The Terror of the Southlands

by Caroline Carlson

  “It won’t be,” Charlie assured her. “I don’t believe those inspectors could find salt water if they fell into the sea.”

  Hilary’s mouth felt dry, as though she’d eaten nothing but hardtack for months on end. “I suppose this is my fault,” she said. “The Mutineers told me that if I kept searching for Miss Pimm, they’d do something horrid to my friends—and now it seems they’ve actually done it.”

  “Of course it’s not your fault.” Claire put her arm around Hilary’s shoulders. “The Mutineers took Jasper days ago, before you’d even started looking for Miss Pimm. You mustn’t feel responsible.”

  “But I am responsible,” said Hilary. “I’m the Terror of the Southlands. If I can’t keep my mates safe, the least I can do is rescue them when they’ve been captured.” She glared across the water. “Even if Captain Blacktooth doesn’t think I can manage it.”

  Miss Greyson nodded. “You’re quite right, Hilary. We must do whatever we can to find Jasper—and Miss Pimm, of course.” She sat up a bit straighter. “Now, for their sake, let us be practical. What have you discovered about the Mutineers?”

  Charlie sighed. “Not much. We know that they’re villainous, and we know they’ve got fancy handwriting.”

  “We thought Philomena Tilbury might be one of them,” Claire added, “but it seems she’s been too busy dining with High Society gentlemen to steal an Enchantress.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” said Miss Greyson. “Then I’m afraid I’m at a loss. If we don’t know who these villains are or what they’re planning, whatever can we do?”

  Everyone looked at Hilary.

  This, Hilary knew, was the moment when the pirate captain was supposed to step in with a brilliant solution to their troubles. If Jasper had been there, he would have cleared his throat on cue and announced a clever plan. But Jasper was leagues away, kidnapped by Mutineers, and Hilary had no clever plan to announce. A thick silence hung over the ship.

  “There is one thing we haven’t tried,” Hilary admitted. It was the last thing in the world she wanted to do, and it might not be any help at all, but with Miss Pimm and Jasper both in peril, did she really have much of a choice? The Mutineers were clearly the worst sorts of scoundrels, and Hilary knew of only one person villainous enough to be involved with such a group. She looked around at the tense faces of her crew and scraped up just enough boldness and daring to announce her plan. “Tomorrow morning,” she said, “I’m going to the Royal Dungeons, and I’m going to speak to my father.”

  * * *

  an extract From

  The Gargoyle: History of a Hero

  BY THE GARGOYLE

  AS TOLD TO H. WESTFIELD

  The life of a gargoyle is not always as glamorous as you might think. During the centuries I served as the resident gargoyle of Westfield House, generations of Westfields poked me, pulled faces at me, and forgot to dust behind my ears. Hardly any of them ever asked me to do anything useful, though Cecily Westfield did once use my magic to protect the house from a fire that burned down half the neighborhood. She was one of the nicer ones.

  But then there was Reginald Westfield, who forced me to protect him from the cook every time he was caught stealing sweets from the pantry. His fingers left sticky bits of toffee on my snout, but did he apologize? Never! And I don’t much enjoy the memory of Lady Agatha Westfield, who balanced potted marigolds on my head for nearly thirty years. Most of the others simply ignored me, never offering to read me a thrilling novel or bring me a snack, but never bothering me with ridiculous magical requests, either—until James Westfield came along.

  James didn’t ignore me, and at first I thought he might not be too bad as far as Westfields go. When he was very young, he asked me to protect him from the boys who bullied him at school, and I did my best. But as James grew older, he started to ask me to do other sorts of magic—to make him the greatest sailor on the High Seas, or to make other boys follow his orders. When I told him I couldn’t do those things, he called me a useless beast and told me that if I wouldn’t help him, he’d simply find a better magic piece—one that wasn’t so chatty and dull. He had his hand on my snout just then, dear reader, and I wish I had bitten it.

  Not long after that, James left Westfield House to join the Royal Navy. He came back home years later, bringing his wife and baby with him, but he never visited my doorway again. Now he resides in the Royal Dungeons, and if my assistant doesn’t mind me saying so, I hope he’ll stay there for at least the next few centuries.

