Pillars of Six

by St Clare, Kelly

  Peg-leg returned with food, gaze flicking between her and Plank. The plate held fresh bread and cheese. “Just a bit, mind ye. How long ago did they feed ye?”

  “They gave me water. I can’t remember eatin’,” Ebba said, swinging her feet down. Plank steadied her from behind. Had Pockmark fed her? So much of her stay was a dark blur of malicious thoughts.

  “The whole time? Ten days?” Grubby asked, eyes wide.

  Only ten days. “Grog,” Ebba said.

  Peg-leg held out a goblet. “It’s just water. Only a few sips, mind. Then some bread.”

  She did as he bade, eating a few mouthfuls of the cheese and bread before handing the plate back.

  “I’m right sorry for bein’ so unpleasant to ye after Pleo,” she said, the words bursting from her cracked lips. “I couldn’t understand why ye’d lie and why ye’d conceal so much from me. But I do now. I understand that ye couldn’t speak o’ it, not that ye didn’t wish to.”

  All of her fathers froze, their expressions wide eyed and fixed, unmoving, on her face.

  “Ye do?” Plank asked, his voice trembling.

  Ebba nodded and blinked, dislodging two fat tears that trickled over the cuts and bruises on her face. “Aye, I do. Really. And I be forgivin’ ye for everythin’.”

  Plank turned away, his frame shaking as he covered his mouth.

  “What happened?” Barrels asked softly. “You know you can tell us.”

  Ebba shook her head. “Nay, Barrels. I can’t. And I shouldn’t have made any o’ ye speak o’ it either. I’m sorry for forcin’ Locks. I won’t be doin’ so with the rest o’ ye.”

  Barrels exchanged a long look with Peg-leg, and with Plank when he turned back. “Well,” Barrels said, “we mean to tell you everything anyway, if you’d do us the favor of listening. And if, by the end, you feel up to sharing, you can be assured we will listen to you too. Without judgment.”

  She didn’t answer. She knew their change of heart only came from their desire to show her she could speak of the horror.

  Was this crushing heartsickness what Caspian had felt when he sank into his nightmares? He hadn’t spoken of them either, just like her. By going back to Exosia, had he been trying to absolve his shame? Just like she’d have to find some way of doing?

  “Yer beads be gone,” Plank said as Barrels went to check on Verity.

  Ebba stared at the ceiling. “Aye,” she whispered. “They cut them off.” She didn’t tell her fathers who had given Pockmark the idea and cut out the third strand of beads. But only because Jagger had gotten her away from that soulless place. He’d probably saved her life when he told Pockmark, anyway. Him doing so saved her from death. And maybe by not mentioning Jagger’s actions to her fathers, Ebba was atoning, in part, for the ugliness within her. Though . . . she just felt more shame and darkness at the thought. She should have to feel shame to the fullest degree.

  “We’ll get ye more beads,” Grubby said after a full minute.

  Ebba turned away from him, facing Jagger. “Nay, I don’t want any more,” she said. At their doubtful silence, she added, “I’d like to wash.” Maybe if she scrubbed hard enough, Ebba would feel better.

  Plank helped her down the passage. “Away with ye, Pillage!” He scolded the cat, who was up to his usual tripping antics. “She be injured, ye furry heathen. Not the time.”

  Her father led her to where Peg-leg was heating water over the fire pit. They left her with a drying cloth and scrubbing brush. What she really wanted was to immerse herself in water and be fully clean, but she was so weak, she’d likely drown.

  Sally flew in as Ebba shucked the last of her clothes. The wind sprite picked up the scrubbing brush, dipping it in the water, and began rubbing Ebba’s arms free of the stinking and matted slime covering them. The wind sprite continued moving to and from the cauldron to Ebba, washing her.

  “Sal?” Ebba whispered after several minutes of these ministrations. “Why didn’t ye come for me?”

  Sally mewled and came to float in front of her, shoulders slumping. The wind sprite pointed at herself, and then down the hall. Ebba stepped forward to see where she was pointing.

  “Verity?” she asked.

  The sprite pointed at herself and then flexed her arm muscles before pointing at the deck and making a scary face.

  “Malice might’ve fed off ye if they’d caught ye? Is that what ye’re sayin’?”

