Royal Trouble: The Mysterious Sea Read online

  The closer they got, the older the ship looked. The shape was wrong for a frigate, and there were no openings for canons. “Were there ships before gunpowder was invented?” Amalia asked, fingering the hilt of her sword.

  “Long before gunpowder,” Mrs. Clemens assured her. “There were ships before people learned how to work metal at all.”

  “If they couldn’t get out, there may be bodies inside,” Chris pointed out. He sounded very cheerful about the possibility, and Donal noticed that only Jes looked disturbed.

  “Skeletons at worst after all this time,” Donal countered, looking at Jes. She smiled crookedly, as though she knew he was trying to make her feel better.

  The ropes along the side had rotted away, but a hole in the prow allowed them to walk right into the ship’s hold. Wooden bunks, a little small even for them, lined the walls, while tattered remains of hammocks hung from the low ceiling. A few broken barrels—all wood, with wooden hoops instead of metal—were broken open on the floor, the contents long gone. A tarnished bronze bell hung from a peg near a ladder headed up, and Chris rapped it with the hilt of his sword. The gong was hollow but echoing.

  “Chris!” Amalia hissed. “Don’t let people know we’re here!”

  Chris shrugged. “There’s nobody here but us.”

  “Maybe.” Donal bent closer to the ladder. “But someone has been here since this ship was abandoned. This rung gave way in the last few years—where it splintered, the wood hasn’t turned grey yet.”

  They crowded around to look. Mrs. Clemens nodded. “It’s sheltered from weather here, so it might take a decade or more for this to weather, but I agree that it can’t have been centuries.”

  Donal carefully climbed the ladder up to the deck. The other rungs all held. The torchlight was brighter with the reflections from walls and water, and he pointed out something on the deck. “I’m not sure how long dried blood stays brown, but I’m pretty sure it’s not centuries.”

  A footprint—adult, male by the size—was outlined in old blood on the empty deck.

  Mrs. Clemens said something that sounded like a curse, if Donal had known the language, but offered no other comments. The other three gathered round and looked at the footprint. There were no others, so presumably the person had either bandaged their foot or put on a shoe.

  “Whatever treasure this ship had carried is gone now,” Chris complained. He brightened, smiling. “Unless they all died before they could get it to the ship!”

  Jes glowered at him before going up to the front of the boat. “Look, there’s one of those things you have Donal, with the squiggly lines.”

  A bronze sextant sat beside a fancy bronze compass by the ship’s wheel. Donal was staring at the sextant, noting that the script was different, when Jes crowed. “It’s in ancient Kesch! This is amazing! A bronze age ship from more than a thousand leagues away!”

  They meant to go home again. Did they make it? Was there more than one ship?

  The ship had a name, engraved on a brass plaque on the ship’s wheel. Jes frowned at it for a few minutes as the others continued to look around. “It’s something like the Western Horizon. Sun-Down-Sea. We’re certainly west of ancient Kesch, so maybe it was made and named specifically for this trip.”

  Bones didn’t generally bother Donal, but he was glad they hadn’t found any bodies on the boat. It was sad enough if this trip had been the ship’s entire purpose, and it had ended up stranded and broken here.

  There was a small splashing sound behind them, and Donal whirled, looking at the water. No ripples remained, and the shadowy depths probably held nothing but fish. Still, the footprint wasn’t from the bronze age. Donal straightened up. It was harder telling other people what to do when he wasn’t on board the skiff, but someone had to say the obvious.

  “I don’t think we should leave the skiff unguarded. Let’s go back and make a fire so we can see better in here.”

  5

  Jes and Chris started a fire on the beach with old wood that tides or prior explorers had brought in. Donal, with help from Amalia and Mrs. Clemens, set up a very basic weapon for the skiff—an electric shock along its surface. Along the way, he set up a few safe guards. The footprint, and that splash, had him … cautious. Not spooked, not paranoid, just cautious.

