Hunt for the Pyxis

by Zoë Ferraris

  “How about Maggot?” Santher suggested.

  “I like it,” Herbie said. Laika rolled her eyes.

  The cove came upon them suddenly. There was no sign marking it; the Maggot merely slowed and turned into an inlet. Emma figured it resembled the sketch on Nisba’s chart of Eridanus, but she was more interested in scanning the coastline for some sign of Captain Gent.

  “Is this Skullax?” Herbie whispered. His voice echoed strangely in the still air.

  “I don’t know.” Emma thought she heard a faint splish but saw nothing moving.

  Their rowboat stopped just as a longboat emerged from the low, thin fog ahead of them. Even from a distance, they could make out Gent’s form and detect the sheen of her bright-red hair. A cloaked figure was sitting beside her. Emma watched intently as they drew closer and could just see a narrow bit of blond hair at the front edges of the cloak. She couldn’t tell if it was Mom.

  “Put your hands in the air,” Santher called out. “Or we’ll activate the Pyxis.”

  Gent did as she was told.

  “Guys,” Herbie said, “I have a bad feeling. That doesn’t look like Emma’s mo—”

  He was about to finish when something whizzed past his head. A small object splintered the hull in front of him.

  “Scupper!” Laika cried. The word hit them like a shock. Everyone spun to see a pair of ships coming through the darkness on the port side. They could just make out the Draconi bowsprits, glowing viciously red and fiery. All around them were more rowboats, each filled with navy sailors, each carrying tuskets and pointing them straight at Emma and her friends.

  Gent gave a laugh. “It’s too bad you didn’t bring my sister,” she called. “Although I doubt she could have helped you. She’s so easily fooled.” The cloak of the person beside her dropped away, revealing one of her crew members—a stout man with blond hair. He wore a malicious grin.

  In no time at all, the rowboats were upon them, hauling everyone into the Draconi longboats and kicking the Maggot to send it back on its way.

  Emma felt the boat sway and saw Gent step on board. She came straight to Emma, hauled her to her feet, and pulled her to the stern. The sailors ignored them.

  Gent forced her into the seat there and sat across from her, her eyes narrowing wickedly. From her pocket, she removed the fake Pyxis and dangled it in front of Emma’s face.

  “Start it,” she said.

  Emma was shocked. “You don’t want to do that,” she replied. “The whole galaxy will come after you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re on Eridanus. The navy won’t follow us here, and neither will any mercenary vessels. They’re too afraid of these waters.”

  “Then the pirates are going to find you,” Emma said.

  Gent gave a snort. “There are no pirates. We killed them all. Now start it.”

  Emma was panicking now. “You don’t want to do this—” Before she could finish, Gent grabbed her arm and pushed her backward so that she fell over the side of the boat. Emma yelped. The only thing preventing her from falling into the water was the firmness of Gent’s grip.

  “Start it,” Gent said.

  “I can’t,” Emma gasped. “I can’t start it. I don’t know how.”

  Gent hauled her back into the longboat and dumped her roughly on the floor. “That’s what I thought,” she said. “But don’t worry, you’ll come in handy in another way.”

  Shaking in fright, Emma curled into a ball and let the Draconi sailors begin tying her up.

  Emma sat on the top deck of the Hargrim, a large Draconi craft. She was shivering violently in her thin tunic. It had begun to rain, great sheets of water slicing like guillotines from the sky. Her hands were tied together with cord, and they were aching. Herbie was beside her, his black hair plastered to the bruises that marred his bleak face. Laika was next to him, looking cold and miserable. They were all in shackles and lashed to the railing poles.

  No one knew what had become of Santher. They’d each been thrown into a longboat and brought on board separately. But Santher had never arrived. When Laika tried asking what had happened to him, she got a kick in the leg.

  Emma’s hair had been cut short by the surgeon’s knife. She hadn’t cried when the filthy loblolly boy dragged her head over the side of a table and sliced it all off, but it hurt her soul just as if she were a cat whose tail had been chopped off. No one else had lost their locks this evening, and it was obvious why: the captain was going to make an example of her.