  Sally nodded, and Ebba’s heart lightened by the tiniest fraction. Sally hadn’t left her there without reason. “I’m understandin’. But I’m afraid the pillars be back anyhow. I saw six shadows form out o’ thin air. What happens now they’ve returned, Sal?”

  The wind sprite returned her question with a serious expression, which Ebba took to mean ‘nothing good.’

  “Verity said they’ll grow more powerful now. We gotta do sumpin’ to help. If my fathers ain’t goin’ to, I’ll need to find the answers myself.”

  Sally jerked a thumb at her chest.

  “Thanks, Sal.” Ebba wouldn’t be alone.

  The sprite hugged Ebba’s face again and went back to her work, washing Ebba from head to toe. The heat of the water was soothing on some primal level, and by the end, she was clean and dressed in fresh clothing.

  “Thank ye.” Ebba sighed. Plank was right; she did feel less like a rotten cutthroat now.

  There was just one thing she had to do before she went back to her hammock. If the purgium had been on her when Malice took her hostage, it would’ve been a terrible thing, but that aside, Ebba would never let the purgium or the dynami out of her sight again. She’d never really cared enough to know why Malice wanted these objects so badly. And that was her error. She hadn’t taken the threat of Pockmark seriously. Maybe if she or her fathers had, Ebba would have connected the parallels between the pillars and Malice sooner. But after what she’d experienced on that ship, Ebba couldn’t allow the magic tubes to fall into the pillars’ hands. They were too powerful already. Already unstoppable in her mind. However the two cylinders fit into finding the root of magic, Ebba could feel that the two objects were vital to bringing down the pillars of six or, at least, preventing the shadows from becoming invincible. If the pillars once had possession of the root of magic and were thwarted by the three mortal watchers, then Ebba highly doubted the evil immortals would allow a repeat of history.

  The pillars couldn’t get their hands on the purgium or the dynami. Ever. The healing cylinder was staying in Ebba’s belt for safekeeping.

  Ebba wrenched open the kitchen drawer she’d hidden the purgium in, digging into the back by the spoons. Barrels had purchased the spoons way back when, but even he used his fingers and daggers to eat nowadays, so no one ever ventured here for fancy cutlery. She was the only one onboard who could hold the healing tube. The Earth Mother had warned her that her fathers could never touch it.

  Smiling grimly, Ebba’s fingers brushed the purgium. Her smile was struck from her face as a stabbing pain pierced through her chest.

  She screamed as the purgium melded to her palm, forcing her fingers closed around it. White pain seared through her body. Agony encompassed her very soul.

  And everything went black.

  * * *

  “Ebba!” Someone shook her. “Ebba.”

  She groaned and lifted both hands to her throbbing head. “Who let Grubby make the grog?”

  Sally and Barrels loomed over her. Her father’s salt-and-pepper hair had escaped its tie. “You touched the purgium. It did something to you, my dear.” He shouted down the passage for her other fathers.

  Ebba frowned as he crouched by her side again. “It healed me?” Her eyes rounded, and she gasped. “Shite! Do I still have my limbs?” What if the purgium had taken her arm, like it took Caspian’s?

  “Yes. . . .” He wrapped an arm about her shoulders to help her sit.

  Ebba listened to her fathers’ pounding footsteps down the hall. Despite Barrels’ reassurance, she searched herself for missing body parts, sa
gging when everything seemed the same. Too much the same. “I still have my scratches and bruises,” she mused as her fathers gathered around her.

  The healing cylinder hadn’t fixed those when it knocked her out.

  The strange expressions on her fathers’ faces pulled her up short.

  “What?” Ebba demanded, heart thundering. “What is it?”

  Sally bobbed behind them, her mouth hanging open.

  Stubby rubbed the back of his head. “Ye have some white hair now, lass.”

  “Really? Where? Let me see.”

  Barrels hurried back to his office and brought back the small mirror her fathers used to shave on the rare occasion.

  Holding the mirror up, Ebba peered at her reflection. “Tired jokes o’ a down-trodden clownfish,” she breathed.

  Six of her dreads, three on either side of her middle parting, had been leached of their ebony black color and were now stark white. The blanched dreads stood out like a star on an inky-black night.

  “Did it heal the taint in ye, little nymph?” Plank asked. Did she detect hope in his voice?

