Chronicles of the Dragon Pirate (50 page)

Olde Roger chuckled. “Forgive me if I am unable to help you in your quest. So, before we get down to business, I would ask a boon: I wish to see the half-breed son of the enemy I loved beyond all others.”

Captain Hawkins spoke without turning his head. “Tomas, come here.”

I moved away from Jeremiah until I was standing beside Captain Hawkins. Olde Roger looked me up and down a few moments, muttering to himself in a strange, almost guttural language before finally shaking his head. “If I could examine you I would know your true nature, but without proof I believe you are no more than Long-Mu’s bastard offspring. Still, you are a marvel.” He waved an arm in a sweeping gesture. “Imagine, Long-Mu going into a time of fertility at her age. Why, she had to have been five thousand years old at the very least when she conceived you.”

I’d not really considered how old she must’ve been until that moment, and I stared at him in shock. “How old are you?”

Olde Roger gave me a sad smile. “Old enough to know I am reaching the end of my life. I dearly wish Long-Mu had found another of our kind who was perhaps suppressing his own time of fertility, so I would have had someone to leave my legacy to...but no matter.” I had no idea what he was talking about and he seemed to dismiss it as he looked at Captain Hawkins. “So, down to business. You want to be free of Long-Mu’s grip, and I want the same thing. So I have an offer for you to consider.”

“I won’t become one of your Shadowmen,” Captain Hawkins snarled.

“Nor do I want you to become one,” Olde Roger replied, holding up a thin, pale hand. “Dear captain, I have far too much respect for you to ask such a thing, so let me elucidate and you shall understand. My plans are quite simply to end human civilization, as least as you know it, so you may go back to the way you once were.” Ignoring the shocked silence, Olde Roger began to pace back and forth. “You see, long ago humans existed in their natural state, savage yes but also innocent, until our people came to this land of yours, this earth, for one reason.”

“You wished to conquer us,” Master Le’Vass called out.

Olde Roger stopped pacing to look at him. “Conquer? Why should we wish to do that? We are a long lived race who does not,” and he made an expansive gesture with his arms, “fill up the earth as your race does. No, we were curious to learn of this new place we had discovered; it was a New World for us, in a sense. So we adapted ourselves to this place and established the city your race remembers as Atlantis before settling in to explore.”

“What do you mean by we?” Captain Hawkins asked. “You speak as if you were part of the original Atlantians.”

Olde Roger gave him a thin smile. “I led the expedition.”

I blurted out, “But you killed my mother’s people!”

The look Olde Roger turned on me wasn’t the angry one I’d expected. “They were my people too,” he said with a sigh. “Is there anything as uncivil as a civil war? We tore ourselves apart, and over what?” His thin, hollow face became agitated. “A race of noble savages forced into becoming something they never should have become.” He stabbed an elongated finger at my face. “It was your mother who first fell in love with them. We had begun using humans as servants and as pets for our carnal appetites, but no, that was not enough for Long-Mu. She had found a clever male, comely I suppose, who had become her favorite, and when she came into her time of fertility...”

“She chose him,” I said in wonder as the truth swept over me like a crashing wave. “Long-Mu was the first...she was the mother of the Dragons!”

“She was mother to an abomination,” Olde Roger almost shouted, shaking his fist at me. I took an involuntary step back as he continued. “When she informed me she was pregnant I told her to get rid of the thing but she refused, giving birth to a pair of twin males three years later. Three years! A normal pregnancy lasts forty, sometimes fifty years, but obviously this was anything but normal.”

I heard Selene mutter, “Fifty years? The good Lord save us.”

Muffled laughter from both sides turned to silence at Olde Roger’s glare took in all of us. Then he turned that glare on me. “That was the beginning of the rift between the two of us. Our race makes no distinction between male or female in positions of leadership, and your mother was my second in command. She had always been a clever speaker, and she used her talent to turn the rest of the expedition against me.” He stabbed a finger at his own chest. “Against me! Against the one who had convinced all of them, including Long-Mu, to come to this strange land in the first place. When they rebelled, I tried to reason with them...but in the end I had no choice.” The fire left his dark eyes as he stared at me. “I went back to our people in the homeland and convinced them of the danger the rebels posed, how they would someday assemble a massive army of humans and invade. After much deliberation I was granted the right to assemble an invasion force, and when the threat was over I remained behind to end what I had begun.”

