The Pirate King Read online

  Right on cue, all the ship’s lanterns transformed into the heads of little children…children with no whites to their eyes and yellowed fangs for teeth. They chanted the seaside ditty, their eyes blazing with black fire, while Blake clutched his hair, thrashing and snarling like a rabid dog. How often he had ranted and raved like this, fighting to break the seal the ocean had placed on his lips!

  “Hip hurray! Merry-ay! You’ll never be saved; you’re here to stay!”

  Blake banged his head over and over against the deck until it was bruised and bleeding. But the children wouldn’t stop singing.

  “You’ll never be saved; you’re here to stay!”

  Blake stopped battering his brains out. He looked up, his bloodshot eyes bulging in their sockets. That wasn’t right! That wasn’t the ending. His father had taught him that song, and Blake knew how it really ended! According to the legend, Keel Cutlass stole a man’s breath from his lungs. And since a man’s breath was also his life, the Demon of the Deep claimed that as well. Once claimed, there was no escape.

  “Heave ho! Merry-oh! To escape from his hands, you must die by your own!”

  Blake closed his eyes, blocking out the hideous vision.

  To escape from his hands, you must die by your own…

  He opened his eyes. The doors were right in front of him. He could make it.

  Ignoring the faces that giggled and gaped at him from all sides, he tore down the deck. The keys rattled in his hand, the lock turned, and the door creaked forward sleepily. Blake shoved it open, swam through, and barricaded himself inside his cabin, shutting out the demons and their song. Only then did he close his eyes and release a haggard breath.

  This was his sanctuary, the one place he felt safe.

  Well, safer, anyway.

  Ever since he arrived on the seafloor, Blake swore that he was going to escape. Day after midnight day, he plotted, prepared, and promised himself that his salvation was at hand…only to crumble to pieces at the last moment.

  It hadn’t taken Blake long to learn that, if he stuck one shriveled toe out of the Polaris, he was fish food. Compared to his agile predators, he was slow and clumsy in the water. He couldn’t flee. And he couldn’t fight back. He had discovered that in a particularly horrific way. And if he died in the belly of some monster…in the heart of the sea…

  Blake shuddered, looking at the smaller monster he was about to put into his belly. There was only one thing he feared more than a lifetime in the Sunken Slaughterhouse, and that was an eternity.

  So two years went by. It seemed that Blake alternated every day between a daring escape plan, and a plan to slit his throat wide open. Suicide was the easy way out. After all, didn’t the shanty say that to escape Keel Cutlass’s hands a seaman had to die by his own? But every time Blake hit rock bottom and got out his knife, something always stopped him. A tiny whisper that somehow managed to drown out the screaming torrents of despair. Was it his cowardice? Or his hope, still clinging feebly to life? It was impossible to tell.

  Blake slammed his dinner repeatedly against the rotted planks, his frustration mounting with each smooth, languid strike. Finally, the spidercrab’s shell cracked. Next came the messy business of tearing apart the exoskeleton and forcing whatever meat he could pick off down his throat.

  Suppertime was not a very genteel affair aboard the Polaris.

  The sunken frigate was only reason Blake had survived down here for so long. When he had realized he was trapped on the seafloor, he had worked fanatically to seal every tear in the captain’s cabin’s framework until he was convinced that he was safe from everything. He had also gathered a horde of deep-sea pearls, the kind that glowed a soft sapphire-blue. A gulper eel had nearly swallowed him while he had foraged for them among the kelp, but the trip had been worth it. His cabin now shone, bright as the night sky. He even carried one of the pearls around with him, in a glass locket around his neck.

  Gagging down the last strip of blue-veined meat, Blake curled into a ball and closed his eyes…a frightening thing to do. But he hadn’t slept for days, and he couldn’t fight his exhaustion any longer.

  He hung there suspended, revolving like a wheel. Then, slowly, he sank and hovered over the deck. His hair brushed his face. It felt like a person’s touch. Blake shivered.

  I am safe. I am alive. I am alone.

  Had he locked the door?

  Blake’s eyes shot open. A ghoulish face was inches from his own, a tortured wail molded into its soft gray cheeks.

