by Kai Meyer
“Never in your life!”
“But that was what you always wanted,” said the Trader, and Jolly confessed that she’d had the same idea.
“I’m certainly not just going to go away.” Munk turned around and walked back to the railing. Jolly could see the feelings battling in his face, disappointment and also rage. “The ladder!” he cried imperiously to the ghost, but the ghost didn’t move. Other ghosts were now wafting over the ship, some from below deck, others from the rigging, where they’d been indistinguishable from shreds of fog.
“All right,” said Munk, “then don’t.”
He made a move toward the railing, but Jolly ran forward and held him back. “Wait. Let’s hear what he has to say first.”
The Ghost Trader nodded to her and came forward. “Please, Munk, I mean you no harm, and I do not intend to abduct you against your will.”
Munk hesitated, cast a quick glance at Jolly, and then pulled his leg back on deck. “What do you want, then?”
“And what kind of a ship is this?” Jolly asked.
“A former slave ship,” said the Trader. “The crew let most of the men and women they’d crowded belowdecks starve to death. The ones who stayed alive decided to revolt. So the crew and the slaves mutually annihilated each other, until finally there was no one left alive at all. The ship ran aground just off a small island, where I found it twenty or thirty years later.”
Jolly examined him disdainfully. “What you do with the ghosts is no different from what the slave traders do with their prisoners.”
“But I haven’t called them up. I only gather in those who wander around restlessly anyway. Basically, they re happy if someone cares about them and gives them occupation.” He smiled, but there was concern in the smile and a hint of sorrow. “But it’s not about the ghosts now, it’s about you. You are both in great danger.” His eyes skimmed over Jolly. “Had I known that you’re a polliwog … it appears I’ve made a mistake. I’ve always looked only at the farmer and not at you pirates.” After a shake of the head, he continued, “I’ll help you. But if you remain on the island, they’ll find you. And I fear it won’t be long now. The signs are increasing. The winds bring disquiet with them, and there’s something in the air that I don’t like.”
“Who’ll find us?” Munk asked.
Jolly took a step toward the Ghost Trader. “The same men who set the trap for the Maddy?”
“Worse than them, although they’re on the same side,” said the one-eyed man. “The Maelstrom is turning again. And he hunts for servants who carry out his will with every fiber of their bodies.”
Jolly and Munk exchanged a look. Maelstrom? Servants? What was he talking about?
“You’ll soon understand some of this if I can persuade you to come away from here with—”
A smack interrupted him.
All three whirled around. At first Jolly didn’t see what had made the noise. But then her eye fell on something lying on the deck, only a few feet away.
A dead fish.
“Where did that—”
Again the same noise. And again. Jolly saw a fish body drop from above, crash through a ghost, and shred it to fog before the body reassembled itself just as quickly.
“Damn it!” swore the Ghost Trader.
“What is it?” Jolly poked her toe against the fish that lay closest to her.
Now other dead fish were hailing down onto the deck. One grazed her shoulder; she avoided another just before it could hit her in the face.
As if from nowhere, a regular rain of dead fish poured from the cloudless sky.
“The breath of the Maelstrom,” murmured the Ghost Trader, staring tensely into the wall of fog. “There’s something here.”
From a distance there came the sound of a primitive shriek.
The Trader’s eyes narrowed. “The Acherus. They’ve sent out the Acherus!”
Munk was jumping with agitation. “Where did that come from?”
Jolly bent over the railing as if she could better gauge the direction that way. But the shriek echoed and was not repeated a second time.
“Did that come from the island?” Munk’s shrill voice was almost out of control. “Is it … is it on the island?”
Jolly looked back at the Ghost Trader, She was frightened when she saw how pale he’d become; he looked like one of the beings he dealt in.
“It’s at my parents’, isn’t it?” Munk stared at the Trader, wide-eyed. The man didn’t need to reply. His expression was answer enough.
“Munk!” cried Jolly. “Wait!”
