Isle of the Dead

6 – Ghost Ship

Lief and Barda crawled to their feet, dripping and shivering. The deck creaked beneath them. Behind them, the wheel squeaked and spun. The figure of Verity did not stir.

‘It is not real, Lief,’ Barda muttered. ‘See how it leans over the water, as if to guide the ship? It is a figurehead, carved out of wood and painted. Many ships have them. You must have seen pictures—’

‘Yes,’ whispered Lief, through chattering teeth. ‘But I have never seen a figurehead which looks as real as this. And it is Verity to the life. I think—’

His voice faltered. It seemed to him that the rigid figure on the prow turned its head very slightly, as if it had heard him. Or had his eyes been deceived by the drifting mist? He clutched the Belt at his waist…

Suddenly, there was a flurry of movement, glaring light, and a roar of sound. Seabirds shrieked. Water splashed. Harsh voices cheered, shouted and guffawed.

Then they were no longer alone. A crowd of grinning men jostled all around them.

Cursing in shock, Barda reached for his sword.

Lief did not move. He knew that the men could not see them. This was the crew of The Lady Luck, as it had gathered on deck eighteen years ago to enjoy the sort of entertainment it liked best.

Two men were tying a girl to a short pole fixed to the prow. The girl was wearing a long blue cloak.

‘Verity,’ Barda breathed.

The men had placed Verity so that she was facing the lighthouse that gleamed white across the water.

‘Ah, what a fine figurehead she makes, to be sure!’ jeered a rat-faced man in a striped woollen cap.

‘Too scrawny for my taste!’ bawled a hulking brute with a black patch over one eye.

‘She will be scrawnier yet when the birds have finished with her, Beef,’ a third roared, baring teeth like crooked yellow pegs.

The whole crew laughed uproariously.

The girl made no sign that she had heard them. She did not struggle as loop after loop of rope wound about her, binding her to the pole.

Laughing Jack was standing beside her, peering through a telescope. He stood as still as a tall, thin statue, his bony shoulders rigid, the sharp line of his jaw intent. After a moment, he lowered the telescope and turned to Verity, the edges of his wide mouth curving into a smile.

And just for an instant, as he turned, he reminded Lief of someone else. Someone I know, Lief thought in confusion. Who…?

Then the smile broadened into the familiar death’s head grin, and the illusion vanished.

‘Your father is watching, girl,’ Laughing Jack sneered. ‘He is in the Light chamber.’

Verity made no answer.

Laughing Jack moved a little closer to her. ‘Sound carries well across water,’ he said. ‘Red Han will hear you if you scream. You would do well to begin now. The sooner he gives in, the sooner you will be free.’

‘My father will never give in, James Gant,’ Verity said. ‘And I will never call to him.’

Laughing Jack’s eyes narrowed. ‘Fine words,’ he hissed. ‘But they will not last. Soon you will be begging for food and water, beaten to rags by the wind and the waves. And then the hungry birds will come. You will scream loud enough when they begin to feast on you, girl, make no mistake.’

He turned on his heel and strode away from her, directly towards Lief and Barda. The crew stumbled out of his way, some falling over in their haste.

Lief and Barda stood their ground. Laughing Jack passed through them like a gust of icy breath. And in that moment, the vision vanished, and they stood blinking on the creaking deck, mist floating all around them and the silent figurehead their only companion.

‘If ever I have the chance to lay my hands on that grinning monster, he will know what fear is,’ Barda muttered at last.

His eyes were fixed on the figurehead. His fists were clenched.

He is remembering the girl he saw painting on the beach of the little bay, Lief thought. The happy girl in the yellow skirt that fluttered in the wind.

‘We do not know the end of the story, Barda,’ he said. ‘Red Han may have given in after all. Verity may have been returned to him. Then they may have fled Bone Point together.’

‘I doubt it,’ Barda muttered.

Lief doubted it too. His mind was seething with questions, but the vision he and Barda had just seen was proof to him that The Lady Luck had been the setting for frightful deeds. The ship was haunted by memories so terrible that they would not die.

With a heavy heart he turned away from the figurehead. Whatever he had suspected before, he was sure now that it was only a carving.

The skin of the figurehead was smooth and undamaged, the steady eyes untouched. And the scavenging birds would not have left them so.

After Verity’s wasted, torn and lifeless body had been at last cut down, Laughing Jack had no doubt enjoyed replacing it with a likeness of her as she had been. What better way to torment the father who had refused to do his will?

Lief shuddered all over and suddenly became aware of just how cold he was. His teeth had begun chattering again. Water was dripping from his hair and clothing. His feet felt like blocks of ice.

‘We must go below deck and try to find a way of warming ourselves,’ Barda said. ‘I can see no lifeboat. No doubt it was taken when the ship was abandoned. We will have to stay here until the storm ends and the Kin return for us.’

