Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull (43 page)

“We’d have to change our cheer around a bit, Georgie,” said Peter, hand on his chin as though trying to think up a new verse.

“We could definitely work it in,” added Paul, hands on hips.

“You are all absolutely ridiculous,” said Lacey. She shook her head at first, but then suddenly paused with a thought. “Wait, change the cheer? Why didn’t you ever change it for me or Jim?”

“Are you a water dragon?” asked Peter.

“Of course not,” Lacey replied.

“Well then there you have it, don’t you?” said Paul, as though it were obvious. Lacey stomped her foot, but Percival laughed his monstrous laugh and turned with a great rush of water toward the sea.

“Goodbye for now, my friends,” he called. “But surely not forever. Until we meet again!” The great sea serpent dove beneath the waves with a splash that clapped over his scaled back. He flicked his tail at the last and sprayed the crew, the bravest of which were waving their hats in salute to the last of the water dragons. No sooner had Percival disappeared beneath the depths than Melodia’s sea chariot appeared beside the
Spectre
, drawn by her sharks.

“Goodbye, Queen Melodia,” said Jim, bowing his head politely. Lacey managed a proper courtesy herself, but the Ratts, who had never, and would never, Jim thought, grow used to such things, bent over like broken hinges. Peter struck his head soundly on the railing and nearly fell over backward, holding his forehead in both hands while his brothers snickered at him most indiscreetly. Lacey’s face pinked horribly, but the Queen smiled nevertheless, the curves of her face as smooth and gentle as crystal glass.

“Farewell, Jim Morgan, son of Lindsay Morgan. Though perhaps we also shall meet again one day soon,” said the Queen. Her smile drifted away, though, and she looked upon Jim and his friends with fearful eyes. “I hope with all my heart that you are kept safe until that time. Dangerous days lie ahead. If Count Cromier and his son claim the Treasure of the Ocean, all creatures of good that walk the earth and swim the sea will know unending sorrow.”

“I don’t know if he will be able to find it, your majesty,” said Jim. He played with the silver shell necklace that now hung about his neck, as his father once had when his thoughts grew deep. “The Crimson
Storm destroyed the shell. But even if Cromier discovered a way to repair it, I promise I’ll keep my half safe from him. I won’t let him have the Treasure of the Ocean.”

“You have great courage, Jim,” whispered the queen. Her gaze drifted down to the silver shell at Jim’s neck, and for a moment, Jim thought he saw the Queen’s eyes brighten. “Courage like your parents had. Perhaps there is hope after all. If a day of darkness comes, and you find yourself in need of aid, sail to the island called the Tower’s Top. You will find it drawn on Dread Steele’s map. Dip the opened shell you wear about your neck into the white foam of the waves at dawn, and we shall come to you. Until that day, I bid you farewell, Son of Earth and Son of Sea.”

Before Jim could even return her goodbye, the Queen flicked the seaweed reins of her chariot and the hammerhead sharks pulled the carriage beneath the waves. All the Queen’s people followed her with white splashes in the water. They drifted like so many shadows beneath the blue waves until they disappeared from sight, into the depths below.

“Come on now, ye scurvy sons o’ squids!” MacGuffy shouted. He stood with Mister Gilly by the wheel, along with giant Mufwalme. “Bend every sail to the wind and set course for the coast o’ Spain. May a strong gust and the warmth o’ the sun be at our backs ‘til we make that port our home!” The crew wasted no time. They dashed back and forth across the deck, scaled the nets to the masts, loosed the sails, and pulled tight the riggings to reach out and grab hold of the wind.

“Spain?” said Lacey in surprise. “Are we not going back to the lighthouse?”

“No,” said Jim, as the
Spectre’s
canvas sails snapped taut. The stalwart ship crested the first wave of a new journey in an ocean spray. The mist floated through the air, and Jim stared off through it, toward the eastern horizon where the morning sun still lit a golden path upon the sea. “MacGuffy says the Cromiers will have spies waiting there for us, all over England, really. He says that they’ll try for the other half of
the shell. He says that they may never stop trying for it. So we have to stay on the run.”

“Spain, eh?” said George, clicking his teeth with his tongue. “Bet they never even heard of thieves as good as us in Spain.” George tried to flash Jim and his brothers his winning smile, but it faltered slightly on his face. He followed Jim’s eyes out over the sea, where the boat carrying Dread Steele was still somewhere, floating away.

“What are you going to do, Jim?” Lacey asked, coming to stand between Jim and George. Jim said nothing for a moment, only stood there watching the waves whisk by and breathing in the salty scent of the ocean air.

