They slid down through absolute darkness, unable to see where they were going or where they were going to land. Chariset had a death-grip on Murray, whose bone jaw hung slackly open, as they slid around and around in a tight spiral. Then they saw a fast-approaching square of light--Chariset cried out involuntarily--and they dropped out of the mouth of the tunnel and onto a deep pile of sand. She lost her grip on Murray and plowed deeply into the pile, rolling over and over, until she came to a stop, spitting out sand. There was no sign of the skull, but some muffled words were coming from someplace nearby. She reached in carefully--and something bit down hard on her finger. She pulled back sharply, and Murray emerged from the sand.
"Ouch" said she, nursing her wounded finger.
"Sorry."
"Where are we?" asked Chariset, shaking sand out of her ponytail.
They were in a dark room made all of stone--stone walls, stone floor, bars on the windows and the wooden door. There was one lone candle trying to light the place, leaving dim moonlight from the high windows to do most of the work. The result was an ambience of dark blue/damp/dungeon, the kind that all good prisons have.
Chariset tried the door, which of course was locked. The duct they'd fallen out of was too high to reach and probably too steep to climb, and even if the windows were open, only Murray would've been able to get through. She looked through the peephole in the door. No guards. She almost chuckled as she drew her sword and went to work on the lock.
The skull managed to roll over to where she was before she'd coaxed the old, rusty thing open. Eventually it gave--she scooped Murray up and slipped out into the hall.
"Do you know where the Necromancer's..throne room..would be?" she asked Murray, sotto voce and sword drawn.
"Upstairs, I think"
"Aren't you ever certain about anything?"
"I'm certain that I want to see your brother torn limb from limb," came the reply, demonic despite the fact that it was spoken in a whisper.
"We may just have to agree to disagree on that one" she replied, gliding along the wall and looking for a staircase. The stairs, when they found them, were dimly lit and stone--not much danger of detection from a creaky board here. They (well, she, since she was the one doing the walking), crouched on the staircase just below the level of the upper floor and cautiously peered out.
"There!" said Murray. A large, plain, stone arch was visible across from the stairs. It was just as dark and gloomy as the rest of the place. She crossed the bare expanse as quickly as she could, crouched low to the stone floor, and slipped inside the arch, stepping immediately to one side and pressing her back flat against the other side of the wall. She listened, but there was no outcry from the hallway.
The hall they had entered was even darker and more gloomy than the rest of the palace--so dark that she couldn't even see the ceiling. The layout was something like that of a church sanctuary from what she could tell, with a wide center aisle flanked by rows of benches on each side. At the front was some sort of low platform with a pattern or a picture she couldn't make out on the wall behind it. The floor was decorated with a dark/light pattern of colored tiles, but everything looked gray in the half-light from the archway.
Murray had nothing useful to offer, so she stepped away from the wall beside the arch and carefully made her way down the aisle itself towards the--
SLAM! The room was plunged into utter darkness as the doors of the archway slammed shut behind her. She jumped and gasped, half turning around--and something thin and cold touched her throat. Chariset shrank back, but the edge of the swordblade followed her.
"Drop your sword" said an unseen soldier from somewhere above her head.
She tightened her grip and backed away--into another invisible swordpoint. "I've come to see the Necromancer" she said defiantly to the ring of guards who had somehow surrounded her.
The edge of the sword found her throat again. "You've found him" said the voice. "But no one goes armed into the presence of the Necromancer. Drop your sword." She hestitated, but the edge began to apply pressure and she finally let her cutlass drop. The clanking sound of the metal on tile was the loudest noise in the room.
Instantly the swords let her go, and every candle in the room flared to life. Chariset blinked and shielded her eyes from the sudden burst of light, but not before she saw the tall figures in dark robes holding spears and swords. The Necromancer's hall was lovely--what she could see of it--but the tallest figure, faceless in a hooded robe, motioned her to turn around and precede them to the low platform. She walked down the aisle with the dark figures flanking her, like some honor guard.
Seated on a throne before her was a completely amorphous figure shrouded in a hooded gray robe. He might have been male or female, tall or short, large or small, she couldn't tell. But the hood of the robe was surmounted by a thin circlet of gold and gems, gathering the cloth tight to his/her head, so his face, when he raised his head, was visible. It was heavily lined but not wrinkled, and very pale. His eyes were thickly outlined, giving him the look of a skull, but she suspected cosmetics might be involved, rather than age or magic.