  Blake screamed, releasing a frantic stream of bubbles, and lashed out. When he went still, the phantom was gone.

  No! That was impossible! Nothing ever entered his cabin! He was safe in here!

  His eyes jerked toward the door. He remembered sealing it, but had he locked it? Did he remember cold metal in his hand, his wrist twisting as he turned the key?

  I don’t care. I want to sleep. I just want to sleep!

  Unbidden, visions of seasnakes and specters surged to his mind’s eye. His head felt like it was being crushed between slabs of stone. Blake moaned.

  “Do you even care to avenge yourself anymore, Ransom? Has the sea taken your every desire, save those of your fishy friends?”

  Blake’s eyes widened at the familiar rasp.

  “To eat, to sleep, to survive another day…”

  Blake convulsed, his nails digging into his temples.

  “Did you see the sunrise this morning?” Captain Henry Hawkeye asked him sweetly, “It was beautiful.”

  Blake’s lip curled. What a bastard. What a bloody bastard.

  “You look tired, Ransom. Haven’t you been sleeping well?”

  The voice was a knife, stabbing at Blake’s mind. He couldn’t silence it!

  Shut up; shut up! Blake tried to shout, but to his fury, nothing escaped his lips but bubbles and infantile gurgles. Hawkeye laughed at his helpless rage, and then broke down into a violent hacking fit. Between hoarse gasps and coughs, he sneered, “Don’t get tetchy with me now! You need to learn how to move on…oh, wait. You can’t, can you? I did the world a favor, drowning you. Let all the vermin rot together in the dark!”

  At that, Blake’s pale skin, already stretched tight over his cheekbones, went taut. A dangerous, crazed light began shining in his black eyes.

  I’ll come back someday, Hawkeye, I swear it! I’ll make you pay for every second I’ve spent in the dark! I’ll string you up on the yardarms and make you dangle to the tune of ‘Heave-ho, Merry-Oh’! It’ll be the last damn thing you ever hear!

  Speaking of those creepy demons…

  Blake’s eyes darted back to the door.

  No, he wouldn’t check! He knew it was locked, and he needed to sleep…if it wasn’t the door, it would be something else…an unlocked porthole, an imaginary gash in the hull…the voices, the faces, the shadows…

  Blake tore through the water, reached the door, and tugged on its handle.

  It was locked.

  Blake’s face darkened into a feral rage. Of course it was.

  Snarling, he picked up a nearby lantern and hurled it as hard as he could. It floated gracefully through the water and then began to peacefully sink. Blake watched it, quivering. He was crazy. He was starving. Why not hasten the inevitable? What was he waiting for? He could save himself, this very moment.

  Blake fumbled for his knife.

  “You promised you would return, captain.”

  His best mate always spoke at times like these, trying to dissuade him from carrying out his dark design.

  It won’t matter to you, Tolger. You won’t know how I died!

  They all thought he was dead, no doubt. Even with Blake’s special gift, how could any man survive so long on the seabed with only monsters and shadows for company? Blake lifted the knife to his throat. He could hear his heart pounding.

  “Don’t do it, captain.”

  But he wanted to do it so badly.

  “There’s still hope you will live to see the sun.”

>   A lump formed in Blake’s throat, right where his knife lay. Hope? There wasn’t any hope. Not for him. And if Tolger understood how that felt, he’d be glad that Blake was putting an end to this nightmare. But no one…no one…could understand. Not unless they too had endured this darkness.

  “There’s another way, captain,” Tolger whispered.

  Don’t you dare! Blake snarled. Tolger had been feeding him that lie for years, and he didn’t believe it anymore! His Kingship was lost. The Lady in Blue had rejected him, years ago. He had nothing to live for.

  “Look at you now, mighty Sea King! Go on! Do it!”

  Hawkeye sounded delighted, like Blake had invited him to a tea party in the Sunken Slaughterhouse, complete with spidercrab cakes and snaggletooth tartlets for dessert.

  “With you dead, I will finally be able to crown myself the Black King! Do it!”

  “Don’t do it, captain! There’s still hope…”

  “Do it!”

  “Don’t!”

  The voices were so disorienting that Blake nearly slit his throat by accident.