  * * *

  * * *

  KINGDOM OF AUGUSTA

  OFFICE OF THE ROYAL RECORDS KEEPER

  FORM 40D: INTENTION TO VISIT THE ROYAL DUNGEONS

  INSTRUCTIONS: Please write legibly in ink. Present this form to the Dungeons clerk at the beginning of your visit. Remember that no picklocks, weapons, magic pieces, or bribes are permitted within the Royal Dungeons.

  NAME OF VISITOR: Pirate Hilary Westfield

  NAME OF PRISONER: Admiral James Westfield

  PRISONER’S CRIME: Attempted theft of magic, plotting to overthrow the queen

  VISITOR’S RELATIONSHIP TO PRISONER: Quite damaged at the moment, I’m afraid

  THIS WILL BE A (please check one):

  BUSINESS MEETING SOCIAL CALL

  CHARITABLE VISIT SCOLDING

  CONSPIRACY

  ARE YOU A (please check all that apply):

  SCOUNDREL VILLAIN

  FUGITIVE PIRATE

  If a box is checked in the row above, will you be TURNING YOURSELF IN at the conclusion of your visit to the Royal Dungeons? I sincerely doubt it.

  Will you attempt to SET YOUR PRISONER FREE during your visit? Absolutely not.

  You may use the space below to compose a brief PLEA FOR YOUR PRISONER’S RELEASE. Please be as eloquent as possible.

  As far as I’m concerned, the prisoner may stay right where he is.

  Thank you for complying with the rules and regulations of the Kingdom of Augusta, and enjoy your visit to the Royal Dungeons!

  * * *

  CHAPTER TEN

  ALTHOUGH HILARY HAD insisted that she could visit the Dungeons perfectly well by herself, no one had paid her any attention. Now Miss Greyson, Charlie, and Claire followed Hilary through the streets of Queensport, and she had to admit that having her crew with her made her feel much more like the Terror of the Southlands. “After all,” she said to the gargoyle, who swung alongside her in her bag, “we’re brave buccaneers on our way to interrogate the villain we’ve captured. What’s so scary about that?”

  “The darkness,” said the gargoyle, “and the dampness. The mice and the mildew.” He shuddered. “Not to mention your father.”

  Hilary had expected the Royal Dungeons to be gray, gloomy, and foreboding—rather like Miss Pimm’s finishing school, but with more villains and fewer governesses. When she turned into the drive, however, she saw that the Dungeons were built of the same pale yellow bricks that formed the walls of the queen’s palace, and that someone had gone to quite a lot of effort to make the front gardens presentable. Like many of the houses in Queensport, the Dungeons had hallways lined with stained-glass windows, although these particular windows were reinforced with iron bars. Each window depicted a different type of villain or scoundrel: in one pane, a poisoner was pouring a vial of something green into a goblet, and a cutpurse from the next window over was attempting to pick the poisoner’s pocket.

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” said Claire as they walked up the stepping-stone pathway and knocked on the door. “A bit too lovely to be real.”

  “Never fear,” said Miss Greyson; “it’s significantly less pleasant when one is underground.” Not so long ago, Miss Greyson herself had been mistaken for a criminal and sent to the Dungeons, and she assured them that the cells were hardly luxurious. “They don’t keep the prisoners upstairs, you see; it would ruin the atmosphere.”

  They were greeted by the Dungeons clerk, a small woman with round spectacles balanced on her nose.
“Welcome to the Royal Dungeons,” she said. “Weapons and magic pieces in the box, please.” Hilary and Charlie balanced their swords atop the crate the woman held out, Hilary clinked in her magic piece, Claire contributed the bag with the remainder of the coins from Cannonball Jack, and Miss Greyson removed her crochet hook from her hair with a reluctant sigh. The clerk looked slightly alarmed by the contents of the box and even more alarmed by the presence of Miss Greyson. “You look terribly familiar,” she said. “Might you be a fugitive, by any chance?”

  “I am a governess, a bookshop keeper, and a pirate,” said Miss Greyson primly, “and although I was once a convict, I am now reformed, thank you very much.”

  The clerk cleared her throat. “Very well, then,” she said. “Have you got your visitors’ forms?”