  The taint. She lowered the mirror to look at him. That possibility hadn’t even crossed her mind. Ebba closed her eyes. The crushing shame she’d felt, the haunting darkness, the self-doubt, the drive to do endless right to make herself feel better. . . . “It be gone,” she whispered, opening her eyes. She took a breath, and it filled her completely. “I’m feelin’ much better. Nearly like afore it happened. The purgium got rid o’ the taint in me,” she said in amazement, utterly certain of it.

  She felt as light as a feather in comparison to five minutes prior.

  “Thank the oblivion for that,” Stubby choked out.

  Peg-leg paced. “Ye shouldn’t have touched the tube at all after being tainted, Ebba-Viva! Ye’re right lucky the purgium only took the color from some o’ yer hair.”

  “Aye, I know,” she replied, chastened. “I didn’t think about that. I’ve always been able to touch it afore.” If she had thought about the difference, she’d never have touched the healing cylinder.

  “But why didn’t it heal her cuts and bruises?” Stubby asked, a furrow between his brows. “Aside from the one on yer neck. That one be gone.”

  Ebba dropped her gaze to her hands and legs. The conversation she’d had with the prince after Pleo came back to her. After finding out the truth of how she’d come to be with her fathers, Ebba had wondered why the purgium wouldn’t heal her of sadness. Caspian had supposed it was because the magical object knew she’d get better by herself. “The purgium only heals things ye can’t be healin’ yerself,” she said slowly, adding, “And Pockmark nicked my neck with a blade that must’ve been tainted.”

  Barrels’ brows rose. “That would fit. That’s . . . very clever of you, my dear.”

  “Caspian had the thought afore me,” she admitted.

  The slight confusion disappeared from her father’s face.

  Ebba mentally studied the lightness in her chest. She felt grateful. Impossibly grateful, as though she’d dodged one thousand bullets and was somehow standing, lucky to be alive. She’d lost the color in some of her dreads after being tainted on Malice over ten days. Caspian had survived, minus an arm, after the quick-spreading tainted infection of his wound. She knew that tainted wounds claimed a soul much faster than the ‘normal’ way of being slowly infected by the ship. Though Verity had said tainted wounds demanded a smaller sacrifice. Ebba only lost the color from six dreadlocks, not an arm, which seemed like impossible luck. Then again, Caspian was pretty near the end when they healed him.

  Now, Ebba wanted everyone else onboard to feel as she did. Free of oppressive shame experienced by her fathers when they’d sailed under Pockmarks’ grandfather.

  . . . His grandfather.

  The pillars had returned to the realm fifty years ago. Pockmark was in his twenties, and he’d killed his father in his teens. “His father can’t’ve been fifty yet, surely.”

  “What’s that, lass?” Locks asked.

  She did the numbers again and came up with the same result. “The pillars weren’t with Pockmark’s father. They were with his grandfather,” Ebba whispered, eyes wide on her hands. “That be a parallel too.” Just like the parallels she’d missed between Malice and the pillars.

  Barrels cleared his throat.

  “The pillars returned fifty years ago,” Ebba said urgently. “Pockmark said the pillars were in his father, but what if they were in Mutinous Cannon, too? What if all the shame ye’ve carried with ye since desertin’ Cannon be the taint?” Conviction swelled within her, even in the face of her fathers’ baffled faces. “The feelin’ ye describe be the exact same. And Verity said the pillars have been able to feed faster in recent years as they grew stronger, so the pillars’ taint was weaker back then, but there all the same. Some o’ ye sailed with Cannon for near-on twenty years. And nothin’ can heal the taint but the purgium. That’s why ye never got better!”

  No one uttered a sound.

  Ebba didn’t need their agreement. She knew in her very bones that her guess was right. Except something occurred to her. “Were Cannon’s eyes flooded with black?”

  She was grateful when Plank didn’t query the oddness of her question. “Uh, nay, little nymph. Not when we knew him.”

  “Which meant he can’t’ve been con’tagious with the taint,” she said, frowning. “So how’d ye get tainted?”

  Stubby opened his mouth, and closed it again. He glanced at Locks and then said, “Ye’re sayin’ the taint can only be spread when the person’s eyes be black, lass?”

  “Aye. Verity said that means the heart has been taken and the soul belongs to the pillars. Jagger said the Malice crew’s eyes had just turned black when we left the ship.”

