by Jeremy Dwyer
Desmond looked at Keallach uncomfortably. Celio was standing next to him, and sensed the danger as well.
Keallach then asked: “Do you know how I got her to agree?”
They both stood there, with no idea how to respond.
Keallach continued, saying: “I told her that if she agreed, I’d give her half the diamonds and then take my half and sail away on the wedding day, and she could marry whoever she wanted, and forget my ugly face forever. When the king heard that his daughter agreed, he tried to cheat me and get out of paying up on the bet. Can you believe that? Anyway, when he refused, I killed the girl, while he watched, and threw her body to the sharks. Then, I killed both his sons, while he watched. Then, I took all his diamonds, all his crown jewels, and sailed away. I let him live, so that he could die each day remembering what I took from him. And I’ll do it to you if you lie to me, or leave something out.” Keallach’s face became stern, and he said: “I’ll ask you again, one last time: How did you find this city?”
Desmond thought of his own children, and realizing that this was a cold-blooded pirate of the worst sort, he knew only one possible answer. At times like this, he wished there were a deity to protect him, but the absence of any miraculous rescue in this moment led him to make only the most self-interested of decisions. Then, Desmond said: “There’s a town, one hundred twenty (120) miles east of here, and a boy there who could tell me the positions of the stars.” Desmond justified this in his mind, thinking that if the boy is valuable because of his powers, then the pirate would be motivated by greed and pragmatism to let the boy live.
Celio added more, saying: “Yes, the boy can tell where the stars were, and where they will be. He can hear them. I didn’t believe him, but he proved it when he told me the path a star would follow. And it did, too precisely for a guess.”
Keallach seemed pleased and said: “Ahh! That’s what I’m talking about! A boy who can hear the stars! There’s plenty of them, but not so many are good enough at it to find a bit of treasure hiding away in a little spot like this. There may be hope for you two yet! Can I hear this boy’s name?”
“Torin,” Celio added, thinking of the unpleasant living death that awaited both of them if he refused. He could only hope that the pirate would spare the boy out of utility, as well as Celio’s own family.
“You were wise to tell me…as long as you’re speaking the truth,” Keallach said.
Keallach and his men then pushed Desmond and Celio into a twenty (20) foot deep pit in the dig site. The fall was onto soft dirt, so neither of them was injured.
“I might be needing you again, so don’t get hurt down there,” Keallach said, speaking down into the pit.
~~~
Captain Keallach and his crew left the dig site and traveled east via riverboats. Rather than paying their way, they killed the riverboat captains they met with cutlass and dagger and then dumped their corpses into the rivers. The riverboats took them into the town, and Keallach and his crew did spare Torin when they eventually found the boy. But they spared no one else in the town where the boy lived – not even the families of Desmond or Celio. Keallach had Torin’s parents’ throats cut, along with those of three hundred seventy-five (375) other people in that town. The boy himself was forced to drink rum, knocked out and then brought back to the captain’s ship.
When Torin awoke, he found himself in a cabin on a ship that was already out at sea. He did not know, however, that the ship’s position was to the south and west of what was his home on the continent of Javanda, or that the ship was sailing across the waters of the Atrejan Ocean – the same waters of which he drank.
Torin had a foggy recollection of the killing, and the killer. His memory became clearer, and he could see the killer now, speaking directly to him.
“Good afternoon, my honored guest. I’m your Captain, Keallach, and I and my crew now welcome you aboard the Burning Bones, the finest ship to ever sail the seas,” Captain Keallach said to Torin.
Several of the pirates were there in the cabin with them, cheering with mugs of rum in their hands, remembering the thrill of what evil they had just done and the treasures they had recently taken. The pirates also took great delight in their black pirate hearts at thoughts of even more booty to come.
CHAPTER 16: Pirate and Plunder
“Now, my boy, I’ve heard some good things about you,” Captain Keallach said to the boy, while Torin was seated between two (2) other pirates and across from the captain, in a small cabin. Keallach then said: “You can hear the stars, they say.”