  Donal put on the new light filtering goggles that Jes had given him. Facing the fire, the glare was minimized so that he could still see clearly. Away from the fire, he changed the filters, and he could see by the tiny lights of shells embedded in the walls and from the firelight reflecting from the water. He looked out to the cavern, jumping a little at a small sound of rock hitting rock, but there was nothing to see except still water and a shrinking cone of dim light near the top.

  Time to focus.

  “I’d like to do some exploring and mapping, but someone should stay with the ship, just in case. Mrs. Clemens, if you’d watch the ship, I think the rest of us can split into groups of two with one leading and one mapping. Why don’t we meet back here in an hour?”

  Donal tried not to hold his breath. He never took charge like this, but no one was objecting.

  “I’ll go with you,” Amalia offered, “and Chris can go with Jes, so each pair has someone with a sword. Mrs. Clemens, did you bring a sword? I packed a spare.”

  Mrs. Clemens smiled. “I’m all set, Your Highness, but thank you.”

  Amalia frowned. “I think we had better drop all those titles. Captain is okay, because that’s Donal, but all of us are ‘Your Highness.’ Could you use our first names since we’re all crewmates?”

  “Please,” Chris agreed. “I only get ‘Your Highness’ when I’m in trouble.”

  “And I’m on vacation,” Jes added. “Someone else is looking after our people right now. I’d like to be Jes, too.”

  Mrs. Clemens smiled. “Would you like to call me Grace?”

  They all blinked, and Donal wondered if the others felt as horrified as he did. “Let’s do one change at a time,” he said.

  Since he was wearing the light filtering goggles, he handed off the night vision glasses to Amalia. The distance goggles he handed to Jes, trusting her and Chris to work out who would wear them.

  Donal and Amalia took the tunnel furthest to the left, while Jes and Chris took the one furthest to the right. Chris held a torch aloft in one hand, his sword in the other, while Jes had paper and charcoal for mapping and marking.

  Amalia, who didn’t need a torch, took one piece of charcoal. She touched her sword occasionally but kept it sheathed. Donal took paper and charcoal for mapping, just able to make out the paper and tunnel with the special lenses.

  The first side tunnel, on their right, led back to the clearing through the second tunnel there. Donal shifted his glasses and waved to Mrs. Clemens while Amalia stayed inside to avoid hurting her night vision. The next side tunnel was on the left and slanted up for a while before opening into a narrow hall of marble statues. Pigment on the walls made incomprehensible pictures. Writing like the script on the map covered a section of one wall, and Donal copied it down carefully.

  “Are they … people? I mean, they must be people because they had art and writing, but look at the statues. They don’t quite look human.” Amalia stared, pointing. “Are these the people who created the islands?”

  Donal looked at the statues. They all had six fingers, with a trace of webbing between them, no hair on their heads, and narrow, flattened features. They looked too human to be anything else. At the same time, no humans he had ever met, near or far, looked like these. Hair texture, or skin color, might have given some clue to where in the world they had originated from, but neither were apparent. Were they naturally hairless, or did the lack of hair have significance? Did they look like the people who had carved them, or were they how these people had imagined their gods appeared?

  “I wish I could draw well enough to show what these look like,” Donal sighed. “They’re too heavy to move.”

  Amalia shrugged. “Hand over
some paper. I don’t do sword practice all day.” She paused, thinking. “Okay, not all day, every day.”

  Her sketches were good, but their time was passing. They agreed to press on for five more minutes before turning back. The tunnel turned to the right, back to the left, then to the right again until it was impossible to tell what direction they were actually going. Donal was about to suggest that they head back when Amalia stopped, one hand up.

  “There’s something up ahead,” she hissed. She passed back her charcoal and drew her sword.

  “Don’t just stab it—it might be Chris and Jes!” Donal whispered back.

  Donal wasn’t sure, but he thought that Amalia rolled her eyes behind the glasses. She stepped forward quietly, and Donal followed behind.