  Locks forehead was creased. “And if ye’re tainted, it doesn’t go away?”

  “We already know the answer to that,” Barrels answered before she could. “Our own dark thoughts have never lessened. Though, from Caspian’s experience, I’d say tainted wounds behave differently.” He glanced at Ebba and she nodded.

  “They go faster,” she clarified.

  “Ye’d think the pillars would just wound everyone on the ship then and take them over quick-like,” Plank mused.

  Peg-leg grimaced. “Six minds in one. I’d say if they didn’t, there be nasty-like reason for it.”

  Apparently, her ramblings had them believing too.

  “Do ye think she could be right?” Plank said quietly. “We ain’t been on Malice, but we all saw what happened to Caspian. And Ebba, even Jagger.”

  Stubby shared another look with Locks. “And I’m thinkin’ that me and Locks have an inkling o’ how Cannon might’ve managed to taint the crew.”

  They all turned to the pair.

  “He used to give us a thimble o’ blood to spread between the grog barrels,” Stubby admitted.

  Ebba’s eyes widened. “Why’d he give it to ye?”

  Stubby’s lips mashed together before he forced out, “I was his first mate.”

  “And I hated blood. No doubt assignin’ me the task amused him.” Locks reminded her. “We’d put a drop in each barrel. Each time we filled the hold, it were the same.”

  Barrels’ face was ashen. “I drank his blood?”

  “Aye, matey. All o’ the crew did,” Stubby admitted in a low voice.

  Peg-leg grunted. “That makes me feel right ill. But there be the answer. Cannon knew exactly what he was doin’. We’re all tainted and have been all these years.” He grunted again. “Taint be a good word for what I feel.”

  “Logic checks out to me, if the grog were tampered with his blood,” Plank said, shaking his head. “The theory be worth considerin’ at least.”

  Barrels was staring at her. Then he shifted his gaze to the purgium. All six of her fathers did.

  She could tell by the envious way they looked at the healing cylinder that they wanted the same relief from their heartsickness. But Jagger had been on the shi
p for years, Verity for weeks, and her fathers? Who knew how long the taint had managed to work on them. That was why the Earth Mother had warned her about them touching the tube. The sodding Earth Mother must’ve known her fathers were tainted. She’d mentioned that their souls were crying for absolution, but she could’ve spoke plain and saved them some bloody trouble. Cryptic wench. For her fathers, the sacrifice to heal would be bigger than what she’d paid—maybe bigger than what Caspian had paid. Possibly the ultimate price. As much as Ebba wanted them to feel as she did, none of the crew could touch the purgium.

  “What if ye’d lost yer arm or leg?” Peg-leg exploded, making her jump. He left the hold in a flurry of temper, his wooden stump tapping down the passage as he went.

  Grubby squeezed her hand. “I think yer hair be lookin’ right nice.”

  She smiled at him. “I like it, too. I ain’t never seen a pirate with white dreadlocks afore. Though I feel right lucky it weren’t more, and I’m just glad that we finally know why none o’ ye ever got better,” Ebba told them.

  “Aye, me too,” Locks whispered, rubbing his chest. “I’ve never understood why I felt the way I did. Even if we can’t touch the purgium, just knowin’ there be a reason for the dark in me feels. . . .”

  “Validating,” Barrels offered.

  Her fathers chorused, “Aye.”

  “Validatin’,” Stubby repeated.

  Ebba sighed, closing her eyes briefly. “I could never connect any o’ ye to the cutthroats my blood mother described. I feel like everythin’ is back where it ought to be.”

  Plank gripped her shoulder. “We be right glad for that, little nymph.”

  Her fathers dispersed back to their posts, and Locks helped her back to bed. The purgium certainly hadn’t healed her aches and physical pains. Stupid thing. She’d forgive it, seeing as the magic object healed her soul, though.

  For the rest of the day, Ebba slept and ate, watching as Locks and Grubby woke Verity and Jagger every couple of hours to feed them. The emaciated pair drank and ate in a half-stupor and were asleep again before their heads hit the hammock. It amazed her that they could even be alive after their ordeal. Verity had lasted a month before nearing death. Jagger had lasted a month and was somehow still standing. And he’d been willing to return to Malice after saving her and Verity.