Torin was filled with anger and he hesitated before answering, thinking of what had happened, and filled with fear of how it might happen to him next depending on what he did and said. Torin knew that this man was a monster, and no amount of reasoning was going to change his evil nature or the murders he had just committed. Then Torin answered, and the anger and fear in his voice were both clear as he said: “Yes, I can hear where they’ve been, and where they’re going. Some of them move fast. Some of them move slow. Some of them seem regular. Some of them are not and you can’t make a formula that tells you what they’ll do.”
Keallach then asked the boy, “What water do you drink?”
Torin answered, saying: “I drink the Atrejan waters. That’s why I can hear the stars and know about them. Some people don’t even believe me, until I prove it. They think I’m using a math trick.”
“I believe you,” Keallach answered him. Then, Keallach continued, saying: “But, you see, not everybody who drinks the ‘sun waters’ – that’s what some people call them – can hear the stars and know what they’re going to do or where they’ve been. They’re not all as…talented. For some people, they drink the Atrejan waters, but they’re kind of shaky and they don’t get a good reading – like they’re half-drunk or just stupid. Only some people get any real good out of it, and only if the water’s pure enough. Now, maybe you can tell me what some of these other stars have been up to,” Keallach said.
“I worked in the Javanda shipyards, so I know lots of sailors. Some of them are navigators, and they drink the Atrejan waters to chart courses by the sounds of the stars. Don’t you have any good navigators on this ship to find your way around?” Torin asked.
“There’s good enough, my boy, and then there’s good, and then there’s really good. Good enough can find a continent, most of the time. Good can find an island, with a little luck. Really good can find a treasure, and that’s what I need. From what I heard, my boy, you’re really good – a little treasure, yourself. And now you’re on my ship, and you’re mine,” Keallach said.
“For me to tell you, I need to know which stars you mean. I can tell you where a star will go, or where stars will cross, or where that happened in the past. But it starts with a chart, so you can point to the ones you’re talking about,” Torin said. Helping this captain was not what Torin wanted to do; however, not helping might get him killed, and he wasn’t in a position to fight them off just yet.
“Get me the charts!” Captain Keallach commanded.
One of the pirates jumped up and went to the cabin door. The door opened, and another pirate was already there with star charts rolled up in his hands and he said: “Aye, captain. We’ve been waitin’ to give ‘em to you.”
At this, the pirate with the charts unrolled them, and put them on a wooden table in the center of the cabin.
Keallach stood up and looked at the start charts. His gray stubble made him look older and wiser than the other pirates on the crew, if a murderer can be called wise. Keallach’s fifty-five (55) years – thirty-nine (39) of them sailing the seas – certainly went along with some wisdom that was necessary to survive among these other murderers, keeping them under control. However, it was his knowledge of ancient cities – gained from his time reading maps and books at Emeth – which he drew upon at this moment.
Keallach pointed at the fifth (5th) yellow star and the third (3rd) blue star and said: “These two (2) stars – around twel
ve (12) centuries ago – crossed paths in the skies above the city of Droatik. It’s a legend every pirate knows. The people who lived there knew the skies well, and described everything by the paths of their stars. But the city didn’t have a place: it floated about the sea, more like a giant ship than a city on the land. They dropped their treasures down into the deep to keep them safe, and marked their locations by the crossings of the stars. They had a girl who drank the Atrejan waters and could hear the stars real clearly, like you. She helped them remember where they’d been, whenever they needed to get back to their treasure. Just by listening to the stars, she could trace their paths, back and forth, across the years to the right spot on the waters. Now, my boy, you can be a legend yourself – a living legend, if you behave yourself and work as part of my crew – and help me get the Droatik treasure.”