But it was too late. With a bound, he leaped over the railing.
Messenger From the Maelstrom
Jolly heard a smothered oath as Munk hit the water. He was lucky he hadn’t broken both legs. But as she looked down, she saw him running over the water straight at the fog wall.
“Munk!”
“Jolly,” cried the Ghost Trader warningly, “don’t do it! The Acherus is no—”
She didn’t hear the rest as she swung herself over the railing on one hand and jumped down to the water. She landed on her feet and one hand, cursed loudly and much more distinctly than Munk over the pain in her limbs, and at the same time rushed away.
“Munk, wait! I’m coming with you.”
She saw him ahead of her in the fog but caught up with him only when they’d just broken out of the fog again and were running over the open sea toward the distant island as fast as they could.
Several times she grabbed Munk when, in his panic and anxiety, he lost his balance on the rolling waves. But he ran silently on, not looking to the side, only running obdurately toward the island, the gray cone of the mountain over the dark green of the jungle.
Once Jolly looked back over her shoulder and had the impression that the fog was following them. But she didn’t worry about it. She thought she knew what Munk was feeling—she’d had similar feelings when she’d had to leave Bannon and the others behind aboard the galleon. It seemed wrong to be unharmed while the people you cared about were in danger of their lives. Just as Munk was unwilling to give up now, she was also unready to accept Bannon’s death.
They were now close enough to the shore to see the colorful swarms of birds fluttering over the forest trees. Hundreds, thousands of birds of all species, as if all the feathered creatures on the island had taken flight at once, to now circle around the island with indignant screeching.
Below Jolly’s feet something flitted along under the waves, looking blurry and splintered under the shimmering water.
Kobalins!
But they were cowardly, weak ones, who didn’t dare grab for their feet—most of them avoided the air and the sunshine. Only the biggest of them were brave enough to stick their claws out of the water. The kobalin in the wreck of the Maddy must have been a chieftain, one of the leaders of the deep-sea tribes.
Nobody knew much about them. They hadn’t been around for that long. But for them to attack men on land was as improbable as an eagle’s hunting underwater. And although they could screech and bellow like berserkers, that shriek before was something different: a hundred times louder than any kobalin shriek Jolly had ever heard before now, and a thousand times angrier.
She was gradually running out of breath, while Munk kept racing along with a determination born of fear for his parents. She was also worried, but they would both soon lose their strength if they kept up this pace.
“Munk … there’s no point if we’re … completely done in by the time we get to the island … that won’t help anyone.” Whatever had uttered the shriek would easily take on two completely exhausted fourteen-year-olds.
But Munk didn’t listen to her.
“Munk, damn it all!” She grabbed him by the shoulder as they ran.
He turned furiously, so angry that she shrank back before him. This wasn’t the Munk she’d gotten to know in the past few days. Anger and fear distorted his face, and in his eyes was a determination that sent a shudder down Jolly’s b
ack. “It’s my parents, Jolly! I’ll do what I think is right!” His voice showed his exhaustion, but he had himself amazingly well under control.
She wanted to say something, but he was already running on again, just leaving her standing. Jolly cursed softly and bent over with a stitch in her side, but then she gritted her teeth and followed him. Soon they were running even faster.
The shriek came a second time, and this time the bird swarm exploded over the island in all directions, like a shimmering fountain. Shots sounded, one after the other, then, after a pause, a third.
Jolly looked over at Munk, but his face was frozen. Sweat beaded his forehead and cheeks, his neck glistened, but he ran onward like a ship under full sail that nothing and no one could stop.
They rounded the reefs, crossed the shallow semicircle of the bay, and finally stumbled onto land. When Munk’s feet touched the ground, he stood still for a moment. All over the beach lay dead fish, strewn around like seed that a giant had thrown on the island in passing. The corpses had already begun to decay in the sun, and their stench hung over the island like a bell jar.
