Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates: and Other Tales from the Lost Years (19 page)

Trying to hide his embarrassment behind a second glance at the darkening sky, and failing, Harry answered, “I can feel the
wind coming up, Billy. And by now the waves in Old Hartlepool’s harbour will be moving Scarhelm Haroldson’s bones around a bit. It looks like it may rain a lot sooner than I thought. So then, will you continue your story, or shall we call it a day—or a night, whichever?”

I’ll continue, of course!
said Billy Browen at once.
And I thank you once again, Necroscope, for affordin’ me the opportunity to relieve myself of somethin’ of the weight of this thing. For who else but you among the livin’ could ever hear the story out and perhaps even appreciate its horror, eh?

And as Harry eased his joints a little, again shifting his backside’s position on the other’s unmarked marker, he couldn’t help but notice how the volume on the deadspeak aether had been turned up one notch higher still. . . .

“The thing from the sea, but more properly from the sky,” Billy recommenced the telling of his story, “that cloth-of-gold
stuff
that was no more lightnin’-struck sperm whale puke than I’m the Lord Mayor of London—that shimmerin’ shawl or dress spun from the cold glow in the heart of some weird, unearthly treasure—had been plucked from the sea and brought aboard the
Sea Witch;
‘which’ was when our troubles began.

“Zhadia wanted possession of it immediately. She was hypnotised by its glitter, how dazzlin’ly it reflected the sunlight; and the fantasy of its featherweight fragility: the way it wove and wafted in the slightest puff of air where the crewmen who’d lifted it from the water hung it from the riggin’ to dry. Amazin’ly, it seemed
already
dry, and no more than five minutes out of the sea; with salty white crystals driftin’ down off it onto the deck as soon as they formed, because they couldn’t cling to the sheerness of its weave! By ‘sheerness’ I mean its incorruptible oneness, its purity—or maybe its utterly corrupt
im
purity?—which wouldn’t permit of any familiarity or mixin’ with lesser ‘elements’; by which I mean
inanimate
elements. . . .

“Well, leavin’ off from what they ought to have been doin’,
one by one the crewmen sidled up scratchin’ their chins to look at this . . . but this what? This raiment? This lump of sky-stuff that seemed made out of sunlight? This gold-shimmerin’ wisp, as light as a fairy’s fart? A nigh weightless thing, aye, that yet had enough of weight to cause it to plummet into the ocean like it was shot from some heavenly cannon!

“And for a while Black Jake Johnson, who was as much taken with this wonder as anyone else, simply stood there and allowed these casual inspections. Until, snappin’ out of it, he yelled, ‘Ho, there, Missus!’ (his ‘pet’ name for Zhadia). ‘What’s this, then? Will ye stand there gawpin’ the live-long day, like these monkey-boys who seem to believe they’re crewmen—in which case they should be about their duties earnin’ a dishonest doubloon,
instead of standin’ here scratchin’ their hairy backsides
!

“Which was more than enough to send them off about their work, though not without many an oddly wistful backward glance, as Jake took Zhadia’s arm and gentled her belowdecks away from that thing hangin’ so limp in the riggin’. Limp now, aye, as if it had quit attemptin’ to float free of the ship on the slightest waft; which could be because there wasn’t any longer even a stir of air, we were that becalmed.

“As for the thing’s rich glitter: it seemed to have burned itself out now, so that dull patches were showin’ through, like the sides of a fish where his scales have gone missin’. Or maybe it was just the evenin’ light, fallin’ on the sky-cloth from a different angle as the sun dipped down towards the horizon.

“Sky-cloth, aye, that’s how I first thought of it: as somethin’ woven in the full of the moon, whose golden light had got caught up in it.
Hah!
First impressions and all. Which as often as not will lead a man astray. By which I mean that the thing’s burnin’ yellow aspect might as easily have been a reflection of hell’s molten sulphur as the light of moon-or sun-beams!

“And so the night came on, and the stars so bright and the sea so still. . . .”

_____

“It was a peg-leg called Pete—(no, I’m not kiddin’!)—who was standin’ watch that night. Stumpy Pete Parsons, aye, whose left leg from the knee down had been eaten by a hungry shark when he fell in the sea while hangin’ his arse overboard to do his business. Pete’s footfalls betrayed his identity each time he went on patrol; or rather one footfall, followed by the thump of his mahogany fittin’! In the heat of many a tropical night, sweatin’ blood in a hammock belowdecks—or up in the cool of the still night air, on those rare occasions when Black Jake would permit it, when it was too hot even for him, the hell-spawned devil—I’d hear Stumpy Pete Parsons comin’, hummin’ some sea shanty or other while keepin’ time with the slap-
thump!
slap-
thump!
slap-
thump!
of his approach.