To Torin, the pirate’s threat was clear, but the promise was a bit doubtful. Torin wondered if the old pirate wouldn’t just kill him after finding the treasure. “Do you have any exact date? The more precise the date, the smaller the search area,” Torin answered.
“You be speakin’ clever, boy. I like it. And correct ye’ are. The date is twelve hundred (1205) years ago, on the ninth (9th) month, somewhere between the twelfth (12th) and fourteenth (14th) days of the month,” Keallach told him.
“I need a drink of the Atrejan waters – the best I can get,” Torin answered. He then drew a vial from his shirt – a vial that was connected to a chain around his neck. He opened it and poured it into his hand, giving only a few drops.
Keallach smiled and said: “Lucky for you, we’re sailing on just those waters right now. Leave it to the crew, my boy, and they’ll get you the waters. You can always trust the crew!”
At this, Keallach gestured to one of the other pirates and said: “Get me fresh waters – the best of five (5) buckets. And bring me Doctor Fritz.”
That other pirate left the cabin. Once out on deck, he lowered five (5) buckets by ropes into the sea below, and drew up the waters of the Atrejan Ocean. He signaled to another man – who was wearing a white coat – to follow him, and then he brought the buckets of water back in to the cabin.
The man wearing the white coat also wore a long off-white shirt. He was also cleaner-shaven, and had a look of focus almost like that of a scientist, rather than that of a rough-cut murderer. His coat and shirt were also not covered with the blood of any recent victims. Doctor Fritz was an alchemist, and around his own neck he wore a chain with a vial, which was marked with the classical symbols of diamonds and stones – the waters of the Kazofen Ocean – which he drank upon entering the cabin. Instead of a sword or a dagger, Doctor Fritz carried bottles and vials in his numerous shirt pockets and on his belt.
“This boy drinks the Atrejan waters and we need him to do a little work for us, so he needs to be real careful. Now, let’s be making these waters pure, Doctor Fritz,” Keallach said, looking at the man in the white shirt and coat.
Doctor Fritz looked closely at the buckets of water, examining the low level structure of the crystal impurities in the waters, because the Kazofen waters he drank gave him that insight. He compared the waters in the various buckets and identified the bucket holding the least contaminated waters, setting the other buckets aside. He took two (2) small glass bottles from his belt: one of them filled with white stones, the other empty. Doctor Fritz then poured some of the white stones into the empty bottle, then poured in the waters of the Atrejan Ocean contained in the chosen bucket, and put a metal cap on the bottle. He began shaking the bottle vigorously, and then removed the cap, and slowly poured the waters into a new vial taken from a shirt pocket, and then handed the vial to Torin. “I believe you will find this to your tastes, young man. This water is much purer,” Doctor Fritz said to him.
Torin looked at the vial and saw that the water within was as clear as any he had ever had before. The purity was everything, and he knew it: the less pure the water, the less the effect. If too much dirt or impurity was in it, the power wouldn’t work, or would work poorly. Torin drank this purified potion and found it to be very refreshing as well as energizing, as it was also his hydration as much as it was the source of his powers to hear the sounds of the stars.
Doctor Fritz began the process again, preparing several more vials of purified Atrejan Ocean waters, presumably for the days ahead.
Torin began concentrating. He could hear the positions of the yellow and blue stars as they were now, according to the earlier instructions. “I hear those stars now – the blue and the yellow. I know where they are,” Torin said.
“Good, my boy. Now tell me where they’ve been,” Keallach said.
Torin continued concentrating, asking the stars for their past positions: days, years, decades and centuries ago. He concentrated for several minutes, and saw the crossing paths, which overlapped for several days. “We need to sail southwest of here. I can show you on a chart,” Torin said.
Keallach handed the boy a chart marked with grid lines and a writing tool. The boy drew out the points where the stars crossed, which covered a two hundred mile (200) mile stretch of sea that began two thousand one hundred (2100) miles southwest of their present position. Keallach began to cross-reference this with the historical charts that he had.