He held a short staff with a teardrop shape at the top, made of some twisted dark wood--when she came within a few steps of his platform he raised it and motioned her to stop.
"What brings you to darken my doorstep?" he began in a powerful voice which nevertheless had a reedy undertone, making him sound older than he looked.
"Are you the Necromancer?" she asked instead of answering him.
This seemed to enrage him. "You give me insolence?!" he hissed, voice rising in pitch and only increasing her opinion that he was really a much older man. "You come here uninvited, you irritate the townspeople, you subvert one of my guards.." Murray wiggled uncomfortably in her hands, "..break into my palace, and draw steel on one of my servants, and still you dare refuse to answer me, in my own throne room??" Chariset still did not answer him, which seemed to irritate him further. "Speak, girl!"
"I've come to darken the Necromancer's doorstep" she said at last. "If the need were not desperate, I would not have come. If you are not the Necromancer, then I will go find and annoy him, and leave you alone." There was not the least apology in her voice, and the light in his eyes grew brighter the more she said. She could feel the anxiety radiating from the servants who flanked her.
He actually vibrated for a moment, then burst out "I am the Necromancer!! But if you think you'll get help from me, you're out of your mind!" He started to motion with his staff..
..and she, seeing her chance slipping away, desperately surged forward a few steps, hearing the astonished gasps of the robed attendants. "I came because you have something that no one else has. You're my only chance. I didn't risk coming to Sable Island just for the fun of it, Wizard, and I don't want to stay. I just want to find what I've come for and get out of here. And when I go, I'll take this guard that I subverted with me."
He froze, but whether he was astonished or outraged, she couldn't tell. "You've come highly recommended" she went on, looking into his eyes, being as sincere as she could. "A woman on Plunder Island, a voodoo priestess, sent me to you. She said that only you can help me."
The Necromancer lowered his head completely for a moment, while the attendants held their breath and Chariset frantically wondered how she would save her brother if the worst happened and he threw her out. But then he raised his head and she saw tears glitter in his eyes. "She said that, did she? Ah...Meren..you were always so kind to me..."
"She gave me this to give to you" she added, wondering what the connection was between this old stick and the warm, gentle Voodoo Priestess. He took the coin from her with an almost shy reverence, holding in his palms and stroking it gently with the fingers of his other hand. He pressed it to his chest with both hands, eyes closed, rocking gently in his throne, almost smiling behind the white paint and the deep-set lines.
"Leave us" he said finally to the servants, who vanished silently. When he looked up again, he had glistening streaks on his cheeks, marring the white paint. "You don't know what this means to me" he said in a shaking voice. "For you, and for my Meren, I'll grant your request. And I will pardon my treacherous soldier, there" he added to Murray, who was as close to shrinking as she had ever seen the self-possessed, evil skull.
Chariset swallowed, but resisted the urge to shrink away herself. "Do you know of the Zombie Pirate LeChuck?" she began.
The Necromancer listened, coin pressed tightly to his chest, as Chariset told him about her brother's adventures, condensed, then about the attack at sea and the disappearance of Elaine. She described with as much detail as she could her visit to the priestess, some of which brought a few more tears to his eyes. Despite herself, she felt a great deal of affection for this lonely wizard. But then she came to the dangerous place of her narrative. "She said you had a magic item, an amulet, than can undo every magic ever cast," she looked up anxiously but he just nodded, "and that only if I could convince you to let me borrow your amulet, then I could free Guybrush and destroy LeChuck once and for all," she finished in a rush.
He hid his face again, and she held her breath. "You have given me hope again" he began in a regretful voice, "and so it pains me to tell you that I cannot help you in return." She felt a sharp blow of disappointment at this, but he went on. "This is indeed an amulet of incredible power, too dangerous to entrust to just anyone. I am bound to test everyone who comes asking to use it, to see whether his heart is pure enough that the temptation for evil would not overcome him. Surely you understand?" He actually seemed to need her answer, so she nodded.
"Could you..test me..then?" she asked.
"Not without equipment which I don't have" he replied. "And coming up with an equivalent test would be hard to do."
She thought for a moment. "I know sailing, swordfighting, and all kinds of piratey skills--but I'm not a pirate at heart. If you were to put me somewhere where it would be easier to be like a pirate for the sake of the moment than go with what I believe, would that be enough to know whether I would misuse the amulet?"
