Where Dreams Come True, part 2: Untied
A week and a half passed by as smoothly as forty grit sandpaper. For the first couple of days Azesh was, surprisingly, more or less left alone as he recovered from his ordeals. Then began the "breaking in" period. The pirates found this task somewhat more difficult than expected; for one thing, Azesh awoke far earlier than anyone except for Smee, and went to bed far later (in fact, most nights he never slept in the berthing with the rest of them at all). For another, Azesh proved every bit as experienced a sailor as he had claimed, and was quite familiar with the sorts of tricks that men used to spending extended periods of time in relative isolation with too little to occupy themselves with are capable of coming up with.
Even so, Azesh couldn't avoid everything, and there were a few times when he had to spend an extended amount of time plucking wooden splinters out of his hands, face, or clothing. And then there was the time he nearly lost a significant portion of his shining black hair when Starkey "accidentally" dropped a large container of some sort of thick, sticky substance from the mast, missing Azesh's head by a mere inch. The worst incident, however, occurred the morning Mason discovered that Azesh had, in fact, been sleeping just outside of the brig. The newcomer was rudely awakened when most of the rest of the pirates grabbed him roughly and then began lashing him to the bars of the brig - upside-down, so that his head hovered about half a foot above the deck.
By the time Azesh managed to extricate himself from his situation (receiving a respectable sized lump on his head in the process), eight o'clock had long gone and the three bells signaling nine-thirty could already be heard. Captain Hook was furious at his newest recruit's lateness, and Azesh stood nervously at attention before the larger man, ready to accept his medicine. The other pirates listened carefully to the conversation while trying to appear busy.
"Mr. Azesh," Hook growled threateningly, using the only name the younger man had given as his last name, "I don't imagine you have an excuse for today's uncharacteristic tardiness?"
"An excuse? No sir, I do not. I do, however, have an explanation; I stayed awake until the early hours of the morn, mending small tears in my clothing. When I finally finished, I chose to sleep outside the brig in order to avoid waking the others, but I fear that, crushed as I was under the sheer weight of exhaustion, I was unable to rouse myself at the appointed time." Azesh sighed mournfully and bowed his head slightly. "This is, as I have said, no excuse, but only explanation, and I am quite prepared for whatever punishment you might choose to give me."
"Oh, Really?" replied the captain, who knew his crew well enough to suspect the truth, and didn't appreciate being lied to. "You were up late and overslept, and that's all? And you expect me to believe this load of bilge- wash, when I can see clearly the new bruise 'pon your brow?"
Azesh bristled and straightened, his dark eyes flashing angrily. "Aye, sir, I do, for it is the truth!" he snapped. "The bruise occurred last night, when I tried to stumble into the brig in the dim light of my candle!" Azesh unthinkingly allowed the iron blade that he normally kept hidden in his velvet voice to flash out. Azesh lied often and well, and anytime someone showed the slightest indication of seeing through one of his lies it both frightened and angered him.
In response to the younger man's ill-considered answer the captain backhanded him hard enough to slam him to the rough, wooden deck. "You will not address me with that tone of voice again, Azesh of Calormen, wherever that is supposed to be! If you insist on suffering on behalf these dogs, so be it, but expect neither gratitude from them, nor sympathy from me! And if you ever, for whatever reason, report to your duties this late again, you will bare the scars of the resultant penalty for the rest of your life, however short it might be. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"
"Perfectly, Captain." Azesh spoke softly from where he lay, eyes down in an expression of submission.
"Good! Now stop your lying about and get to work! You've a lot of time to make up for today, and I expect to get a full day's work out of you yet!"
"Aye aye, sir." The coffee-skinned sailor stood as his Captain spun on his heel and strode back into his cabin. Only then did Azesh lift his eyes from the deck; they were still flashing.
