The Pirates and the Nightmaker (22 page)

‘Little Loblolly Boy,’ he boomed. ‘I did wonder whether you would favour us with another visit.’

‘I have the astrolabe,’ I said.

‘Oh, I know that,’ he said.

‘How do you know?’

‘Hasn’t the world just been plunged into darkness?’ he said.

‘I need to restore the daylight,’ I said.

‘So you must, little Loblolly Boy, so you must,’ said Captain Bass.

‘Could I return to the
Medusa
?’

‘
Medusa
?’

‘It’s a ship just yonder,’ I explained. ‘It was about to be destroyed by two Spanish warships and I used the astrolabe to protect it.’

‘The astrolabe, little one,’ said Captain Bass, ‘is very dangerous in the wrong hands.’

I guessed he meant my hands.

‘I had no choice,’ I said. ‘The
Medusa
would have been blown to bits.’

‘That may have been its destiny …’

‘But—’

‘No doubt your intentions were kind, little one,’ said Captain Bass, ‘but it’s never a good idea to mix our two worlds. It’s a lesson Nicholas Wicker has no intention of learning and a lesson Daniel Flynn is fated to relearn repeatedly.’

I stared at him, unable to reply for some time. He seemed to be chiding me for using the astrolabe and saving the
Medusa
and all on her.

‘I saw Mr Flynn at the Cove,’ I said.

‘I suspected you might have,’ said Captain Bass. ‘He has returned to the
Astrolabe
I’m pleased to say. He rather dithers and blathers, but he is company.’

‘So he
is
back?’

He too must have used his special abilities. No wonder he had not needed a passage on the
Medusa.

‘Perhaps you should give me the astrolabe. The light must be brought back. That was your intention?’

‘It was. I was about to do so when I saw the
Astrolabe
in the distance.’

‘You must give it to me.’

I had a reluctance to do this. I wanted to take the astrolabe back to the
Medusa
and keep it with me until the ship arrived safely in Jamaica. With the astrolabe I would be in a position to protect it again if protection were needed.

Captain Bass seemed to know what was in my mind.

‘It is not yours to use, little Loblolly Boy. It is too dangerous, too blunt an instrument. You have used it once now and—’

‘Twice,’ I said.

He leaned over the wheel and stared at me. ‘Twice?’

‘Mr Wicker needed me to help him, I had to use it as part of his plot,’ I said. ‘I brought back the sun in Cartagena.’

‘Well, twice,’ said Captain Bass, ‘but I was about to say that the power of such a device is very seductive. That was why Nicholas Wicker desired it so. My fear is it would exert its attraction on you.’

‘It wouldn’t!’ I said.

‘It already has,’ said the captain gravely.

I was about to argue when I realised that what he was saying was true. The astrolabe had allowed me to step between the worlds and make my invisible presence felt. I had saved the
Medusa
. I remembered Jenny Blade’s whoop of delight and my delight at having caused it. I knew that I wanted to take the astrolabe back to the
Medusa
. I wanted to decide when to bring back the sunlight. I wanted to keep the power of the astrolabe with me.

I realised, too, that the longer I held on to the astrolabe the harder it would be to return.

However, the last piece of self-knowledge was troubling: I sensed that I had been and was even now suspicious of Captain Bass and his claim to the astrolabe. Were his motives, his desires, any more worthwhile than Mr Wicker’s? Even now he had intimated that he would not have prevented the Spaniards from blasting the
Medusa
and Sophie out of the water. Why should such a heartless being possess the astrolabe?

‘Well?’ asked Captain Bass.

He was waiting for me to hand it to him.

I looked about me wildly wondering whether I dared fly away with it, risking the captain’s wrath. As I was hesitating, all at once a voice in the darkness called, ‘Loblolly Boy!’

I turned right around and saw Daniel Flynn’s figure appearing at the top of the steps leading to the poop deck.

‘Good day, Daniel,’ cried the captain.

I may have feared his wrath, but there was no sign of it as yet, for he greeted Mr Flynn with great good humour.

Mr Flynn scrambled towards us, and though we were still in starlight I could see how his face creased in smiles when he saw the astrolabe.

‘You have it!’ he said happily.

‘He has it,’ said Captain Bass, ‘but he wants to keep it. Even now he is considering flying away with it.’