The stink of death. In spite of the heat and her exhaustion, Jolly began to shiver. Her arms were covered with sweat and with gooseflesh at the same time.
Munk closed his eyes for a couple of seconds.
“You can’t help them … if you … kill yourself,” Jolly gasped. “We have to find out what it is, first….”
“Yes,” he said grimly. “By looking at it.”
And he ran again, up to the edge of the jungle and soon through the muggy shade of the trees. Jolly’s breath rattled when she inhaled. She had drawn her narrow dagger, which she’d worn since the attack on the alleged Spanish ship; now it looked ridiculous against whatever it was that she pictured from the sound of that shriek.
They stumbled through the dense underbrush—and suddenly were standing in a narrow, extended clearing.
A strangled sound escaped Munk.
Something had mowed down the jungle around them. House-high mahogany trunks were broken in two or uprooted, giant ferns and hibiscus bushes completely ground up. And over all lay a carpet of dead fish.
In the sky the birds were screaming so loudly that it hurt Jolly’s ears.
“They’re all still in the air,” she said softly.
Munk looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“They aren’t coming back down. Not even to eat the fish. And they’re screaming with excitement. That means that—”
Munk’s lips were bloodless. “That it’s still here.”
They ran together now, following the path of the destruction. Soon it was clear even to Jolly where it was leading.
Something had broken through the palisade fence as easily as through a straw wall. Sharpened tree trunks lay strewn in all directions. Some had been slung with such force that they’d bored into the ground like oversized arrows and now stood upright like heathen totems of some island tribe.
“Mum! Dad!” Munk leaped over the debris and ran up to the destroyed house.
The roof over the veranda had been torn away in one piece and was lying a few yards away in the brown grass. The table and the chairs on which they’d sat that morning were mashed as if by a giant fist.
The door of the farmhouse was gone. And with it a piece of the front wall.
“Mum!”
Jolly tore through the ruin and saw Munk fall on his knees beside his mothers lifeless body. Tears streamed down his face. Jolly stood helplessly beside him and considered what she should do, how she could help. Finally she let herself down on the other side of the woman, took her hand, and with trembling fingers felt for a pulse.
“She’s alive!” she burst out a moment later. “Munk, your mother’s alive!”
He looked at her through a veil of tears, then back into his mother’s face, stroked her cheeks, and blotted her scratches and cuts with his sleeve.
“I have to find Dad!” Reluctantly he detached himself from his mother and jumped up. “You stay with her.”
“Munk, its too dangerous out there!”
“I have to look for him.”
“Then let me come too.”
He shook his head and ran off. A moment later he’d disappeared. She heard wood snapping as he leaped over tree trunks and broken boards; then the only noise was the screaming of the birds that would not end.
Shattered and at a loss, she knelt there, holding the unconscious woman’s hand, trying to sort out her thoughts, to somehow find a meaning in all this. She found none. Instead, she stood up, selected one of the still-whole jugs, and hurriedly got water from the kitchen. She sponged Munk’s mother’s face with it and, as well as she could, washed the crusted blood from her face and neck and then opened her torn dress.
The wound beneath the dress was horrible. For reasons Jolly didn’t understand, it had hardly bled—neither Munk nor Jolly had noticed it before. And yet one look was enough to tell her that no one could survive with such an injury.
Munk’s mother would die. No matter what Jolly did and how she tried to treat the wound, it was hopeless.
Now she began to cry uncontrollably, torn by the wish to stay with the dying woman and the urge to follow Munk and stand by him. She hated herself for her helplessness. Very gradually, she realized that none of this would have happened if she hadn’t been washed onto the shore of this island; if she’d remained with Bannon and the others; if she hadn’t led the destruction that was pursuing the polliwogs here.
The shriek sounded a third time, and this time it was so loud that the ruins of the farmhouse vibrated; single boards broke out of the upright supports and clattered to the floor.
“Munk!”
