Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates: and Other Tales from the Lost Years (23 page)

For which reason: “Look, I’m sorry,” said the Necroscope abruptly. “We got off to a bad start yesterday; I was feeling a bit low. As for you . . . well, let’s face it: deep-sunken as you are, you’re
always
a bit low! Er, that is to say your bones . . . I mean you, physically, or what’s left of you!” But then, realising how inept his words must sound, Harry bit his tongue.

The thick-skinned Viking, however, hadn’t noticed—or in any case chose to ignore—Harry’s gaffe, and said:
Well then, perhaps we can be friends after all? Or if not friends, acquaintances at least?

“Of course, gladly!” said Harry relievedly. “So then, what else did you want to tell me? But quickly, Erik, if you please, for I’ve things to do, somewhere I must go.”

You’re eager to be off, then?
(Which was said in a certainly, calculating undertone.)

At which that psychic babble once more rose up like a wall of sound, purposely contrived to block Harry and the Viking’s conversation. Astonished and angry, still the Necroscope remembered to switch to his “silent” deadspeak mode—before shouting into the psychic aether and demanding to know:

Now what the hell
is
all this? Exclude me if you wish, for whatever reason, and this Viking too, but don’t you go interfering in my business! If I’ve done something you don’t agree with, tell me about it by all means—that’s if or when you decide to talk to me again—but until then get off my back AND SHUT THE HELL UP!

Almost at once the clamour died down, and Erik Haroldson’s incorporeal voice was full of awe when he said:
Now that’s more like it! Why, even my grumbling, grousing crew have fallen silent now!

The Necroscope calmed down, and reverting to common speech he said, “Now perhaps you’ll tell me what’s going on?”

I can only tell you what I myself have been told,
said the other.
And that was a long time ago.
Then, after a short pause:
Do you know—are you aware, Harry—what a hard lot the people of this coast really are? Well they are, and they have been forever and a day: long before my time and ever since.

Harry sighed impatiently; he really couldn’t see this getting him anywhere; now that the thrumming had stopped he wanted to hear the end of the ex-pirate’s story, and already he’d been away from the old graveyard for quite some time. But finally he answered the Viking, saying: “I lived here, schooled here, came up with hard kids here. I know exactly how strong the people of this region are, and that they’re the salt of the earth—which includes those of them who are down
in
the earth! And incidentally, anyone who knows me will tell you I’m not so soft myself. But what of it? What’s this all about?”

In my time,
said Erik,
these were especially hard people—but then they were hard times. I know I’ve told how cowards ran from us; well sometimes they did, but not always. That time when they sank us in the harbour, they had been waiting for us; they wanted to make us pay for other raids we’d carried out; for our thieving, our burning, and our attacks on their women. And they did. Looking back, I suppose we deserved it. We were in our way pirates no less than your more recent varieties, except we were among the earliest of the breed; indeed the “Varyargi” were all of seven centuries earlier than the one that you’ve been spending time with! Yet just as we were dealt with by this country’s brave defenders—aye, even if they were common fisherman—so these more modern reavers were also dealt with . . . including, I fancy, the one in that old graveyard who relates his story from the earth beneath his marble
bautastein—
which is to say his marker. Aye, and it’s possible I know a thing or two about that marble slab, too.

The Necroscope’s gradually failing interest at once sprang back to life. “What? You mean Billy Browen? Billy and his blank marker?”

Was that his name? The teeming dead erected such a barrier I could only make out snatches of your conversation. But still, if I remember correctly these many years later, that was indeed his name as last I heard it mentioned.

Intensely curious now, Harry enquired: “When was that, and in what connection was it mentioned?”

In yet another story, Necroscope: a tale I heard from one of Billy’s shipmates—a younger man called Will Moffat—who was hanged from a gibbet next to Billy, right here on this wide harbour wall. That was . . . oh, a
long
time ago, even as much as three hundred years but certainly not far short!

“Tried as pirates, found guilty and hung for their crimes: Will and Billy both.” Harry slowly nodded. “It explains Billy’s unmarked plot in the old cemetery . . . at least he was buried in hallowed ground! But on the other hand, where’s Will?”