  Now Emma was wet, cold, and shaking. She kept thinking of Mom. Was she here, on the ship? Was she lying in some dank, cold brig, infected by a squilch and dying?

  “Maybe Santher will rescue us,” Laika said.

  “Laika,” Herbie said, “we have to rely on ourselves. Even if he managed to get free, how is he going to rescue us by himself?”

  “He may have a plan.” But even Laika didn’t look hopeful about this.

  Emma glanced at Herbie. He was staring at the sailors with a terrible look of disappointment.

  “I don’t like Draconi ships anymore,” he said numbly.

  Emma felt tears welling in her eyes and she couldn’t seem to stop them. I’ve failed everyone, she thought.

  Captain Gent strode onto the deck. She was wearing the overcoat of the Virgo navy. Her head was cloaked against the rain, but they caught a glimpse of her thicket of red hair. She planted herself in front of the mainmast, while behind her a dozen sailors assembled in a half circle, their tuskets pointed at the Arghs.

  There was a scuffle at the stairs. She looked over to see two sailors dragging Mom onto the deck. Emma’s heart gave a terrific leap—she was alive!

  “Mom!” she cried, forcing herself to her feet, shackles clanging. A blow from a tusket butt cut her short, and she fell to the deck. Emma grabbed her head and struggled to sit up again.

  They had cut Mom’s hair too. Emma had never seen her look so bad. She was wearing a prison robe, which hung on her withered frame like a sack. She seemed tiny and frail beside the burly men, and her face wore a look of grinding pain. Captain Gent motioned the men to release Mom. They let her go, and she stumbled, dragged down by the heavy chains on her wrists.

  Captain Gent came forward, looking smugly at Emma and her friends. “You all know why you’re here,” she called out. They stared back at her grimly. “You are being charged with aiding and abetting piracy on the high seas. The Queen has given me permission to expedite proceedings, so instead of the requisite three days of waiting, I am now obliged to perform the trial this evening. Believe me,” she said with a false attempt at a smile, “I don’t want to do this, but my hands are tied.” To emphasize her point, she held out her hands.

  No one moved.

  “Ringrose,” she said. “Read the judgment.” One of her men nodded solemnly and opened a scroll of parchment. Emma’s heart knotted in her throat.

  “ ‘Emma Brightstoke Garton of Monkey,’ ” Ringrose began. “ ‘After judicious decision by the maritime configuration of a war seas council, you are hereby charged with treason and piracy…. ’ ”

  “What judicious decision?” Herbie shouted.

  “Wait! Wait!” Mom cried. “What do you want? Tell me. I’ll give you anything.”

  Gent turned to her in mock surprise. “My, this is familiar,” she said. “Only last time you were not so eager to cooperate.”

  “I’ll tell you anything,” Mom said, her voice cracking. “Whatever you want.”

  “Very well,” Gent replied. “I have tried to activate the Pyxis, and nothing has happened.” She reached into her collar and pulled the Pyxis from her shirt. “This infamous object is said to lead its bearer to the Shroud’s very doorway. These dials and gears”—she flicked them angrily—“are supposed to align to the Shroud’s coordinates. And these blue stones are said to open the gate itself. And yet this powerful, incredible object has done absolutely NOTHING. So you see, Halifax,” Gent said, coming closer, “it seems to be entirely usel
ess.”

  Mom blinked rapidly.

  “I believed that,” Gent said. “And then I remembered how good you were at lying.”

  Mom was fighting to stop shaking.

  “So what I want you to do,” Gent went on, “is tell me how to start the Pyxis, or your daughter dies.”

  Mom turned to Emma, a look of horrible anguish on her face. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Emma knew that she had spent most of her life protecting the secret that Gent wanted so badly, and to reveal it now would be the most brutal defeat.

  “I don’t know the answer,” Mom said.

  “Oh well,” Gent said lightly, motioning to her men.

  Ringrose picked up the scroll and continued reading. “ ‘By law, your punishment is immediate execution…. ’ ”

  Mom looked panicked, her eyes flashing to Emma.

  Suddenly there was a scuffle from the stairs and two men appeared, hauling a large cage. There was a lynx inside, snapping and clawing at the iron bars. Emma and her friends stared at the lynx in wonder.

