by Alex Bell
The sailor gave him an odd look. ‘Don’t you know? This is the Scurlyshoo Death!’
Oh. Shit! Now it all made sense. The captain’s name and the octopus décor all fell into place as Lex recalled the story. One hundred years ago there had sailed a magnificent ship called the Golden Dawn, captained by a handsome, noble, fearless man named Jed Saltworthy. Until, one fateful day, they were attacked by a giant octopus. It rose up out of the sea, entwined its long tentacles around the ship and almost took the entire thing down to the bottom of the sea with it.
Fortunately, Captain Saltworthy managed to chop one of its tentacles off and this caused the octopus to retreat in agony, but not before it had flung the captain across the deck where he unhappily landed right on top of the broken navigation wheel, one of its jagged giant spokes going right through his leg. He survived the accident but his leg did not. They had to chop it off just above the knee.
The captain was fitted out with a peg leg and the ship was repaired. But it was also renamed. The Golden Dawn had perished in the battle with the octopus but, out of the ashes, the Scurleyshoo Death had been born, for the ship’s new mission was to kill any and all octopuses that it came across, even the harmless ones. But the captain never forgot Gloria, as he had − for some inexplicable reason − decided to name the octopus who took his leg. He would recognise her at once for the fact that he, in turn, had taken one of her tentacles. And so he sailed the seas vowing to track Gloria down and kill her if it was the last thing he ever did. But then, one day, a tornado sank the ship and the Scurleyshoo Death and its crew and captain were never heard from again.
‘Captain Saltworthy must be absolutely incensed to have his beloved ship overrun with octopuses!’ Lex said.
The sailor gave him a pitying look. ‘Far from it. This is his plan.’
‘This is his what?’
‘His plan. When the years passed and he couldn’t find Gloria, he turned to black magic. He cursed himself, us − the entire ship. We can’t die until the octopus dies.’
‘Well, how long do these things live?’ Lex asked. ‘Surely she must be dead by now?’
The sailor shook his head. ‘They can live for six hundred years or more,’ he said. ‘Little horrors. They should have gone down to the Lands Beneath with all the other monsters!’
As one of only four people ever to have gone down to the Lands Beneath, Lex knew that the myths were untrue. There were no monsters down there. Just glass men. On a giant chessboard, so to speak. All the monsters were up here. But there was no point telling the sailor that.
‘I still don’t see how having the ship overrun with octopuses can be part of the captain’s plan to kill Gloria.’
‘The Squealing Blue-Ringed Octopii produce offspring once every one hundred years,’ the sailor replied. ‘The captain managed to find Gloria’s nest using his black magic. All the octopuses here are Gloria’s young. The captain maintained the air pockets in the ship so that, when the babies left the nest, they’d come straight here. Gloria is away hunting at the moment, but as soon as she comes back she’ll follow her children here, believing the ship no longer poses a threat. And that’s when the captain will strike and we’ll finally be free from this terrible curse once and for all.’
Lex gaped at him. Gloria, the most legendary octopus in the world − to the extent that some people believed her to be a myth − was coming here to this ship where her babies had been lured on board by her mortal enemy! One thing Lex knew was that wild animals didn’t tend to react very well when someone threatened their young. When Gloria showed up there was going to be a rather horrible scene and Lex was very keen not to be here when it happened. He was also slightly horrified to find out that the nasty little suckers they’d encountered so far were merely the baby version, for they were quite, quite bad enough as it was.
‘Can you point us in the direction of the deck?’ Lex asked.
The sailor gave them directions and Lex set off, up the stairs, feeling uncharacteristically bleak. The problem was that, if he had to go up on deck to get to the captain, he would not be able to talk, for he would be surrounded by water. And without his golden tongue, what was he? Just some skinny city kid with an over-inflated opinion of himself. He could have throttled Lucius in that moment for losing him his enchanted hats. If he’d still had them he could have performed some spell on himself to enable him to go up on deck and yet still be able to talk. And breathe, obviously.
