The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,67
descended on the men as the Tempest drifted through the reeking seaweed. Eyes flickered up to the sagging sails, watching for the moment when the breeze finally died and the galleon would be stranded there. The sea-hardened crew pretended not to notice those mewling noises rolling across the gently lapping swell. And with each hour that passed the weight of apprehension grew until every man was suffused with a deep dread of what lay ahead.
When the sun was at its highest point, the lookout called. Three dark smudges emerged from the heat haze over the seaweed ahead. Shielding his eyes against the glare, Will saw that they were barques. As the Tempest neared, he realized that there was no movement aboard. Two were little more than rotting hulks, listing low in the water, the sails but tatters. He did not recognize their design, but the crudity of the build suggested great age. Courtenay tugged at his beard, his brow creased.
The third ship sported a Spanish flag, hanging limply from the mainmast. Brown weed swelled up its hull. ‘I would investigate that barque,’ Will said, pointing.
Bloody Jack sighed. ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that, Master Swyfte.’
All eyes remained down when the captain asked for volunteers to board the Spanish vessel. Roaring in anger, he chose three men at random and they shuffled off to lower the rowing boat. As Will prepared to climb down the rope ladder to where the vessel bobbed, Strangewayes stepped up. A bruise bloomed on the side of his forehead. ‘I would accompany you,’ he muttered, his expression sullen. After a moment’s consideration, Will consented with a nod.
The seamen sculled away from the Tempest with hesitant strokes, their unsettled eyes darting around the waves of brown vegetation. Will sat at the prow, studying the path ahead. The weed bundled up ahead of the boat, the choking stink of it even thicker now they were surrounded by it. One of the sailors, a pockmarked, pink-faced man, cried out as one of the eel creatures leapt out of the water, disturbed by the oars. Its jaws snapped and its eyes swivelled towards them as if it knew what it was seeing. The men muttered prayers, rowing faster, but that only disturbed the creatures more. The sea on either side churned as they leapt up, mewling and crying in tones that were unsettlingly human.
‘Fish, nothing more,’ Will called out in a reassuring voice, keeping his eyes fixed on the Spanish ship ahead. ‘Only fish.’ The seamen continued to mutter. Strangewayes withdrew his hands from the sides of the boat and clasped them between his thighs.
In the sticky heat, they pulled alongside the larger vessel and one of the seamen hurled a grapnel over the rail. One after the other, they climbed. The ship was still, the only sounds the whispers of the hull. Will wrinkled his nose. An odd smell hung across the stained deck, like a butcher’s shop on a summer noon. ‘Search below,’ he said to the three men, who looked as if he had ordered them to leap into the sea. ‘Call out if you find anything of note.’ He beckoned to Strangewayes, and strode to the captain’s cabin, his hand resting on his rapier’s hilt.
The cabin was no cooler. He sucked in a mouthful of stale air, casting an eye over the berth and the chart-covered trestle. By the compass a half-eaten biscuit lay in its crumbs next to a cup of wine. Strangewayes prowled around the trestle, eyeing the food as if it would bite him. ‘The captain left in a hurry,’ he said.
‘Abandoned his own ship?’
‘Taken, then. By pirates.’
‘Perhaps.’ Will looked round, seeing no signs of a struggle. Dropping to his knees, he traced his fingers across the dusty boards, but found no bloodstains. He flicked open a chest under the broad window to reveal the gleam of gold plate, cups and coin.
‘I do not like it here,’ Strangewayes said, looking round the hot, gloomy cabin. ‘It feels haunted.’
At the trestle, Will pushed a quill and ink-pot aside and opened the captain’s leather-bound journal. He ran one finger under the florid scrawl, silently translating the Spanish entries. ‘He speaks here of an isle of devils, and hearing the tormented cries of lost souls in the night.’ He skimmed the pages and read on. ‘A city of gold. Manoa, he calls it. “No man may escape it, save that he traverses the labyrinth before the Moon-Tower.”’