Gently she laid the woman’s head on the ground, gave her a last sorrowful look, then ran.
Behind the house a broad track of destruction led into the jungle, a chaos of burst palisades and split trees. Jolly leaped and stumbled over the torn-up bush and for the first time forgot her exhaustion and the pain that was tormenting every part of her body.
The path led through the rain forest to one of the tobacco fields, in a clearing a hundred yards behind the house.
There she saw Munk again. Saw the motionless body of his father on the ground. And became witness to a struggle that she could not have painted even in her nightmares.
Like biting dogs, the plantation’s ghosts were hanging onto something that was too huge and too horrible for Jolly to be able to take in with one look. Munk was standing beside his dead father with arms widespread, as from his core flowed a power that compelled the ghosts to obey his commands—and into a hopeless battle with the Acherus.
Jolly was still about twenty steps away when the creature again uttered a long, drawn-out shriek, shredded the ghosts with a slash of its claws, and howled again when the vaporous beings reassembled themselves and renewed their attack. But it was becoming clear that the ghosts’ efforts were merely delaying the monstrous figure without really weakening him.
The Acherus might possibly have been human once. At least he was humanlike, even though his body was assembled from the detritus of the ocean: black slime, mats of rotten algae, and moldy nets of seaweed, through which protruded hundreds of brighter needle points, the skeletons of sea animals. Mournful rotted fish eyes stared out of the stinking body all over, but it was impossible to say if the Acherus could see with them. He reeked of death, and as he turned around in his battle against the ghosts, Jolly saw the rib cage of a decomposed shipwreck victim curving out of his back like pale fingers. The Acherus had sucked them all up or been created out of their remains; perhaps he hadn’t been one human but many, assembled from corpses and the cadavers of fish, kraken, and man-eating sharks.
“Munk, back!”
Jolly stormed up to him when she realized that he didn’t see the creature’s attack coming—in his concentration, he was keeping his eyes closed. She stepped over the body of his father and tried not to look at it. But even out of the corner of her eye
she knew that the man must be dead: The wounds the Acherus had inflicted on him were too gruesome.
She just succeeded in pulling Munk back by the shoulder as the claws of the corpse creature shot forward to grab him, A claw as long as a saber and just as sharp stabbed into emptiness, then fastened on a ghost, which was cut in two but immediately put itself back together.
“Out of here!” Jolly bellowed, but Munk turned in her grip and tried to go back to engage the beast. That was no longer courage, it was madness! Jolly screamed at him, shook him, and finally brought him to his senses.
Together they ran. As they ran, Jolly snatched up the double-barreled pistol from Munk’s father. One hammer was snapped shut but the other was still loaded.
They ran along the lane and heard the Acherus thundering behind them. Jolly looked over her shoulder: The creature, as tall as the trees and nimble as a panther, had taken up the chase on two disproportionate legs. The ghosts were hanging all over the Acherus’s body, and he was pulling them along behind him like a trail of fog. The ground trembled under his every step, the birds screamed in the air, and all around them the leaves rustled from the trees, shaken loose by the powerful thumping on the earth. Again they rushed away with daredevil leaps over vines and roots.
“Not down there!” screamed Munk suddenly. “Otherwise we’ll lead him back to Mum.”
At his side, Jolly turned to the left through the undestroyed undergrowth of the jungle. They were smaller than the creature and could move better than he could through the tangled undergrowth; on the other hand, the Acherus had demonstrated that he could easily mow down the forest. Nevertheless, Jolly hoped that at least his ferocious speed would be braked.
“Where?” she gasped out.
Munk didn’t answer.
“To the water, then,” she decided without hesitation.
“But he comes from there! You saw that!”
“Out of the water,” she cried. “But we run on the water.” She was as little convinced by her plan as he was, but it was the only way out that occurred to her.
“I need time,” Munk panted, as they broke through a wall of fern and fleshy leaves. “Then maybe I can make the ghosts stronger.”