Rotted all away on his gibbet,
said Erik.
Which some said was a crime in itself, not simply because of his youth but also by reason of him not being right in the head. He’d taken such a clout to his skull that it shook his brain and left a scar that might even have rivalled my own! But where I had kept my senses Will’s were robbed away. In death he got ’em back, and that was when I got to hear his story. The two of us being cut from much the same cloth, as it were, we could at least commune with each other if not with anyone else. But you’d understand far better, Necroscope, if you’d let me tell it as I heard it.

Another story? Harry was torn two ways; the ancient graveyard called out to him and he wondered if he had time for this. And yet some instinct informed him that what the Viking knew of Will Moffat’s story could be of great importance; that it might even be the key to all that was weird and mysterious here. But:

“Why can’t Will tell his own story?” he enquired.

Because Will’s no longer here,
said the Viking.
Because he moved on many years ago. Something of a measure of the way he’d lived his life, I suppose. Shanghaied as little more than a pup, he had been forcefully apprenticed, as it were. Oh, he’d become a pirate in the end, because that was all he’d known! But someone somewhere has seen reason to forgive him, and now he’s gone from here. Maybe one day me and mine will likewise be gone from here. Surely there are places in Valhalla even for Vikings such as us? At any rate we hope so.

What, signs of conscience? In a blunt and boastful Viking? Pleasantly surprised, Harry nodded his approval. “I’m sure that you’ll get there eventually,” he said. “But before then I think maybe I should hear Will’s story.”

I shall gladly repeat it,
said Erik.
But first . . . listen!
As he paused abruptly, dramatically, Harry could almost picture him cocking his head on one side in an attitude of intense concentration. Until:
Now tell me,
Erik finally continued,
what do you make of that?

Harry listened, frowned, then answered sourly, “That’s the Great
Majority. I don’t know what they’re up to—it’s all very strange to me—but it seems they’re throwing up another deadspeak wall.”

Indeed they are!
the Viking replied.
But that wall they’re erecting now, it isn’t between you and me, Necroscope. No, it’s between us and a certain ancient graveyard! Now why is that, do you suppose?

In answer to which, for the moment, Harry was silent—

—Until in a little while, changing the subject:

“I may already know some of Will’s story,” he said, as the Viking made ready to begin. “If it is the same story, then it’s likely I’ve heard it to the point where Will and a woman called Zhadia set up a sort of, well, a refuge you might call it, on a jungled island where pirates of all kinds could feel reasonably safe from the justice of their various authorities. I also know that Captain Jake Johnson—called ‘Black’ Jake—was intent on finding, wreaking vengeance on Will, and taking back Zhadia, who the youth had stolen away from him. Oh, and the story also contains something about a shawl or cloak of shimmering golden sky-stuff.”

So then!
said the incorporeal reaver.
It is most certainly the same story! And this is how it continues:

“Will Moffat knew that sooner or later Black Jake Johnson would hear of his tropical island venture, his den of various iniquities, and come looking for him, just as he’d looked before when Will and Zhadia were hiding in the jungle; for which reason the wily youth kept lookouts among the local peoples in the coastal towns, harbours, and even remote bays where the crews of vessels were wont to come ashore openly, or sometimes covertly, depending on their status or situation. These lookouts that Will used were paid in coins, rum, and promises: just enough to help them maintain an interest in his well-being.

“So that even as Jake careened the
Sea Witch
in just such a remote bay, there torturing one or two locals for their knowledge, Will learned that his ex-master, this brutal pirate, was coming for
him. And he made what preparations he could, because he knew that this time Black Jake must surely find him. In fact Will was resigned to the fact that however long Jake took about it, the brute
would
eventually find him; it wasn’t in the man’s nature to leave unanswered such a slight as he had suffered.

“And with his ship stripped, careened on her side, and the bulk of his crew at work scraping and patching her bottom, Jake disguised himself as best possible, and along with Billy Browen and two other worthies took up what weapons he could manage and set off into the jungle to pay Will Moffat a visit.