Later that day Azesh was kneeling on the deck scrubbing the worn wood industriously as nearby, Billy Jukes worked maintaining Long Tom. Jukes hadn't participated in the torments of his new shipmate, but neither had he made any motions to prevent it. After some time the young gunner looked up to watch the other Sailor for a moment. He was forced to admit that Azesh was something of an oddity, even on the Jolly Roger. When Azesh did speak, he sounded like one in love with his own voice, and once he got started it was often difficult to get him to stop. On the other hand, Azesh did not often initiate conversations, and spent most of his time avoiding the other pirates (although this last was really rather understandable), keeping to him-self, and working quietly but efficiently. When it came to the simple, day-to-day matters of running a ship, Azesh really was a jack-of-all- trades, the most notable exception being when it came to dealing with Long Tom. Azesh had been utterly amazed by the cannon at first, more so, in fact, then he had by any of the bizarre happenings of the enchanted island they were anchored at. Apparently, gunnery school was too strange for him! Additionally, although Azesh kept himself very neat and tidy, none of the other pirates could actually recall witnessing him in the act of maintaining what was obviously a very strict program of personal hygiene. This last had lead to a certain amount of speculation amongst the others. Starkey had proposed that the dark-skinned sailor must have hideous scars all over the rest of his body, while Cookson suggested that he mebee just had a veerry embarrassing birthmark, yez? and Mullins, of course, thought that he was hiding some sort of strange or unnatural feature that was the result of inappropriate dealings with the forces of evil.
After awhile Azesh noticed that he was being observed. He looked up at Billy. "You have a question?"
"Uhm, yeah." Jukes sputtered, caught off-guard. "You didn't. you didn't tell him." It was really a statement, but the question was implied.
The newcomer looked the young gunner straight in the eye and frowned. "Of course not. I am a sailor."
"Oh. Yeah. Of course. Sorry."
The other only shrugged in response and returned to work.
There was another moment of silence before Billy spoke up once more, asking about something that, though minor, had been bothering him since Azesh's arrival. "Uh, Azesh? Just out of curiosity, is that your first name, or your last one?"
Azesh smiled, but did not look up from his task. "It is my only name. I have no family name, for I had no true family prior to the crew of my first vessel, and I have no home name, for I had no true home before I left the deserts of Calormen and first set sight on the glittering seas." He shrugged. "The lack of a second name never bothered me."
Starkey looked up from where he was sitting, mending a spare sail. Although he still disliked the delicate-looking stranger, the desert-borne sailor's performance that morning had won him a certain amount of grudging respect, and there were a few things that he was rather curious about. "Calormen, hmm? And just where is that supposed to be, anyway? Somewhere in Africa, perhaps?"
The other appeared mildly surprised with this, and he shook his head 'no'. "I've not heard of this 'Africa', as you call it, but Calormen is the mighty empire that holds all the lands south of the Winding Arrow River, far south past the mighty river of Tashbaan, to contain the whole of desert between the two rivers, touching the Great Eastern Ocean and including the mightiest portion of the continent, missing only the wild lands to the north. It is a land of great culture and learning, where the art of the story is valued highly, but they are. strict in regards to one's birth station. This was a large part of why I took to the sea; I was the son of a destitute laborer, and had little hope of ever rising above my station, though my heart be firm and my mind, capable of reasoning far beyond such a level as was required by such menial drudgery." Here Azesh chuckled ruefully as he dipped his scrub brush back into the bucket, giving a brief, ironic smile to the others.
"Aye, and you seem a right clever lad, too," Smee piped in from where he was inspecting some of the lines.
Everyone else on deck stopped and looked at Smee for a moment, then went back to work. Starkey sighed. "Smee, old boy, just what is the color of the sky in your world, anyway?"
Smee stopped his work for a moment so he could look up and check. "Oh, blue, t'be shure."
It was at that point that Mullins jumped up excitedly and pointed, not at Smee, but at Azesh. "That's it!"
"Of course that's it, you uncouth ruffian!" snapped Starkey. "Although I didn't expect anyone besides Smee to be dimwitted enough to take my question seriously!"