  “Is that…?” Laika whispered.

  The sailors jammed their tuskets at the beast, and one speared its shoulder. The lynx yowled in rage and lashed out with its claws as blood spurted down its leg. Another sailor delivered a savage blow to the animal’s head, and it fell down with a thump.

  “Better hurry up,” Gent said to Mom.

  “You’ve got to use the Pyxis with a map,” Mom blurted.

  The deck fell silent.

  “What map?” Gent demanded.

  “It’s a special map. An old one,” Mom said, looking around in confusion. “I don’t know where it is. Someone else hid it…. ”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t know what they did with it!” Mom’s voice quavered. “You have to believe me!”

  “ ‘In a manner,’ ” Ringrose continued, “ ‘to be determined by Captain Artemisia Gent of the sloop Newton Eel, now on board the Draconi vessel Hargrim, in Her Majesty’s service. Graces to the Queen.’ ”

  “Noooo!” Mom cried. “You can’t do this! You just have to find the map! The Pyxis won’t start without it!”

  Emma felt as if the world were shrinking. The deck, the crew, the faces of the Arghs all seemed to be growing smaller and darker. She had to force herself to breathe. Two men undid her shackles and dragged her to a sheet of canvas that was lying on the deck.

  “Stop!” Herbie cried out. “No!”

  A sailor knocked him with the butt of his tusket, and Herbie too fell aside.

  Mom was sobbing at Gent’s feet.

  “Mom!” Emma cried. “Don’t cry! It’s going to be okay!”

  The sailors threw her into the center of the canvas. She felt a burst of adrenaline and began struggling against their grip, but their fists were like iron bracelets. Two more men laid six large rocks against her legs. She tried kicking them away, but the men held her fast.

  “Please!” Mom cried. “I swear I’ll help you find the map. I swear it!”

  “I think you know exactly where it is,” Gent said coolly. “And you’d better tell me fast, or your daughter is going overboard.”

  “I don’t know where it is!” Mom shouted.

  Tears sprang to Emma’s eyes.

  The sailors went for the lynx. They dragged it from its cage and tossed it down beside Emma. In two quick moves, the men folded the canvas over her and rolled her together with the bloody, rain-sopped beast, squashing them so tightly that she felt nothing but wet fur in her face.

  Outside she heard the clatter of rain on the canvas. It jerked as the sailors hastily sewed it shut. “Hurry up, hurry up,” one of them grunted. “Before the cat wakes!”

  Emma squirmed and kicked against the canvas. She was going to die. She would never see her parents again, or Herbie or Laika or Santher. And she would certainly never get the Pyxis back. There was a sudden flash of light and the deafening boom of tuskets. Emma gasped. They were going to throw her over the railing.

  Struggling, she managed to get her hand into her pocket. She touched something cold and it startled her. She still had a few vostok. They were icy. She took them out and tried to get them into her mouth, but she couldn’t. The bag thumped as the men dragged her across the deck. The big rocks banged against her legs. There were protests in the distance, the sound of Mom crying. The jolting was so harsh that she felt certain it was designed for one purpose: to wake the angry lynx before they reached the railing.

  It worked. The lynx awoke with a roar and a vicious explosion of hissing. Emma was pressed tightly to its back, but she screamed nonetheless—which only upset the animal more. Its claws slashed wildly at the canvas, but it was so thick that it would take another few minutes to break free even if the animal knew what it was doing. And they didn’t have the time.

  Emma felt the lynx twisting and thrashing. She had never been so terrified in her life as when its claw nicked her arm. She cried out in pain and struggled desperately to put the vostok into her mouth, but in the bumping and jouncing the stone flew out of her grip.

  And then a startling thing happened. She felt the lynx’s wet fur transform into soft, wet fabric. She gripped it in disbelief.

  “Emma,” a voice gasped.

  “Oh!”

  “It’s me—Santher.”

  “Santher?” She fumbled to touch his face. “How did you—?”

  “No time. Do you have anything sharp?”

  “No!” she gasped. “They took every—” They felt themselves being lifted over the railing. “Santher, what do we do?” With a great shove, they were loosed over the side.

