The Pirates and the Nightmaker (9 page)

I had already suspected as much, but it was very upsetting to have my suspicions confirmed this way.

Seeing my distress, the captain sighed. ‘You have brought problems aplenty with you on this visit, little Loblolly Boy. Your own situation, though, is possibly the least of these. The more pressing problems are what to do if your Mr Wicker is right and Daniel’s astrolabe is in the hands of the Spaniards at Cartagena, and what to do if Mr Wicker somehow locates the astrolabe and retrieves it. These are grave problems indeed.’

‘What should we do?’ I asked.

He gave me a bleak smile. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘However, I think that first of all we must apprise Daniel of these developments. He may have some suggestions to consider. He may not. But in any event, he will need to know what a potential predicament his blasted astrolabe has produced.’

‘If Mr Wicker is right,’ I added.

‘Indeed,’ said the captain, ‘if Mr Wicker is right.’

At that moment there was a sound from the main deck and I looked over my shoulder. I thought it may have been some object dislodged by the moaning wind, but the captain grunted, ‘That’ll be Daniel. I’m glad he’s come to us for there’s no way I could lash the wheel in this benighted breeze.’

Sure enough, some moments later a figure appeared at the top of the ladder behind me.

This man was as short as the captain was tall, as plump as the captain was solid, and whereas the captain was wearing a cockaded tricorn hat, this man was bare-headed, with a bald pate showing through a wispy windswept mess of long white hair.

‘Daniel!’ cried Captain Bass. ‘We have a visitor!’

The newcomer, leaning over the ladder, peered at me owlishly through his round spectacles.

‘What do we have here?’ he declared. ‘Is this a bird boy or a boy bird?’

‘It is a little loblolly boy,’ said the captain, ‘somewhat altered by our old friend Mr Wicker.’

‘The sorcerer?’

‘None other,’ replied the captain. ‘And this little fellow tells me that Mr Wicker is not far away at all, a passenger on the
Medusa
captained by Jenny Blade.’

‘Is he really?’ asked Daniel Flynn, pulling himself up the last rungs and approaching me for a closer inspection.

‘Do you know why Mr Wicker is so close, Daniel?’ asked the captain.

‘Who? Do I know why? I haven’t any reason to know that, have I?’

‘He is seeking an astrolabe,’ said the captain.

There was a long silence as the little man considered this. Then he looked apprehensively towards Captain Bass. ‘
My
astrolabe?’ he asked.

‘Your astrolabe, Daniel,’ affirmed the captain. ‘According to our visitor, Mr Wicker appears to believe the astrolabe is in the hands of the Spaniards and is somewhere in Cartagena de Indias.’

‘He does?’

‘He does, Daniel. And I need hardly remind you what a catastrophe would be waiting were Mr Wicker to get his hands on that astrolabe.’

‘You need not, Captain. You need not, indeed,’ said Mr Flynn unhappily, wringing his hands and shaking his head.

I glanced between the two men: the captain manning the wheel and standing stolid, feet wide apart for balance, and eyes fixed on the bucking bowsprit and beyond; the inventor hunched into his dark blue greatcoat, twitchy and nervous, glancing this way and that. I was surprised that he seemed
so singularly incurious about me. The captain was at least intrigued by my appearance, even if he had not been startled and amazed. Certainly, Mr Flynn could see me, but having seen me did not appear to need to see me again. At no time had he addressed me either directly or indirectly. I was simply another piece of furniture on the deck like the wheel.

‘It had occurred to me, Daniel, that when you lost your astrolabe, you might have lost it overboard and that it might now be resting safely at the bottom of the sea. That had been my earnest hope, anyway.’

‘Safely at the bottom, Captain?’

‘You know what I mean, Daniel,’ said the captain evenly. ‘Your astrolabe was clever, I admit. Fiendishly clever, but in the wrong hands it would be an instrument with the potential for great mischief.’

‘Mischief, Captain?’

‘Yes, Daniel, mischief … And we know of one, don’t we, who has dedicated his entire being to mischief.’

Mr Flynn did not reply, but I noticed he was wringing his hands with even more urgency than before.

‘Mr Wicker believes the Spaniards have the astrolabe,’ said the captain.

‘Yes, yes, you did say that,’ said Mr Flynn.

‘Why would he think that, do you know?’ asked Captain Bass.

Again, Mr Flynn chose not to reply. He did look very uncomfortable.

‘Did you really
lose
your astrolabe, Daniel?’ asked the captain. His tone was gentle, but as he stared at Mr Flynn
there was a ruthless glitter in his eye that frightened me. It clearly frightened Mr Flynn too, for he turned away quickly, unable to face the accusing look.

‘I lost it,’ he whispered stubbornly.

