Tigerheart (7 page)

Still, there were times when The Boy was unsettled and disturbed, which was neither a familiar nor a pleasant sensation for him. At those times he would take up residence in his cabin and stare at the wall. We will now be a fly upon that wall on one occasion when the crooked old lady—the only one who could approach him at such times—spoke to him. Stroking his hair lovingly, as moonlight filtered through the cabin windows, she asked him what ailed him.

“This morning,” The Boy said, “the Turk and Agha Bey were complimenting me on the previous night’s assault on the merchant vessel
Drake.
They said I was particularly fierce, my sword work formidable and terrible to behold. They said I had rarely seemed so evil and piratical.”

“What of it?”

He looked up at her, concern crossing his face. “I don’t remember it,” he said.

“And so?” The old lady laughed. “Why should that disturb you? You forget things all the time.”

“Yes, but not that quickly,” The Boy said. “From one night to the next morning? And there have been other nights, or even days, other occasions, when the men talk to me about some special bit of nastiness that I embarked upon, but it’s gone from my mind. Also…”

“Also what?”

“When I forget things, it’s because I didn’t think of them as being important enough to remember. I remember what’s important.”

“Of course you do. After all, you never forget your own name, nor your own magnificence, nor how to fight or fly—”

“Yes, yes,” The Boy said. “I know that. The thing is…I feel like I’m forgetting things that I should be remembering. And here is the most curious thing: It’s not like I’m just forgetting these things. It is as if…I never did them at all.”

“But, pet,” said the old lady, “of course you did them. They say you did them. They saw you do them.”

“Yes, but—”

“No ‘yes, but,’” the old lady said firmly. “I tell you, there’s naught to worry yourself about. Have I ever lied to you?”

“I do not know,” The Boy said honestly. “I do not remember how we met, or where you came from, or how you came to be here. Maybe you have lied to me.”

“I would tell you if I had,” said the old lady.

The Boy accepted the assurances, because, despite her outwardly fearsome appearance, she spoke with an amazingly soothing and mellifluous voice, honey dripping from every syllable.

Yet, even though he accepted them, there were things that still niggled at him, like insects buzzing about your face in such a way that you can’t quite swat at them. Furthermore, there were times The Boy would drift to sleep and have strange dreams about himself. This made a certain degree of sense, for The Boy’s own Anyplace was simply a reflection of what already existed, folded in and back upon itself like an envelope turned inside out. And if we tend to forget our dreams upon our own awakening, then naturally The Boy would forget his even faster. The sense of them remained within him, however; and that sense of them was that somehow, in some way, he was endeavoring to summon aid, even though he did not think he was in trouble and did not believe that—even if he were in trouble—he needed any succor beyond that which his good right arm, keen blade, and dazzling flight could provide.

So was the uneasy balance upon the
Skull n’ Bones,
and now we come to the flash point of events.

It so happened that the pirates were getting restless from recent inactivity, and the Terrible Turk had suggested to the crooked lady that the time had come to wipe out the Indians once and for all. This notion intrigued the crooked lady, and she in turn took it to The Boy, who considered it. At first it seemed a rather pointless exercise in cruelty, but then he felt a distant scratching along the bottoms of his feet, and somehow after that it all made more sense.

“Best of all,” said Caveat in his superior manner, “the mission can be accomplished with minimal muss and fuss, at absolutely no risk to us. In one stroke, we will be able to administer the koop dee grace.”

“The what?” said Yorkers.

“It’s Italian,” Caveat said airily. “It means ‘the final blow.’”

“What’s that have to do with Grace? Who’s she, anyway?” Yorkers said, looking to Roomer for clarification. Roomer simply shrugged.

“If you want to say ‘final blow,’ then just say it,” Big Penny snapped at Caveat, fed up as he always was with Caveat’s dazzling command of so many complicated languages.

The Terrible Turk glowered at the Bully Boys. He and the other Barbarys made little secret of the fact that they felt infinitely superior to them and had no patience for the boys’ discussions or boasts. He strode across the deck, snagged Caveat by the front of his shirt, and lifted him off his feet. Caveat let out a squeal of alarm. The Boy, testing his balance by standing atop the steering wheel while not moving it, paid them no mind, far more interested in his exercise in equilibrium.

When the Turk spoke, it was always in a frighteningly soft voice, the sort that made you stop doing whatever you were up to and work hard to hear everything he was about to say. “How would we go about this?” he said. The other Barbary buccaneers scowled fiercely behind him.

