Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates (17 page)

Afterwards they made their way up on deck to discover that it was a fine sunny morning and the ship was moving across a stretch of calm blue water. There was no sight of land in any direction, an occurrence which made Sebastian feel vaguely anxious; but on such a beautiful day he could not allow himself to be in low spirits for long. Then Jenna came striding across the deck towards him, a welcoming smile on her face. He noticed that she was carrying a three-cornered hat, much like her own as well as a pile of clothes.

'Ah, gentlemen, just in time,' she said. 'We're approaching the Angel's Lair – I thought you'd like to take a look at it.'

'This is the place you mentioned yesterday?' said Sebastian, intrigued. 'But what is it, exactly?'

'You'll see soon enough,' she assured him. 'I don't want to spoil the surprise.' She lifted the hat and clothes she was carrying and handed them to Sebastian. 'I found these down in my cabin. I thought they might be more appropriate and since you no longer have your jester's hat, you might like to wear a tricorn instead.'

'Why . . . thank you.' Sebastian took the clothes and lifted the hat and placed it carefully on his head. It felt strange, quite unlike the soft, three-pronged hat he had worn for so long. He looked doubtfully at the others. 'What do you think?' he asked.

Cornelius shrugged. 'Not bad,' he said.

'Oh, better than that,' said Jenna. 'The perfect headgear for a vanquisher of pirates.' And she gave Sebastian that mocking smile. 'How many is it you've killed, Mr Darke?'

'Erm . . .' Sebastian shrugged. 'I haven't really kept count,' he said.

'Not since he polished off the first fifty,' added Cornelius, and Sebastian glared at him, wondering why his friend couldn't seem to stop exaggerating his prowess. True, Sebastian had finished off the odd brigand and had even engineered the death of a king back in Keladon, but he had never so much as seen a pirate, let alone killed one.

'Now,' said Jenna brightly, 'the wonders are about to unfold.' She took Sebastian's arm and led him over to the port side of the ship. 'We'll have a good vantage point here,' she said. 'Captain Drummel, if you cannot see over the rail, you could always perch yourself on that barrel.'

Cornelius did as she suggested. 'You're being very mysterious,' he said.

'Not really. It's just that the Angel's Lair is one of the most astonishing sights in all the known world. Everybody who sees it is amazed. I'm sure even two men of your experience will be suitably entertained.' Sebastian noticed that the crew were all pausing in their duties and moving to positions where they could see over the side. Jenna pointed at the water a short distance from the ship's hull, beyond the churning wake made by its passage. 'Keep looking down there,' she said, 'and soon enough you will start to see its secrets.'

The water was unusually clear here and Sebastian noticed that the rays of sunlight seemed to penetrate to the lowest depths. In fact, in certain places he could actually see the ocean floor, a carpet of swaying grasses, illuminated here and there by rays of flickering light.

'It's not very deep,' he observed, and Jenna nodded.

'We have to be careful. There's many a ship that's come to grief in the Angel's Lair. But I know this place as well as any sailor; I must have passed over it a hundred times. And if memory serves me correctly, the wonders start . . . just about . . . here!' She pointed again, and Sebastian looked down in the direction she had indicated. At first he saw nothing and he started to think that she had been pulling his leg; but then something came into view, something he at first took to be a series of large, straight-sided, rectangular rocks. But then he realized what he was looking at and he couldn't hold back a gasp of astonishment.

It was a house. He was gazing down on the roof of a house that somebody had built on the ocean floor. It was encrusted with coral and clumps of vegetation, so that it looked as though it had been carved from a block of half-melted, multi-coloured candle wax, but it was a house nonetheless. He was about to say something, but at that moment more houses came into view and he realized that he was looking at a whole series of dwellings, with what looked like roads in between. And they weren't like any houses he had ever seen before; they were neat, oblong shapes and there were rows and rows of them, laid out like a patchwork quilt below him. Here and there, some buildings had collapsed in on themselves, but many were intact. Sebastian could even make out the shapes of doors and windows beneath the covering of coral.

'I . . . don't understand,' he said. 'Who could possibly live down there?'

Jenna laughed. 'Nobody!' she said. 'But obviously they must have done, once. Before the waters covered them.'

'You mean . . .?'

'I mean, at one time this was dry land. And this city was built on its highest point. But for reasons we can only guess at, the waters swept in and engulfed it. Now . . . look there!'

Another building had come into view. It too was partially collapsed and encrusted with a multitude of sea creatures, but it was like some great palace, set much higher than the surrounding buildings. It was decorated with strange carvings and details, and at one end rose sheer up to a tower, which extended almost to the surface of the ocean. Sebastian could see that the top of the tower was broken off in a ragged point.

'There used to be a big metal pole on the top of that thing,' Jenna told him. 'Came up to just below the surface. But a clumsy sea captain ran his ship across it last winter and broke the pole off. Made a big hole in the bottom of his ship too – he was lucky to get back to port without sinking!'

'But what kind of a building
is
that?' asked Sebastian.

'Must have been the palace of a mighty king,' mused Cornelius. 'I've never seen anything like it. Such craftsmanship! It puts even the palace of Queen Kerin of Keladon to shame.'

'Keep watching, Golmiran,' said Jenna. 'The best is yet to come.'