"No, no," the sea dog brushed aside the former public-school usher's snide comments. "Not that! His world! Azesh's! Don't you see? That's why he keeps babbling on about all those places we've never heard of! He's from another world! I told you all that some sort of foul magic was involved in his comin' here!"
The subject of their conversation paused in his duties as he studied the excited pirate thoughtfully. "Mr. Mullins, with all due respect, we are anchored off the coast of an island where we are, almost daily, beset upon by flying devil-children. In the two weeks I've been here, I've witnessed no less than three changes of season on the shore, and the last time we went out for supplies the longboat was nearly overturned by a school of the rudest mermaids I have yet encountered. It would appear something of a given that 'some sort of foul magic' is involved in virtually everything that happens here, and therefore hardly worth mentioning."
The rest of the pirates laughed at the Calormene's observation, while Mullins gave the newcomer a sour look. Azesh returned to his task as the others settled down. "He does, however, make a good point. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. I. recall hearing once of a ship that fished a small group of children out of the middle of the ocean. The children had appeared out of nowhere, and claimed to have come from a world they called 'England'."
"Naw," argued Mullins. "England's not the whole world - "
"Although its empire very nearly is," Starkey interjected smugly.
The American pirate glared at the Englishman. "Whatever," he grumbled. "Like I was saying, though, England's not the whole world. It's just one country."
"That rules nearly the whole world!"
"And still couldn't manage to hold onta one tiny group of colonies, hmm?" Mullins finished, a huge, malicious grin plastered on his face as he managed to get in the last word. This time it was Starkey's turn to glare as the others chuckled at the little back-and-forth.
"Ah, forgive me, then," Azesh grinned. "And thank you kindly for the. clarification, Mr. Mullins."
The crew settled back to working for awhile, and Azesh got up and relocated the bucket so he could work on a different section of the deck. After a moment Jukes, who really was feeling rather curious that day, broke the silence yet again. "So. another world, huh? It must be a pretty strange one. Nothing here really seems to surprise you, except for Long Tom," here Jukes patted the cannon fondly, "and you even speak like you'd dealt with mermaids and such before."
Azesh shrugged. "This is simply another enchanted island. Anyone who spends enough time wandering the waves is bound to run into a few of them."
Mason barked out a laugh at Azesh's casual reply. "That so? Well, I've spent my whole life on the sea, and I have to say that this is my first 'enchanted island.'" He paused to look out at Neverland, an almost sad expression touching his features for a moment. "And by the way things are going, it'll probably be my last," he finished softly.
Silence fell once more, this time a bit more heavily than before, as each of the longer-time pirates became lost in their own thoughts. Finally, Azesh decided that it was his turn to ask a question or two. "But why is that?" he began quietly, reluctant to intrude. "I mean, why don't you - why don't we leave? We are sailors, are we not? Why do we not sail?"
The others shifted uncomfortably, and Mullins muttered something about having "asked m'self that plenty." Azesh watched curiously, patiently awaiting an answer.
"Well, the thing is - " Jukes finally began before he was interrupted when a fish slammed into the back of his head. "What the - ?" he exclaimed as he began looking around.
"Ha haaaaa!" laughed Peter Pan from above, where he floated with his Lost Boys, all of them with their arms full of. fish? Yes, fish. "Codfish for the Codfish! Where is he, anyway? Oh, Admiral Anchovy." he called out playfully in as loud a voice as he could manage.
The door to the captain's cabin slammed open and Hook stood in the doorway. "Pan!" he called out angrily, and would have probably said more were it for the fact that he became immediately pre-occupied with being on the receiving end of several thrown fish.
