Eternal Gambit

by St Clare, Kelly

  Ebba blinked several times to dislodge the burning in her eyes. Then she peered at Caspian. “No hand to raise?” she asked.

  He frowned at his hand. “No,” he said. “I know you wish me to say yes. But I care about you too much to agree to that. I’m sorry, but I also won’t change my mind just because it might upset you.”

  His reply soothed and annoyed her all at the same time. And, now she thought of it, why wasn’t Jagger saying no? Out of anyone here, Ebba might have been most gratified if he’d voiced some discontent over her sacrificing herself. He’d barely waited a second to throw his hand in the air.

  The wind tore through the entrance crevice, screaming high as it entered the cavern.

  Ebba whirled toward the sound, gazing over the hundred-foot gap between them and the passage platform. Her insides clenched as she shifted to look directly down. A pirate was making his way through the boulders again to their cave.

  She swallowed, already thinking of marching to the shipwreck to meet Cannon and his tainted crew by herself.

  “That be my cue,” she said lightly.

  And strode to the steps once more.

  Seven

  As soon as Ebba stepped into the shipwreck clearing, the illusion of safety that had built in her mind was shattered. In the cave, her crew was separate, and ignoring that they were in hell was easier. That safety peeled away as Pockmark marched her to the base of the splintered deck.

  Ebba fixed her attention on not tripping over the hacked-away remains of the boulders as she picked her way toward the shipwreck.

  “Stop there,” Pockmark barked.

  No worries on that count. Ebba didn’t need encouragement to stay off the tainted ship. Especially—she glanced at the dark brown skin of her toes—as she wasn’t wearing shoes. Pockmark hadn’t uttered any insults on the walk over, which had surprised her. Nothing but orders had crossed his lips. In that respect, he’d greatly changed from the pirate she’d first encountered on Maltu. For Pockmark, the days of selfish indulgence and meaningless cruelty seemed at an end. Ebba suspected that was due more to Cannon’s tight control than to any change of heart.

  Ebba wasn’t sure how far it was wise to push Pockmark. She did know that pushing him was a fair chunk safer than pushing Cannon.

  “Did granddaddy tell ye to mind yer beh’vior then?” she asked him. “Do ye do everythin’ he says now?”

  Pockmark stiffened and turned to face her.

  Ebba sniffed dismissively. “I recall that feathered hat ye used to wear. That’s gone, too, I s’pose? Granddaddy told ye to take it off?”

  “Keep talkin’ and see what happens,” he spat, rounding on her.

  She planned to. Ebba had no doubt she was faster than Pockmark. “Cannon seems mighty disappointed in ye,” she continued. “Can’t say I’m blamin’ him. Ye always were a stupid bugger.”

  The pirate clenched his fists, and Ebba held back a gag as the skin between his knuckles cracked and oozed yellow pus.

  “Ye’re one to talk o’ stupid,” Pockmark said. “Ye ain’t got more than two coins rattlin’ in yer skull.”

  “Aye,” she said, lifting a shoulder. “But I can rub my two coins together. Ye can only do it if Cannon says ye’ve been a right good lad. He probably only lets ye use yer noggin’ when the wind whistles through the passage. How many times is that? Twice a day?”

  Black flooded Pockmark’s eyes, and Ebba tensed her legs, ready to spring out of the way. Pockmark took one step in her direction.

  “Mercer, collect yerself.”

  Ebba shivered at the stone-cold voice and tilted her head to see Mutinous Cannon standing near the bottom of the shipwreck. How long had he been there?

  Pockmark breathed hard, his eyes fixed on Ebba.

  “Ye heard him, Pockmark,” she whispered with a smile. “Be a good lad and heel.”

  With a roar, the pirate lunged at her, both hands outstretched.

  Ebba leaped to the left, one eye on Pockmark, the other on the sharp rocks underfoot. His clawed fingers swiped at the air where her head had been a scant second prior. As she spun out of his reach again, he paused to draw his cutlass.

  Ebba searched the ground for a weapon. A chipped bit of stone the size of her fist lay to her left. Crouching, she swooped down to pick it up.