Captain Hawkins remarked, “Why wait so long? I’ve seen the murals in the House of Memory, and your victory that day was complete.”

“My reasons for waiting are no concern of yours,” Olde Roger replied with a dismissive wave of his elongated hand. “What matters are my plans for the future, which leads us to the business of the day.” He began pacing again. “I need to bring mankind back to the pristine state of noble savagery he once occupied, and make sure he remains there. The gentlemen monsters I created, the ones you call Shadowmen, shall help me destroy man’s civilization.” He stopped pacing. “You and your crew, dear captain, shall help me insure it remains that way. Let me show you.” He turned around. “Victoria, ask your new pet to join us.”

Victoria gave Olde Roger a deep curtsey then turned towards the darkness behind her. “Terence, come.”

From the shadowed darkness I heard the sound of claws scraping stone. They got closer as Pepper, who’d turned in their direction, began to back away as a man-like figure entered the torchlight. The face still resembled the man known as Terence, but blond hair had turned to fur, his skull remolded with a jutting jaw and fangs pointing up and down, his body hunched over with elongated, misshapen hands and feet. But he still wore trousers and a sailor’s striped shirt, the creature being careful not to snag Victoria’s dress with his claws as he knelt down beside her and rested his head against her thigh. Victoria smiled as she scratched the top of his head as if he were a dog. Pepper continued backing up, passing through Olde Roger’s image, making it waver like a reflection in the water before it steadied. Looking down at Pepper he gave her a sardonic smile and she turned and bolted towards me, shivering as she reached me and we hugged each other tight. From the crew I heard Master Walters bellow, “What manner of deviltry is this?”

“No magic, if that is what you mean,” Olde Roger replied. “I merely gave instructions for the blending of man with beast, retaining the intellect but gaining ferocity.”

“Is that what you want,” Captain Hawkins snarled at him, “to turn me and my crew into beasts?”

“Dear captain, you are already beasts, all of you. What I seek to do is give you certain advantages, and a means to guide you.” Olde Roger waved his arms in an expansive gesture. “The name of Harry Hawkins is feared and reviled in both the New World and the Olde, so all I do is help your nature become what it is truly meant to be.” He motioned with one hand towards Terence. “This man was an experiment, so I could be sure I had the proportions properly balanced, but they will be different for you and your men. I will leave you more of your humanity and intellect but with the reflexes and ferocity of the beast.”

“I won’t fight for you and neither will my men.”

Much of the crew shouted agreement as Olde Roger raised his hands for quiet. When he had it, he said, “Nor will I ask you to. Your task will be to continue doing exactly what you are doing now. When my gentlemen monsters have finished smashing a city, London for example, and have moved on, you and your crew will prey upon those who try to rebuild. Not because you want to help me, mind you, but because that will be your nature. For example, the natives of Big Bluff have decided to take back the island from the escaped slaves and other scum who pushed them onto the abandoned fortress you are currently inside of, and are doing so by way of a potion their shaman gave them last night. Within a few hours the change will be complete and they will hunt down and kill all the ones who oppose them, enslaving the rest. They will have no desire to change from their natural state and will keep the rest in the same state of simple living, not from any desire to serve me, but because that will be their nature. I, in turn, will gain a first line of defense against intruders who want to attack me here, when I take the fortress over as my base in the upcoming war.”

Master Khan had been standing in the front line of the crew, and now he walked up beside the captain. “They will not be a very good defense if they get into their canoes and leave, as they may desire to do, yes?”

Olde Roger gave Master Khan a thin smile. “You must be the clever one I have heard about. Yes, if they decide to leave I cannot stop them, but they will not, because the potion that created them also sustains them, and they will crave it the same way you crave food when you are ravenous. Their shaman is the only one who knows the secret of making it, and he has merged with one of the Dark Sisters, so his loyalty to me is assured...as is their loyalty to him.”

