Pirate Wars (26 page)

Stall boys hurried forward from several sides to take care of the animal. Griffin and Munk helped each other out of their belts before the men reached them. Both were just as exhausted as the ray, and Griffin’s wounds were throbbing painfully, as if they’d become infected. He hadn’t lost much blood, but his shirt was sticking crustily to the wounds, and they were sore and stung as he made the difficult effort to stay on his feet.

Munk saw him stumble and tried to hold him, but then the two of them fell and remained sitting wearily on the ground. Griffin buried his face in his hands.

“Griffin, my boy.” The voice of the Ghost Trader penetrated the fog of self-reproach and grief that had settled around Griffin. “I’m glad you’re here with us again.”

Griffin took his hands down and looked at the one-eyed man. The two parrots sat on his shoulders with heads tilted. Numbly he wondered why the Trader was smiling.

A hand was placed on Griffin’s shoulder. It belonged to Munk.

Slowly, as in a dream, Griffin turned his head. And now Munk was also smiling. What the devil—

“Griffin,” said the Trader as he stepped aside. “Look who’s here.”

Behind him the figure who’d been standing on the ledge with him came into view.

Griffin burst into tears.

Jolly dropped down next to him and kissed him.

Two days later
the sea horses returned.

Jolly was standing on a balcony with Griffin and looking out over the devastated cliffs down to the water. The Caribbean sun burned down out of the clear sky and turned the crests of the waves below to flames. In the middle of the glittering and glistening the hippocampi were recognizable as dots, which first individually and then in a mighty herd broke through the fog wall and approached the arm of the sea star where their stalls had once been. The first ones had reached the shore and were already assembled in front of the opening in the arm that had formerly marked the gates.

“So d’Artois was right,” said Griffin. “He was sure they’d find their way back.”

Jolly had difficulty taking her eyes off the majestic sight of the hippocampus herds. She smiled sideways at Griffin.
“Why aren’t you already on your way?” she asked, laughing. “You can hardly wait any longer.”

“I only want to see if Matador is there.”

“He’s sure to be.”

“Yes…I hope.” With that he turned around, gave her a quick grin over his shoulder, and disappeared into the interior of the palace. Considering that his torso was bandaged beneath his clothing, he moved quite agilely.

Jolly looked after him. His few dozen blond braids whirled behind him like a comet’s tail. She’d told him how glad she was to be with him again more than once since her return. But somehow that couldn’t even begin to express how much she really felt for him.

Sighing softly, she turned to the water again. Some of the foremost sea horses had been caught at the shore. A few saddles that had been found in workshops in the upper quarter were hastily fastened onto their backs. Now the first riders were sallying out to bring some order to the chaotic herd of hippocampi. More and more kept pushing through the fog. The animals hadn’t separated from one another during the last few days. Presumably they’d dived way down, so they’d escaped harm from the tidal wave.

“Jolly?” Soledad’s voice came from the interior of the building. She sounded concerned. “What’s going on? Griffin just ran past here as though a thousand kobalins were after him.”

Jolly went inside. Soledad was lying in her bed in her room, her left arm and right shoulder bandaged, and looking
as if she wanted to shred the covers in her impatience. A deep frown of worry creased her forehead.

“God!” she groaned. “I’ve had enough of lying around here while—”

Jolly silenced her with a soothing gesture and sat down on the edge of the bed. In the last few days she and Griffin had spent a lot of time with the princess. The three had recounted their experiences, shared their excitement and astonishment, and noted how good it was for them to talk over everything, almost as if that turned the events into a mad adventure story that somebody or other made up. Munk looked in occasionally too, but he would soon withdraw into the library again, where the Ghost Trader was doing his best to initiate Munk into the secrets of Forefather’s book room. Munk had asked to be allowed to remain in Aelenium to dedicate his time to the books. Soledad commented that maybe he was just trying to dodge helping to clear up the destroyed parts of the city, but Jolly knew better: Munk had been fascinated by books and old knowledge before, and even Forefather’s death and the end of the Maelstrom hadn’t changed that. The possibilities for study in Aelenium’s library were unlimited.

The polliwogs avoided speaking about their journey to the bottom of the sea. The time would come when they’d be able to tell about it. Now, however, the memories of what they’d experienced were still too fresh.

“So,” said Soledad seriously, after Jolly had settled down beside her, “what happened? I hope you aren’t so dumb
as to fight with Griffin when the two of you are just back—”

Jolly took Soledad’s hand and smilingly shook her head. “Don’t worry. Not everybody shows how very much they like someone else by quarreling from morning till night.”