  “Enough.” The sharp word shot through her ears like an arrow.

  She didn’t remove her eyes from Pockmark, who still breathed like a rabid dog, his rusted cutlass half-unsheathed.

  Cannon ambled over to them at a leisurely pace, not paying Ebba any mind. His eyes were fixed on Pockmark, and his long, weathered fingers rested lightly on the butt of his pistol.

  “Ye know the order o’ our masters,” he said to Pockmark. “Ye know what they command.”

  Ebba hung on his every word.

  Pockmark’s black eyes shifted to Cannon, who leaned in close to his grandson. She stepped closer on light feet to listen.

  “You are not to touch her,” Cannon whispered low.

  Pockmark looked past his grandfather at her, and Ebba smirked at him. There was a roar as the pirate lost control again, and then the sharp retort of a fired pistol.

  Ebba leaped away from the pair, heart catapulting into her throat. Eyes wide, she watched as Pockmark thudded to the ground, a gaping hole in his stomach.

  “Waste o’ a good bullet,” Cannon said with a weary sigh. He holstered his weapon and turned to her.

  “Ebba-Viva Fairisles,” he said, regarding her with displeasure. “Did ye not see fit to dress in the clothes I provided?”

  He meant the garments in the cave? “How can I be knowin’ if they’re tainted or not?”

  Cannon gave a mocking bow. “Why, my word, of course. Is that not enough?”

  “Nay,” she answered. He’d just shot his grandson. Even if Pockmark regenerated, it didn’t make the act any more palatable.

  He straightened, the cold attempt at a smile fading from his lips. “I see. And yet ye walk on sharp stones that might cut yer feet. Don’t ye know the surest way to succumb to the taint be for it to infect a wound?”

  Ebba did know, but why was he telling her that?

  “Ye want me to wear shoes?” she asked, confusion filling her. This was some twisted version of the numerous times her fathers had said the same thing.

  “I would think ye’d be eager to remain away from the taint. Pockmark told me o’ yer time on Malice. And yet ye also were able to leave Davy Jones’, which shows ye ain’t tainted any longer. Ye touched the purgium, I take?”

  Uh-uh, that’s not what we’re here for, Ebba thought. She was drawing information from him. “Mayhaps I just be immune to it.”

  “No, Ebba-Viva, there is only one immune, and that honor falls to Jagger and Jagger alone.” His eyes gleamed as he spoke, and uneasiness skittered down her spine. So Cannon knew about the pillars, the parts, and the three watchers.

  She may never know, but she needed to figure out how many times the wind came through the passage each day. If her crew knew that, then tracking when the path to the Satyr’s island was exposed would be easier.

  “It must get rep’titive in here,” Ebba said, noticing Cannon watched her.

  He stared, head tilted as though searching for a crack he could drive a wedge into. It interested her to suppose the captain thought she had more than one crack. Maybe she had a while back, but her fathers were the only vulnerability that would make her do anything. And surely Cannon had discovered that already.

  “It does,” he answered with an indulgent smile, like he’d granted her a boon. “I’m a pirate. I ain’t meant to be in a place such as this. I’m meant to sail the seas, free.”

  The answer struck her with force, if only because he mirrored her exact desire, yet they were two completely different people. “Maybe if ye’d sailed the seas a different way, ye wouldn’t be in here.”

  His smile widened, and he clasped his hands behind his back, crossing closer to her. Ebba held her breath, but the pi
rate stopped three feet away, bloodshot eyes glinting. She’d seen that look in Ladon’s eyes when he’d intended to devour her soul and those of some of her fathers and Jagger. She’d seen the same look in Pockmark’s eyes. She’d felt that undiluted evil exuding from the six shadows who’d manifested on Malice. And she felt it now as Mutinous Cannon stared down at her. Ebba couldn’t look anywhere else or appear weak. Yet to not look elsewhere and show she was aware of how glancing away would look seemed equally weak. Alone, without her crew at her back, without the dynami in her belt, or one of her magical friends in the wings ready to rush to her aid, Ebba felt an awareness of her slight frame creep upon her.

  Cannon didn’t say a word. He just stared.

