by Chris Mould
Table of Contents
Title Page
1 - The Calm before the Storm
2 - Beyond the Bronze Warrior
3 - Out from the Tomb
4 - In Search of the Ibis
5 - The Legend of Angel Cuzco
6 - The Timber Trail
7 - The Glass Ball
8 - The Black Swarm
9 - The Evil Within
10 - Scarecrow Point
11 - The Missing Link
12 - The Coming of the Angel
13 - The North Bay Battle
14 - The Pirate Wolves
15 - Unlocked
16 - Beyond the Candlelight
Copyright Page
For Ed Collier Jones
1
The Calm before the Storm
Crampton Rock was still and silent. Early morning light spilled over the horizon onto the harbor. A flock of gulls hitched a ride on the gentle sea breeze, and if you had taken a good look and thought that this place was tranquil and serene, you are easily fooled. Despite the crisp blue sky and golden sands, all hell was about to break loose.
Somewhere far away, a chill wind blew over an old buccaneers’ graveyard overlooking the coastline. A handful of crooked tombstones spilled across a grassy knoll.
The turf rippled and beneath it something clawed its way upward.
Pop!
The first of many hands poked its way through the wormy black soil.
Then another. And another, until the festering remains of every grave were shifting silently.
Soon the ragged shapes of men rose above ground, each before his own stone. The men were blackened with clay and soil and were bearing the weapons and wearing the rotted robes that revealed their trade.
“Summon the Devil’s Horse,” croaked the first one. “She is the best ship for the job.”
“Aye, aye sir. So be it” The man carried a bullhorn over his shoulder on a length of rope. He raised it and blew his call. It sailed on the breeze and resounded across the water.
In a short while, the filthy ship would appear, and they would set sail.
Gulls rested on the crowstepped roof of Candlestick Hall. Outside was the soothing view of Crampton Rock harbor, but an argument boiled deep inside its walls.
Mrs. Carelli, the housekeeper, had tracked down the new lord of the manor, young Stanley Buggles. He was in serious trouble and she was hot on his heels.
“I cannot believe the scrapes and situations you have got me into since you inherited this old place, Stanley. We just go from one terrible mess to another. I don’t know what your Great Uncle Bart would have thought. He worked hard to shake off his pirate’s reputation and live a normal life, and now it’s all gone to pot. What will the ladies in the village think?”
“But—” began Stanley.
“We don’t never have a moment’s peace, and every time I turn my back you’ve gotten us more nonsense.”
“But Mrs. Carelli, I—” Stanley tried.
“This little ol’ fishing community lived in peace on this island before you turned up, Stanley. I’m too old for all this baloney.”
“Can I just say something? … I—”
“No, you can’t. Your precious little Ibis has given us more headaches than it’s worth. All that trouble for a silver trinket.”
“It is not a trinket.” Stanley’s voice was raised now. “It has great power! If you ever hold it in your hands you will feel it, just like I did.”
“Stanley, listen. It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just a little hard to take in,” said Mrs. Carelli, holding the boy by his upper arms and staring deep into his eyes. “I want you to explain it to me again. Now, take it slowly.”
Stanley paused to collect his thoughts.
“When I first came to Candlestick Hall I found the Ibis nestled in the belly of the preserved pike in his glass case on the wall. The Ibis looked beautiful as I held her in my hands. There was no way I could have known, but in touching her I caused a tremor. It sent a shock wave that raised an army of long-dead sea rogues and villains.”
“Okay, let’s say that’s exactly what happened. What went wrong, Stanley? Where is the Ibis now?” said Mrs. Carelli.
“She sits in the belly of the pike, who now swims in the lake out on the moor. The dear old pike knew the Ibis should not touch the water and that if she did, all the long-forgotten spirits of the evil pirate world would awaken. There is a name for it. It is what they call the Quickening.
“You see, Daisy and I were trying to hide the pike from the first batch of rogues and so I had strapped the pike across my back. But as we walked across the moor I slipped and the pike ended up in the water. And now we sit in wait for the grim and the gruesome.”
“Stanley, it all sounds more than ridiculous, you must admit,” insisted Mrs. Carelli.
“I know it does, but the pike has never lied to me or warned me of anything that didn’t happen.”
“What on earth do you mean, lied to you?”
“Mrs. Carelli, the pike speaks. In a strange tongue but nonetheless, he very definitely speaks!” Stanley persisted.
“Well, that’s the daftest load of old hogwash I ever did hear. A talking pike! He never said anything to me, and I dusted him down a million times. The sooner you get ghostly pirates out o’ your head, the better. I said you wasn’t well and I know I’m right. You need a good night’s sleep, lad. And before you get any ideas, young man, I think your precious little Ibis is better off left where it is for now. Out o’ sight and away from here.”
Stanley turned up his nose at the thought. He was determined to retrieve the pike and the Ibis as soon as possible.
There was a knock on the window. The top of a face appeared, and a hand waved at them.
“That looks like Daisy from the lighthouse, Stanley,” sighed Mrs. Carelli. “Come in, poppet,” she shouted through the glass. “Door’s open.”