"Hmmm...it might..." The Necromancer pondered for a moment. "I think I know how to devise such a test. Give me until morning to think of something--in the meantime, why don't you go use one of the guest rooms? It looks like you've had a hard night."
Chariset accepted without protest, set Murray down on the tiles, and let herself be escorted away. She was given a lovely apartment but hardly had time to notice it--the moment she lay down on the four-poster bed, she was asleep.
The next morning she found a nearly jubilant Murray waiting for her near a heaping breakfast table. But all he would say was "Your sword's there on the counter--take it, you'll need it." It seemed that he and the Necromancer had come up with some sort of trial during the night, but she did her best not to hope too much. When she was finished, they returned to the wizard's great hall.
The pew-like benches apparently could be moved, because the entire floor-space was cleared and swept recently (dust-motes danced in the sunbeams from the east windows). The Necromancer was in his throne amidst a crowd of his robed servants, but they parted as she and Murray approached. He was in full attire--in addition to the crown and the staff he wore heavy bracelets of gold, multi-colored robes and an elaborate mask of makeup. If she had first met him like this, she would have been afraid of him.
He was also in high spirits, almost grinning as he explained to her the solution Murray and he had come up with. "About a week ago we captured a pirate captain who happened to run his ship aground on the island--an insufferable creature. We've been keeping him prisoner ever since, simply because we don't know what to do with him." But now, he explained, they saw their chance to sort things out. "I'm arranging a duel between you two, right here--the winner will get what he or she needs and will be allowed to determine the other's fate. For you, that means the amulet, for him that means repairs to his ship and freedom. His cause is as desperate as yours, so it should be a fair match." She nodded. "Are you willing?"
Chariset considered, but she felt that she could defeat a pirate at swordplay. The issue was where this test of her moral character would fall. "I'm willing. The sooner the better, in fact."
"Then let us begin." She stepped into the center of the hall as the Necromancer called out (for show, she was certain), "Bring in the prisoner!"
A circle of dark robes led in a dicomfitted Captain, tall, broad-shouldered, and possessed of an impressive great-coat and thin moustache, but otherwise nearly bald and disheveled. "What is the meaning of this?" he asked in a French accent, sounding imperious even as a captive.
"You have come to decide your fate, Captain Rottingham" replied the Necromancer in the same cool tones he had first used on her. "If you can defeat our chosen champion here in a duel, you will be given your freedom and will be allowed to decide her fate; if she wins, she decides yours."
"What does she get out of the bargain?" asked Rottingham suspiciously, eying her.
"That is not important. You agreed to these terms last night. Choose now whether you will abide by them or forfeit now."
"All right, all right, I accept already," growled the Frenchman irritably. The circle of attendants was joined by others, expanding until it enclosed a large space in the center of the hall. They incorporated the Necromancer's throne into it, giving him a clear view of the two combatants in the center. All of them were armed, including the tall one who pushed an enormous cutlass across the tiles to Rene Rottingham. He picked it up and she crossed the floor to engage blades with him.
The wizard gave the order to begin. Chariset braced herself, but Rottingham just sneered at her. "You have the sex-appeal of a Shar-Pei" he said with contempt.
She blinked. "What?" Rottingham took advantage of her confusion to attack, driving her back a few steps closer to the wall of robes.
"Your lips look like they belong on the catch of the day!"
Again she had to retreat as he charged at her, moving even closer to the edge of the circle. His attacks were heavy and clumsy and she'd have had no trouble getting through them if she could recover enough to attack, but she didn't know how to react to this barrage of insults. That wasn't how they fought it in the Governer's army--and he was making her angry.
"Your looks would make pigs nauseated!" Rottingham greedily took more ground as she realized that one more retreat would trap her against the wall of bodies. She wanted to insult him back--probably should, in fact--but it just wasn't her style to defeat an opponent with what she personally considered a dirty trick. But it looked like if she didn't, she'd lose the match.
Rottingham was so close now she could almost look up his lofty nostrils. "You--" he began.
But that was enough for her--she lunged at him unexpectedly, brought her sword down on his with two sharp blows, then caught it in a bind and wrenched it out of his hand. The heavy cutlass rang against the floor and she kicked it out of his reach, resting her wicked little swordpoint against his stomach. His piggish eyes were open wide and he panted for breath.
"What...how...who are you?" he finally demanded.
She allowed herself a small, evil smile. "My name is Chariset Threepwood."