“Their camp,” said Caveat nervously. “It’s around on the back of the island, up on a cliffside. We simply fire into the side of the cliff, blast it apart, and send the entire cliffside crashing to the ground along with the Indians.”

“And if they have valuables,” Suleyman said, “we can pick them out of the rubble.”

“Makes sense,” Yorkers piped up, and received a glare from Agha Bey for his contribution.

The crooked lady turned to The Boy and said, “What say you, Captain?”

“Aye!” said The Boy, who had not heard a word of the discussion and had to be filled in later as to the specifics of the plan he had just endorsed.

The
Skull n’ Bones
set out. The wind puffed against her sails; and with The Boy’s firm hand on the tiller, the ship cruised briskly around the coast of the Anyplace. The Boy watched the shoreline move past him, and was vaguely aware that he had once cavorted and frolicked upon those shores. But those days were long past, as if belonging to another person who shared his name but had gone on to other, greater things.

Soon they drew within range of the cliffside to which Caveat had alluded. The Bully Boy had been completely correct. There, high at the top of the cliff, was the peaceful Picca camp. Pulling out his telescope, The Boy gazed upward and was even able to see Princess Picca in the midst of her people, engaged in a ritual dance that he recognized as asking for a successful harvest. Well, what a crop he had to share with them, eh? A crop of cannonballs, sure as shooting.

“Roll out the carronades! All of them!” The Boy said, and the Bully Boys and pirates worked together swiftly as a team, dedicated to the single goal of wreaking a glorious day’s havoc. As per The Boy’s orders, four fearsome eighteen-pound guns were positioned, poised to be armed, readied, and to perform dazzling feats of destruction. The Barbarys braced them in position.

Everything was ready. The Boy sailed through the air, landing on the mainmast, grinning in a most fiendish manner that didn’t seem anything remotely like play. “Ready!” he said. “Aim!”

“Captain!” said Simon the Dancer, the most eagle-eyed among them. “Floating toward us from the direction of the cliffside, coming ’round the island from the far side…it’s a raft!”

“A raft?” said The Boy. Instantly the Indians, if not forgotten, were at least a distant second in his priority as this new curiosity presented itself. “Heading
toward
us? Not
away
from us?”

“Madness,” growled the Terrible Turk. “Have they no idea who they’re dealing with?”

The crooked lady looked in the direction of the small vessel that was indeed moving on a straight intercept course with the fearsome pirate vessel. “The nerve of them! We’ll have their guts for garters, we will.”

“We?” The Boy said, looking with a faint aspect of danger at the old lady.

She turned to him, smiled, and said silkily, “You will, my dearest. Only you.”

The Boy could, of course, have flown out to the raft to see what was what or to harry the people upon it as he had the Indians. This time, however, it struck his fancy to remain on his ship and play the part of pirate captain to the hilt. He bounded to the foredeck, calling for a megaphone. Roomer tossed one to him. The Boy caught it deftly, brought it to his mouth, and said, “Ahoy the raft! Who goes there?”

A voice floated back to him, apparently without aid of a megaphone; but it was firm and strident and The Boy was stunned to hear it.

“Boy!” came the voice of Gwenny. “Is that you?”

The Boy blinked in surprise, than rallied himself and said, “No! I am Captain Boy, the deadliest pirate ever to menace the Spanish Main! I am he who the Sea Cook feared! I am—”

“Boy, this is nonsense!” Gwenny said. “The Anyplace is abuzz with your actions! We made this raft to come fetch you home and away from this—this terrible environment you’ve put yourself in.”

“Ignore her,” said the crooked old lady. “She is simply angry that you have found a more entertaining game to play than being husband to her and father to a brood of brats.”

“Away with you,” The Boy said to Gwenny, “before I give you a taste of the round shot! Avast,
arrrh
!” he growled to add piratical authenticity.

As the raft drifted closer, he could see that Gwenny was not alone. Irregular and Porthos were with her. He was pleased to see, even from this distance, that there was terror etched on their faces. Why shouldn’t there be? They knew who was the true power in the Anyplace, and it was most definitely not the bold girl perched in the middle of the raft.

Yet Gwenny was not acting in the manner of someone who knew the truth of things. Instead, her attitude was defiant, as if she were holding vast amounts of power instead of none.

“Boy,” she said firmly, “you have responsibilities to me and to these brave lads. I will not see you gallivanting about, deep in the midst of your games, ignoring those who count on you. You must accept those responsibilities, Boy, and come back to us. It’s not right to do this to your family. To just—just pretend that we don’t matter.”