Sure enough, as the ship ploughed onwards, she passed over a whole series of incredible details – so many that Sebastian was quite overwhelmed and afterwards could only recall a succession of brief images.

There were gigantic flat-roofed buildings, long raised roadways into which countless arches had been cut, a whole series of tall stone chimneys, bigger than any that Sebastian had ever seen. There were row upon row of buildings all packed tightly against each other and forming intricate geometric designs. There was even what looked to Sebastian like the curving, twisting line of a river bed that had been swamped by a much bigger mass of water; and, most amazing of all, a tower with a mighty metal bell hanging in it. As the
Sea Witch
passed over, unseen currents made the bell swing back and forth, and Sebastian could actually hear its muffled peal rising up from deep below the waves.

'That's a good omen,' Jenna told him. 'When you hear the Angel's Bell, you usually have a good voyage!'

Finally the ocean floor seemed to drop rapidly back into the depths. For a while there was still the occasional glimpse of half-seen things down there, but then it became too deep to discern anything much and Jenna clapped her hands with a sense of finality.

'The show's over,' she announced, not without a trace of regret. 'But I expect we'll return this way and see it again.'

'Why's it called the Angel's Lair?' asked Sebastian. 'And what exactly is an angel? I've heard the word but I don't really know what it means.'

'I have some notion that it's a man with wings like a bird,' said Jenna. 'There are old stories that speak of them.'

'And do people really believe that such creatures lived down there?'

Jenna shrugged. 'It's what the old sailors call it, and if you ask them, they say they learned the name from their fathers and their fathers learned it from their fathers before them, and so on. I suppose it must have meant something once.'

'And have any of the old sailors heard of a time when there was no ocean in these parts?' asked Cornelius.

She shook her head. 'Whenever this happened, it must have been in ancient times,' she said.

'But who could build like that in those days?' asked Sebastian. 'We can barely do it now. That great palace we saw . . .' He shook his head. 'It was out of this world. Like something a god would create.'

Cornelius looked thoughtful. He stared down into the water as though looking for clues. 'I do not know of any race of people that can build the kinds of things we just saw in those depths.' He lifted his eyes back to Sebastian. 'Perhaps our world is much older than we imagine. Perhaps people have been here before us . . . great empires that have risen and fallen away into ruin.'

Sebastian followed Cornelius's gaze and was about to put forward some speculations of his own; but was distracted by a big, streamlined shape moving through the water. He was looking at a long supple sea creature with massive jaws and distinctive dark stripes across its back. It was the length of two ponies standing end to end and it was skimming along at incredible speed just below the surface. A tall curved fin jutted up from its back, leaving a V-shaped wedge of foam in its wake. Now Sebastian could see that other, smaller fish were leaping out of the water in their haste to get out of its way.

'What's that?' he whispered.

'A kelfer,' said Jenna, putting a whole wealth of loathing into the word. 'I hate them.' She stepped quickly away from the rail, shouting to Lemuel to fetch her a bow. As Sebastian gazed down, more kelfers began to appear, moving to join the first creature as though hunting in a pack.

'It was a kelfer that took her father's legs,' Cornelius reminded Sebastian. 'Little wonder she hates them.'

'I've never seen anything like it,' admitted Sebastian. 'Look at the speed of that thing!'

No sooner had he said this than Jenna appeared at the rail clutching a powerful longbow and carrying a quiver full of arrows on her back. She pulled out an arrow, nocked it and took careful aim at the nearest of the kelfers, the one at the tail of the pack. She pulled the bowstring as far back as her strength would allow her, and took a moment to steady her aim, murmuring to herself as she did so, 'Now, you evil filth, let's see how you like the taste of this.' She released the arrow. It flew, straight and sure, into the creature's striped flank, burying itself deep. A ribbon of bright red trailed back into the water.

'An arrow isn't going to do
him
much harm,' observed Sebastian.

'It doesn't have to,' Jenna assured him. 'There are others that will do that.' She gave him a sly wink.

Sebastian looked back at the kelfers and saw that another two had suddenly appeared behind the wounded one. They began to close in on it and it quickly became apparent that they'd been attracted by the blood in the water. They overhauled the wounded kelfer and then, with two swift, terrible lunges, slammed into it, their great mouths open, their razor-sharp teeth ready to go to work. The kelfers in front, alerted by the struggles of the stricken beast, turned as one and came racing back into the fray. There was an incredible commotion in the water as the twisting, lunging bodies smashed the waves into a foaming cauldron. So frenzied was the action that the kelfers started attacking each other and the water turned bright red as more and more blood began to flow. Sebastian had to look away from the carnage, and he was relieved when the ship moved on and left the creatures to their senseless slaughter.

'That's a kelfer for you,' said Jenna with quiet satisfaction. 'If they see so much as a drop of the red stuff, they go mad for it. I've seen one going round and round in circles, tearing at its own tail. So the best advice I can give you, elfling, is never go swimming with them.'

Sebastian nodded. He had no intention of doing so. Ever.

'Sail ho!' cried a voice from up in the rigging.

Jenna tilted her head to peer up into the crow's nest at the top of the mainmast. 'Where away?' she called.

'Hard astern, Captain!'

Jenna walked to the stern of the boat. Sebastian and Cornelius followed her. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, while Cornelius took his battered old spyglass from his belt and climbed to a position where he could use it. Sure enough, Sebastian could see the distant white smudge of a sail on the horizon.