‘Can you remember where you lost it?’

‘I wish I knew,’ said Mr Flynn, so unhappily I thought he might burst into tears.

Captain Bass stared at him unsympathetically for some moments, and then grunted and lifted his eyes to the prow again.

‘So be it,’ he muttered.

The moon, scattered about with stars and wreathed in clouds as ragged as the
Astrolabe
’s sails, now stood high above the mast. My mind, too, was wreathed in confusing clouds with only occasional glimpses of clarity. Few things were evident. One was the certainty that Mr Wicker had no intention of returning my humanity until I had helped him seize the astrolabe, and possibly not even then. Another was that this strange Captain Bass wanted above all else to keep the astrolabe out of Mr Wicker’s hands; and yet another was the fact that this was no ordinary astrolabe, that it could bring with it the power over night and day, a power that went far beyond the mere mischief Captain Bass had spoken of.

I shivered. What did this all mean for me? It was a dilemma. It did mean that I had to choose between this strange captain and the unpredictable Mr Wicker.

If the captain were correct, then the right thing to do would be to return the astrolabe to him. On the other hand,
only Mr Wicker, as far as I knew, had the power to return my humanity.

Whatever should or might happen rested on things that were not clear. Was it possible to find the astrolabe? Even were we able to locate the astrolabe in the fastness of a Spanish stronghold, would we be able to retrieve it? Then, too, there were people whose actions and loyalties I could not fathom or predict: Captain Lightower and his planned rebellion, Jenny Blade and her secret motives, this Daniel Flynn and what he was hiding, for he was truly hiding something, and Sophie whom I thought I could trust but whom I was not yet sure about.

Above all there was the mysterious Mr Wicker. Captain Bass and Mr Flynn referred to him as a sorcerer. He had clearly demonstrated his powers, but why did he need the astrolabe and what did he intend for me?

My brain began to hurt.

‘What shall we do?’

Mr Flynn had spoken. I looked up a little startled as he had somehow voiced my own thoughts.

For some time Captain Bass did not reply. He gripped the helm and stared in front of him almost as though he hadn’t heard the question. Eventually, he said, ‘It is complicated. We need to retrieve the astrolabe ourselves for it cannot be allowed to fall into Wicker’s hands. The difficulty is that we do not know where it is.’

‘It is in Cartagena,’ I said.

‘Perhaps it is,’ replied the captain. ‘But Cartagena is a large town and well garrisoned. Within its walls, the astrolabe
could be anywhere. Or it could be within one of the forts that line the harbour. There is no telling.’

‘But Mr Wicker must have that difficulty as well,’ I said.

‘Does he?’ asked the captain. ‘I suspect not, somehow. Did you not say he wished to employ Jenny Blade to take him to Cartagena even before the battle?’

I nodded.

‘Then it was Jenny Blade’s caution, not Mr Wicker’s fear of the Spaniards that prevented his enterprise at that point. Had the English captured Cartagena that might have changed Jenny Blade’s mind, wouldn’t it?’

The captain was right. This meant that perhaps Mr Wicker had a clearer idea where the astrolabe might be than I’d suspected.

‘But he said he needed me to find the astrolabe,’ I said.

‘To
find
the astrolabe?’ asked the captain keenly.

When he put it like that, I was no longer sure. I had presumed that he needed me to find the astrolabe, but perhaps he needed me for some other reason, a reason yet to be divulged. When I considered things, I realised that much of what I’d learnt had not come from Mr Wicker at all, but from Jenny Blade and Mr Griff and now from Captain Bass.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I only know that he said that we are dependent on each other, and that I need him and that he needs me. I suppose I was guessing at his purpose.’

The captain changed tack. ‘Let us consider that Mr Wicker does know the whereabouts of the astrolabe and does need your help. What then?’

‘I don’t know …’

‘It seems to me that in order to prevent Mr Wicker from seizing the astrolabe, we must first let him seize the astrolabe.’

‘A paradox!’ exclaimed Mr Flynn. ‘Pray explain it, Captain.’

‘There is little to explain,’ said the captain. ‘Wicker knows where the astrolabe is. We do not. We must wait until he finds the astrolabe, and once he has it we must take it from him.’

‘But how do we do that?’ asked Mr Flynn.

‘The way is standing right before you, Daniel,’ said Captain Bass, and he took one hand off the wheel and pointed directly at me.

The little man’s eyes widened, and then he slowly smiled. ‘I see,’ he said, ‘set a thief to catch a thief!’

I did not like the way this conversation was going. In the first case, I was not a thief; in the second, I feared the consequences should I be persuaded to double cross Mr Wicker. I had already twice been lost in his powerful eyes and with astonishing consequences. I dreaded to think what might happen to me if I should be forced to swim in those dark waters again.