It wasn't long before fish were flying everywhere. Because the Lost Boys were still out of the reach of the pirates, many of them resorted to retrieving the spent aquatic ammunition and returning fire. "I spent all day cleaning this deck!" Azesh groaned quietly before being smacked in the chest with a mackerel. He looked up to see Curly laughing at him. Over the last week and a half, Curly seemed to have become Azesh's personal nemesis. Curly enjoyed playing tricks on Azesh because the newest pirate seemed to take himself far too seriously, while Azesh became infuriated at being the butt of these jokes because he really did take himself far too seriously. "Laugh at me, will you, cur?!" Azesh shouted, picking up the offending seafood before hurling it back at the trickster Lost Boy. Curly ducked the fish and laughed even harder when Azesh slipped on another one and fell on his rear.
"Enough of this tomfoolery, you rattlebrained imbeciles! Jukes, load up Long Tom and eliminate these adolescent aberrations!"
Jukes stood at attention briefly and saluted his captain. "Aye aye, sir!" He then rushed over to position the cannon while Mullins ran to supply the ammunition. Jukes had some difficulty in lining up an appropriate target, as children hovering directly over the deck made for poor mark with a cannon. Finally he spotted John and Michael, who were hovering a way off from the others. John considered the whole affair too silly to take part in, and so he kept himself and Michael out of it, despite his younger brother's protests. Jukes had the shot set up perfectly, and was about to fire before Peter Pan happened to glance his way and see what was happening.
"Oh, no you don't!" he exclaimed, changing the direction of the oceanic creature he was in the process of tossing, slamming it into Mullins' back hard enough to knock the grizzled old sailor into cannon and spoiling the shot. The noise startled the rest of the Lost Boys (as well as Azesh, who was not yet used to what he termed 'the noisy cat') who backed up a little. Pan simply laughed. "Well, it looks like Admiral Anchovy doesn't want to play with his fishy friends anymore! A shame. I suppose we'll have to leave them alone now!" And with this the Lost Boys flew off, but not before dropping the remainder of the fish on the deck and crew of the Jolly Roger.
Azesh rubbed his head and sighed at the mess on 'his' deck. This certainly wasn't his day, although come to think of it, he hadn't had a 'his day' since coming to that island. He kneeled to begin cleaning up the seafood until Hook shouted, "Not now, you dunderhead! Ready the longboat, we're going after those delinquents!" As the crew scrambled to obey, something seemed to occur to the captain. "Cookson," he barked at the large Greek who had come topside during the excitement. "See if you can't do. something useful with all this!"
Jukes sighed softly. "Great," he whispered. "We'll be eating this for the next three weeks."
Azesh gave the gunner a confused look. "Fish is the most common meal a sailor can expect, but these fish won't keep for three weeks."
"That won't matter to Cookson," Jukes murmured darkly.
As Azesh had observed earlier that day, there had been two changes of seasons on shore in the week and a half since he had arrived. Thus, rather than the glorious spring he had woken up in, it was now a crisp, clear autumn, and the fallen leaves crackled loudly beneath the pirates' feet. "It's very noisy here, isn't it?" Azesh murmured quietly to Mullins, who happened to be nearest to him. "I abandoned land long ago, but even then, what I did know was vast, rolling sands that devoured sound as a lion devours his kill."
Mullins grunted. "I hate goin' on land at any time," he grumbled almost too quietly to be heard over the sounds of their progress, "but times like this are the worst. You can bet the redskins have heard us the second we came ashore. Won't be long before they catch up with us." The grizzled seadog snickered, "Or are they another thing you're an old hand with?"
Azesh had never even heard of "redskins" before his arrival at Neverland, but after Mullins' comment he certainly wasn't going to admit something like that. He quickly thought over all he had heard about the island's first natives and cobbled something together. "An old hand? Nay, for I have only encountered such as they one other time. The Joyous Occasion had had a bad run amongst the Seven Isles before bad became worse as a Royal Narnian vessel gave chase. For six days and six nights they pursued us doggedly, raining arrows down 'pon us anytime they drew near enough, but on the seventh day they turned back. A quick consultation with charts told us why: we were nearing a remote, much dreaded island with no name, marked only with the words, 'Death be here.'" Azesh knew he was taking considerable liberties with geography, but had already figured out that these people were clueless when it came to the lay of the Eastern Ocean. Besides, there were so many mislabeled lands, cartographic phantoms, and small, untouched islands that even a Narnian would find the story believable, provided they were lubbers.
