Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates: and Other Tales from the Lost Years (21 page)

A little while later, after thinking things through without arriving at any firm conclusion, but in a puzzled, far more cautious frame of mind, Harry returned via the Möbius Continuum to the ancient cemetery in Hartlepool. . . .

At ten in the morning the place was still very gloomy; the day was overcast, with patchy-grey, slow-moving clouds. Harry felt a depression of atmosphere—even of the psychic atmosphere—which caused him to shiver involuntarily, affecting him spiritually as well as physically.

As before, he had emerged from the Möbius Continuum behind the buttressed pier in the high stone wall, where he’d listened for a moment or two to the muffled thunder of traffic from outside, and to the cemetery’s silence within, before stepping out to walk the weathered, weed-grown flags and gravel chippings of the principal pathway. Now, having crossed the venerable burial ground down that aisle of abandoned plots, lichened markers and occasional mausoleums—on the approach to the far, high perimeter wall where it stood in the shade of overhanging greenery—the Necroscope branched off from the central path and traversed the remaining distance at an angle which would deliver him more surely and directly to that lonely corner where the ex-pirate’s grave lay beneath its unmarked, mottled marble slab.

And it was there—almost within sight of Billy Browen’s plot—that the Necroscope slowed to a gradual, uncertain halt, frowning and fingering his chin, and glancing this way and that as if searching for some unknown, inimical thing . . . or perhaps in recognition of an uneasy premonition: the feeling that something here was somehow different, changed.

But what?

He stared at untended plots now shrouded in brambles, and at ancient, ivied markers which alone indicated the low, burial mounds of various long-forgotten persons . . . and wondered why a handful of these were not so much convex as concave, sunken in. Ground subsidence, he supposed, where the earth had been packed too loosely, too long ago; and then again, even the best timber of centuried coffins isn’t going to last forever.

As for the tenants of these graves: surely by now they had moved on into better places, warmer climes? Or perhaps not; for after all, a certain dead Viking of Harry’s recent acquaintance was still rolling around on the seabed. And so, on a whim, the Necroscope directed a deadspeak query into the earth, which was answered not at all. But at the same time he sensed a shrinking or reticence from certain more recent plots lying a little farther away
whose occupants were still “in residence,” as it were, and not yet ascended. They had obviously sensed his warmth, his presence, but the customary babble of excitement—and perhaps even a deadspeak greeting or two—were not forthcoming.

Come to think of it, there had been this same almost preternatural silence yesterday evening during the Necroscope and Billy Browen’s initial conversation. Well of course anything to do with Harry’s talents might be called “preternatural,” but he applied the term from his personal viewpoint, scarcely aware of any paradoxical sophistry however inadvertent.

He might have further pondered, or even mentioned “aloud,” the curious silence of the cemetery’s departed, if Billy Browen had not chosen that precise moment to issue a timely deadspeak welcome:

Harry? Is it you? But of course it is! Certainly! Who else but the Necroscope announces his presence with the warm waft of a candle’s flame? A small warmth to be sure, but a livin’ spark for all that, and a most welcome one. And everythin’ I’ve heard of you is true, for indeed you’ve kept your promise!

Without further pause Harry moved to the ex-pirate’s plot, seating himself as before on Billy’s blank marble marker. Then, answering the other’s greeting with a less than amicable frown, he said, “My friend—if indeed you are my friend—it appears there’s something not quite right here, but as yet I’m not sure what it is.”

Ah!
said Billy.
And you think perhaps that’s my fault, eh? You’ll be talkin’ about the other inmates here, am I right? But surely you’re aware, Harry, of how the decent dead shun criminality? I know you are. They’ll have no truck with such as me—murderers and the like—and my wicked past of which I admitted the very first time we met. Didn’t I speak of acts committed in the cut and thrust of things that I’m not proud of? It’s one of the reasons I’m so glad I can speak to you, because the rest of ’em don’t listen too well, or if they do don’t answer.

Well, and the ex-pirate could be right at that. And listening again to the graveyard’s hush, the Necroscope thought: If I were to close my eyes, it would feel like I was in a dark room where unseen
others were holding their breath, listening and waiting. But waiting for what? I feel that I’m on trial—that I’m being tested by the teeming dead—without knowing why. Is it that in befriending Billy Browen, however temporarily, I’ve broken some code or other? Have I really disappointed the Great Majority to such an extent?