  They all handed the clerk the papers Miss Greyson had given them to fill out the night before, and the clerk rifled through them. She clicked her tongue four times in a row. Then she returned to her desk, ran her finger down an extraordinarily long piece of parchment, peered through her round spectacles, and clicked her tongue once more. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that I can’t allow you all to enter. This prisoner is only allowed two visitors each day, and he’s already received one this morning.”

  “It must have been Mother,” said Hilary. “I thought she only visited every fourth Tuesday.” She looked at Miss Greyson on her left, then at Charlie and Claire on her right. “Are you quite sure only one of us can enter?”

  The clerk looked at Hilary over her spectacles. “Those are the rules, Miss . . . er . . .” She consulted Hilary’s form. “Miss Pirate.”

  Charlie stepped forward and leaned over the clerk’s desk. “It’s lucky, then,” he said, “that we pirates don’t care much for rules. We’re Hilary’s crew, and we’ve got to go with her.”

  “For support,” Miss Greyson added.

  “And to glare at Admiral Westfield,” said Claire. “I’ve been looking forward to that part all morning.”

  But the clerk refused to budge. “Only Miss Pirate may enter, and that’s that. I shall keep a very sharp eye on the rest of you to make sure no one scuttles away.”

  “Sorry, Terror.” Charlie squeezed her shoulder. “You’ll be just fine, you know.”

  “Thank you, Pirate Dove,” said Hilary, hoping he was right.

  The clerk pointed down the hall at an iron door labeled DUNGEONS. “You’ll find Admiral Westfield that way, Miss Pirate. You haven’t got any weapons in your bag, have you? Or any additional magic?”

  Hilary put her hand inside the bag and pressed the gargoyle down toward its bottom seams. “Certainly not,” she said. “I don’t have any magical items at all in this bag. Not a one.”

  “Hey!” said the gargoyle. “Aren’t you forgetting—”

  Hilary gave the gargoyle a firm poke in the side and coughed ferociously to drown out his protests. Claire began to cough as well, and Hilary shot her a grateful look. Miss Greyson narrowed her eyes but said nothing. Before the clerk could inquire further, Hilary slipped behind her and walked as bravely as she could manage toward the door marked DUNGEONS.

  BEHIND THE DOOR was a damp and dark spiral staircase that grew even damper and darker as it twisted down into the earth. By the time Hilary reached the bottom of it, she could hardly see the walls around her. She could feel them, though; the stones were slick under her fingers, except where they were mossy, and the air smelled as foul as a ship’s bilge. Hilary had never enjoyed climbing belowdecks on the Pigeon, but at least no villains lurked in its heavy darkness. “I don’t like this at all,” she whispered to the gargoyle. “Do you think we’re making an awful mistake?”

  She heard the gargoyle rustle in his bag. “There’s light up ahead,” he said. “At least, I think there is. Gargoyles have excellent vision.”

  Hilary took a few careful steps forward, and soon she could see a row of glowing lanterns hanging from hooks on the wall. A sign above them read:

  * * *

  COMPLIMENTARY LANTERNS

  COURTESY OF THE ROYAL DUNGEONS

  One per visitor, please

  * * *

  Hilary lifted the nearest lantern off its hook, and the dreary landscape of the Dungeons flickered into view around her. Only one path led forward, so Hilary took it, casting her lantern light on each prisoner’s cell as she passed by. Most of the cells sat empty, but every so often a villainous face would grin at her from behind the bars. They were cutthroats and pickpockets, blackmailers and burglars, and a few of them even looked like pirates, but none of them looked like her father. Each time her light struck an unfamiliar face, Hilary wobbled back and forth between terror and relief.

  She skirted the villains’ grins and reached into her bag, where the gargoyle wound his tail around her hand for comfort. “A pirate is never scared, right?” the gargoyle asked.

  “That’s right,” said Hilary, though she didn’t much care for the way her voice trembled when she said it.