I looked at him crossly, ready to deny the charge, until I remembered that I could not. I had been contemplating exactly that.

‘But you mustn’t,’ cried Mr Flynn. ‘Were you to do so, Mr Wicker would be given a chance to seize it from you again and where would we be then?’

I wanted to tell him
Nonsense,
but again thought better of it. I
would
have been risking that. Knowing Mr Wicker’s powers and determination, this is exactly what would happen. I had even feared the Spanish warships were Mr Wicker’s doing. I would be risking falling into Mr Wicker’s clutches again and becoming once more his slave. This was no way to reward Mr Flynn’s saving me from Mr Wicker’s thrall.

‘Well?’ asked the captain again.

I shook off my misgivings and desires and quietly handed it to him.

He gave me a little smile and said gruffly, ‘Well done.’

Seconds later he had handed the wheel to Mr Flynn and raised the astrolabe. Sirius gleamed high in the sky. The captain’s huge thumb nudged the alidade towards it until it was aligned precisely with the star.

Immediately the world was filled with bright light and all around us the ocean, rippling with fragments of sunlight, stretched in its immensity.

Perhaps it had been the darkness, I did not know, but the ocean looked different. It was a darker blue, greyer despite the sunlight, and it was choppier and had a great rolling swell that had not been there before.

‘Could I fly back to the
Medusa
now, sir?’ I asked the captain. ‘I would say goodbye to Sophie Blade.’

Captain Bass laughed. ‘I hardly think so, little Loblolly Boy,’ he said, still smiling after his laughter. ‘The
Medusa
is now on the other side of the world!’

I looked at him incredulously.

‘Does that look like the Caribbean Sea?’ he asked, gesturing about him with a flourish.

Once again I gazed about at the vast empty expanse of rolling steel-blue and I saw that it was not.

‘Where are we?’ I asked.

‘My feeling,’ said Mr Flynn, sniffing at the air like a basset hound, ‘is that we are in the North Sea.’

‘And?’ asked Captain Bass.

‘Not far from England, I’ll be bound,’ said Mr Flynn, smiling.

‘Correct, sir,’ cried Captain Bass.

If this intelligence were not astounding enough, there was more astonishment to come, for Captain Bass then said, ‘Well, Daniel, this must be, must it not?’

Mr Flynn looked somewhat crest-fallen, but he gave a brave little smile and said, ‘It must be, Captain.’

‘Right!’ cried Captain Bass.

Once again the captain held the astrolabe up. For a second I thought he meant to summon the darkness again. But instead he brought his huge arm back, and flung the astrolabe high into the air.

It described a great arc amidships and then plummeted downwards until with a loud splosh it disappeared beneath the steely surface of the North Sea.

‘I imagine it’ll end up a thousand or more fathoms below,’ said Captain Bass with a grim satisfaction.

I was not really regretful that the astrolabe had been given to the ocean floor. It was Mr Wicker’s passion to find it that had brought about my transformation into the invisible, flying, less-than-human being that I was. In other words, I could blame the astrolabe. My brief rebellion had been quickly quelled when Mr Flynn had pointed out that it was more a danger to me than a boon.

I had also badly misjudged the captain’s intentions.

All the same, some deep part of me knew that my last bargaining chip was now vanished. I had retained some crazy hope that I may have been able to trade the astrolabe
back for my humanity. This was foolish, I knew. I only had to bring to mind Mr Wicker’s easy ability to brush aside any inclination he may have had to do good. As I was wrapped in invisibility, he was wrapped in darkness. The more logical part of me knew he would never change me back.

Once again, I was not entirely surprised to know that Captain Bass sensed my thoughts.

‘No, little Loblolly Boy,’ he said in a way that was neither mocking nor kind, ‘he will never change you back. He would not even try, unless,’ he added, ‘he could find a vindictive reason to do so.’

‘What will become of me?’ I whispered.

‘The question really is,’ said Captain Bass, ‘what
has
become of you, and that question has already been answered.’

I was not comforted by this reply.

However, Captain Bass had not quite finished. Leaving Mr Flynn to handle the wheel, he came up to me and asked quietly, ‘You said you wished to say goodbye to Sophie Blade?’

