The sun, red as blood, sank deeper and deeper beneath the waves. With it, any chance of reaching the isle that night slowly slipped away.

  As Jim shielded his eyes from the crimson glare, he caught sight of the Sea Spider, now nothing but a black shape against the burning light of the setting sun. A thought struck him. Jim had seen the Cromiers fight Dread Steele twice now. Both times Bartholomew had been first into battle. The pale captain was never afraid of a fight, not even against Dread Steele. Yet Bartholomew had not come charging over the rails with the other pirates – nor had his father, nor that fiend, Splitbeard.

  They were not hiding, Jim suddenly realized. The Schemer - that’s what Janus had called Count Cromier in his story. A Schemer would be doing more than cowering – he would be sneaking.

  Jim squinted harder in the red sunlight. After a moment of searching, he saw the shadowy shape of a small boat slide into the water from beside the Sea Spider. Several silhouetted figures climbed silently aboard. Jim had no need to see their faces. He knew who they were and what they were attempting to do. He had to warn Dread Steele! The Cromiers had to be stopped before -

  A desperate idea slipped into Jim’s mind, like water running through his fingers. The flute song began to play again in Jim’s head. The itch at the back of his mind became a burning whisper.

  There is another way, the whisper said. The Cromiers will row right past the Spectre on their way to the Horns. The Red Count and Bartholomew will be together, in the boat – right next to each other. You will be able to see them both together.

  For a moment, Jim tried to fight it. But the voice and the flute song grew too loud. He felt his fingers crawl to his jacket pocket. Before he even knew it had happened, his box found its way into his hands.

  TWENTY–TWO

  im turned to climb the steps back to the quarterdeck. From there he would have the best vantage of the Cromiers’ boat as they tri
ed to slip past the Spectre. The battle raged about the main deck below. Cannon and pistol smoke hovered like a fog and there seemed to be no end to the Corsairs pouring through the smoky mist. Splitbeard’s wild pirates shrieked and howled. Pistols cracked and swords clashed. In the center of them all Dread Steele held his ground. He fought four or five Corsairs at once, beating them soundly, until they fell back from him in terror. A squirming twist tied itself in Jim’s stomach as watched the brave crew battle so desperately.

  “I’m just helping,” he told himself. He gritted his teeth and shook his head fiercely to rid himself of the lump in his gut. “Dread Steele and his men can take care of the Corsairs. I’ll handle the Cromiers.”

  Jim slowly climbed the steps, determined to at last finish what he started in the enchanted fog on the beach near his burnt home. But just as Jim was about to reach the quarterdeck, a hand seized him by the shoulder and yanked him back. Jim whirled and raised his hands to fight off whoever it was attempting to stop him. But that someone turned out to be Lacey, and she seemed furious enough with Jim to wage a war of her very own against an army of Corsairs. Cornelius sat upon her shoulder and the Ratts stood behind her, their wide eyes fixed on the mad fight about them.

  “Jim Morgan, just what do you think you’re doing?” Lacey all but screamed. “I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a war going on out here and you’re going to get yourself, and all of us, killed! You were supposed to hide in the captain’s quarters!”

  “I agree, I agree!” Cornelius squawked. “It is madness for you to be out here! Do you not remember the Captain’s orders? We must fly to the cabin immediately!”

  “There’s no time to explain. There’s something I have to do!” Jim wrenched himself free from Lacey’s grasp and charged back to the quarterdeck, where he could see more clearly over the clouds of white smoke.

  “No time for what?” Lacey cried. Jim could hear her and the Ratts running up behind him.

  “Get below, all of you!” Jim shouted over his shoulder. He was already scanning the waters below for any sign of the Cromiers. “Get to where it’s safe. The Cromiers and Splitbeard are going to sneak through the Devil’s Horns before the sun sets and I have to stop them!”

  “The Captain! The Captain!” Cornelius cawed. He flapped his wings furiously and flew up to perch on Jim’s shoulder. “We must tell the Captain!”

  “Listen to him, Jim,” Lacey cried. She reached up once more and pulled hard on Jim’s sleeve to slow him down. “Tell Captain Steele. He’ll know what to do!”

  “He’s in the middle of a battle, Lacey, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Jim snapped as he yanked his sleeve from Lacey’s grasp. “Besides, I already know what to do. So get back to the cabin and let me do it!”

  “We’re with you, Jim,” George cried, his brothers shouting their agreement beside him. “Tell us what to do, mate, and we’ll help!”

  But Jim was no longer paying any attention. His father’s box had become so heavy in his hands that it was as though it pulled him toward the quarterdeck’s railing. The hot fever in Jim’s mind was now a runaway flame. All of Jim’s thoughts were bent toward turning the tables on the Cromiers. This is your chance, the whisper said to him. This is your chance to finally take something back - to set things right at last.

  Jim skidded to a halt at the quarterdeck’s railing, nearly pitching himself into the water as he looked over the side. At first, he saw nothing but crawling tendrils of cannon smoke over the waves. But soft splashes soon slapped the water nearby. From the smoke, just below where Jim stood, came the rowboat, quiet as a ghost in the water as it sneaked past the battle. The light of the setting sun illuminated Count Cromier’s crimson curls and Bartholomew’s raven-wing hair.

  Jim’s face flushed so warm that sweat ran down his cheeks and onto his chin. He gripped his father’s box tight. The sun was halfway dipped below the horizon’s waters and the unsuspecting Cromiers were just below him, with no idea that Jim had spied them out. The moment to strike was now.