  “Is this the part when we don’t speak then?” Ebba asked, tilting her chin.

  “And the six o’ them made a strong woman like ye,” Cannon said, snorting. “Blow me down, who would’ve thought they had the guts.”

  Heat flooded her cheeks, and Ebba bit back her angry retort. Cannon quirked a brow, his finger lifting to her cheeks. He hovered his hands over her skin, and her heart pounded. His eyes were yellow, so he wasn’t contagious, but Ebba would rather not run the risk.

  “Rage,” Cannon said. “A woman of passion. Rage, I understand. Rage is my constant companion in closed walls.”

  What was he on about? Why was he talking in cryptic nonsense? Or did he know that doing so would unsettle her more than if he held her at gunpoint?

  “Because ye’re tainted,” she forced out.

  Cannon made no answer. Facing away from the ship, toward the stream path, he said, “Come.”

  “No lunch?” she asked, walking after him.

  “Not today,” he said. “Yer attire ain’t ap’ropriate.”

  Pirates weren’t usually one for manners. What was his obsession with the clothing and shoes? And more importantly, he’d told Pockmark the pillars didn’t want him to touch Ebba. Was that specific to Pockmark? Or did that apply to all of the tainted pirates? And in regard to her fathers, Caspian, and Jagger too?

  Ebba strode after the captain down the worn stream path, breathing a sigh of relief when he didn’t branch off toward the cave. Any situation involving Mutinous and her fathers was bound to work out badly. Where was he taking her?

  Images of him pushing her into the boiling water reared up in her mind. But, Ebba thought as she straightened, Cannon hadn’t touched her once.

  That struck her as strange, now that she thought about it. At their first meeting, he’d lingered at the base of the shipwreck for the most part. And Pockmark had shouted at the other pirates to stay back. Her crew was then led to a cave of the black-and-red stone with clothing stored in large stone cases, a smaller version of the one their food came in.

  Her crew had been so worried about catching the taint from the occupants of Davy Jones’ they hadn’t paused to consider that Cannon was doing everything possible to ensure they didn’t catch it too. And if she was right, why did the infamous captain want or need them free of the taint?

  A blur of flaxen gold between the towering boulders caught her eye, and Ebba peered into their midst. Silver eyes stared back at her, and she gasped.

  “Did ye cut yerself then?” Cannon whirled, and Ebba wrenched to face forward.

  “N-nay,” she answered, clearing her throat.

  A fury burned like midnight fire in his gaze. At her answer, the fire slowly died away. The captain continued down the worn path, and Ebba released a breath, stealing another glimpse at Jagger in the shadows of the boulders.

  What was he blasted well doing? Had he followed her the whole time?

  What are ye doin’? she mouthed at him.

  He darted to the next boulder parallel to the path and merely grinned at her. She was going to kill him.

  Ignoring Jagger lest she give him away, Ebba forced her attention to the path. Between the tapering boulders ahead, she glimpsed the purple stream. Wisps of steam from the boiling water rose in languid swirls. The boulders steadily shrunk in size; they were only to her hip now and becoming sparser. Just off the path, Jagger crouched behind a boulder that hardly covered him and gave her a curt nod. He couldn’t go any farther. Despite being unaware of his presence until a few minutes ago, Ebba dreaded continuing without him.

  Her sense of foreboding heightened as she strode after Cannon.

  The boulders continued to shrink until they were only to her knee.

  Cannon stopped beside the boiling purple stream, and she halted beside him, out of reach. Ebba glanced across the water and took an involuntary step back at the masses of faces staring at her.

  Just like when she’d first peered down at the western half of the cavern from the passage platform high above, the damned on the other side of the stream blended in with the fiery stone.

  Ebba covered her nose at the smell of waste and body odor piercing the steam to reach her eight feet away. The murky grime coated their skin and the creases on their faces. Dirt and slime blanketed their clothes, edging under their nails and between their teeth. If Ebba had to guess, she’d say they’d kept the exact form they’d died in. Some were old and frail, others strong and tall, and the face of more than one child caught her gaze. Their eyes were tired, dull, and downtrodden where the eyes of the tainted were black.