For some
reason, that seemed to completely unnerve the self-possessed Frenchman--his
eyes went round and he bolted for the wall, winding up in the pointy embrace
of a dozen weapons, screaming "Mercy! No! Not another Threepwood!!"
"Have you decided his fate, Chariset?" asked the wizard.
"Yes, Necromancer. I want you to return him to his ship, get it repaired...and send him far, far away from here. Let him pirate waters on the other side of the Caribbean for a while."
He only nodded. "It shall be done. But now comes the issue of your own reward." He motioned for her to come and kneel before him, as he reached inside the neckline of his colorful robes. The aging wizard drew out a strange necklace on a thin leather cord--long, rectangular glass beads in rainbow colors hung evenly on it, spaced by smaller, coppery beads. Its centerpiece was a flat, hollow teardrop shape, point upwards, and in the center of the teardrop's base was set a faceted white stone, clear as glass. It was not beautiful in the conventional sense, but it was still striking.
As she knelt, he pushed back his hood, slipped it over his head, and placed it carefully around her neck. It tingled briefly and then went still. "Be careful with it, Chariset. Even I don't know the full extent of its power. And return it to me when you can."
"I will, Necromancer," she promised. "And thank you."
He was wearing the Voodoo Priestess' coin on a cord around his neck. "Thank you. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"
She pondered. "My ship is grounded on a sandbar on the other side of the island--could you help us get it free?"
"I can send you instantly to your destination, if you so desire. You are bound to Plunder Island, to free your brother? And after that, to LeChuck?" She nodded.
"There is one more thing," he paused, placing a finger on his lips. "You intend to use the amulet to destroy LeChuck?" he ventured. "Have you thought about how you shall do it?"
"How do you mean?"
"To be blunt, do you expect that he will let you and your brother just walk up and place it around his neck?"
Chariset bit her lip. "I hadn't thought about that" she admitted.
"I have an idea that may help you. Have you ever heard of Myth Island?"
She hadn't. "You will find it on the very eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea, on any good map. There, you will find the Mask of Medusa."
"Medusa? But she was just a character in a story!"
"Yes. But long ago, another great wizard was inspired by her tale to create an object that could turn objects, even people, into stone. With it, you can stop LeChuck long enough to use the amulet on him, if you can persuade the inhabitants to part with it."
This was all sounding far too familiar. Chariset tried not to sigh. "I'll go there as soon as I've freed Guybrush" she said at last. "But there's one more favor I need to ask of you."
"Yes?"
"There's a man on the shore near our ship, a Welshman, who was on his way to Scabb Island but got lost in the fog. Can you--?"
"It is as good as done, child. Now go gather your crew and meet in the village square in an hour. I'll see you safely as far as Plunder Island. Just take every left turn to get out of the maze."
She turned around to thank him once again, but he had vanished without a sound. He was a true wizard indeed, she realized with a shiver, before Murray bumped against her leg. Scooping him up automatically, she made her way back into town.
The hour was nearly over before she and all of her crew were assembled, some casting suspicious looks on the animate talking skull she'd acquired (but refused to explain). Then an odd tingle enveloped them all, together with a heavy fog, and when it lifted--
--they were on Plunder Island. In a cove on the northwest side, to be precise, once called Danjer Cove but currently unnamed. The Necromancer, unfamiliar with the area, must have judged it the best place to set them down.
A chorus of gasps and mutterings emerged from her crew--she turned to see them huddled together near the shore, astonished to find themselves suddenly transported to a strange beach. The Sea Cucumber bobbed in the water nearby, unconcerned. She was too impatient to explain the entire story to them, so she told the basics to Nic and sent them all back to the ship in a convenient rowboat to await her return. Accompanied only by Murray, she hurried up a twisting, narrow path back into town.
Haggis, Cutthroat Bill, and Edward van Helgen stood around her as she gave them a bare-bones account of her visit to the Necromancer. Murray kept silent, so she let them assume he was just a macabre souvenir. In the back room, she found her brother looking just as he had when she'd left him, albeit covered with small jars of milk and other perishables.
"We've been usin' 'im ta keep things cold," Haggis explained apologetically. "It's been real convenient havin' him around." The other two nodded.
"If any of this ice is left when I break the spell, you three are welcome to it," Chariset promised, setting Murray on a nearby shelf and gently removing the assorted jars and containers from the top of the ice-block.