  They hit the sea with a heavy splash. Emma could just feel the water seeping through the canvas when suddenly a different kind of pain overtook her. Her whole body began shaking as the coldness swept through her. She cried out.

  They were sinking rapidly. Emma saw herself drowning, a corpse being dragged into a poisoned sea. Worse still was the thought that she had dragged Santher into this, and that he was suffering the same agony as her. His body clunked against hers like a slab of ice. The choking, the horror of the darkness, and the weight of the water as it pressed her to the bottom. There were only minutes, perhaps seconds, left.

  Emma looked around. She was standing on the deck of a ship. It was the Markab, she realized with a sudden burst of relief, the Markab before it had been turned into a baby dragon-of-war. She was sailing with Dad and Herbie, and they were heading through the Golden Gate strait out into the open ocean. It was just like the other times they’d done it, only this time she was filled with the most extraordinary feeling—that everything she had ever wanted to know was just right there, and all she had to do was reach out and grab it. Every question she ever had. Every desire. Every hope. It could all be grasped at the slightest thought.

  She tested it. She thought of Dad. What did he look like when he was her age? All at once he appeared before her, a tall boy with jet-black hair and a piercing gaze. He was riding a chestnut-colored Pegasus horse, and there was a mallet in his hand, almost like a polo stick. He met her eyes and she stared at him in wonder, trying to imagine him going to school and doing homework and sailing on the weekends just like she did.

  Anything, she thought with giddiness. I can ask for anything!

  Her mind wheeled through the possibilities. She could ask about Mom. About how she grew up. About what it was like being a princess, and why she ran away to Eridanus. About being with pirates. About how she met Dad. Quickly, she thought of more pressing concerns: How had they stolen the Pyxis? How had Mom survived the execution? And where was Dad now? It occurred to her that she ought to find out what was going to happen. Was Mom going to die on Gent’s ship? What would happen to Dad? And Emma and Herbie and their friends—what would become of them?

  Suddenly, Queen Virgo loomed before her, grandest of all figures. She said sternly, “These waters are dangerous.” But she herself was drinking from them—clear blue memory water. It was making her
skin glow. “These waters can kill you,” she warned, water dripping from her mouth. “They spread lies.”

  Emma felt a violent swirling clap, as if someone had just yanked her from behind. The picture changed. Now she saw a man leaning over her mother. They were both very young, and her mother looked glamorous in a silky blue gown and a tiara of diamonds, her white-blond hair flowing down to her waist. The man’s eyes were filled with such a look of sweet surrender and weakness and desire. Mom shifted nervously when he leaned over to kiss her.

  CLAP!

  Another picture. This time a horse was running joyfully toward her. It was Dad’s horse. It had wings, and they were going to fly….

  CLAP!

  Sitting at the kitchen table, Herbie was laughing so hard that flakes of carrot came flying out of his nose.

  CLAP!

  A violent maelstrom in a stormy sea. Ships were getting caught in the swirl of water. Voices screaming. Emma gasped. Of course she couldn’t see the future—these were memories! She realized that she was still underwater, without air.

  This is how it kills you, she thought wildly. You believe it’s real. And you stay here, fascinated by all the pictures, and you drown.

  She forced her eyes open and saw nothing but darkness. She felt Santher beside her. He was struggling with something. With a sudden rip, the canvas split and fell away, dragged down by the rocks. They were in a green and rocky underwater world, near the bottom of the sea. The floor was covered in sand, and great streamers of kelp were swirling about.

  She was captivated by the water. It was full of light and motion. Images were flickering everywhere she looked, and sounds came to her ears as if they were spoken there—soft voices, loud shouts, whispers of the living and the dead. She could see these visions, hundreds of them moving through the waters all around her, and she was filled again with the feeling that everything she had ever wondered about or wanted to know was right there at her fingertips—all she had to do was reach.

  No, she thought viciously. I have to get out! She gave a swift kick, desperately pushing herself back toward the surface, but her head hit something hard. It was Santher’s foot. He was falling on top of her. He must have tried to swim to the surface and gotten swept away by the memories.