  He could hear what she was hearing now, a muted duh-dump, as of someone dragging a bad leg. It was too loud for Jes, who was practically silent in her boots, and too quiet for Christopher. They crept closer, then Amalia flung herself around a corner and immediately screamed.

  Donal sprinted forward. It was impossibly bright, and he switched the filters on his glasses so he could see. Amalia had her eyes covered from the pain of the sudden light of the fire on the beach through the night vision. In front of her was a slender dark blue figure that inched along the sand towards them, planting its front feet and pulling its body behind it. Donal gasped, and the creature looked up through enormous green eyes.

  “Blot?”

  “Blah!” the hatchling replied happily, surging forward to snuggle against Donal’s feet.

  “But—your father! Your siblings! You …” Donal sighed and reached down to rub the little head. “You’re mine now, aren’t you, Blot?”

  “Blah,” Blot crooned.

  Blot followed them back to the water and the skiff. He seemed delighted to rub up to the skiff once he knew Donal was going to be in it.

  “Mrs. Clemens didn’t rush out when you screamed,” Donal whispered softly to Amalia. “Something may be wrong.”

  Amalia, the dark vision goggles perched on her head, nodded her understanding and grasped her sword in its sheath. “I’ll go first,” she whispered back. She took a a few more steps, then called out “I’m back.”

  She swung into the skiff, then stopped so quickly that Donal had to grab the wall not to run into her.

  In front of them, Mrs. Clemens had a black powder pistol in her right hand and a dagger in her left. Both were pointed at a ragged, bearded man on the floor in front of her. “Oh, good,” she said cheerfully. “You’re unharmed. That means I won’t have to kill him.”

  * * *

  Amalia had the man blindfolded and tied up before Donal had even seen his face. A rag—torn from his shirt, by the look of it—was bound around the man’s right foot, confirming that he was the source of the footprint they’d found.

  Chris and Jes showed up just as Amalia finished. They were arguing about plans for further exploring but fell silent at a gesture from Amalia.

  “Who is that?” Chris asked.

  “I’m just an unfortunate traveler,” the man began.

  Mrs. Clemens kicked him. “He’s a pirate.”

  “Are you sure?” Donal asked.

  Mrs. Clemens looked at Donal, then at the others. “I’m sure.”

  Donal sighed. “Then what do we do with him? Has he done things so terrible we need to kill him? Or bad enough that we have to take him in to justice?”

  The man squirmed in his bonds but didn’t answer. Mrs. Clemens hesitated. “For the first, I don’t think so. Yet. For the second, I don’t know. I know that you can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.”

  When a quiet grandmother becomes an avenging angel of death, it’s probably good to pay attention. Donal bit his lip. “Either he has a way out of here, or he’ll die if we leave him here. If he has a way out, he’s dangerous. If he doesn’t have a way out, he’s more dangerous.”

  Amalia nodded. “Killing him is the easiest way, but you know our parents would be upset. I’d probably get grounded. Leaving him here to escape or die is a little better, but Jes would probably get upset. Taking him to justice is dangerous, but our parents won’t be mad. Letting him go … Well, that might work, but if he’s an idiot like Mathis, he might decide we wronged him and come wreck something.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” the man interjected. “Definitely not that much of an idiot.” He paused. “I am really, really thirsty, though. Do you have any fresh water? Or ale?”

  Donal hesitated a moment. A prisoner was as much of a responsibility as a pet, and he liked Blot much better than the pirate. Still … human beings shared water. He took a cup and water flagon from the stores, then held the brimming cup to the man’s lips. The man drank eagerly, then settled back with a sigh.

  Curious despite himself, Donal pulled off the blindfold. The man looked older than Donal’s mother, maybe a bit younger than Mrs. Clemens. He had straggly brown hair with a few streaks of gray, a ragged brown beard, and blue eyes.

  The man’s eyes widened now. He straightened. “You look just like your mother.”

  Donal frowned. “How do you know my mother?”

  The man gave a mirthless laugh. “We were married for about six months. You’re my son, Donal.”