“If you’re referring to that little business between Walker and me this morning, let it be said that people can like each other even if they…well, have a difference of opinion once in a while.”

“Buenaventure said that you two were growling at each other like two street curs scuffling over a bone.”

“He should know, after all.” Soledad smiled. “Anyway, that wasn’t a quarrel. But lying around in bed doing nothing drives me crazy—and poor Walker probably catches that now and then. Nevertheless, as for you and Griffin—”

“Everything is just wonderful, don’t you worry.” Jolly told her of the return of the sea horses, and the princess’s face brightened.

“Thank God. The people here have lost enough. It’s good that they at least have the hippocampi left.”

Jolly was about to reply when her gaze fell on the balcony through the open door. The sky was darkened by an echelon of flying rays diving steeply in front of the balustrade. At the same time a distant cry came up from below.

“What’s going on now?” Jolly jumped up and ran outside.

“Well?” Soledad called impatiently before Jolly got outside. “Can you see anything?”

“Just a minute, I—oh, no!”

A moment later Jolly stormed past the bed to the door, the same way Griffin had before. And almost as fast.

Soledad raised herself with an effort. “Could someone just tell me what’s going—”

Jolly stopped, one hand trembling on the door handle. Her face had turned ashy. “It’s the whale. His body just popped up out of the ocean.”

She didn’t catch up with Griffin on the way down, and when she got to the water she saw him standing in the front row and pushed her way through to him. His face was gray and tense.

She followed his gaze out to the body of the giant whale. Half a stone’s throw from shore, the body of the whale curved over the waves like an island that had just raised itself from the flood. Several rays and their riders were circling in the sky, and a sea horse rider had left the hippocampus herd and was hurrying over to Jasconius.

The whale was floating on his side. From here they could see one of his eyes, which looked dully at the sky. For a moment Jolly believed there was life in it, movement, but then she realized that it was only the reflection of the rays in the gigantic black pupil.

She put her arms around Griffin and felt how tense his body was. At first he didn’t react at all, but after a few moments he returned her embrace.

“I am so sorry,” Jolly whispered.

“I knew he was dead,” he said, his voice thick. Then he
gently detached himself from her and called over to one of the sea horse riders. The first time his voice threatened to break with grief, but at the second try the rider heard him and came over. After some hesitation, the man climbed out of the saddle onto the embankment and handed the animal over to Griffin.

Jolly looked after him as he rode over to the dead whale. Paying no attention to his bandaged wounds, he slid out of the saddle into the water. A little clumsily, hindered by the tight bandage, he clambered out of the waves onto the whale’s body.

The crowd gathered on shore didn’t utter a sound. All were staring in fascination at the boy who, first on all fours, then slightly bent, moved over the massive cadaver.

Jolly jumped from the shore onto the waves. She strode over the water, reached the whale, and climbed up the smooth skin until she’d overtaken Griffin.

He was crouching beside Jasconius’s eye. His face was all wet, and she couldn’t tell if he was crying. Wordlessly she knelt beside him, took his hand, and held it during the time he needed to take leave of Jasconius. No one disturbed him, neither the men on the bank nor the ray riders, who at last turned and flew up to the refuge again.

“He was my friend, you know?” said Griffin softly after a while, not taking his gaze from the great dark eye.

“I know,” she said, swallowing. “And he certainly knew it too.”

Griffin nodded slowly. “He saved my life. And all the
others’ in the city. Without him the kobalins wouldn’t…” He broke off and dropped his head.

Jolly weighed putting her arm around his shoulder and pulling him to her, but then she let it be. He’d come to her if he needed her. But this was his moment. His and Jasconius’s.

A sea horse was reined in not far from the whale. Captain d’Artois had his arm in a sling. He looked over at Griffin sympathetically. “No one here will forget him,” he said, so softly that it was barely audible over the murmuring surf around the dead whale, almost as if he was afraid of startling the boy in his grief.

Griffin lifted his head. The water on his face had dried, but his eyes were still red. “Jasconius was very old. And very lonely until Ebenezer came to him.” He was silent for a moment, then he said, “He knew what he was sacrificing himself for. Ebenezer showed him that there were humans who were different.”

Suddenly there came the sound of splashing and paddling from the half-open mouth of the whale, then a string of frantic gasps. Griffin started and then slid excitedly down the curve of the whale’s skull to the corner of his mouth.