“That’s a start. Get some rest, boy. I want you fresh and ready in the days ahead, so we can narrow the search. It’s going to be hard work,” Keallach said.
Keallach then took all the charts – including the chart with the route that Torin had marked – and left the cabin. The pirates left the boy alone, assigning two (2) of their crewmen to stand guard outside of the cabin.
~~~
“Follow this route and set our course to this spot. Then, we’ll have the boy take another reading when we get there to close in on it,” Captain Keallach said to three (3) of his crew members on deck, while he was pointing to a marked route and destination on a chart.
The crew members said: “Aye, Captain.” They then took to the wheel of the ship and to the sails to position them correctly, steering the Burning Bones to the indicated location.
CHAPTER 17: Castle of Glass
After several days at Emeth, Octavian boarded his ship – the Crystal Visage – along with the troops that made up his guard, Cassius, Caroline and Taesa.
Judith had filled several vials with waters from the fountain of Ursegan, and then waited by the ship until she saw them board it. She rejoined Octavian’s party, as she had the authority of the Chronicler’s Oath to accompany them and to chronicle their proceedings into a new, empty book she was given by the Verifier Alyona on her way.
Once on board the ship, Cassius turned to Octavian and said: “If you are ready, we can continue with our plans to construct your next castle.”
“Yes, Cassius: I am ready for my next and far greater castle,” Octavian said.
“Then we must set our course for the Citrine Desert in the continent of Volaraden,” Cassius said.
Octavian then led Cassius to the captain of the ship and commanded him to begin the voyage to the Citrine Desert, on the continent of Volaraden.
After a day of traveling east over the Pirovalen Ocean, they reached the Scholar’s Path land bridge. The captain of the ship called out to the crew and said: “Take the gathered power of the suns, pivot the masts and sails, and raise the ship to one hundred twenty (120) feet. Alert all crew and passengers to prepare.”
The crewmen signaled to other crew who each put on a wide, curved dark crystal over his eyes and also put on sun cloaks – dark and hooded capes – to protect them from the burn of the many suns, lest they suffer from the cancer that kills so many. They distributed the sun cloaks to the passengers, but were lacking one and had none to give to Judith.
“I came prepared for the journey,” Judith said, and turned a flap in her cloak that revealed a hood and unfolded her sleeves so as to give full protection from the suns. She also had what the crew had, but the other passengers did not: a small darkened g
lass crystal which she held over her eyes, enabling her to see clearly and safely in the bright light. Sometimes, the suns in the sky were so bright and in such unfortunate positions that this extra protection for the eyes was necessary. By taking these steps, she was again acting in accordance with the Oath.
The Seventh Tenet of The Chronicler’s Oath:
Be not a burden on the resources of others; rather, prepare for your travels and bring what you need.
In Octavian’s quarters of the ship, there was a male officer of the shadow guard, who drank of the waters of the Ikkith Tar Ocean, from a vial that hung on a chain around his neck, and he was energized. The light around him became dim, then dark, and then he radiated a darkness that encompassed him and Octavian and Cassius, and the other chief advisors, Gregory and Nikolai. They were fully protected from the burning of the many suns.
This was a formality for Octavian, however. He drank anew of the waters of the Trerada Ocean and was energized. He was fully protected from any damage from the suns, and he knew it. The same waters which healed his disfigurement and gave him his handsome looks also maintained his robust health.
The masts of the ship and its sails began to reorient, at an angle and to the sides of the ship. The Crystal Visage lifted into the air, rising to an altitude of one hundred twenty (120) feet, as ordered. The three (3) ships that accompanied them to Emeth followed the Crystal Visage and converted to this same airship formation. They traveled quickly overland – between the mountains of the Scholar’s Path land bridge – and returned to sea level in the Ursegan Ocean, to the east. There, the ships returned their masts and sails to an upright position, and began sailing northeast.
Judith recorded the details of their voyage so far into her new book.
