Island of Shipwrecks (29 page)

“Yep.”

“Eight feet tall? No way. You can't be serious.”

“It was huge, Lani.”

“Saber-toothed?”

“Six-inch spears jutting down out of its face. Not kidding.”

“Wow,” Lani said, imagining it. “But it didn't
eat
the pig . . . did it?” Lani's face was aghast. “Gorillas aren't carnivorous.”

“I admit I didn't watch that part,” Alex said.

“It ate the pig,” Simber confirmed. “Two bites.”

As the captain continued guiding the ship toward home, Lani fielded questions from Fox and Kitten about what gorillas were supposed to look like. And Alex used some burned bits from one of the lamps to do a charcoal sketch on the deck of the monster he'd seen, fangs and all.

Later, as Samheed, Lani, Sky, and Alex lounged under the stars before falling asleep, Sky said, “It was such a beautiful island. I'm sad we can't ever visit there.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “That waterfall looked refreshing.”

They lay in silence for a while.

“I wonder if any of our spells would be strong enough to freeze the gorilla,” Lani mused.

Alex and Samheed simultaneously shot her warning looks.

“No,” Alex said.

“Not a chance,” Samheed said. “Don't get any ideas.”

Sky looked on, amused.

Lani smiled innocently at the stars. “It was just a thought.
Sheesh,” she said. But it got her mind whirring. Perhaps she could come up with a special spell. . . .

One by one, their eyes fluttered closed and they drifted off to sleep.

» » « «

By morning the sixth island was just a spot on the horizon behind them, and a new, tall rise of land greeted them from in front of the ship, still some distance away.

“Wow, it's island seven!” Crow said when he woke and saw it. “I can't believe we've seen all seven of them.”

“It's pretty cool,” Henry said. After breakfast and chores, they hung over the railing as they sailed by, not as close as they'd been to the sixth island. The others gathered to look at it too.

The seventh island, which was the one just east of Quill, jutted up from the water like a canister wearing a giant spiky crown. Lush growth sprouted from the top, with vines hanging between the spikes a short length down the side of the smooth vertical wall.

“I wonder how you get up there,” Alex mused. “It looks impossible to climb.”

“Look, there are birds circling above it,” Ms. Octavia said. “And diving down to the water.”

They could hear the cries of the sea birds, and watched as one particularly large-beaked bird flew just above the surface of the water and scooped up a fish without stopping, gulping it down its floppy gullet. They didn't seem alarmed to see Simber or the ship. They just went about their birdly business.

There seemed to be no way to access the island, and nothing was happening on it that they could see, so the Artiméans moved on without discussion.

By midafternoon, the seventh island was long gone, and the Artiméans grew anxious for signs of home. They were more than ready. And it was way past time.

A
aron immersed himself in the jungle, spending the rest of the day training the panther to stay when he commanded her to. Whenever the panther obeyed, Aaron would pet her, and whenever she did not obey, Aaron ignored her and played with the little sharp-toothed dog that often spent time in the clearing near the tube.

Every now and then, when the panther would slink away or run off, and the dog and rock would nap, Aaron whiled away the time by fashioning things out of all the vines around him. He twisted long pieces together without any particular
purpose in mind at first, but then noticed the connected vines resembled a large, long-legged spider.

Inspired, Aaron went in search of something that would make a good head for the spider. Eventually he settled on a ball of mud from the riverbank and a handful of acorns for the eyes. He used extra mud to hold everything together.

The rock watched with interest. And the panther seemed very curious as well. She didn't like it when Aaron spent time paying attention to other things, even when it was because she disappeared. And whenever the panther came bounding back to demand Aaron's attention, Aaron would work with her a bit more on the “down” command, until she did it ten times in a row, perfectly.

“That's excellent,” Aaron praised, giving the panther an awkward hug. “You did it!”

The panther screamed in his face, pleased with herself as well.

Since things were progressing so well, and Aaron's forced seclusion in the secured palace was now only two days away, he decided to spend the night in the jungle—after all, he didn't have much time.

The next day, he worked on the “attack” command with the panther. This one was easier, since the panther seemed to prefer attacking things to sitting down. Aaron fashioned all sorts of fake enemies out of sticks, vines, and branches for the panther to go after, including an army of spider figures.

Quite often during the attack training, Aaron called out “Down!” to make sure the panther didn't forget that trick—the most important one. And the panther obeyed almost every time. It was the “almost” part that caused Aaron to panic. He wasn't sure why he was panicking, since he of course hated all Unwanteds and thought they probably deserved their fate. But the girl with the orange eyes that he'd seen in his brother's mansion right before the neighboring island attacked—she wasn't an Unwanted. He was sure of that. He'd have remembered her. So maybe she didn't deserve to die.

As much as he tried, he couldn't seem to feel good about the panther running around and randomly attacking people. He didn't want to witness that—it was too horrifying. He only wanted the panther to attack General Blair, and only if the general double-crossed Aaron and took over Artimé's mansion.

