I immediately disposed of my foul-smelling 'gift' from Indigo, dropping it into a big, heavy chest in the depths of the hull where nobody could possibly smell it. The smell must have been appalling, for even Jack didn't comment on it; then again he was so used to bad smells that he actually liked the smell of Tortuga. I wondered what on earth she had given me and what I could possibly need it for. 'In case the men take leave of their senses' she had said. It wasn't a very comforting notion, the thought of every single man on board getting even more insane than they already were. I hoped that I would never, ever, ever have to find out what was in it.
Jack took care of everything that Indigo had given him, filing them away in various locked drawers. The one thing he didn't take care of, however, was the book. It was bound in leather and very old, the cover looked newer than the yellowing pages suggested the book was. There was no title, so I assumed that it was not the original cover. I ignored it for a few days, waiting to see if Jack would pick it up at any point. Surely he would have to; Indigo gave us it for a reason. When he did not I took it for myself. Jack didn't even notice it was missing. I opened it to the first page, the inside title page; 'The Legends of a Lost People'. Underneath the printed title someone had written 'Aquæ istæ animam refove' in long spidery handwriting… I had no idea what it meant but I stared at it for a long time wondering how significant it was. When my hopeless staring gave me no answers I began to read the introduction;
'The modern world is not as forward thinking as it would have us believe. We are straying too far from our natural path and the Ways of Old are being forgotten. There was a time when humans were completely at one with the world and each other, but now there seems to be a rush to outgrow it. The Magic of the world is dying; there is no hope of saving it from the limitations of science. However, legend has it that there was a plan in place to preserve our Magic. The Triangle was created in 9 000 BC to protect everything that the native peoples held dear.'
Was this the Triangle that Indigo had mentioned? The place with shifting horizons? Was this where the Fountain was supposed to be?
The boundaries stretched from the bottom of Florida, along to Puerto Rico, up to Bermuda and back down to Florida. It was to be a place where all the magic of the world was kept safe, where nothing New Age would work properly, not even a compass. It isn't known whether or not the plan worked, or if it was even real but the story goes that the Carib tribe leaders had a disagreement over who would guard all this magic. Eventually, there was a vote which the Atlanteans won due to their numerical strength and powerful influence over the other Caribbean tribes. They were a proud and advanced race of peoples with undeniable talent in the Magic Arts. The Triangle was created around the island of Atlantis, so that the Atlanteans could forever guard it.
Atlantis? I had heard tale of that before… A great city, lost to the seas. Or perhaps just a myth? I dimly remember someone telling me, perhaps my mother when I was little. That Atlantis had been full of wonderful and precious things. But it was just a story, told to send me to sleep and leave me with amazing dreams of a Lost City. I shuddered, guessing that the rest of the introduction would be about the fall Atlantis. I was right.
Not everyone was happy with the decision and there was a conspiracy against the Atlanteans and all they watched over. Once the magic of the world had been poured into the Triangle and every creature with any magic within it had been safely contained there, the jealous Caribs used their last ounces of magic to drown Atlantis, thinking that if the island were gone then someone else would get guardianship. But when the island sank, their access to the Triangle disappeared with it. It is thought that the Atlanteans managed to hide themselves at the last second, and are still out there, concealed from the world that betrayed them. Others say that they protected themselves with some kind of incantation that protects them from the waters around them; they are sunk, but still living in the very depths of the ocean. If they are still living, deep beneath the waves, what kind of state is the Great City in now? And are the people angry? They will have changed, being cut off from the outside world for so long, but given some of the inhuman influence around them, will the Atlanteans still be recognisably human? Nobody has found them, so nobody has ever found out and perhaps they are best left undisturbed. Or perhaps there is nothing left to disturb. Maybe they all died and the secrets died with them.
One thing is for sure, whether the Atlanteans are drowned, living a half-life under the waters or merely hiding from the untrained eye, the Triangle will be a dangerous place. With no order, no rules, no guardians. It will be a place of wild savagery beyond the imagination of any human. Those searching for the Old Magic lost to the ocean will face perils unheard of in the New World.
I shuddered again. What had Jack got us in for?
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