  “Stop encouraging him! Can’t you see you’re making him worse?”

  “That’s the idea, isn’t it? I’d have had him gutted long ago, too, if you didn’t keep butting in!”

  Bloody mother of Neptune, now Hawkeye and Tolger didn’t even sound like themselves…and they certainly weren’t paying attention to him!

  Blake waited petulantly as his sworn enemy and best mate squabbled like a pair of fishwives. Then he lost patience with them both and declared, I’m going to do it! And neither of you can stop me!

  He pressed the knife against his throat, drawing blood. Then he paused expectantly. But this time, nobody spoke. Blake’s bottom lip trembled. Wasn’t Tolger going to try and talk him out of it? Wasn’t anyone going to tell him there was still hope? He listened as hard as he could, but only the darkness answered him, encouraging him to end this nightmare. After all, it had been a long time since life had been worth the pain of living.

  “Look at you!” cried a young man’s voice.

  Blake flinched, like a naughty boy caught playing with knives. Then he froze. He hadn’t heard that voice in over twenty years, and he never would have dreamt of hearing it here of all places, in his silent, soggy hell. With undisguised exasperation, the same voice complained, “You’re getting blood everywhere!”

  Blake’s bleary gaze fell on the trail of crimson staining the water, and his brow knit with deep confusion. His lips parted. Trembling violently, they asked a question nobody heard. Then, with wide eyes, Blake waited for an answer.

  The young man sighed.

  “It’s too late for that,” he said with weary disgust.

  Blake’s face wilted. He looked down at his knife with hollow eyes.

  “Goodbye, Blake.”

  Several moments passed. Then a soft scraping noise interrupted Blake’s dark thoughts.

  Crrrrreeeeeaaak…

  Blake’s heart started to thud; it sounded as loud as an avalanche in the silence. He didn’t want to look. But slowly, his head swiveled toward the door.

  It was now ajar.

  For a long while, Blake stared at the empty doorframe. Then he looked down at his key…and back up at the open door.

  That was when the shadows came spilling in.

  Like a host of scuttling insects, they danced frenziedly across the bulkheads. With a dazed smile, Blake watched them come in and circle around him. Gamboling about like cannibals performing a tribal dance, they whirled around and around until Blake’s fevered brain started to swirl around along with them.

  As if she wanted to join in the revelry, the Polaris began to rock gently to and fro. Blake paused, then smiled and absently lowered his knife. It felt like he was sailing the ocean again. But before he could savor the nostalgic feeling, the cabin started rattling like a pile of old bones. Blake stirred uneasily. Now the sensation was not so soothing; it felt like stormy waves were tossing the Polaris about. He looked confusedly at the shadows, but they appeared undeterred by the commotion, jigging about like drunken sailors, waltzing in pairs, kahiko dancing like there was no tomorrow…wait, what?

  Blake blinked. One of the shadows noticed and stopped long enough to proffer its hand politely to Blake, who declined its invitation with equal courtesy.

  No, thank you. I’d rather just watch while my sanity slips away. If it’s all the same to you.

  The phantom shrugged and started dancing again.

  Then the host of shadows dispersed, and in their place, Blake saw spirits floating in the water. Their faces were melted like wax and molded into nightmarish contortions. They drooped languidly in the water, like human skins hung up to dry. Blake knew what they were: Keel Cutlass’s victims, after the slaughter. The sight was simply too appalling.

  Blake started to laugh.

  Aye, that was it; that was it! That was the sound of despair, of true despair! Not weeping or wailing but laughter that sprang from a hell within, from a place where life had become a nightmare and death a dream.

  Blake threw back his head, rocking to and fro and screaming in silent mirth. Blood trickled from where his uncut nails had pierced his temples. Why was his impending death so hilariously, hellishly funny? As Blake’s glee intensified, so did his horror, and he could have cried from the pain of it. He didn’t need the light! He just needed to escape the darkness!

  Blake stopped laughing and flinched.

  Something like a finger had just jabbed his arm. That wasn’t funny. It hurt.

  Before he could recover, Blake felt it again, harder this time. He jerked back, baring his teeth in a feral growl.