  “Then a pirate must never have been to the Royal Dungeons,” said the gargoyle. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  The only other visitor to the Dungeons was a tall woman dressed in peacock blue who bustled toward Hilary and then brushed directly past her without sparing her a glance. A feather plume bounced atop the woman’s fashionable hat, and she wore an exasperated expression that Hilary nearly recognized but couldn’t quite place. Perhaps she was one of Mrs. Westfield’s many friends, or perhaps they had met at one of those interminable High Society balls at Westfield House, but the woman’s lantern light had already disappeared around a corner, and Hilary had no desire to linger in the damp passageway making polite conversation with friends of her mother. She dusted off her pirate coat where the woman had brushed against it and resumed her search for Admiral Westfield.

  She found him around the next corner. He was strolling back and forth in his cell as though it were the deck of his fastest ship, the Augusta Belle. As he strolled, he hummed a sea chantey that Hilary recognized as the tune he always sang when he was preparing for an ocean voyage. He was dressed in his naval uniform, just as he had been the last time Hilary had seen him, and her lantern light flashed against his orderly rows of brass buttons. Then the admiral stopped humming and stared at Hilary.

  He looked older than Hilary remembered, but no less intimidating, and he squinted into the light as though he couldn’t quite tell who she was. When he recognized her—if he recognized her—he would yell at her; Hilary was quite certain of that. She had heard him dismiss dozens of naval officers for polishing his brown boots instead of his black ones, or for dropping his second-best compass into the sea. The humiliated officers had never escaped without a scolding even sharper than Admiral Westfield’s sword, and none of them had done anything nearly as treacherous as capturing the admiral and thwarting his villainous plans. Hilary squeezed the gargoyle’s tail and prepared for the worst.

  Then Admiral Westfield chuckled, low and rumbling like a wave breaking on the shore, and Hilary nearly wished he had yelled after all. “What’s this?” he said. “Has my devoted daughter come to see me at last? Hilary, my dear, I can hardly recall the last time I spoke to you.”

  Hilary sincerely doubted that was the case, but then again, there had been more than a few occasions when her father hadn’t been able to recall her name. “The last time we spoke,” she said, “I believe you were ordering me to hand over Miss Pimm’s treasure. Or perhaps you were using magic to harm my friends, or cursing my name as the constable dragged you away.”

  “Ah, yes, I believe you’re right.” Admiral Westfield nodded. “I see you’re still a pirate, bringing shame to the family and so on. Truly, my dear, I don’t know what’s gotten into you. Are you still sailing about with that wretched Fletcher fellow? And that impertinent governess?”

  “Jasper and Miss Greyson aren’t wretched or impertinent, Father. Hilary tried to keep her voice low in case any of the other villains in the Dungeons were eavesdroppers. “But if you m
ust know, I’m the Terror of the Southlands now. I have my own ship, and my own pirate crew as well.” There was no need to give Admiral Westfield the details of the Squeaker.

  “Really?” he said. “And you haven’t been blasted by the Royal Navy yet? I swear those men have lost their discipline since I’ve been away.”

  “Perhaps,” said Hilary, “they’re afraid of me.”

  Admiral Westfield frowned. “No, no, that certainly can’t be it.”

  “You villain!” cried the gargoyle. “You scoundrel! You slimy little—”

  “So you still have that tiresome creature with you,” said Admiral Westfield. “You should be more cautious with it. It bites, you know.”

  “I certainly do,” the gargoyle said. “Would you care for a demonstration?”

  “Not now, gargoyle,” said Hilary. She held her bag well away from the admiral’s reach; the last time he had managed to grab the gargoyle, he’d tried to use the gargoyle’s magic, and Hilary couldn’t let such a horrid thing happen again. “Father, I didn’t come here to chat.”

  “Good. I detest chatting. It’s terribly frivolous.” Admiral Westfield leaned against the bars of his cell. “If you’ve got something to say, then you’d better say it. I haven’t got all day, my dear.”

  It seemed to Hilary that Admiral Westfield did have all day, but it was hardly worth an argument. “Miss Pimm has gone missing,” she said, “and Jasper’s gone, too. I demand to know what’s happened to them.”

  “You demand it, do you?” Admiral Westfield chuckled more heartily than ever. “I’d heard about That Meddling Old Biddy running off, and I can’t say I’m surprised that Fletcher’s missing as well. That fellow couldn’t sail his way out of a grog bottle.”