While these thoughts were racing through my mind, the men were silent. I now glanced up to see them each looking at me expectantly, Mr Flynn grinning, the captain curious.

‘I’m not a thief!’ I said.

‘Of course you’re not,’ said the captain. ‘But we’re not really asking you to be a thief. We are only asking you to return property that rightfully belongs to Daniel Flynn
here. It is, after all, his astrolabe. He made it and somehow lost it. If anybody is a thief, it would be your Mr Wicker.’

‘I couldn’t anyway,’ I said. ‘Mr Wicker controls me. He has power over me. I’m afraid of what he would do if I were to prove treacherous.’

‘Doing what is right is no treachery,’ said Captain Bass.

‘Anyway,’ insisted Mr Flynn, ‘look at your wings. You can fly!’

I shook my head vehemently. ‘No,’ I said, ‘you don’t understand. I can fly, surely, but only with Mr Wicker’s leave. If and when he wants me back he can summon me somehow, as if I were a kite on a string, and I must obey. If I tried to flee from him with the astrolabe — which I think is what you are suggesting — he would pull me back at once and, I don’t know, turn me into a worm or a centipede or something …’

‘Yes,’ agreed Mr Flynn, ‘yes, he probably would.’

I glanced at him with irritation. He said it as though it might have been a good idea, as if it were the solution to a problem. I think Captain Bass sensed something similar, for he now glanced at Mr Flynn with the same curious expression he had directed just before at me.

Then he sighed, ‘This is doubly difficult. I can see no way of extricating the astrolabe from wherever it is without the aid of our little friend here, but to enlist his aid, as he most rightly points out, could put him in grave danger.’

‘Even if it were possible,’ I added.

‘Even if it were possible,’ agreed the captain.

‘So what to do?’ asked Mr Flynn.

‘We must relieve the danger,’ said the captain. ‘We must ensure that our little Loblolly Boy is no longer in the thrall of, no longer beholden to, Mr Wicker.’

‘Scissors!’ said Mr Flynn.

‘Scissors?’ said the captain. ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Daniel.’

I wasn’t sure either, but Daniel Flynn looked excited. He rubbed his hands together and looked between us, eyes shining and his hair fluffing and flying in the wind.

‘Would you care to explain?’ asked the captain.

‘The loblolly boy has just told us that Mr Wicker can summon him back at any time, that it is as if he were on a string.’

‘Yes?’ said the captain.

‘Don’t you see?’ cried Mr Flynn. ‘Scissors! We simply cut that string!’

I gazed at him with a welling disappointment. For a few moments I had been so captivated by his excitement and his enthusiasm, I really thought he may have had the answer to the problem.

‘Daniel,’ said Captain Bass patiently, ‘the loblolly boy was not talking about a real string, he was talking about a metaphorical string.’

‘Oh, I know! I know!’ continued Mr Flynn, his excitement unabated. ‘I’m not a fool!’

I was beginning to think he was.

‘And I,’ said Mr Flynn, ‘am not talking about real scissors, I am talking about metaphorical scissors!’

This time, Captain Bass looked at him more keenly. ‘Do
you think you could make such a pair of scissors, Daniel?’

‘No need,’ said Mr Flynn, ‘I have such a device already made. In fact,’ he laughed, ‘the device was commissioned by none other than our Mr Wicker.’

‘The devil!’ exclaimed the captain. ‘Why did Wicker want such a device?’

‘It may be hard to believe,’ said Mr Flynn, ‘but there was a period when Wicker was worried about being tempted to do good. He told me that he was, from time to time, unaccountably drawn towards unselfishness and good deeds and he asked me to create a machine that would snip through those threads pulling him towards virtue.’

‘Did it work?’ I asked.

‘Like a trivet,’ said Mr Flynn. ‘I don’t think he’s been at all troubled by those impulses ever since.’

‘In that case,’ said the captain, ‘if you can lay your hands on the device we should try it.’

‘Your servant, sir,’ said the little man, and he hurried away, disappearing down the ladder much faster than he had climbed it.

‘Will this work?’ I asked.

The captain sighed. ‘I do not know, but it is the one possibility we have, so we must try it. Daniel’s creations are often things of wonder, but he is a little careless of their effects at times, his astrolabe being a case in point.’

I stared at his phosphorescent presence and the strange dancing lights on his beard. He, too, was a creature of wonder, I saw, and possibly in possession of unknown powers and — what did Mr Wicker call them? — abilities.
And the thought of Mr Wicker jolted me back to an unpleasant reality.

‘Even if Mr Flynn’s machine does cut through the string,’ I said, ‘I’m still bound to him as long as I’m in this form. Only he can restore me …’