Daisy’s fresh-faced entrance brought light into the room and just naturally eased the argument.
“I brought fish from Uncle Lionel,” Daisy announced.
Stanley lifted the cloth from Daisy’s basket, and as he did, a live fish jumped into the air and slapped him on the face.
“Ouch!”
“Ha! Saves me doing it,” said Mrs. Carelli as she wandered off into the kitchen.
One of the grim and gray shipmates pulled out a map. He pinned one corner of it to a wooden table with a nasty-looking blade that was hanging out of his shabby sleeve, and rolled out the rest with a grubby hand.
Another man stood behind him, peering over his shoulder at the greens and blues of the map. Taking a long knife from his inside pocket, he dropped it on a small olive-colored shape in the southwesterly corner. It stuck in firmly, the blade swaying from side to side.
“That’s where we wants to be, sir.”
“Fanking you kindly,” came a sneering reply. “Best get goin’, then. Hoist the mainsail, you dirty, stinkin’ old sea dogs.”
While Stanley lay sleeping in his bed that night, the creaking wooden shape of a rotting ship moved stealthily through the night. Its ragged black sails flapped violently in the wind, and a band of grisly shipmates drank to their own good fortunes down below.
Soon there would be more. From far and wide they had begun to assemble; some came in groups, some alone. All heading for the same remote corner of the earth.
2
Beyond the Bronze Warrior
Stanley lay comfortably wrapped up in the warmth of his bed. He had drifted off into a deep sleep, with a candle still flickering by his bedside. The faint light illuminated his face in the darkness until it finally petered out.
Stanley began to dream. In the dream he swam effortlessly through th
e lake out on the moor. Deeper and deeper he went, until there was nothing around him but a bottomless black.
Staring eyes and sharpened teeth soared up toward him from the abyss. It startled him before he realized it was his old friend the pike.
Circling Stanley’s head and drifting effortlessly around him, the pike began to speak.
“Help me, Stanley. It is time for me to return. Do not blame yourself for what happened; it was a mere accident. You are sitting in wait for the full force of the Quickening to materialize, and I fear that down here, I cannot help you. Take me home, Stanley. The Ibis sits in my stomach, and her heart beats so hard that it gives me a bellyache. I long for my place on the wall. I had grown to love my glass case, but I did not realize it until I was outside it. I fear I am growing old, and though at one time the cold did not bother me, now it bites at my bones and I long for the warmth of the house.”
Suddenly Stanley felt the urge to reach the surface. He soared quickly upward, desperate to grab a breath of air. As he burst through, he woke with a start.
He sat up wide-eyed in his bed, peering into the gloom.
“Just a dream,” he said, lying down again.
But the dream would not leave him alone. It repeated itself all night and woke him endlessly, until the morning light pierced through the tiny hole in the heavy curtains.
A rotted flag waved through the mist. Grim voices bellowed through the darkness.
A crash of waves broke across the quarterdeck and drenched the ghastly crew.
Down in the cabin, three poisoned-looking faces sat together at a large wooden table, spilling grog across the maps.
A rogue, tattooed from head to toe, raised his tankard.
“I swear that as long as my rotten spirit wanders this earth, I, Scribbles Flanaghan, will seek out the Ibis and bring it ’ome to its rightful place,’ere on board the Rusty Blade. And if we’appen to spy the silver casket on our travels, well, that is ours also. Do you swear by the same, Mister Smiff?” he asked his nearest partner.
“That I do, Mister Scribbles, sir. That I do,” said Seafood Smith. He popped another crab claw open and swallowed it down with a swig of ale.
“And what about yerself there, Mister Doyle? Will yer be saying the same?”
“You can count on Doyle, me hearties. I will fight to the end to take back what once was mine.” He pulled a pair of nasty-looking pliers from his top pocket. “I always’as a little trick up me sleeve to get what I want. They don’t call me Doyle the Dentist for nothin’,” he sneered as he opened and closed his pincers. They all laughed out loud.
Someone rattled down the staircase from up on deck, spluttering and gasping and soaked in sea wash. “Mister Scribbles, sir, permission to speak, sir.”
“Out with it, Mister Phipps. What is troubling you?”
“There’s another ship, sir. A pirate ship, sir, up ahead. She looks like getting there afore us.”
“Well get a move on then, Phipps, and stop blubberin’.” Scribbles raised his voice and sent a grog bottle hurtling at the back of Phipps’s head. “The Rusty Blade will not be beaten by any other ship.”
Stanley had drifted off again. He was rudely awakened by the sound of someone rapping at the front door. He listened for Mrs. Carelli and, sure enough, her footsteps clomped across the polished floor of the hallway.
“Hello, poppet,” he heard her say. He knew it was Daisy—Mrs. Carelli used that name for her and for nobody else.
In the short time that Stanley had known Daisy, they had become firm friends, and already they had been through thick and thin together. It was a short walk from Daisy’s uncle’s lighthouse to the Hall, and she spent much of her time at Stanley’s side.
Stanley gathered himself together and thundered down the staircase, desperate to tell Daisy about his dream. But only when Mrs. Carelli was out of the way.