“This wasn’t one of those rare, up-top nights such as I’ve mentioned, however; in fact it was singularly cool belowdecks, where the gentle lappin’ of the sea and the occasional creakin’ of the ship’s oaken ribs—and Pete’s monotonous, echoin’, slap
thump!
overhead patrollin’, of course—all combined, were like some lovin’ mother’s lullaby, puttin’ me and doubtless the rest of that weary crew to sleep.

“Only once in the dead of night did I come awake, thinkin’ to hear a thin, quaverin’ cry . . . most likely that of some seabird, grateful for a yard-arm to light upon. So I thought while slippin’ back into sleep: the cry of a seabird, aye—

“—Except I was wrong and it wasn’t!”

“Black Jake Johnson’s orders for that night had been simple indeed. ‘Stumpy Pete, ye old peg-leg,’ he’d said, ‘in a calm such as this ’un, ye may
think
that no one’s likely to come creepin’ up on us. And so ye may also
think
that keepin’ watch is hardly necessary . . . but it is! Ye’ll keep the lanterns lit, both fore and aft; ye’ll keep the rats from the galley, the old
Sea Witch
from sinkin’, and yereself off
the rum, of which everyone knows ye’re too damn fond! Now, have I said enough?’

“ ‘Aye, Cap’n,’ says Pete, with a snappy salute.

“ ‘Also,’ Jake goes on, ‘should a wind come up—or even a breeze to stir the sails—ye’ll wake me first, then the rest. Is it understood?’

“ ‘Aye, aye, Cap’n!’ Another salute, and that was that.

“But the next mornin’, as dawn broke, its pale light filterin’ through a knothole in the strakes, a wind did indeed come up. The first I knew of it was when the ship groaned and leaned over to leeward a little as a risin’ wind caught us side-on. It was no big blow—no tropical storm, as it were—but enough to swing my hammock about a bit until I sensed the motion.

“But what was this? No cursin’ from Black Jake Johnson? No hollerin’ or blasphemin’, which there must surely be if he were up and about while all the rest slept on? Ah! But no sooner the thought than the Cap’n’s bull roar:

“ ‘Where is he? Where’s that peg-leg, Stumpy Pete Parsons? For as Davy Jones is my witness, I’ll have his mahogany fittin’ sharpened to a point and relocated so good and tight that he’ll never sit down on the job again! No, nor anywhere
else
for that matter! Where are ye, ye idle old sea slug!’

“Fearin’ Jake’s righteous rage, the rest of the crew were quick from their rest, and I give myself credit that I was just as quick and quicker. Not yet wholly or decently dressed, there I was at the helm, fumblin’ with my buttons and toggles, and at the same time swingin’ the
Sea Witch’
s prow leeward to help her stop fightin’ the anchor, which I believed had got caught up on the bottom.

“Meanwhile the wind had come on stronger; young Will Moffat was monkeyin’ up the mainmast to the crow’s-nest; the crew were about their accustomed duties, those who had such, and the rest were waitin’ on Black Jake’s instructions. Which was when someone stumbled across Stumpy Pete Parsons. Except that someone—whose name isn’t important, and in any case I can’t remember it—wouldn’t have known it was Stumpy Pete at all if his peg-leg hadn’t been stickin’ out of the wizened bundle of
rags that lay there on the deck: a varnished hardwood limb that rolled free of the loose fittin’s on Pete’s shrivelled leathery stump when the deckhand who’d found him nudged it with the toe of his boot!

“Well, even Black Jake was dumbstruck when the ship’s sawbones (he’d been a landlubber who’d run off to sea when several of his patients died from his remedies) unwrapped what was left of poor Pete from clothes as brittle as beached, sun-dried seaweed. Only six or seven hours ago this had been a man, albeit a one-legged man, of firm flesh, a sound heart, a full blue beard of which he was proud and a healthy appetite. Yet now—

“—Stumpy Pete was dead as a doornail, a thing of skin and bones, a veritable husk! His eyes were open but glassy, frozen in some nameless horror; his mouth gaped in a frame of fretted lips, where one or two stained fangs leaned like weathered old tombstones in the dark of that last long yawn; his cheeks were sunken in, as if his final act had been to suck air for a
second
scream (perhaps because the
first
one had come out a thin, quaverin’ squawk much like a seabird might make?) and his once-proud beard had been reduced to patchy stubble that the risin’ wind was liftin’ from his parchment face and chin like so much dust!