He could of course ask but his pride wouldn’t let him. And in any case there might well be another solution to the enigma, perhaps connected to that low, almost electrical hum of unknown energies which once again had commenced to permeate the metaphysical aether. Maybe the monotonous drone was creating an impenetrable screen to shut Harry and the ex-pirate off from the rest of the cemetery’s incorporeal spirits? If this was the case and the screen had been erected
by
the graveyard’s teeming dead . . . then indeed they’d taken against Billy Browen, and even the Necroscope’s standing was in jeopardy. It would mean that while he had to do with Billy, they would have nothing to do with him.

Well, so be it. And stiffening, Harry refused to be deterred; he had made Billy a promise and he intended to keep it.

His thoughts in this respect had been deadspeak; there had been no need to hide them from the ex-pirate, whose weird story the Necroscope now intended to hear out to the end. And:

Bravo!
said Billy.
I know you are their hero, for even the dead need their heroes, but I ask you, Harry: am I not one such lonely lich in my own right? Indeed I am. And alone in my grave I have but you to talk to. Very well, and now to the rest of my story . . .

“Let me remind you,” the ex-pirate recommenced his tale, “of my vows to olden shipmates—aye, even these centuries later, when all the names and the places, the deeds and damnations, are all but forgotten except to such as myself—that there are things I may not give name to for fear of the curses of those selfsame comrades: maledictions that may still be extant even though the men
who uttered them are not. For if you’ll grant me the ownership of my conscience, I suffer from curses enough without that I call down more!

“And so I repeat, there are places I may speak of without supplyin’ their actual names or locations, which you may think you recognize even though I shall refuse to confirm such guesswork: far islands, whose soils might or might not be repositories for buried treasure; also the names I give to my principal characters, which once more as before may or may not be real.

“For example, that of young Will Moffat, who was happy to spend so much time up in the crow’s-nest, him bein’ so healthy, handsome and all, and havin’ now and then found himself over a barrel, if you get my meanin’. For the rough-and-ready crew of the old
See Witch
—bein’ so often under sail and deprived of their manly pleasures, as it were—well, they weren’t especially particular.

“Ah, but it wasn’t only certain perverted members of the crew who from time to time fancied young Will! And since there was only one passenger aboard . . . well, you’ll know of course who I’m referrin’ to. Black Jake’s woman, Zhadia, that’s who!

“Oh, I had seen her checkin’ Will out behind Jake’s back, lookin’ the lad up and down, her eyes narrowin’ when she stared at his firm-muscled arms, his thighs in worn canvas shorts when the weather was warm—and possibly when she was hot?—and his eyes blue as the tropical sea itself. What’s more, I’d seen him lookin’ back: just an occasional glance when Jake was otherwise engaged, but enough that it told a story all its own. . . .

“As for where we left off: there’d been this storm, you’ll recall, which Black Jake Johnson had let the
Sea Witch
ride out to its very last blow. Now, havin’ made a few small repairs, we were on course under slackenin’ canvas for an island well known for its acceptance of pirates and their booty. It may have been Cap’n Thomas Tew’s colony at Libertilia, or maybe St. Mary’s off Madagascar, or perhaps Port Royal in Jamaica across the rollin’ South Atlantic: take your pick. That last mentioned, however—Jamaica, whose
Port Royal was accredited with bein’ the richest wickedest city in the New World, and not without good reason—might make an excellent choice . . . on which subject I shall say no more.

“Anyway, what should happen but with land clear visible on the horizon to the west, the breeze fell away and again we were becalmed. That close to port, no more than three or four miles, Cap’n Jake could have ordered the oars manned; but night comin’ down and the danger with shallows, reefs, and what have you, instead we dropped anchor and broke open a keg of rum. We’d had a good run and the hold was full of filched treasures—not least silver, spices, and gold ingots—and once the crew got theirs . . . well, the last thing Black Jake wanted was that they should jump ship out of spite or perhaps because of perceived meanness on his part, to live off their loot in luxury in some mountain-clingin’ town or jungle plantation, and leavin’ us short-handed. And anyway if the old
Sea Witch
’s canvas was hangin’ slack then so was everyone else’s, and no one, neither friend nor foe, was goin’ to come up on us unexpected like. Also, with a good drunk and a decent night’s kip behind them, the crew would be fightin’ fit when finally they went ashore to whatever awaited them, not knackered out from haulin’ on the long oars.