  How did they get over there? Ebba glanced left and right and couldn’t see any way across. Sheer cliffs lined their flatter and smaller half of the cavern. Only the passage platform interrupted the uniformity at the southern end. Maybe the damned had to climb down the cliff to get there?

  Regardless, at least the inaccessibility and the boiling stream had saved the damned from the taint.

  Pity rose within her at the sight of them, the emotion surprising her with the force and speed of its punch. The tainted pirates had been people once, but the damned here were people. They were cognizant of what happened. A young boy across the water reached for her, sobbing, tears trekking down both cheeks.

  Yet to be here, they must have done terrible things. Or, were they just judged to be more bad than good by the thunderbird who sorted light and dark souls in the Oblivion? According to the entrance of Davy Jones’, her fathers belonged here, yet Ebba knew they didn’t. Her fathers were on the light gray side of good, not the dark gray.

  How many of these people could be good if given a chance? Or if sorted by someone other than the thunderbird, who seemed to have a one-size-fits-all approach to sorting souls? He’d been ready to chuck Jagger in this place for killing a bird. Staring at such pitiful humans, Ebba’s heart squeezed, wondering if they truly deserved eternal suffering for the choices they’d made.

  “Pitiful, aren’t they?”

  His words echoed her thoughts, but the context couldn’t be more opposite. Cannon sounded almost gleeful about their sad, depressive state. Ebba didn’t answer. She didn’t trust her voice not to shake.

  “When we arrive here, we turn up at the entrance, the rock wall you walked through. We stumble through the crevice passage into this cavern. Let’s just say, anyone who ain’t a pirate is encouraged to climb down to the other side.”

  Ebba shook her head. “Yer point?”

  “The point bein’ that there ain’t no pirates over there. Everyone there be a murderer, a thief, and all o’ them have a black heart. They scream and groan, but they turn on each other in the blink o’ an eye. Every day. And they hate pirates. If a pirate were to venture in there. . . .”

  “Ye’re goin’ to put me over there?” she asked, a dull ringing in her ears.

  Cannon glanced at her and smirked. “Nay, it ain’t ye who deserted me afore the final battle.” His face changed, and Ebba’s chest seized at his flash of white-lipped fury.

  “It ain’t ye that mutinied and trapped me here for two decades.” The pirate cut off, spinning from her to look toward the entrance.

  He whirled back and stepped closer than he’d yet dared.

  Would he touch her? Or would he refrain? That would be a sure way t
o know if her working theory was right or wrong.

  Cannon bent his head down to her, and Ebba set her jaw, refusing to budge.

  “Most people fear their loved ones dyin’, but not ye,” he said, scanning her face.

  Ebba frowned. That wasn’t true. If they died, if they were taken from her, Ebba would cease to exist.

  “Ye fear yer fathers not livin’,” Cannon said. “That be what ye fear. So listen wisely, Ebba-Viva Fairisles, because ye’ve likely heard I ain’t one to give out warnings. Ye harm one o’ my pirates again, think to venture a comment that ye feel makes ye strong, or see fit enter my company again without wearin’ the clothes I’ve seen fit to grant ye, then I’m sure ye can guess where yer fathers will end up. And I can tell ye sure-like, none o’ ye be dead. Yet. But if the vagabonds across the water kill yer fathers, they will be. And ye can guess where they’ll stay for all time.”

  Ebba fisted her shaking hands, dropping her gaze. Eternal desolation. That’s what Cannon intended for her fathers. Whether it would be because she stepped out of line or whether he intended to take his revenge regardless was unclear.

  As for the rest, she could abide not killing any of the tainted pirates. Hardly a point if they just came back. She could even still her tongue if push came to shove. Though it wouldn’t stop her taking jabs at Cannon’s underlings when he wasn’t around.

  But the clothes.

  “I don’t trust why ye want me to wear the clothes so bad-like,” she said, meeting his yellowed gaze again. “And I don’t trust that they ain’t tainted.”

  “Then ye’ve decided,” Cannon said, straightening.

  “Nay,” Ebba blurted, an idea coming to her. “There be a way to prove ye’re tellin’ the truth.”