“It’s not right,” Big Penny said mockingly; and now the other Bully Boys joined in, pitching their voices in a feminine manner and throwing Gwenny’s words back at her. The Barbary pirates picked up on it, and they mimicked her as well. In short order, the entire
Skull n’ Bones
was echoing with contemptuous imitations of Gwenny.

If they were endeavoring to make her lose her temper, they were not succeeding. In fact, if we are to be embarrassed for anyone, it is for the crew of the
Skull n’ Bones,
jumping about like foolish apes. Gwenny never lost a shred of her dignity; and the pirates kept at it for some time before they realized that she was not breaking into tears or pleading with them to stop holding her up to ridicule. Like the infinitely tolerant mother that she was—or would be or played at being when in the Anyplace—Gwenny simply took the jibes in the endlessly patient manner of one who knew that boys will be boys no matter how old or how cruel they were, and that this, too, shall pass.

In time it did pass, as the crew felt increasingly foolish in failing to garner the response they wanted. Their catcalls and howls tapered off; and Gwenny said sternly, “Boy…it’s time to come in now.”

For one of the few times in his life—perhaps the only time—The Boy hesitated. He had not budged from the foredeck, but he was teetering slightly, as if his sea legs were losing some of their security.

“Kill her,” whispered the crooked old lady, little drips of poison flecking from her lips to his ear. “Kill them all. End it now. End it clean. You know it’s the only way.”

“Let us blow them out of the water, Captain!” said the Terrible Turk, beard bristling as fiercely as ever. Suleyman was ready to light the nearest gun, waiting eagerly for his captain’s order.

“Kill them,” repeated the crone; and the urging was taken up by the others until it was a chant, over and over. The Boy felt a pounding in his head, and he desperately wanted to lash out but could not decide at whom.

A cold chill gripped his spine and straightened it, and he turned. “Back away from the carronade,” he snapped to Suleyman. “You are not to fire on them.”

“But, Captain!” said Suleyman.

The Boy strode from the foredeck, shoved Suleyman away, and snatched the match from his hand. A grim smile spread across his face. “I’m going to do it myself.” He turned, readied the cannon as the raft floated helplessly within range, and said, “Gwenny! Consider our marriage at an end!”

“But what of the children!” Gwenny cried.

“I’m giving custody of them to Davy Jones’s locker,” The Boy said, and brought the sparking flame down toward the fuse.

Chapter 7

Straight On Until Morning

F
lying came far more easily to Paul than he would have thought possible. Part of that may have stemmed, however, from his conviction that he would be able to fly. That’s all it takes, really. Pixie dust facilitates it, to be sure; for science can be a harsh and pesky mistress, and it has a love affair with gravity that cannot be ignored. A little magic, however, will counter even the most stubborn science any day; and so the magic that comes from sprinkling pixie dust is a handy ingredient in making something as difficult to swallow as self-aviation go down far more easily. Think of pixie dust as flight’s answer to a spoonful of sugar aiding the swallowing of medicine, and you will understand more fully.

Paul did not need to understand. Paul believed, and that was all that was required.

It was but the work of minutes to leave the spires of London behind and fly in the direction of the third star. Soon he and Fiddlefix were out over the ocean, the waves chopping beneath, licking up as if hoping that they would be able to bring the fliers down. Paul considered it most strange. In some ways, it seemed as if he were truly awake for the first time in his life. In that awakening, he discovered that the world was far more “real” than he had once thought. Shadows seemed to watch him with excessive interest; the branches of trees leaned toward him as if to try and pick up passing comments he might make. Now, over the vast waters that lay between England and the Anyplace, it seemed as if the very ocean had come to life and was displaying untoward curiosity about him. He had never considered the notion that the earth around him might be alive and thinking. Paul had to admit it did make a strange kind of sense. It nicely explained earthquakes, storms—all manner of disasters. It was simply that sometimes the world was in a good mood and sometimes far less so. The people who resided upon it simply had to tolerate it, the same way that fleas were required to put up with whatever was going through a dog’s head on any given day.

Still and all, Paul was not thrilled with the way the ocean was looking at him, and he made certain to stay sufficiently high above it.

This was not always easy, because the flight was a long one and every so often Paul would start to fall asleep and drift toward the water. Fortunately the divine Miss Fix was alert and attentive to her subject. When she heard him beginning to snore or noticed a decaying trajectory, she would buzz over to his ear and chime at him loudly enough to startle him awake. At one point Fiddle had gotten too far ahead of him and barely managed to get back in time as a shark lunged from the water, snapped viciously, and narrowly missed taking off Paul’s leg before Paul was rousted from his light slumber in time to angle away from it. The shark splashed back down into the water and watched him fly away with its dark, soulless eyes.