The sailor had told them that the best way out on to the deck was through the bridge. Which was slightly unfortunate as Lex was fairly sure that was where Jeremiah would be heading. But once they got up there, if the conceited twit was still on the bridge, Lex was fairly confident in his own ability to trick him somehow and send Jeremiah off in the wrong direction.
It was not a simple route to reach the bridge. They had to weave in and out of other rooms, including a once-grand, stately dining room that had clearly been for the captain’s private use. The massive walnut table was screwed to the floor, as were the ornate wooden chairs down its length. They were all now covered in a coating of barnacles. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, although almost all of its crystal was broken. This room might once have been used for impressive dinner parties, with lots of food and wine and stories of sea monsters and adventures. But now it was rather a sad, forgotten sort of place, smelling of damp and decay and seaweed and dead ships.
An impressive bronze statue was fixed to the centre of the great table and Lex wasn’t surprised to see that it was an octopus. When he looked closer he saw that it was Gloria herself − he could tell from the fact that she only had seven tentacles. Despite the fact that time and the elements had faded their colours, when he looked at the omnipresent paintings on the walls, he could see that these, too, were all of Gloria.
‘The man must have had a screw loose,’ Lex remarked. ‘If he hated Gloria so much then why did he surround himself with paintings and statues of her like this? The bloody place is like some sort of shrine.’
‘One card short of a full deck, for sure,’ Jesse agreed.
Finally they made it up to the bridge − thankfully without encountering any more octopuses. There were maps and charts fastened on to the walls, all in various states of decay. Barnacles crunched beneath their feet and long slimy strings of seaweed were stinking in the corners and draped around the wheel.
But the most startling thing about the scene was the view through the large panoramic windows that looked directly out on to the deck. There was a great hustle and bustle of activity going on out there. The deck was being cleared and scrubbed, nets were being raised and cannons were being loaded − all by the hands of a phantom crew.
Jesse whistled. ‘Well, blow me, that ain’t somethin’ you see every day.’
‘No,’ Lex said, eyes narrowed intently. Perhaps he was imagining it but it really didn’t look like there was any water out there − at least not on the immediate deck. There were no bubbles streaming past the windows and portholes; the sailors’ hair hung damp about their heads rather than being moved about by the water . . . ‘I think the crazy captain has found some way of keeping the deck dry,’ Lex said.
‘What for?’ Jesse asked, frowning. ‘It’s not like they need to breathe, is it?’
‘No, but they’ve been trying to attract the octopuses, haven’t they? Besides, even if you don’t need air to breathe, you still need it to talk.’
It was a good point. As any kid who’s ever tried to talk underwater in the bath knows, it’s not all that easy. And sea water doesn’t tend to taste all that nice, either. Lex moved a little closer to one of the portholes and peered out. It definitely looked to him like there was air out there. There were nets full of glowing starfish, which Lex suspected had been put there for the specific purpose of lighting the deck. And by their soft light he could even see water dripping down the clothes of the crew.
Well, there was no point simply standing there staring gutlessly out of the window. There was on
e way to find out for sure and that was by opening the door. Either he’d get swept away like a sandcastle, or he’d be able to walk out there quite easily. He had no idea where Lorella was and, although Jeremiah didn’t appear to be here yet, he could turn up − like the proverbial bad penny − at any moment. Lex had found that the best course of action ninety-nine per cent of the time was simply to march boldly in and hope for the best, relying on luck and his own natural talent for getting himself out of whatever trouble he landed in.
So he stepped right up to the door to the deck − and opened it.