“Well, to give Black Jake credit, he made a quick recovery from whatever shock or astonishment he might have felt; in less time than it takes to tell he was up on the after deck shoutin’ over the howlin’ wind: ‘What, are ye not only blind but stupid, the lot of ye? The cable’s taut and the vessel strainin’ like a bloodhound on its leash. So slip the anchor, says I, before the
Sea Witch
suffers an injury! Jump to it, ye godless lot! And as for this blow’: we’ll go wherever the wind takes us and let the old ship ride it out!’

“Then he joined me at the helm, and said: ‘Well, Mister. I see you were up and about at least . . . or anyways pretty quick. So then, what d’ye make of all this? I mean Stumpy Pete Parsons bein’ dead and all; that and the way of it. Is this a rum to-do or what, and did ye ever see its like before?’

“ ‘Well truth to tell, Cap’n Jake,’ says I, ‘there’s no end of things here that I never saw or heard of before. . . .

“ ‘Well then,’ says Jake, ‘say on, Mister, say on!’

“ ‘First off,’ says I, ‘about lightnin’, sperm whales, and what some say is regurgitated in certain strange circumstances. Now then, I’ve never in my life heard anythin’—’

“ ‘Now you hold fire there, Mister!’ the Cap’n cuts me off, scowls, and quickly goes on to say: ‘Oh, I know what ye’re gettin’ at, aye.’ But then he chuckles—somethin’
mighty
rare to hear!—and says, ‘My ambergris story, eh?’

“ ‘Well, Cap’n,’ says I, ‘I do know a little somethin’ about ambergris, but as for lightnin’-struck whales, I—‘

“ ‘A yarn made up on the spur of the moment,’ says he, cuttin’ me off again. ‘There I was: Zhadia wailin’ for me to fetch that cloak, dress, or whatever aboard the old
Sea Witch
, and me bein’ unwillin’ to oblige her—or rather, unwillin’ to be
seen
obligin’ her! What, Black Jake Johnson hastenin’ to the beck of a mere female—even one as rare as this ’un? Why, if certain of the scum aboard this ship should see that kind of weakness in a man—or
any
kind of weakness, for that matter—the next thing ye know . . . But there, Mister. I’m sure ye get my drift. So then, that’s that and then there’s the other. In the main it was Pete Parsons I was enquirin’ of; Pete, and what ye might make of the way of his demise?’

“ ‘Aye,’ I offer a thoughtful nod. ‘Which is where I say we should begin at the beginnin’.’

“ ‘Eh?’ says Black Jake, frownin’. ‘Explain.’

“And so I did. ‘It started when that thing fell out of the sky: that splash of queer brilliance, like an oddment left over from a bolt of heavenly—or hellish—golden weave.’

“ ‘A bolt?’ says the Cap’n, tweakin’ my meanin’. ‘Aye, like a bolt from the blue, eh?’

“ ‘But no simple shootin’ star such as we’ve seen on many a night,’ says I. ‘No, not this thing that comes spirallin’ down, landin’ with a force that rocks the ship, then ends up floatin’ all serene on
the sea until we bring it on board and hang it in the riggin’ . . . which is when the weird of it begins. You saw it for yourself for sure, Cap’n. In your woman’s eyes: the lustin’ after it! And not only Zhadia—with a pretty woman’s need for pretty things—but the crew, too. Not one of them could resist it but must come and ogle the thing, fascinated by it as though it were some
real
treasure and not just a scrap of some strange golden fabric fashioned in the stars.’

“ ‘A fascination, aye!’ Jake husked. ‘And for a fact I felt it myself: the queer pull of it. So much so that I was quick to remove Zhadia from its lure. I can’t say why, but I didn’t want her touchin’ it, that’s all. . . .’

“Now not too long ago the Cap’n had spoken of weakness ‘of any kind’ (for which read fear,) and of his stubborn refusal to display such. Yet I had long known Jake to be not only a shrewd and vigilant man but somethin’ of a superstitious one, too. And it seemed to me as we stood there at the helm that for once his cagey, suspicious nature had surrendered to his credulous side. It had been, however, but a momentary surrender. And now—

“—Suddenly pullin’ himself together, he searched my face with a penetratin’ gaze, and snapped: ‘Oh, and what of ye,
Mister
? Didn’t ye feel it too? Or is Cap’n Jake just an old softy, eh? P’raps soft in the head, ye know?’

“ ‘What, you, soft in your head, Black Jake Johnson?’ says I at once. ‘No, never! Not a bit of it! Oh, I
felt
it, Cap’n! But sharin’ your own keen interest in such remarkable occurrences—which is all you’re feelin’, I’m certain sure, a consumin’ interest not only in nature but also in the
un
natural, and nothin’ to be afeared or ashamed of in that—and bein’ much like yourself attracted but resistant to idle fancies and such, why—’