As Paul drew alongside Fiddlefix once more, he started talking with her to make certain that he didn’t fall asleep again. “You said The Boy had a low opinion of mothers. Why?”

“Don’t you know?” Fiddle asked.

“No,” Paul said, sounding reasonable about it. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Well…The Boy made the mistake of trusting his mother long ago.”

“Trusting mothers is a mistake?” Paul said. He was rather uncomfortable with that notion. Despite the difficulties he’d had with his own mother recently, he still at core wanted to believe that mothers could be counted on in general.

“It was in The Boy’s case, at least,” said Fiddlefix. “You see, when he fled to Kensington Gardens, he always thought that he could return at his leisure and that the window to his nursery would always be open. When he finally did return, however…” She sighed heavily, causing a mourning bell-like peal that sounded almost funereal rather than her usually far lighter tone.

“However what?” said Paul urgently.

“He found that the window had been locked to keep him out. Not only that but his mother was sitting there, cradling a new child. He had been replaced.”

“Replaced?”

“Yes.” With great sarcasm she said, “A new horse had been fitted with a bridle to take up the reins of receiving a mother’s love.” Then she lowered her voice and continued soulfully, “I think that’s why he was so interested in that annoying Gwenny. He believes he’s entitled to his share of a mother’s love, and isn’t all that particular about the mother it comes from. I mean, obviously he’s not particular, if he was willing to receive it from the Gwenny.”

“So he doesn’t like mothers in general…but wants the love of one just the same. That seems mixed up.”

“He doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t know what’s good for him.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well,” she said as if it should be painfully obvious, “he didn’t want me, did he?”

“Want you to be his mother, you mean?”

Fiddlefix flipped over so that she was on her back, flying and looking at him with a combination of amusement and annoyance. “You silly ass,” she said after a time, and flew on ahead of him. It was all that Paul could do to keep up with her after that, and she seemed uninterested in talking about The Boy any further.

More time passed, and more, and Paul felt fear creeping into him. He had come this far on faith; but the water stretched on and on in all directions without letup, the night seemed endless, and his home was ever so far away. Who was to say that Fiddlefix wouldn’t become bored with him, or impatient, or simply abandon him? He would never be able to find his way home again. Sooner or later he would lose his focus; fall asleep; and, for all he knew, that shark was continuing to follow him, angry over having lost its opportunity and anxious for another chance.

He rubbed furiously at his eyes lest they tire and betray him, and when he lowered his hands, he was surprised and gratified to see sunlight creeping up over the horizon.

“Morning,” he whispered.

The morning came up literally like thunder, for Paul heard a distant booming sound that he thought to be thunder…although it was, in fact, cannon fire. For that matter, the thunderous noise barely registered on him, for he was far too captivated with the land that was spread out before him. If one has ever looked at a globe, one has seen imaginary lines of longitude and latitude crisscrossing it. In the case of the Anyplace, the lines themselves were visible, giving the waters around it a checkerboard appearance. There were also large arrows pointing from four different directions, like a vast compass, all aimed directly at the Anyplace so that any passing fancies would be able to find it with minimal difficulty.

Paul recognized the land immediately, even though he had never actually seen it with his waking eyes. It may sound odd that one would be able to identify instantly something he had never seen as if he had always known it. The very notion makes no sense. The fact that it makes no sense should tell you that it is true. Truth usually makes no sense. If your desire is for everything to make perfect sense, then you should take refuge in fiction. In fiction, all threads tie together in a neat bow and everything moves smoothly from one point to the next to the next. In real life, though, in real life…nothing makes sense. Bad things happen to good people. The pious die young while the wicked live until old age. War, famine, pestilence, death all occur randomly and senselessly and leave us more often than not scratching our heads and hurling the question
why?
into a void that provides no answers.

So if everything in your life makes perfect sense, then make no sudden moves and do not allow anyone to pinch you, for you are likely dreaming and you would not want to spoil it.

Headlong into the unreal reality of the Anyplace did Paul Dear fly. He gazed in awe at the island where all four seasons transpired simultaneously in different sections. He wondered if they remained in their relative climatic states all the time, or if the seasons rotated so that each part of the island was visited by snow, sunshine, and falling leaves at alternate times. Paul wanted to ask Fiddlefix about it, but the pixie was suddenly buzzing around his head. There was excitement in her voice but not the pleasant kind. Instead it was the sort of thrill that one possessed when one was eagerly anticipating revenge most dire upon someone who had done one wrong. “He’s there!” said the splendidly angry Miss Fix.