CHAPTER NINE
GLORIA
Fortunately, Lex had been right − no water came rushing in to knock him off his feet. Instead there was just a blast of icy cold, slightly damp air rushing past him. It smelled of salt and seaweed and deep places and dark things. As far as Lex could tell from the light the stuffed nets of starfish were giving off, the force field keeping the sea out was about fifty feet high, stopping just above the crow’s nest at the top of the tallest mast. Above that, dark water pressed in in a most disconcerting way. Bits of dust and flotsam had settled on the top, outlining the dome of air that covered the deck where sailors ran about, slipping and sliding on the wet wooden boards. There was also a strange sensation of what could only be described as pressure. As if it was possible to feel the great weight of water pressing down on them from above, kept away only by the strength of the force field. For a fleeting moment Lex wished that he was still playing against Lucius. Then all he would need to do to have him cowering in the corner for the rest of the round would be to scream, ‘Look, there’s a poisonous octopus!’
There was such a lot of activity on the bridge that no one even noticed Lex and Jesse step out on to it. The captain was sure to be somewhere amongst this lot but Lex didn’t know which of the many sailors was the infamous Captain Jed Saltworthy. When Jeremiah or Lorella or both could be upon the scene at any moment, Lex didn’t have time to waste twitting about trying to find the captain in a more subtle way. So he cupped his hands around his mouth, raised his voice and shouted, ‘Which one of you is the captain? I need to talk to him at once!’
His voice seemed to carry unnaturally far in the strange, damp air down there and practically every single sailor on the bridge stopped dead to turn and stare at Lex with an expression of shock.
And then someone threw a spear at his head.
Lex ducked to the floor so fast that it didn’t even come close to hitting him. Jesse, too, had excellent reflexes and was flat on the boards a bare millisecond after Lex. As the spear whistled past them and embedded itself in the wall behind, Lex thought fleetingly that it was a really good thing he had an outlaw as his companion this time rather than an elderly lawyer. If that had been Mr Schmidt standing there, rather than Jesse, his head would now be impaled on a fisherman’s spear, like a weird-looking trout. It certainly would have dampened the hero’s welcome Lex received on returning to the Wither City if he’d been carrying his employer’s head on a pike. He was sure the rounds had been easier last time . . .
Within seconds, strong hands were hauling Jesse and Lex to their feet and the sailors were bellowing at each other for someone to fetch the captain. These members of the cursed crew all looked more or less the same as the harmonica player they had encountered downstairs − a bit damp and with a greyish tinge to their skin that made Lex think of zombies and walking dead but, other than that, not too bad, all things considered.
But then the legendary Captain Jed Saltworthy himself came into view and he was another thing altogether. Even Lex, who was relatively used to seeing weird and wonderful things, made a disgusted sort of sound in the back of his throat and had to struggle not to let the revulsion show too clearly on his face. In light of his new-found phobia, this was not at all easy.
Jed Saltworthy was not a large man − barely five foot eight − but he was built like a barrel and his coat was so stiff with salt that it looked like it would shatter if you smacked it against the wall. The same was true of his black beard and mane of hair. There were bits of seaweed hanging around him and even a few barnacles crusted to his tough black boot on one side and the wooden peg leg on the other. None of this overly bothered Lex for, although he may have had a thing about cleanliness himself, he had seen enough unclean people not to be overly distressed by it. He wasn’t even at all bothered by the peg leg. But there were two things about the captain’s appearance that did upset him.
The first was that he had an octopus on his shoulder. It had its tentacles wrapped around the captain’s upper arm and was just clinging there, looking all revolting and horrible and squidgy − enough to make Lex’s skin crawl. A sea captain having a parrot on his shoulder was one thing − as long as you didn’t mind the bird poo − but a highly poisonous, vicious octopus was something else altogether. Any way you looked at it, it was just plain wrong.
The second thing, even more horrible than the first, was that Captain Jed Saltworthy’s skin was covered in blue rings. His hands, his face, his neck − any part of his skin that was showing was sporting blue rings, identical to the ones on the Squealing Blue-Ringed Octopii sitting on his shoulder. He must have suffered hundreds of bites to look such a state − perhaps as a result of carrying one of the monsters around with him like that all the time.