“And so it was we had a rip-roarin’ singsong and shindig, drinkin’ our fill and sleepin’ it off wherever we should chance to fall; all but the night watch, that is, one Long Tom Fellows—so called because tip to toe he was a fathom and then some—who would only drink water or, when it was in short supply, his own sweet piss! Oh yes, and one other noticeable absentee from much of the merriment: young Will Moffat, that clean-limbed lad who knew when it was as well to keep out of the way.

“Ah, but by now you’re surely thinkin’: all very well, but what of the sky-cloth? Rightly so, for that’s what this tale is all about. . . .

“Well, that glittery stuff was still there in the riggin’. Why? Partly because Jake had ordered it left there, ‘to stiffen up a bit,’ whatever that meant, but also because the lads who’d salvaged it had suffered these peculiar blisters on their hands like jellyfish
stings . . . which probably were just such stings, for the sea had been full of these Portuguese man-o’-war things that time. Not that the sky-cloth had lost its allure: not by a long shot. Even durin’ their drinkin’ and jiggin’, this or that member of the crew would stagger over to where it dangled lifeless, just within reach, and you could see their eyes beginnin’ to glaze over—them that weren’t already glazed—from lookin’ at it, and you just knew that the urge was there in all of them to reach up and touch it. Aye, even with its golden glow fadin’ to bronze as the light failed, still it exercised a weird fascination. . . .

“Come mornin’, I woke up on the naked deck with a throbbin’ in my head that made every creak of the
Sea Witch
’s timbers a cannon shot, and Black Jake’s boot in my ribs soberin’ me up quick as you like. ‘Up, ye drunken swab,’ says he (uncommonly subdued language in view of the prevailin’ circumstances). ‘Up on yer feet, Mister, for we’ve a fuckin’ problem!’ Which was more like it.

“ ‘Long Tom Fellows is staggerin’ about with a lump like a hen laid an egg on his head!’ the Cap’n went on as I scrambled. ‘It appears he’s been out of things most of the night! The sky-cloth has disappeared, and so have Zhadia and fuckin’ Will Moffat! They took the rowboat, curse ’em to every hell, but I can’t say for a fact if Will stole Zhadia or she stole him! Whichever it be, young Moffat has bought himself a one-way ticket to Davy Jones’ domain, and Zhadia’s black eyes will be a sight blacker when I catches up with that treacherous slut!’

“So Jake averred, and I never knew him to break a vow. Not one such as this: the result of a most personal affront—which is to say the very least, I’m sure you’ll agree.

“Ah, but how to catch up with them, who’d had all night to row ashore? And it wasn’t as if Will and the woman couldn’t pay their way, for the lad had taken his share—and possibly a bit more—from the stash where an excess of booty had been lodged like ballast in the hold, when the Cap’n couldn’t fit it all in his
cabin. Which wasn’t the end of Jake’s run of evil luck, for the sea stayed flat as a Dover sole’s white belly for a further nine hours or so, and we didn’t arrive in port until the afternoon. And no sign of Will and Zhadia, or even the rowboat which would be hidden away somewhere under ocean-fringin’ greenery.

“Well, for the next fortnight Black Jake sailed around and stomped about that tropical island—which I promise you was no mere atoll with just three or four coconut palms, but well over a thousand, maybe closer to
two
thousand square miles of mountains, plains, and skeeter-ridden rivers and jungle—askin’ his questions, offerin’ rewards, searchin’ high and low for the runaways, and flarin’ into murderous rages each time he was disappointed. Until in a while certain members of the crew gave up on him and one by one began to disperse into the island’s various, mainly nefarious communities.

“Which absenteeism, when I brought it to Jake’s attention, did the trick and caused him to see sense. For there was treasure out at sea and a man must make his fortune while he’s able, else live out his life and die in poverty. And as for women . . . well Jake could always find himself another black-eyed girl, if not another Zhadia. . . .

“And so we replaced the half-dozen men who’d sneaked away, hirin’ four and shanghaiin’ two more, then put back out to sea proper; followin’ which for a six-month we discovered the true nature of hard work. Not that piratin’ was ever soft work, but by reason of his loss, his damaged pride, Cap’n Jake was grown more crabby, more ill-tempered, and downright brutal than ever. And for almost two hundred days we suffered his tongue-lashin’, his
real
lashin’s, and general bullyin’, until one and all we’d had more than a sufficiency.