My heart leapt up. Had he changed his mind? Was there some way I could yet say farewell to Sophie?

I nodded. ‘I did, sir,’ I said.

He studied me carefully. ‘Are you telling me then, that Sophie Blade could see you and speak with you?’

‘She could, sir,’ I said. ‘In fact, apart from you, Mr Flynn and Mr Wicker, Sophie was the only person I’ve found who could see and speak to me.’

‘Hmm …’ The captain looked thoughtful.

‘Does this mean something?’ I asked.

‘Everything means something,’ said the captain, ‘but this means that Sophie Blade is particularly sensitive, is a Sensitive in fact.’

‘A Sensitive?’

‘Someone such as yourself, someone who could in fact be a being such as yourself.’

I stared at him. Was he telling me that Sophie could have become like me, have become invisible, with wings to fly?

Again Captain Bass replied before I had a chance to put my thoughts into words.

‘Yes, Sophie could have become invisible with wings to fly, but only if you had gifted these powers to her. In effect you would have changed places.’

‘But that would mean …’

‘Yes, you would have become Sophie Blade.’

I considered this, my heart sinking. I did not want to become Sophie Blade. I wanted to become me again.

‘Would you have wanted this?’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

‘Would Sophie Blade?’

I thought of our conversation in the crow’s nest when Sophie told me of her dreams. She did want to travel. She’d told me how she wanted to see the snowy north and the silvery south, but as Sophie Blade, I guessed, not as an invisible flying creature. And how could Sophie countenance never again being able to talk with her mother, Jenny, or know that Jenny would never see her again?

I shook my head once more. ‘No, she wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘Not really.’

That seemed to be a stalemate. The captain’s face was grave.

‘So there is no way?’ I asked.

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘That I could become the boy I was, the real loblolly boy?’

Captain Bass’s face remained as unmoving as ever. ‘Mr Wicker has done something very evil,’ he said. ‘He should not mix these two worlds, but he has, and you — not he — must live with the consequences. The difficulty is that he did not create you
ex nihilo,
he created you
ex materia,
that is, he created you from something that already existed, the boy you used to be.’

I stared at him uncomprehending.

‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘Ex nihilo
means out of nothing;
ex materia
means out of something. The invisible, flying Loblolly Boy now exists. What would happen to him if you exchanged back?’

‘The same thing that happened to the boy I was.’

‘Exactly,’ said Captain Bass, ‘but that boy no longer exists. Where is he? Nowhere. You cannot find him. You cannot exchange with him. Sophie Blade
does
exist, so you could have changed with her.’

‘So that means?’

‘Yes,’ said the captain. ‘You will only be able to exchange with someone who already exists, someone prepared to exchange existences with you.’

I fell silent. This intelligence was very depressing. It suggested that Mr Wicker, when he had scoffed at my suggestion in Cartagena, was speaking the truth: even if he
wanted to change me back, he might not be able to.

And Captain Bass had just confirmed that he couldn’t.

‘What should I do?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘That is up to you. All the same, I do not feel that it is your destiny to remain a loblolly boy.’

That at least was hopeful.

‘But,’ he added, ‘I feel, too, that you should not delay too long in finding somebody desperate enough to want to exchange with you.’

‘Why not?’

‘Are you not forgetting Nicholas Wicker? Daniel may have cut your bonds so he cannot call you to him, but he can certainly seek you and I imagine he is angry enough to do so, especially if he believes you still have the astrolabe you stole from him.’

I had been forgetting Mr Wicker.

Captain Bass was so huge and radiated such a sense of power and authority he had made me feel safe, and that we were now, according to Mr Flynn, not far from the coast of England. But not even Captain Bass or thousands of miles would have diminished Mr Wicker’s fury or determination. As long as he felt I had the astrolabe he would pursue me, even to the end of the earth.

‘But if I exchanged with some other person, would I not be visiting on that person Mr Wicker’s anger?’ I asked.

‘Not at all,’ said Captain Bass. ‘Mr Wicker would realise soon enough that this was a different loblolly boy, one innocent of any wrongdoing, and that the other must have escaped back into the world of humanity. Of course, at that
point he would no doubt seek me or Daniel and we in turn would take pleasure in telling him where the astrolabe is.’