  All at once, a myriad of invisible fingers started poking and prodding his bare skin. The sensation was hellish, unbearable. But Blake didn’t move. He couldn’t. He was paralyzed.

  “Come with us, Blake!” came a multitude of childlike giggles.

  Blake wildly shook his head. Only his wide, petrified eyes revealed the hell that was going on within him.

  “Why not? It doesn’t hurt! Keel Cutlass makes the butchering feel so good! Isn’t that what you want, Blake? To feel good?”

  Agony and desire converged on Blake in a confused, jumbled haze.

  “Give up, and give in! You’re too dirty for the sunlight, anyway, Blake! So embrace the darkness!”

  Blake’s world went black, as though someone had covered his eyes. Strong arms bound his limbs. A hand pressed against his mouth, solely for effect. Then a chorus of diabolical voices started laughing at his terror. The only part of Blake that could still move was his chest. It heaved furiously up and down, and the fingers targeted it.

  “That’s what you’ve really wanted, isn’t it, ever since Keel Cutlass came to visit you the first time?”

  An insane fury engulfed Blake until he wasn’t even a person anymore, but a beast that wanted to scream and rip things apart, to hurt something until it did all the hurting for him. Imprisoned by darkness, he strained against his bonds, but he couldn’t move a muscle.

  Broken. Filthy. Vermin.

  Struggling against the red waves slamming his mind, Blake tried to cry for help to the one person who could save him. At once, the shadows stopped giggling. White-hot pain seared Blake’s forehead. Then the invisible hands released him, but far from feeling any relief, Blake went cold. There he was, standing in the doorway.

  Keel Cutlass, in the flesh.

  The demon’s eyes were like a snaggletooth’s: white, round, and bulging. A ratty seaweed beard hung from his chin, and deep lines crisscrossed his sunken cheekbones. But all Blake saw was the scar on Cutlass’s brow: a ghastly red mark, shaped like a crescent moon.

  Taking a step forward, the Butcher of Souls brandished his horrible blade, the blade that ought to have skinned pigs or sheep but instead flayed the souls of men. In its reflection, Blake saw a blistering, crescent-shaped welt on his own forehead. He stared, transfixed with horror. He’d been branded. His body and his soul now belonge
d to the Demon of the Deep. He was damned to the Slaughterhouse, forever.

  Keel Cutlass took another step forward, and Blake screamed for the Lady in Blue.

  At once, the Polaris gave a sickening lurch. Blake spun through the water and slammed against the deck, losing sight of Keel Cutlass. When he finally managed to steady himself, he looked at the doorway.

  The demon was gone.

  Like a beast awakening from a long sleep, the Polaris groaned. The frigate’s yawn echoed through the chasm. Blake listened to it, rigid as a plank.

  Then, in an instant, his silent world was no more.

  Gone was the calm of the seafloor! Everything was shaking, falling, collapsing! The layer of muck that had lain undisturbed for two years rose up in smoky clouds, and thunder rumbled in the abyss.

  It was a seaquake!

  The Polaris shuddered again. Flailing helplessly about, Blake corkscrewed through the water. He smashed against the deck, and the knife flew from his hand. Desperately, he tried to steady himself, but with every shiver and shake of the sunken ship, he lost control and went flying again. The Polaris was being torn to pieces, with Blake trapped inside! If he couldn’t escape in time, he’d die!

  “I thought you wanted to die,” Tolger remarked unhelpfully.

  Blake cursed. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something falling toward him.

  “Captain, get out of the way!”

  Tolger’s warning came too late.

  The heavy beam struck the side of Blake’s skull. He convulsed, and his eyes rolled back into their sockets. Then he sank limply to the deck as his still, silent world crumpled into chaos around him.

  2

  The Crown Heir

  Eselder trudged out of Kingston Palace into the balmy summer air.

  The afternoon sun painted the path a warm shade of peach, and courtiers milled about the palace gardens like big, obnoxious flowers.

  Eselder headed toward the gate leading out to Kingston Court’s vast grounds, watching a young noble attempt to pick a rose for his beloved. The poor fellow lost his balance and tumbled headfirst into a sea of thorns. Smirking, Eselder left the gardens—and the courtiers—far behind.