Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull (24 page)

TWO

im and friends stood before the statues, silent as the grave.

“So,” said George. “It’s already mid-mornin’ here on this magic island. And you’re sayin’ that if we don’t get back through them Horns before it rises again, we’ll be statues just like these poor blokes?”

Jim nodded. A cold shiver shook him in spite of the morning sun.

“And someone’ll come and pick the moss bogeys from my nose?” Paul asked. He tried to smile, but his lips trembled.

“Well, as much as I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, my friends, our situation may yet be more dire.” Cornelius cawed. “When I flew over the island I saw another boat set upon the shore a mile or so down the beach. Footprints led away from the vessel and up to the
rocks.” Jim gritted his teeth. Pain lanced through his hand. He knew to whom the boat belonged.

“The Cromiers and Splitbeard. They’re on the island too. And they have the map!”

“What do we do?” Lacey asked, grabbing hold of Jim’s arm. “Maybe we should wait here for Captain Steele to come through the Horns? Or go back through now and have the Captain come back with us. Surely he’ll know what to do!”

“Hmm, all of those would seem like wonderful ideas, young lady,” said a voice, crackly and dry as two stones rubbing together. “But you would be waiting a long, long, long time. All the way till the sun set and rose again, and the five of you turned to stone with a flash of light and a puff of smoke.”

“Who was that?” Jim cried.

“Show yourself, giver of unasked advice!” Cornelius shrieked. “We are five who have come through magical barriers, deathly traps, and battles with monsters of the deep! We will not hesitate to face you if you prove yourself a villain!”

“Oh, I am no villain, sirs and lady,” said the voice in its slow, grainy rhythm. “In fact, I do believe if you were to add up my virtues and subtract my faults, all that would remain would be a pair of eyes. And these eyes have seen much on the Veiled Isle. Step around those poor stone souls and see for yourselves.”

Bundled up against one another, Jim and his friends crept down the beach toward the voice. Just beyond the five statues sat a wide, flat stone, and upon the stone rested a long, green-scaled lizard. It was bathing in the morning sun, saggy neck craned up toward the sky and spiny tail curled up behind him.

“A talking lizard!” Peter exclaimed. Seeing that the lizard seemed to move as slowly as it spoke, Jim and the others relaxed a little and even risked a few steps closer to the rock upon which the creature sat.

“How many talking animals are there?” said George, exasperated. “I never heard no animal speak until old Darkfeather here. Now they’re poppin’ up all over. It’s just silly!”

“I know a great many enchanted beasts in our world,” Cornelius said. “We run in the same circles, really. Once you’ve met one talking animal, you are bound to meet more in due time. Though I must say, I haven’t had the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr…”

“Hmm…there may be no word for my name in the human tongues, good sirs and lady,” said the lizard. “And I doubt your rather short tongues could pronounce it in lizard-speak – as it is rather tricky. So for now, hmm, call me Twisttail, and it is a pleasure to meet you all.” The lizard lifted one claw from the rock in an agonizingly slow wave. He then flicked his forked tongue twice, which seemed to be the only movement he could make with any speed at all. “Hmm, and I would say the reason you have not heard of me, master raven,” continued Twisttail. “Is that I am not from your world. I am from this one, good sirs and lady.”

“It would normally be good to meet you, Twisttail,” said Jim, shoving his left hand in his pocket and trying to ignore the pulsing ache. “But my friends and I are here for something very important, and there are some very dangerous people that are here for that same something as well. Now, we were talking about waiting for more of our crew to come ashore, or going back to get them, but you said we’d be waiting a long time. What did you mean?”

“Hmm, I’m not sure I fully understand how it all works myself, good sirs, for I am no master of magic,” replied Twisttail. “But if you crane your short, little necks back round toward the ocean and look closely at yonder stones, you will see red light shining through the Devil’s Horns. Always it is this way when men pass through into our world. And always it remains until they leave again.”

Jim and the others turned back toward the sea and stared hard at the Devil’s Horns. Indeed Jim made out a faint reddish glow between the rocks, and a smattering of glittering crimson upon the waves. It was the red light of the setting sun from his world, Jim realized. His shoulders slumped as he worked out the implications in his head.

“The time on this island isn’t the same as the time back in our world,” Jim said, as much to himself as everyone else.

“Oh, yes, that makes total sense, Jim,” George said. “To no one! What exactly are you sayin’?”

“I’m saying we’re on our own, George!” Jim tried to hide the intense pain in his hand and clenching his teeth quite hard to bear it. “I think a whole day and night will pass on this island before the sun even sets in ours. When we cross back through the Devil’s Horns, it will be just the same moment we left. Right in the middle of the battle. We have only that much time to find the cave before the Cromiers and Splitbeard do, and then to get back through the Devil’s Horns.”