“I know what I need to do,” he said to himself during a
break. The little dog came over and climbed in his lap and began nibbling on his fingers with his razor teeth. Aaron shook his hand free and stood up. “I need to make a General Blair decoy.” And so he fashioned one from jungle materials and began calling it General Blair. He taught the panther the decoy's name, and lined the General Blair decoy up alongside the spiders and several other decoys Aaron had made.

“Panther,” Aaron said to the panther, as he'd begun to call the creature, “attack General Blair!”

The panther bounded over to the lineup, hesitated, and grabbed the nearest spider, shaking its viny body in her teeth.

Aaron tried again, and again the panther attacked the decoy closest to her. Over and over, the panther started out with good intentions, or so Aaron surmised, but the temptation to attack the nearest object won out every time. When Aaron moved the General Blair decoy to the front of the pack, Panther attacked him soundly. But when Aaron moved him behind, the panther just couldn't ignore the easiest catch.

The rock watched with fascination. This was no doubt the most entertainment he'd seen since Marcus Today had extracted the giant hunk of ebony from his mouth.

“I have an idea,” the rock interjected when Aaron collapsed to the ground after hours of failure. “Perhaps you should only use the command when the enemy you wish the panther to attack is nearest you.”

Aaron sighed deeply, staring up at the canopy of leaves that held up the sky above him. Light was fading once more. Dirty, exhausted, and dejected, Aaron lay there for several minutes before admitting, “You're probably right.”

The rock thought for a moment but decided to say no more. It moved away, down a path, leaving Aaron alone.

Aaron struggled to his feet and looked at the decoys, many of them mangled beyond recognition. Aaron picked up his original spider and petted the vines as if the creature were alive. He marveled over his ability to put these things together like this. He'd never done anything like it before—not in front of anybody, anyway. He'd never been caught as a child pretending the mop was a fluffy dog, or the worn old broom a hedgehog. Not even Alex knew about that.

He drew a hand over the spider's mudball head and vine body, thinking about what it would be like to have an animal companion. Certainly it would be better than any human friend.
The only thing human friends were good for was advancing one's self above them and fearing their revenge later. But an animal was no competition.
I wonder what it would be like if this spider came alive,
he thought. Could he make it happen? He knew he could fix the panther's tail by attaching a vine and concentrating on it becoming a part of the living creature . . . but what about starting with something that was completely not alive? It had to be impossible. Still, Aaron closed his eyes.
Come alive,
he thought, and pictured the spider moving about.
Come alive.

The vines grew fuzzy under his fingers. Aaron opened his eyes and let out a horrified shout as the spider began moving in his hands. He threw it to the jungle floor and moved backward to get away from it. The spider found its legs and ran frightened down the path that led deep into the jungle. Soon it had disappeared.

“What the—good grief!” he cried. He wiped his hands on his pants, trying to get the creepy crawling sensation off them, and then stood there alone for a long moment, contemplating what had just happened. And wondering anew just what exactly he was capable of.

I
t was dark in the jungle when Aaron decided it was time to go. He hadn't quite accomplished what he'd wanted to, teaching the panther to stay down and attack on command, but in a way, he discovered much more about himself than he'd ever imagined. Still reeling from bringing the spider to life, he stumbled back to the tube and pressed the button. From the mansion, he quickly continued on to Haluki's closet, then made his way through the dark house and outside, into the pressing heat. There was very little breeze tonight, and Aaron was surprised by how much he missed the cooler air they'd had since the wall came down.

He walked up the road to the palace and slipped through the portcullis and past the sleeping guards, reminding himself to send them to the Ancients Sector in the morning for not doing their jobs. As he approached the palace, he looked up. The windows in the tower were dark—Liam must be asleep. Inside the entryway, all was dark and quiet. Even the interior guards were away from their posts. Aaron could hear them rummaging around in the kitchen for food. At least they were awake, but they shouldn't all leave their posts at once. Aaron frowned. If he sent them to the Ancients Sector too, he'd run out of guards.

No matter,
Aaron thought, and shrugged. By morning the place would be teeming with Quillitary soldiers, shuttering Aaron inside “for protection,” or so General Blair said, as the rest of the Quillitary attacked Artimé. But Aaron knew differently. He was being imprisoned. Kept out of the way until Blair was safely in charge of everything.

Aaron thought briefly about disappearing back into the jungle, but he feared his absence in the morning would tip off General Blair that something wasn't right. And Aaron needed General Blair to attack and take over Artimé—Aaron couldn't do that
alone. So all he could do was sit tight and wait it out, and then, when he was free to move about Quill once more, he would go back to the jungle, round up Panther, and make his move.

But first he desperately needed sleep.

On the way to his sleeping quarters, he stopped in his office and saw a roughly scribbled note from Liam, who was still quite new at writing.
Didn't see you today. Hope all is okay for big day tomorrow.

Aaron crumpled up the paper and tossed it on the floor. Liam was a bit of a moron, which was good, because it probably meant that he'd forgotten the uncomfortable conversation they'd had the other day, the memory of which made Aaron's stomach churn. But Liam was loyal. That was more than Aaron could say for Secretary, he supposed. He had never known exactly where she stood, even to the end. What had she been doing in Artimé, anyway? He still had no idea.