from robbing graves,” Blake answered, all cool calm.
“This is no grave!” Corin cried. “This is a town. You see with your own eyes. These are stock houses full of goods, all of it ours for the taking.”
“Dusty parchment and faded leather,” Blake sneered. “No more than I’d expect to find in a forgotten catacomb.”
Corin sniffed. “I’ll swear it is as good as gold. Sleepy Jim! You remember when we robbed the scholar’s ship?”
He nodded. “Aye, aye, we ransomed the boy for three hundred crowns.”
Corin spread his arms. “And then we ransomed him his books for three hundred more.”
That drew another murmur from the men. Enough of them recalled that little coup. Corin stooped to grab the book. He made a show of dusting off the print his boot had left, then folded back the cover and riffled through the pages with a silk-soft whisper that seemed to hang in the air.
Hope and greed alike shone in the pirates’ eyes. Corin smiled. “You hear that? An ancient artifact in such condition. You know enough to guess how much it’s worth.”
“It’s sacrilege,” the first mate screamed again, but he was frantic now.
Corin turned to him. “Sacrilege? What sacrilege? It is a book well made.” He riffled the pages again. Again they whispered to the cavern’s heart, speaking of opulence and opportunity.
Corin smiled straight at Blake. “Don’t you hear that? They want to be read. The true sacrilege is leaving them buried.”
Blake opened his mouth to object again, but Corin silenced him with the barest rustle of paper. Smooth and soft as a lover’s whisper, it spoke in every ear. Corin smiled his victory. He snapped the book shut with a clap like thunder. “Gentlemen!” he cried, ready to order them to the pillage.
But the whisper still hung in the air. The pages were still trapped, but a breathy voice spoke from nowhere. “Vennngeance.”
Corin’s blood went cold. Every face arrayed before him turned pale. They all had heard it, too. An echoed whisper, “Revenge.” And louder, “Revenge!” And now more whispers overlapping. “Revenge! Revenge! Revenge!”
Every eye was on the black-clad captain, but he had no words at all. He felt the book within his hands, small and ordinary, but all around him spectral whispers screamed throughout the tomb.
Blake recovered first. “Burn the books!” He bellowed the command with a nobleman’s arrogant authority, and the common souls of Corin’s crewmen obeyed him in their fear. Oil-soaked torches flew at every open door.
Corin screamed in rage. “No, you fools!”
A thousand whispers answered him. “You fools! You fools! You fools!”
He ignored the whispers now. He’d given years to find this place. He dove to catch the nearest torch as it flew, but it tumbled past his grasp, rolled on the stone floor inside the nearest shop, and fire flickered up the stack of books. His effort mattered little anyway. Another dozen torches found other open doors, and all around them books as dry as tinder caught the flame.
He ran toward an open door, then fell away as fire blossomed in the neat, tall piles. The next shop wasn’t burning yet, and he reached desperately for the books atop one stack. Someone behind him grabbed his shoulder, but Corin shook free.
“Run, Captain! We must flee!” Sleepy Jim caught at him again, and Corin allowed himself to be dragged from the building just as flames began to lick the outer wall.
Fire, red like blood, washed down the lane. Corin blinked against the acrid smoke and stared at all the storefronts now ablaze. All the books. All the treasures in this place on fire.
He held a fortune in his arms, but there were kingdoms to be had! And Blake had set it all on fire to win himself a boat. Blake! Where had the wretched man gone? Corin spun, straining his watering eyes against the smoke to find the first mate.
But Blake was just where Corin had known he had to be. He stood beyond the fire’s reach, twenty paces from the storefronts’ end, where Jim and all the rest had dumped their books. All the other men had fled the cavern, but Blake and big Dave Taker stood over the tiny hoard and stared at Corin and Sleepy Jim.
Blake’s wrists were bound tight, but Dave Taker held a knife in his right hand. In his left he held a blazing torch. Corin broke into a sprint, but even as he moved, Dave Taker slashed the first mate’s bonds.
Corin raced toward them, fire raging on his heels. “Protect those