Jolly followed him when she saw how his face brightened.

“Ebenezer!” he cried, and then he slid halfway over the opening and grabbed into the recess. “Ebenezer! Thank God…!”

Jolly slid next to him and seized the other arm of the older man, who was lifted, coughing and panting, out of the whale’s throat. Together they pulled him up between the
gigantic teeth. D’Artois had difficulty keeping his sea horse quiet; it appeared to be just as excited as its rider.

Ebenezer stared at them dumbfounded, then Griffin fell on his neck with a joyous cry. The monk laughed. “Gently, gently, boy!” He returned the hug warmly and heartily, though feebly.

Griffin let go of him reluctantly. “We thought you were dead….”

“I was behind the door,” Ebenezer gasped out. “And then I was…swamped, when I noticed that we were moving upward…. I saw the dead boy and the…the remains of the jellyfish…and then I swam up into the light….”

Griffin embraced him again, so hard that the monk wheezed. But then his eyes fell on the lifeless eye of the whale and his face darkened again.

Helpless, Jolly looked to d’Artois. With a gentle motion he indicated that it was best to do nothing, simply to sit there and wait.

Leave the two of them alone for a moment
, his eyes seemed to say.
Let them grieve for a friend together.

And so they crouched together while the waves broke against the whale and wind brushed over the desolate sea star points. The faint sound of hammer blows wafted down from the cliffs; someone called something. The fog formed ghostly whirlpools, and the rays in the sky shimmered in the sunlight.

It was Munk who had the idea of the book.

Jasconius was bade farewell with all the honors of Aelenium
and sent to the bottom of the sea for the last time with heavy weights. The day after, Ebenezer asked to be allowed to tour the library of Aelenium, and Munk readily offered to show him around. In the course of the afternoon Ebenezer told him of his exploratory work along the coast some thirty years before, of his writings about the insect world of Orinoco, of his drawings. And of course, how much he regretted that all that work had been lost after his apparent drowning.

Munk remembered what Jolly had told him about her search for the poison spiders of the
Skinny Maddy
. In the library she’d stumbled on a book written by a missionary three decades ago, which had, however, only been taken to Europe and printed there after the author’s reported death in a shipwreck.

After the tour with Ebenezer, Munk located the book in a corner of the library and took it to Jolly. She and Griffin were beside themselves with joy when they discovered the author’s name on the title page. Griffin, especially, was so happy about the find that he immediately ran to Soledad, who was just taking a first timid walk with Walker along the balustrade outside the palace. Griffin told her everything, and she rejoiced with him. Even Walker murmured a few approving words.

That evening, when they were all eating together and the winged serpent was cozily curled up under the window, his feathers illuminated by moonlight, Griffin suddenly stood up, asked for silence, and proposed a toast to the dead Jasconius and to Ebenezer. Then he ceremoniously handed the monk the book from the library.

Ebenezer, who’d spent thirty years in the belly of a whale, opened the leather cover and saw his name. Overcome, he sank into his chair and burrowed feverishly in the pages, while Jolly and Griffin held hands under the table. Buenaventure walked up behind Munk, thumped him on the shoulder, and whispered in his growling dog voice that there were great heroes’ deeds, like conquering a maelstrom, and small ones, like making a grieving man extremely happy, and one was hardly inferior to the other.

On that evening they sat together for a long time, enjoying each other’s company, telling stories, making plans, and dreaming of the future here in Aelenium and elsewhere. The whole time, Ebenezer held the book firmly pressed to his breast like a long-lost son, and when he thought no one was looking at him, he ran his hand over it and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

Several weeks after the battle around the sea star city and the end of the Maelstrom, Soledad put on one of the diving suits again, furnished it with a bubblestone, and dove down into the deep with Jolly. Her shoulder still hurt a little, making her right arm move more stiffly than her left, but on the whole she was amazed at how well it went.

For a while they sat on one of the steel links of the anchor chain, with legs dangling over the dark blue abyss. Jolly could hear what Soledad was saying behind her mask, and although she already knew the story of the meeting in the undercity, she gladly listened a second time, for now Soledad
described every detail and also what she’d asked of the giant serpent. Jolly remembered the feeling that had overtaken her and Munk when they’d explored the undercity together during her first days in Aelenium, the panic and the knowledge that something was behind them, very close to the edge of polliwog vision. Suddenly there was a meaning to all that, and she realized that the thing that followed them hadn’t necessarily meant them harm.