He waited for his moment and then he pounced. It was strange to retell the story in daylight.
“But it’s only a dream, Stanley,” Daisy reassured him. “It doesn’t really mean anything.”
“Daisy, listen. We can’t leave the Ibis where it is. It is vulnerable, and if we have it, we can protect it. If we leave it in the water, they will come and take it easily, without any challenge. The dream is a warning. We must act.”
“All right, then. When?”
“Soon. But when we return with the pike we’ll have to hide him. Mrs. Carelli won’t be happy if she knows that he is back here, with the Ibis in his belly. We need a hiding place, somewhere that doesn’t get cleaned regularly. But that rules out most of the house!”
“It is time for me to show you something,” announced Daisy. “I haven’t gotten around to telling you about this, but now the time is right.”
Looking at her, Stanley narrowed his eyes. “The time is right for what?”
Daisy took him by the hand and led him through the maze of winding corridors of the ground floor, past the pictures encased in huge wooden frames and the strange objects in cabinets.
Stanley was intrigued. Even now, Daisy still knew the old place better than he did. When she used to clean for Mrs. Carelli, she had come to know every nook and cranny there was to find.
Finally they stood at the end of a corridor, facing the figure of an ancient warrior cast in bronze.
“What do you think, Stanley?”
“What do I think? Well, yes, it’s very impressive but … I’ve seen it before. I’ve been here long enough to know it was there. Daisy, what has this got to do with anything?”
She giggled to herself. “You really have no idea, do you?”
The figure held a broadsword in its hand. Daisy gripped the sword’s handle and pulled on it, making a satisfying clunk. Then she grabbed the front of the figure and heaved at it.
It suddenly became obvious to Stanley that the ancient warrior was also a huge door.
“Help me, then!” Daisy asked.
Stanley was mesmerized and didn’t move for a moment.
“It’s amazing what you find by accident when you’re dusting,” Daisy said as Stanley gathered himself together and helped her to pull the heavy casing wide open.
A blast of cold air rushed out at him from inside. He couldn’t see what was up ahead, but it appeared to be some kind of tunnel.
“Where does it go?” he asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“Why don’t you find out?” said Daisy, smiling. “You’ll need a light”’
Stanley ran to his room and returned, clattering down the steps, with the small candleholder that had been placed by his bed.
“What you up to, young Buggles?” came a voice from upstairs.
“Nothing, Mrs. C-C-Carelli, I promise.” And he disappeared too quickly for her to ask questions.
In a moment Stanley was winding his way into the darkness with Daisy clutching his shoulder. The way ahead was black and narrow. Their heads were near the roof of the tunnel, and they had to bend slightly to save themselves from getting bumped.
The passage seemed to be never-ending, turning and twisting. All the while Daisy hung on behind Stanley and urged him onward.
Just when Stanley thought it would never stop, the path began to open up. He thought he could hear the rush of the sea in the distance. “Go on,” Daisy said. “You’re nearly there.”
Soon they were standing in a huge cave where the sea came in to form a large pool. A circular opening led out to where the water crashed against the rocks on the south side of the island. Bits of driftwood swam in the foamy water that spilled over the limestone. All around them were craggy platforms and hiding places. An old cupboard lay lopsided against a wall of rock, and a little wooden rowboat was tied to a stone pillar.
“I love it!” cried Stanley as he turned to Daisy. She could hardly hear him. The wind whistled through the cave’s opening, and the crash of the surf almost drowned out his voice.
“Why the cupboard?” he asked.
Daisy shrugged her shoulders and held her h
ands aloft. “Don’t know!”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” he shouted through the thunder of the water.
“Well, I’ve hardly had the time,” she answered. “We’ve both been more than busy since we met!” She came closer so that she could be heard more easily. “Stanley, we should get back. Mrs. Carelli will be suspicious.”
“Does she know about this place?”
“No, but she will if we don’t get a move on. We can return when we need to. Come on!”
Stanley looked at his candle. The gust had wiped out its flame.
“Prepare yourself, Daisy,” he announced. “We’ll have to make our way in the dark.”
And she held on to the tail of his jacket as they felt their way back through the blinding blackness.
3
Out from the Tomb
An ancient stone block began to shift, disturbing the stalks and tendrils that had held it fast for a thousand years. Hordes of spiny black insects were startled into movement in every direction.
A skeletal hand with brittle, blackened nails curled itself around the crumbling slab and forced a meager opening. Two narrowed eyes peered out from the black pit. And then, snakelike, the bony frame of Angel Cuzco slithered out from this prison. Dressed in red, he had a shock of white hair, with two odd bumps on his back.
Nearby, an identical stone moved sideways, and out climbed two more figures. They were dreadful to behold, swathed in long coats embedded with silt and sand, stinking and soggy. Long, lank hair hung over their shoulders, and their red, bloodshot eyes struggled in the light that they had not seen for so many years.
“What names do you go by?” asked Angel Cuzco.
“I am Captain Alvaro Villegas and this is my twin brother, Mauricio,” said one of the pair.