"We would have turned back then," the dark-skinned sailor whispered as they walked, partially to hold the mood and partially to keep from drawing the captain's attention, "but for the fact that we were so low on stores that to continue on would put the crew at risk of starvation. So it was that a small group of us, including myself, were sent on a shore party to gather the needed supplies from the wild island." By this time Billy Jukes had drifted a little closer in order to listen. The effective doubling of his audience only encouraged Azesh as he began to weave a tale of wild men and women who moved more silently then the wind, had eyes like eagles, and made dark pacts with wild animals. He was just getting to the part where his landing party, reduced from half a dozen to a mere two survivors, was finally making their way back to the ship and to salvation while being pursued by the sounds of drums, ever by the drums, when the three realized that the others had stopped their progress.
The party stood in complete silence for a moment, allowing Azesh to realize why they had stopped; in the distance could be heard the mournful beating of drums.
"Stay alert, boys," the Captain growled softly. "Move into a circle, and see if you can't determine what direction they're are coming from." The party responded, tensing their bodies and holding up their weapons in preparation for the fight as they did so. Azesh adjusted the coil of rope he had been forced to carry for the purposes of tying up any captured Lost Boys, wishing at the same time that he had somewhere out of the way to stash it.
Mullins glanced at his newest shipmate out of the corner of his eyes. "So, Pretty Boy, care to offer up any of yer 'expert advice'?" he muttered sarcastically.
Azesh gave the Brooklyn-born pirate a swift, sharp glare. "'Expert advice?' I encountered a group of similar savages once. That hardly qualifies me for an expert. The lot of you have had far more ex-"
"Uhm, sir?" squeaked Jukes with as much volume as he dared. "Doesn't this seem a bit. off? Normally, you don't get the drums until after the fight."
The eyes of all the pirates widened in realization. "'Ay, he's right," rumbled Mason. "Drums come after. It's coyote calls ya get before hand." The sea-borne robbers looked from one to the other, the expressions of each saying clearly, 'We've been duped.'
Hook stood straight once more, although his sword remained in hand. "Pan!" he shouted angrily. "We know you're out there! We'll not be deceived by this foul mimicry!"
"Very good, Captain! I must say, I am impressed with how quickly you figured that out!" And with that, the eternal youth choose to reveal his hiding place amongst boughs of a nearby tree.
"Enough of this foolishness, boy-eee! Come down here, and we'll make an end to this game!"
"I'd love to, Captain, but it's almost our bedtime," Peter gestured, and the rest of the Lost Boys released the ropes they were holding, dropping a net full of crisp, autumn leaves down upon the pirates. The weight of the leaves was so great that the sailors each lost their footing and had to dig their way out from the bottom of the pile. "Wendy will be upset if I don't bring the boys home soon," Peter explained by way of final explanation before he and the other children took off, chasing each other about in the sky as they made their way generally homeward.
"Blah!" Starkey spat several leaves out as he pulled himself atop of the crackling mass. "How wretched! Can't imagine how they even managed to get all those leaves up there."
"Probably that blasted fairy of theirs," Mullins grumbled from somewhere within the mass.
"So they didn't have help from the trees themselves? That's something of a relief; I wouldn't wanted to deal with any walking trees that counted us as enemies." Azesh was having a bit more trouble then the rest, having become tangled in the rope he had been carrying when the leaves fell.
"Walking trees?" Mason snorted. "In the Were-tree Forest, maybe, but not here. And those trees count everyone as enemies, Lost Boy and Pirate alike."
Starkey rolled his eyes. "So now you're going to tell us you've dealt with walking trees now, are you? Another one of your 'enchanted islands,' perhaps?"