And now it had come--the moment of truth. It was time to find out if this amulet would actually work--and whether Guybrush was still alive. Whether he's dead, she made herself think. He might be. It's been a long time. Can I handle LeChuck myself if he is? Haggis and Bill flanked her as she slipped the amulet over her head, took a shaky breath, and pressed the entire thing into the block of ice with both hands, just over Guybrush's heart.
For an eternity (or maybe just a second), nothing happened. Then the thing began to grow warm in her hands as light slowly filled the glass beads, rising like a miniature sun and filling the room with color. Red, green, yellow, purple light glowed from between her hands, casting beams over the walls. Behind her, van Helgen let out an "oooohhh."
Then the keystone, the white crystal, came to life, shining with a severe white light that yet had some trace of the other colors within it. It blazed so brightly that Chariset was unable to look at it, and yet she saw clearly when the ice began to fissure. It cracked, once, twice, an entire glowing network of cracks spreading out from the keystone and filling the entire block with a borrowed radiance. Something warned her to step back--
--just as the block exploded. Fragments of magical ice scattered all around as she stepped away, and something light blue fell forward into Haggis' arms. Guybrush half-stood on the remnants of the block, slumped across one of the barber pirate's massive arms, his own hands dangling limply towards the ground, eyes still closed, completely unresponsive.
He's dead... Something inside Chariset died, too, in that moment, as she realized that, despite all her efforts, her brother was no more. She would have to go on without him and face LeChuck alone. For a minute, the thought was more than she could-
A slow, labored gasp for air broke the silence. He was breathing. Impulsively, she took the amulet, quiescent in her hands since the block had broken, and slipped it over his neck.
A steady, warm glow pulsed from the central stone, driving away the sickly palor from Guybrush's face, and his breathing returned to normal, steady, if slow. His hands returned to life first, fingers twitching, then life slowly spread to his arms, down his legs, until he was almost standing normally (though Haggis continued to support most of his weight). She raised a hand instinctively to his face just as the glow faded from the amulet and he opened his eyes.
Blank incomprehension was written there for a second, then slowly he blinked and refocused on her. "Chariset..." he said hoarsely. "What..?"
She swallowed hard and raised her other hand to his shoulder. "Guybrush...what is the last thing you remember?"
"We were at sea...on the Sea Cucumber.." he began, looking nervous at her serious tone. "Why?"
He wasn't making this any easier on her. "Do you remember..there was a storm....?"
"Right, and we were going to take your ship, and Elaine...." He stopped short, eyes widening. "Elaine.." he whispered, a slow horror that was infinitely painful for Chariset to watch spreading across his face. "Elaine!"
Somehow, Haggis managed to extricate himself, and he and his fellow barbers vanished as she wrapped her arms tightly around her brother and held him close. Guybrush never sobbed, his pain was too deep even for that, but she could feel him vibrating with pent-up grief. Murray said nothing in all the eternity they stood clinched together, perhaps because there was no worse revenge to be taken than already had. She heard the thump as he, too, rolled out the door and left them in privacy. "Let it go," she whispered into the silence of the empty room, stroking her brother's hair like she might a small child's.
"Elaine...oh,
Elaine..." It was the most hearbreaking sound she had ever heard. Then
long moments passed without any words at all, just Chariset as sole witness
to the sight of Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate, crying for the loss
of his beloved Elaine.
Morning and Murray found them sitting together on the bed, leaning on one another, both sound asleep. "Psst...hey!" he called softly.
Guybrush was the first to move. He opened eyes that were weary but human on the demonic skull, making Murray feel a bit low.
"Um...are you all right?" he offered.
"I'm okay, Murray," Guybrush reassured, and he actually sounded okay, all things considering. "We're going to get her back. And we're going to settle LeChuck for good. Chari's found a way to do it." As he spoke he pulled slightly away from his sleeping sister, took off the amulet, and set it back in place around her neck.
"Can...can I come with you?"
He blinked. "Why? Why would you want to?"
Murray contorted his skull face into the familiar evil scowl. "For my own reasons. Bwahahahahaha!"
"Do those reasons happen to involve..oh, revenge..perhaps?" asked Guybrush with a raised eyebrow and a trace of his old sense of humor.
"Yesss..but not on you. And besides, there's not much for a disembodied demonic skull to do around here."
Guybrush actually chuckled. "I suppose you have a point. All right, you can come with us."
"Oh no.."
commented Chariset without opening her eyes. "You mean I'm going to have
to explain you to my crew after all?!"