“Or we’ll be turned to stone!” Lacey cast a nervous glance at the five statues beside them on the beach.

“I’m afraid the odds of finding the shell in but a day and a night are stacked in our enemy’s favor,” Cornelius cawed, flapping his wings and shaking his head.

“Well,” said George. “That all sounds pretty bad, don’t it?” But even then that irrepressible, Ratt Brother’s smile split his face. “Good thing we’re here or you all’d be in a real pinch, wouldn’t you? Me and Peter and Paul have gotten outta plenty of scrapes worse than this one back in London, I can tell you that!”

“What scrapes, exactly, threatened to turn you all into stone and involved ancient magical artifacts, George?” Lacey folded her arms and glared at the eldest Ratt.

George paused for a long moment. “Well, maybe not exactly like this one, Lacey…but close, really close. Just trust me, alright, there is nothing to worry about, at all.”

“We’re doomed,” cried Lacey.

“Despair not, fair Lacey,” said Cornelius. “We do have at least one clue, don’t we? Old Egidio said that Lindsay Morgan would have most likely hidden the shell in a cave beneath the mountain at the center of the island. I am sure I saw this mountain when I was flying overhead. If we make it there, perhaps we might yet find this cave.”

“Hmm…did you say a cave, good master raven?” the lizard interjected, having moved not one inch the entire breadth of the conversation. His tongue flicked rapidly in and out of his mouth. “I have
lived on this island for many, many, many years, good sirs and lady. Hmm…and the majority of them spent on this very rock, now that I think about it. But when I was a younger lizard I traveled here and there across the island. There is only one cave that Twisttail knows lies beneath the mountain. But if you can avoid that place, good sirs and lady, you would be wise to do so. Hmmm…it is a dark and dangerous hole, home to some ancient evil, so lizards even older than I say.”

Jim swallowed hard. His head still ached and the burning in his hand showed no signs of subsiding. But he hadn’t pricked his finger with that blackened rose to come this far and fail. He would not give up this quest without a fight.

“We have no choice, Twisttail,” said Jim. “We must find the cave. Do you know the way? A shortcut perhaps?”

“Hmm, I’ve not been to the black cave for many, many years, good sirs and lady,” said the lizard. He shifted his long head ever so slightly as though thinking quite hard. His dragon-like tongue lanced in and out between his teeth. “Yet, I may be able to set you upon the right path. Hmm…walk down this beach for nearly a mile until you pass a hill topped by a dead and leafless tree. Beyond that hill lies the crags. There is a path through the crags that leads to a field called the Sea of Tall Grass. The tall grass will hide you all the way to the River of the Mountain’s Tears. If you are able to ford the river, the Dark Forest waits for you on the other side. There is a trail through the forest that leads to the foot of the mountain. There will be found the entrance to the cave, good sirs and lady.”

“That seems like a far way to go in one day and one night,” Jim said. His heart sank a little further at the thought of all the places the lizard had listed between the beach and the mountain.

“It seems especially far, Master Lizard,” Cornelius cawed loudly from Jim’s shoulder. “When considering that I saw from the sky a vast stretch of rolling hills, just beyond these boulders. These fields would seem gentler travelling all the way to the mountain at center of the island, they would, they would.”

“No, no, no!” roared the lizard. The green creature thrashed so suddenly upon the rock, that it took the clan quite by surprise. They jumped back in a protective knot, Peter and Paul sticking their heads between Jim and George’s arms. “Go not through the Field of Lights!” cried Twisttail. His little chest heaved in and out from his brief exertion and his pink tongue flashed like lightning.

“Whatever happens, good sirs and lady,” said the Lizard, slowly regaining his composure, “risk not that awful place. Hmm, many men have been lured by the easy path and ensnared by the beckoning glow. Evil spirits inhabit those fields! They live only to ensnare poor and hapless travelers like yourselves. You must go around, good sirs and lady. It is the only way!”

Jim looked at the lizard for a long moment, thinking hard. Twisttail’s way seemed so long, and the cave so far away. But what choice did they have? The sun was already travelling quickly from morning to noon.

“We have no choice,” said Jim, with a resigned sigh. “We take the lizard’s path.” The clan thanked Twisttail for his help and set off down the beach at once. But as they went, Jim snuck a glance at his aching hand. The black tendrils had already crawled a little farther down his thumb, slowly inching their way across his hand.

THREE

nd so,” pronounced Cornelius from Jim’s shoulder, stretching his wings in the morning warmth. “That was how Frederick Nine Fingers became Freddy Sevens, and also how we escaped the Marauders of Malta. Hopefully I haven’t done the old boy injustice in my story. Freddy really was a fairly decent pirate, you know, especially when it came to crossing blades with the enemy. But manning the cannons was obviously not his cup of tea, was it?” Cornelius cackled to himself. He held his belly with his wings as though his own story had been the funniest thing he had ever heard.