  * * *

  The initial impulse, to strike him or gag him or let Amalia kill him, Donal suppressed. Instead, he turned and walked out of the skiff and sat at the water’s edge, Blot’s head on his lap.

  Chris was the first one to come try to talk to him. “I’m sure he’s lying.”

  “I’m sure he is.” Donal was not at all sure, but it felt good to say it. “What did you and Jes find?”

  “The first and second tunnels are dead ends, and the third keeps going further than we could follow in just an hour. We’ll start there later. How about you?”

  “Marble statues, strange pictures, lots more strange writing. I took notes, and Amalia made sketches.”

  Blot chose that moment to snuggle closer, and Chris jumped. “Wait, is that …?”

  Donal smiled. “Yes, this is Blot. He followed me.” Donal closed his eyes and tipped back his head. His smile became crooked. “You know, if that was my father, I’ve already given him more care—and felt more responsibility for him—then he ever did for me. Ten years. I can’t abandon a baby sea monster. Who could abandon a baby?”

  Chris shook his head. “Well, good thing he’s lying. But maybe some people are like the mother sea monsters. They make the baby and then have faith that someone else will do a better job of raising it than they could. And seriously, you have your mom and your uncle. Not many people have parents that good, parents who understand them and support them in who they really are.”

  Donal smiled again. “You do a lot of thinking for a force of destruction.”

  Chris smiled back. “You’re pretty brave for an inventor.”

  It felt like a bonding moment, minus the punching he sometimes saw boys doing when they talked about emotions. Donal decided he was good with that.

  6

  They took turns fishing until supper, to stretch the supplies to cover two more. Another tremor shook the chamber as they cleaned the fish. Stones up to the size of their fists fell into the water. Blot happily watched the fish rise to these ripples and caught most of his own supper.

  They fed the man before interrogating him. It was less effective, they agreed, but more humane. If they weren’t going to kill him, torture was out.

  “You can call me Robert,” he said. “It’s not the name I was born with, but I’m no longer sure which one that was.”

  His first story, that he’d washed up here, was stared out of him. His second, that he’d been marooned by enemies, was treated with the same silent contempt. They knew how hard this place was to reach.

  His third story might—might—have been true. “There were rumors about this volcano, that there was something inside. It was quiet when I got here a few weeks ago. I scaled the peak, worked my way down with ro
pes with two others. Three days after we started, the ground rumbled, and gas came up from the caldera. I made it to an inactive lava tube. The other two didn’t. I had to travel a while to avoid the gas and the heat. When I tried to go back, the passage had collapsed.” He shrugged. “With heat and steam and smoke coming up, the ship may have waited a couple of days to see if we’d make it out, but they wouldn’t have waited longer. There’s no fresh water here, and the two flagons I had are bone dry. This place is a death sentence if you can’t get out. Even if I made it to the surface, it’s weeks by raft to the nearest land, and how would I make a raft? I thought I’d steal your craft and drop the people in it off on the nearest unpopulated island, no harm done.”

  “For a sufficiently narrow definition of ‘harm,’” Mrs. Clemens said. “And what was supposed to be here?”

  Robert shrugged. “Treasure, of some kind. You never know, with treasure. One person’s find of the century is another’s disappointment. Usually, if you can find the right person to sell it to, you can still make money.” He leaned forward, still bound. “I could help you find it.”

  “No, thank you,” Donal said. “First, we have to arrange a place to keep you until we’re ready to leave.”

  Robert went from charming to serious in a breath. “If you’re not going to take me with you, kill me before you go. Thirst is a horrible way to die.”

  Donal tilted his head slightly. “You’re counting on us not being able to bring ourselves to kill you, aren’t you?”

  Robert nodded. “Right now, those are the best odds I have.”

  * * *

  A stake buried in rock, feet chained together and to the stake with enough slack to walk a few paces or lie down, and hands chained together six inches apart from each other started Donal’s plan. Amalia added in a few booby traps around the area, careful that Blot could not set them off. Last, Donal set a reprogrammed Zap on guard.