“Meanwhile Will and Zhadia had prospered; or rather, truth to tell, in certain
ways
they had prospered—in their finances most definitely, in other ways not at all: more of which later, as the story unfolds—until their sanctuary at the base of a jungled hill had grown from a ramshackle, mosquito-ridden bolt-hole to a township of many leaning shacks with a central building which in its time must have been a veritable mansion. As big and bigger than the largest Viking meeting hall that I ever got drunk in, it was constructed on two levels that backed into the steep hillside, and the entire upper floor belonged to Will and Zhadia.

“Now, I’ve spoken of young Will’s preparations, which were basic at best. He had informed certain of his patrons—half-a-dozen men, once members of the crew of the
Sea Witch
—of Black Jake’s imminent arrival, and he’d placed a bounty on that one’s head. Each man of the six had a ‘pistol,’ unheard-of weapons in Viking times, which fired small metal balls at such speeds that they would enter a man’s heart and kill him! And of course they had knives and swords. And Will himself was likewise equipped.

“All very well, but what Black Jake had in addition to
his
weapons was a reputation for ferocity, cruelty, and most of all an astonishing longevity! For he’d committed piracy across what young Will was wont to call ‘the seven seas,’ oceans unknown in Viking times. He’d fought battles galore, not only with law officers and military men on land and sea, but with other hardened pirates too. He’d ground down as many crews as rotten teeth and
still
come through it all unscathed! Which was why the hard men who went with him to Will’s and Zhadia’s refuge were mainly unafraid of what might await them; the boldness, outrageous luck, and fighting skill of their chief—to say nothing of their own prowess in a battle—was sure to protect and keep them safe.

“As for ‘Mister’ Billy Browen: well it’s possible he might have had his own agenda—not that events would work out in his favour, not ultimately—but that is to jump too far ahead, and this is a tale that should be allowed to unfold in its own good time. . . .

“So then, with the rains coming on, Jake and his men trekked the jungled interior, and because Will’s lookouts sheltered from the weather they failed to intercept the
Sea Witch’
s captain and comrades-in-arms until that quartet was at the steps to the central structure’s entrance. Which was when Jake came face-to-face with two of the six who had jumped ship on him—one of whom paid for his desertion with a single sword thrust, and the other with a razor-sharp blade across his windpipe.

“Then out of the rain and into the gaming area, which was bordered by bar rooms and the curtained alcoves of common prostitutes, stepped Black Jake and his men. Disguised and dripping wet, dispersing within the great smoky room, they moved quickly among the gamblers, whores, and rum-soaked revelers, where three more ex-members of the
Sea Witch’
s company were soon discovered and dealt with as quietly as possible. Until the sole surviving deserter—realizing what was happening: that ex-comrades, now murderous foemen, had infiltrated the jungled den and commenced a killing spree—raised a belated alarm before fleeing for his life.

“By then, with their presence only just discovered, Black Jake’s avengers had come together again at the foot of sweeping stairs that climbed to a high, bead-curtained balcony overlooking in its entirety the hall of thronging gamers and roisterers. There on the stairs Jake’s raiders were confronted by a pair of fat eunuchs wielding curving, broad-bladed swords, which proved of no use at all against point-blank pirate pistols; and in any case the time for stealth was now well past.

“Shot dead, the Arabs were felled; their blood flowed down the stairs while Jake and his party threw themselves up and on. And there at the sweep of the balcony they were met by two more eunuchs who they engaged with shot, swords, and knives.

“Meanwhile a majority of the drunken revellers in the great hall had woken up to the invasion, and because Jake and his men had disposed of their disguises, the roaring pirate Captain and his party had at last been recognized for the terrible men that they really were. Now down below—as cards and dice were scattered, tables overturned, and good rum spilled—a crush of both sober and sodden men, and shrieking whores alike, all surged in a panic for the crowded defile of the exit.

“But the pistol shots and screams—the uproar in general—had finally alerted others in the upstairs rooms, and now on the balcony stood a figure wrapped in a remarkable golden robe: Zhadia, of course, whose face was beautiful as always while yet seeming strangely vacant. And appearing alongside her, who else but young Will Moffat, who despite his rich raiment seemed likewise listless and withdrawn—and perhaps even resigned?—with eyes deep sunken in a sallow face.