Captain Hawkins had me and Pepper step back with him to where Jeremiah stood as Master Khan put himself in front of Olde Roger. “I have not lived as long as you have and do not have your knowledge, yes? But I fail to see how destroying everything man has built will benefit us.” He raised a wrinkled, age-spotted hand to keep Olde Roger from speaking. “You say the ancient Dragons have corrupted man...yet, how do you know mankind would not have accomplished all he has done even without their influence?”

“I admit some of what you say may be true,” Olde Roger replied, “which is the reason I let your civilization last as long as it has. Dragons have been feared and reviled through much of man’s history, and as long as mankind did their best to hunt down and kill all the Dragons they could find, I was content to let man go on as he has. But in the last hundred years my fears have come to pass: Dragons are increasing in number, with the active help of man, and the time is coming when they shall become the masters over mankind, as my race was long ago.”

‘I fail to see this as a bad thing, yes? Tomas,” Master Khan’s hooded face glancing back at me then forward again, “is the son of an ancient Dragon, yet instead of being a corrupting influence he has made some of us remember the good men we once were.”

Olde Roger was shaking his head. “You use the same arguments Long-Mu once did, but my answer remains the same: Captain Hawkins and his men must either take the choice I offer or take up arms against me.”

As the crew began muttering darkly among themselves, Captain Cholula’s voice echoed as it rang out. “Don’t expect me or any of my crew to take your filthy poison.” She drew her cutlass and pointed the tip at Olde Roger’s face. “I’ve fought against you and your Shadowmen for as long as I’ve been able to swing a sword, and I’ll continue doing so until breath quits my body for good.”

“Captain Cholula, I wish you a long life doing just that.” Everyone gaped at him in astonishment, and Olde Roger chuckled. “I move my gentlemen monsters like pieces on a game board, anticipating the moves of my opponents, and I have to say your boldness adds spice to the game.” He sighed as if in honest regret. “In the end it shall not matter: eventually you will over extend yourself, or suffer a mishap, and you will be cut down. But until that time comes I will relish matching my wits against you.”

He looked at Arabella. “The same goes for you and your master. When Captain Cholula returns to her ship I strongly advise you to accompany her, so your master will know what I intend and so he does not lose the loveliest of his Shadowhunters.”

Arabella asked, “What of Tomas?”

“What of Tomas, indeed.” Olde Roger’s gaze locked with mine. “Were you pureblood, I would have Captain Thorne collect you and bring you to me so I could educate you and show you the true path of our people...but you are not a pureblood. However, you will make me a fine opponent once you come of age. Captain Cholula will teach you what you need to know, and instill in you the proper hatred an opponent of mine must have to play the game. I dearly hope you survive until the bitter end, when man is down to his last cities and we can make a fitting climax to our struggle, so learn your lessons well.”

“Tomas is Dragon-sworn to me,” Captain Hawkins snarled at him. “Where I go, so does he.”

“Dear captain, be reasonable. If you do not release him then it means you have become my enemy, and there is no way off this island...except my way. Either you flee Captain Thorne and get blown up, or you attack him and are killed in battle, or you try escaping overland and become fodder for the beast men of Big Bluff. Oh, and I truly hope you do not seek to escape by canoe, for that would be a very undignified manner of death when my gentlemen monsters capture you.” He sighed. “Dear captain, if I did not respect you as much as I do I would never have had Captain Thorne declare a truce with you in the first place.”

Master Khan pointed an age-spotted finger at Olde Roger. “You set this up as part of your game, yes? You knew we would return to Haven someday.”

“Indeed,” Olde Roger said, sounding pleased. “I anticipated this move on the dear captain’s part and maneuvered him into deciding to do as I desire. You see, almost seventeen years ago he took my ear in an honest fight, something no one of my race ever succeeded in doing, let alone one of yours, and thus I want to give him what he truly desires.”

Captain Hawkins said, “And that is?”

Olde Roger smiled. “Freedom, dear captain. Freedom without restraint, freedom without fear, freedom to do as your dark nature desires, to whomever you want whenever you wish. If you accept my gift then I will give you one of my most prized possessions: an Artifact golem of my world that does not require a dragon-ghost to operate it. The golem reasons like a man and it will not only make the potion that sustains you, the potion that heals wounds you would otherwise die from and keeps you from suffering the ravages of old age, but it also can read the wind and the weather. It will give you good counsel and in time you will come to rely upon it as your truest friend.”