“Dread Steele said that the ocean was a sea of roads,” Jim finally said. “Just a few days ago, we started a journey for home. Surely one of those roads leads to a home for us. Maybe to get there we’ll have to face that Crimson Storm again, or fight off the Cromiers from getting the shell. Or maybe we’ll have to mend the shell ourselves. But no matter what, I’m still dreaming of a home for us.”

“I don’t know, Jim,” said Peter, leaning on the railing and looking down into the running water below. “Facing those Cromiers again won’t exactly be much fun, will it?”

“Or that storm,” said Paul, sidling up next to his older brothers. “That was like nothin’ I ever even heard of before.”

Just then, Cornelius flapped on his healing wing and landed on Jim’s shoulder, patting Jim on the back of his head with an outstretched, bandaged wing.

“Shall we sail on then, my boy?” said the raven. “On toward distant shores?”

“On toward home, Cornelius,” Jim said, smiling at Peter and Paul with all the hope in his heart. “And I promise you all this – if home is out there, I’ll weather ten thousand storms to find it for us.”

s Jim Morgan and his friends sailed away upon the
Spectre
, an unnatural shadow passed over the rocks and the waves around the Devil’s Horns.

The moment the Crimson Storm shattered the Hunter’s Shell with a fiery bolt, a small, unseen tear in the fabric between this world and the world of magic ripped open in the air above the rocks. The balance between the two began to come undone.

The fish and the birds sensed this tear and fled. The wild beasts felt things no man knew.

Something, or someone, was coming.

It began with a pop and a flash over one of the rocks. Bursts of light like small fireworks crackled. Green bolts lanced from that unseen tear in the sky. The magic lightning struck the stones and the sea and filled the air with a burning stench. A dark cloud swirled into being in the sky above the rocks. Finally, the force behind the veil broke through in a fountain of green fire and magic flames. Like glowing water poured
into a glass, the flame took shape upon one of the boulders. It molded itself into the form of a man.

A column of steam rose from the place where the green flames had burned. The razor edge of the rock had melted like candle wax. When the wind blew the column of smoke away, all that remained was the man. He was tall and thin. He wore silk breeches and a silk split tail coat. A long, hooked nose stabbed from his face beneath dark eyes, and a sly smile spread across his pallid cheeks. Before him, the man tapped his long, spidery fingertips together in eager anticipation.

“At last,” said the man to nobody but himself. He took a long breath of free air and smiled with delight at the sound of his own voice. “Free at last, free at last. Did you think you had escaped me, Jim Morgan? Did you really think you had seen the last of me? Silly boy, silly, silly boy. There is no prison that can hold me. There is no escape from me…not before, and certainly not now. For I am the King of Thieves.”

The man, the King of Thieves, laughed a cackling howl of glee that echoed over the waters. Bright green flames lit in his eyes and, with the crackle of magic, he disappeared into nowhere, as though he had never even been there at all.

TO BE CONTINUED…

ometime in the summer of 2008, I wrote the first words of
Jim Morgan and the King of Thieves
. It’s strange to think back to that time, before Jim and his story constantly took up all my nights and weekends. It’s even stranger to think back to that younger version of myself, just feeling his way along his writer’s journey. That summer I only intended to write a single book, which would encompass young Jim’s entire adventure. In fact, the original title of the first novel was simply
The Adventures of Jim Morgan.

Before I ever wrote the very first sentence that summer, I had already been pursuing creative writing for several years. I’d written a handful of screenplays, two or three of which I’m actually still quite fond. I’d also written two science fiction novels and several short stories that gained a small readership online. Along the way, I read a pile of books on story structure, plot, character development, and all those other tedious, essential things. But what changed for me that summer was that I finally stumbled upon a story I needed to tell. It is still the story I love telling now.

Something else began to change for me that year. When I first set out to write – to
really
write – with the hope that others would read my work and possibly even walk away better for it, I thought a book was the work of the author alone. After all, it is the author’s name alone beneath the title on the cover, right? I’ve been mistaken about many things in my life. About this I was hopelessly wrong.

A great deal is made of the need for persistence in the creative world, and rightfully so. Rejection is the pits, and the will to stand back up after being slapped down is essential to surviving the writing life. But more than even that, I believe what any adventurer needs to reach the end of his or her personal quest, whether creative or not, is learning. Learning is being challenged with failure, over and over again. Learning is coming to grips with the fact that we don’t know it all, and never will. Learning is change, even when we don’t want to. Learning is growth, even when we think we’re already grown. To learn, we need teachers and friends and family. We need those courageous enough to look us in the eye and tell us that what we’ve done isn’t good enough – that we’re capable of doing better. I’ve been blessed with many of these wonderful people upon my journey. Though my thanks is just a few words on a page, I hope it conveys to them the depths of my gratitude for walking even a part of the way down this path beside me.