‘There is no storm here,’ Lief murmured.

They both looked up. The mist moved softly all around them. They could see no sky, no sea. They could hear no wind, no thunder. It was as if the world beyond The Lady Luck had disappeared.

‘We must find a way of warming ourselves,’ Barda repeated stubbornly. ‘We must rest, and regain our strength. After that, we can think what to do.’

Plainly he was determined not to let dread take hold in him. He was fighting it back in the way he knew best—by concentrating on practical things.

And he is right, Lief thought. If we panic, we will certainly perish.

Together they stumbled towards the swinging wheel, stepping over tangled ropes and the tattered remains of canvas sails. Not far behind the wheel there was a narrow door set into a raised portion of the deck.

Barda put out his hand to open it, then glanced back at Lief.

Lief pulled aside his coat and looked down at the Belt of Deltora.

The ruby was pale. Danger. The emerald was dull. Evil. A broken vow.

‘Are they sensing the present, or the past?’ Barda murmured.

Lief did not know.

He saw that the lapis-lazuli, the heavenly stone, bringer of good fortune, still sparkled with points of light like the night sky. It was strong. If dangers still lurked below deck, at least they would have some protection. And it was cold, so cold…

He took a breath, and nodded.

Barda opened the door. A breath of sour air escaped into the mist. A short flight of steps led steeply down.

They took the steps cautiously. At the bottom they found themselves in a small square space, facing a door made of richly carved wood.

Above the door was a dusty panel of coloured glass, etched with words and symbols.

‘This is a very fine door for a working ship,’ Barda murmured. ‘And it seems to have been a way out, rather than a way in. Well, that does not matter to us.’

He peered at the dingy glass panel. ‘The decorations are all symbols of good fortune. Now why—?’

Then he slapped the side of his head in annoyance. ‘Of course! The Lady Luck! Now I know where I have heard that name before! I heard a traveller mention it, in my first years of playing the beggar in Del.’

He nodded slowly, remembering.

‘The Lady Luck was a gambling ship—a floating gaming house—that once sailed the River Tor,’ he said. ‘It had an evil reputation, though the man I heard tell of it had not seen it for himself. The ship disappeared from the Tor, he said, before the Shadow Lord invaded, and no-one knew what had become of it.’

‘Well, now the mystery is solved,’ said Lief grimly. ‘The Lady Luck had sailed down the Tor and out to sea. Laughing Jack was following his master’s orders. He was on his way to destroy the Bone Point Light.’

As he spoke, he was squinting at the small words in the centre of the glass panel.

‘You cannot read those,’ Barda said impatiently. ‘Not in this light, without a mirror. They will only make sense from the other side.’

He seized the handle of the door. ‘Come! The main saloon must be beyond. With luck we will find a stove there. And candles, and other supplies, perhaps. Captain James Gant would have made sure his guests had every comfort—while they still had money to lose, in any case!’

Lief hesitated. Something about the carved door made him uneasy.

He looked around and noticed for the first time that another door led off the small space. It was to his left—a thing of plain, flat metal, with a solid lever for a handle.

‘Perhaps this leads to the crew’s sleeping quarters or the galley,’ he said. ‘Let us try it first.’

Without waiting for an answer, he pushed down the lever and pulled the metal door open.

Dimness. The sound of water, softly lapping. And a smell so vile that Lief staggered back.

‘What is it?’ Barda hissed behind him.

Lief was gasping for breath. His eyes were watering, as though the foul air gusting from the space beyond the door was filled with poison.

And at that moment, the mist drifting down the steps brightened, as if softly lit from above.

‘The moon is rising,’ Barda said. ‘Lief—’

Lief rubbed his eyes and stared into the dimness.

At first he could see only shapes. Then, gradually, he took in the full horror of the scene before him.

He was looking down into the belly of the ship—into the half-submerged cavity where once the rowers had sat, plying their oars.

Where they sat still…

Waist-deep in water, half-rotted bodies slumped over the oars. Rusted chains hung like bracelets from their bony wrists. Sea worms coiled around necks and fingers, and snails with speckled shells clustered thickly on the rags that still clung to their bones.

Lief felt the blood drain from his face. He heard Barda cursing softly behind him.

‘They were left to die,’ Barda muttered. ‘How? Why? What happened here?’

What happened here?

Lief’s teeth were chattering. His head was spinning.

He could see… he could see a fleshless skull with a black patch still hiding one eye socket. And beside it, a grinning head covered with the dingy, rotted remains of a striped woollen cap.

The soft glow of misty moonlight drifted through the dank, flooded space. Chains clinked softly in the darkness. The slumped horrors seemed to stir…

With a cry Lief staggered back and slammed the door.

‘In here!’ Barda seized the handle of the carved door and pushed forward. Lief stumbled after him…

Into a sudden blaze of light.