  “Jim, please!” Lacey cried yet again. If Jim had been listening he would have heard the tears in her voice. “Cornelius can fly to the Captain and tell him! Let’s go back down below, please!” Jim’s friends pressed closer around him than ever, squeezing him against the railing. But Jim would not be deterred. He opened the lid of his box.

  The violet glow cast itself into Jim’s eyes from within once more.

  An invisible bubble of magic around Jim muted the crashing of the battle and the cries of his friends. Only the whisper in the flute’s song grew clearer. It urged Jim over and over to strike.

  Jim took the blackened rose stem in his fingers. The heat from the rose surprised him. It burned his fingertips, but he refused to let it go. The Ratts and Lacey still pressed close about him, Lacey still pleading with Jim to listen. But all Jim could see was the glowing rose and the Cromiers in the boat beyond.

  Jim fixed the Count and Bartholomew in his sights.

  He dropped his father’s box and took the rose stem in one hand, the black thorn aflame in violent light.

  He pulled the rose back and pictured it all in his mind - he, the victorious hero, the Treasure of the Ocean in his grasp. The Cromiers defeated, locked behind bars with Aunt Margarita.

  The flute song reached a crescendo and the rose’s heat flared up Jim’s arm and into his chest. There was nothing left to stop him.

  Jim jabbed the thorn into his left thumb. Drops of blood flowed fast onto the thorn.

  The violet light curled back into the rose like a drawn breath. In a great flash it then blasted back out again. The burst of magic left only a wisp of black smoke where the rose had been a moment ago. A white-hot needle of searing pain pierced Jim’s hand and he cried out in agony.

  “Oh, Jim, what have you done to yourself?” Lacey cried. Then a great many things happened at once.

  A ferocious wind rose up over the sea and whipped across the deck. The Ratts and Lacey, who had already pressed tight up against the railing as they shrunk from the battle, were thrown against Jim harder still. The oak railings, weakened by the magical blast from the rose, cracked. The entire section broke away.

  Jim and the others pitched overboard.

  Down Jim fell, tumbling end over end toward the water. Lacey screamed somewhere to his right. The Ratts cried out somewhere to his left. Cornelius squawked all about his head. Yet all Jim felt was the blinding pain in his hand - even when his head hit the railing that had fallen before them. The water, whipped by the wind, rose over his face. Even as Jim’s vision turned to black, the burning fire from the black rose thorn coursed through his body and blocked out all else in the world but pain.

  ONE

  im opened his eyes and found himself lying face first in a pile of wet sand. He coughed violently and spat out a lungful of water. The first thing Jim realized, other than that he was soaked from head to toe, was that his head ached terribly from a nasty bump at his temple. The second thing he realized was that he had no idea where on earth he was. Ocean waves washed onto a yellow sand beach. The shore ran up to a shelf of large boulders. Beyond the rocks, bright green hills rolled inland, dotted with bushes and trees.

  Jim pushed himself onto to his hands and knees, wondering if he had just woken from some bizarre dream. He had been in a battle at sea, on a ship amongst a ring of jagged rocks. There had been a black rose, and a voice inside his head urging him to strike now. Then he remembered falling - down, down until he hit the water. That was when he had woken. Jim was just guessing what such a dream might mean when a stabbing pain seared his left thumb. The burning spread into the palm of his hand, where it settled and throbbed.

  It had not been a dream after all. The battle and the black rose had been real. The pain in Jim’s hand would have been proof enough, but a few feet away, the broken railing upon which he had struck his head lay half-buried in the sand. Farther beyond the splintered wood, staring back at him with large, frightened eyes, sat Lacey and the Ratts,
as soaked with water and caked in sand as Jim.

  “Jim, are you alright?” Lacey asked. “Your head hit the rail so hard. I tried to reach you, but the wind was just blowing and blowing the waves. I thought I lost you.”

  “Your head sounded like a coconut, mate,” George said, brushing sand out of his face.

  “Right,” Peter said. “An empty coconut!” He and Paul laughed between chokes and coughs of seawater.

  “Your head must be as hard as George’s to have survived that, Jim,” added Paul.

  “Hard as a rock!” George bragged. He smiled and wrapped his knuckles against the side of his noggin. “Me and Jim got heads hard as boulders, don’t we Jim? The hardest heads there are!”

  “It’s not a compliment!” Lacey shouted. “Stop making jokes. This is serious.” But George and his brothers were already head-butting each other to test George’s boast and ignoring Lacey entirely.

  “Where are we?” Jim asked.

  “We, young Morgan, are on an island,” came a caw from above. Cornelius flapped down on the sand between Lacey and Jim. “I’ve just circled it from above, and as far as I can tell, it is indeed the Veiled Island for which we came searching. And it is a much larger island than I thought it might be from the outset.”

  “We came through the Devil’s Horns?” Jim asked. He turned on his knees in the sand and looked back at the ocean. Sure enough, sitting not a quarter-mile out in the water, two curved stones rose out of the sea to form the gate. But not a single other rock, nor the Spectre or Sea Spider, could be seen at all.

  Jim touched the painful spot on the side of his head and furrowed his brow. “I must have been knocked out for hours and hours. The sun was nearly set and it was all but night when we fell overboard. Now it’s early morning. One of you could have at least set me on my back for all that time. I might have drowned!”

  “No, Jim,” said Lacey. An anxious wrinkle creased her forehead. “It was morning the moment we came through the Devil’s Horns. You were only unconscious for a moment or two.”