“He? You mean The Boy?”

“Who else?” Fiddle said. “There’s no one else in the entirety of the Anyplace who matters.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“And now we’re here, and you can help me get my revenge.”

Although talk of revenge was all well and good when the Anyplace had been something in the abstract, being discussed in the security of his bedroom, now that Paul had arrived, the impending reality of the situation was beginning to drape its uneasy cloak around him. “How, exactly, are we going to go about getting it?” he said.

“It? You mean revenge?”

Paul nodded.

Fiddle floated in front of his face, her fluttering wings keeping her moving backward even as Paul angled toward the Anyplace. “You’ll kill him for me, obviously.”

Paul stopped in midair. “Kill him?”

Not realizing that Paul had ceased his forward motion, Fiddle fluttered several yards away from him before darting back toward him, a frown on her tiny face. “Of course. Why, what else did you think?”

“I don’t know!” Paul said. He was starting to drift toward the water without realizing it. “I thought we’d…taunt him or something.”

“Taunt him.” Fiddlefix sounded less than enthused. “He wishes me to death and you think the appropriate response is a severe taunting? You silly ass.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Then stop being it!” Fiddle said, who really was a most rude little thing.

“Why don’t you kill him, if you’re so upset with him? I was coming here in hopes he could find me a new baby sister. You’re the one who apparently wants to see him toes up. What do you need me for, if blood is all you desire?”

“Because I can’t kill him,” Fiddle said impatiently. “Pixies don’t kill. It’s not allowed. If I could kill, I wouldn’t have needed the Vagabonds to try to rid me of the Gwenny.”

“Why isn’t it allowed?”

“Because it’s wrong.”

“But then if it’s wrong, why do you want
me
to do it?”

“Why should I care if
you’re
doing something wrong?”

“But if you’re encouraging me to do it,” Paul said in exasperation, “then that’s practically the same as you doing it yourself!”

“Practically isn’t the same as exactly. By the way, you’re about to be eaten.”

“What…?”

So involved in his discussion with Fiddlefix had Paul been that he had drifted too close to the ocean. The soles of his feet were dangling directly above a couple of sharks, patiently waiting with their mouths open. With a yelp, Paul immediately rebounded heavenward while Fiddlefix flew in a circle around him, laughing in that ringing way she had. Under other circumstances he might have found it charming, but these were not those circumstances.

“You could have warned me!”

“I did,” she pointed out when she stopped laughing.

Before Paul could respond, there was another resounding noise, and this time Paul recognized it for what it was. “Was that…a cannon?” he said.

“Pirates,” Fiddle said with rising excitement in her voice. “Where there’s pirates, The Boy will undoubtedly be. Come on.” When Paul hesitated, she tugged him firmly by the front of his shirt with even greater strength than he would have credited her with. He could not be certain, but it seemed that the light she generated was growing brighter the closer she drew to the Anyplace.

“But…when we find him—am I still supposed to…?”

“We’ll sort it out,” Fiddle said, brimming with a confidence that Paul did not feel.

He gave up trying to direct the path of his flight, for Fiddle was hauling him along like a child dragging a pull toy on a string. They angled around and down; and, sure enough, there was a pirate ship floating offshore. Paul felt an undeniable thrill, witnessing firsthand the sort of thing that had previously been confined to books or motion pictures: an actual, genuine pirate ship, sails fluttering in the breeze, smoke rising from the recently discharged large guns pointing over the side.

Fiddle’s bell-like language chimed in his ear, and even though she sounded as musical as always, he could discern the shock in her voice. “It’s The Boy at the guns,” she breathed. “He’s firing at the Gwenny. I—I thought he…”

“You thought he what?”

“I thought,” said Fiddle, “that he…some part of me thought he wanted me gone because he desired only the Gwenny. But if he wants her dead as well…”

Paul thought she actually sounded quite cheerful at the prospect, but he chose not to comment upon it since he considered it rude. Far more rude, though, was the prospect of the heroic Boy aiming and firing upon a helpless raft filled with youngsters not all that different in age from Paul himself.

He had been daunted at the prospect of taking arms against The Boy, but Paul was—above all—a young English gentleman. The lad who was daunted by the undertaking presented to him immediately gave way to the bristling, offended sensibilities of a young Englishman witnessing a lopsided battle.