To Lex’s surprise the sea captain glared down at them with an expression of almost ferocious approval.
‘What’s this, then?’ he boomed. ‘Volunteers?’
‘Volunteers?’ Lex gasped. ‘Volunteers for what?’
‘For bait, of course! ’Tis very brave of you, men. Very brave. Well done!’
‘Look, there’s been some sort of mistake,’ Lex said. ‘We’re not volunteering for anything. We just want your medallion.’
‘This old thing?’ the captain said, holding up the shiny gold disc that hung round his neck. ‘Certainly, my boy. Take it, by all means.’ He raised the chain over his head and dropped it into Lex’s outstretched hand. ‘’Tis the very least I can do seeing as you’ll shortly be going to your death.’
‘You mad old duffer! We are not volunteering to be bait! We’re just playing in a Game—’
‘Game?’ the captain interrupted. ‘Octopus-hunting’s no game, boy! You should ne’er have joined my crew if you weren’t serious about catching these things.’ He gave the octopus perched on his shoulder a pat on the head that made Lex wince. ‘Beautiful, ain’t they?’ the captain went on, pulling the octopus off and stroking it tenderly. ‘But we can’t allow them to rule our waters, can we?’ Lex practically had to look away as the insane sea captain actually kissed the thing’s squidgy head just as the octopus bit him on the neck. They could see he’d been bitten by the fact that blue rings − brighter than the others − suddenly spread out over his skin there. The captain hardly seemed to be aware of this, possibly because he’d suffered so many bites in the past.
‘Look, we’re not in your crew!’ Lex protested. ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that you’ve never seen us before?’
But the captain wasn’t listening. He was already beckoning other men forwards. Men who were carrying very large nets.
‘I think we can take ’em,’ Jesse muttered in Lex’s ear.
Lex stared at him. ‘Take them?’ he repeated. ‘If you mean fight them, then of course we can’t, you dolt! There must be thirty of them and only two of us!’
Jesse grinned. ‘Ain’t that always the way? Ready on three?’
‘No!’ Lex hissed. ‘Not ready on three or any other number! Listen − I can talk my way out of this—’
‘Fine. You do your thing and I’ll do mine.’
‘That’s not how this works!’
But Jesse wasn’t listening. As the sailors approached with their nets, Jesse raised a hand, pointed out towards the black ocean and shouted. ‘Look! It’s Gloria!’
Twenty men spun around on the spot. Perhaps it wouldn’t have worked under normal circumstances but these were cursed sailors who had
been waiting for Gloria for hundreds of years. Crying wolf was therefore a remarkably effective way to go. For a moment, even Lex thought he’d seen a dark shape moving out there beyond the force-field.
Not wasting any time, Jesse punched the nearest unsuspecting sailor, elbowed another and kicked a third. And then it was quite clear to everybody that they weren’t going to have to deal with Gloria, but with an irate cowboy who didn’t want to be used as octopus bait. There was no denying that Jesse was a very good fighter and the fact that he was outnumbered and backed into a corner didn’t seem to overly bother him, for the truth was that he had spent most of his life fighting that way. Nevertheless, the fight certainly wouldn’t have lasted very long if Jeremiah hadn’t appeared on the scene a moment later.
Lex was quite useless in a fight. It wasn’t that he was scared; it was simply that he was practical. He knew his own limitations and, although he was strong in a wiry sort of way − as a result of his exploits, first as the Shadowman and then as the Wizard − he was quite thin and not very tall and knew absolutely nothing about how to handle a weapon. He had therefore avoided physical altercations his whole life because he knew he was unlikely to win them. And Lex only played to win. Besides, he didn’t want any muscled buffoon giving him some hideous scar that would mar the honest face that played such an important part in many of Lex’s scams. He needed his hands, too; he couldn’t have any broken fingers slowing him down in his line of work.