Azesh would have glared, but he was still underneath the leaves. It seems the rope had become knotted around something, and he was working to get it loosened. "Not I," he replied. "Trees and I do not get along. Although some of my mates hailed from a land, not an island, where some of the trees supposedly walked. I was always taught such trees were inhabited by demons."
"Enough of that clap-trap, scugs!" snapped the Captain. "We'll need to be returning to the ship as expeditiously as possible. It's no more use hunting for the rapscallions tonight, and if we stay out much longer, we really will attract the attentions of Tiger Lily and her braves."
By now most of the men had clambered their way out of the mass of dead foliage, with the exception of Azesh, who had finally managed to get his knots untied, only to find that not all the rope was his. A particularly ancient tree stood near to where he struggled, and twisted amongst the roots, as though the tree had grown up over it, was a length of knotted line. By mistake he had undone a knot or two of the other cord, as well. Somewhat curious, but when Azesh noticed that the others were ready to leave him behind he dismissed the anomaly from his mind.
"Wait for me!" he called as audibly as he dared, his eyes darting about for signs of the "redskins" as he took off ran to catch up with his fellows.
Knots are special. They hold things together. A knot in the right place can save a life or end it. Sometimes, sailors would tie a rope in knots, saying that it held the wind, and when they needed a breeze for the sail, they'd untie one of the knots. Knots can hold a lot of things in place.
There's almost a magic to knots. A length of rope by itself is rarely much use, but tie a knot in it and suddenly it's valuable. There are a lot of beliefs that have grown up around knots, which have been making ropes useful for as long as man knew how to braid fibers into cord. And in Neverland, things that have a lot of belief behind them, so much so that they're almost magical. well, sometimes they actually become magical.
Knots can hold a lot of things in place. And that night, after the pirates returned to their ship, something unbound began creeping all over Neverland.
End part 2
A week and a half passed by as smoothly as forty grit sandpaper. For the first couple of days Azesh was, surprisingly, more or less left alone as he recovered from his ordeals. Then began the "breaking in" period. The pirates found this task somewhat more difficult than expected; for one thing, Azesh awoke far earlier than anyone except for Smee, and went to bed far later (in fact, most nights he never slept in the berthing with the rest of them at all). For another, Azesh proved every bit as experienced a sailor as he had claimed, and was quite familiar with the sorts of tricks that men used to spending extended periods of time in relative isolation with too little to occupy themselves with are capable of coming up with.
Even so, Azesh couldn't avoid everything, and there were a few times when he had to spend an extended amount of time plucking wooden splinters out of his hands, face, or clothing. And then there was the time he nearly lost a significant portion of his shining black hair when Starkey "accidentally" dropped a large container of some sort of thick, sticky substance from the mast, missing Azesh's head by a mere inch. The worst incident, however, occurred the morning Mason discovered that Azesh had, in fact, been sleeping just outside of the brig. The newcomer was rudely awakened when most of the rest of the pirates grabbed him roughly and then began lashing him to the bars of the brig - upside-down, so that his head hovered about half a foot above the deck.
By the time Azesh managed to extricate himself from his situation (receiving a respectable sized lump on his head in the process), eight o'clock had long gone and the three bells signaling nine-thirty could already be heard. Captain Hook was furious at his newest recruit's lateness, and Azesh stood nervously at attention before the larger man, ready to accept his medicine. The other pirates listened carefully to the conversation while trying to appear busy.
"Mr. Azesh," Hook growled threateningly, using the only name the younger man had given as his last name, "I don't imagine you have an excuse for today's uncharacteristic tardiness?"
"An excuse? No sir, I do not. I do, however, have an explanation; I stayed awake until the early hours of the morn, mending small tears in my clothing. When I finally finished, I chose to sleep outside the brig in order to avoid waking the others, but I fear that, crushed as I was under the sheer weight of exhaustion, I was unable to rouse myself at the appointed time." Azesh sighed mournfully and bowed his head slightly. "This is, as I have said, no excuse, but only explanation, and I am quite prepared for whatever punishment you might choose to give me."
"Oh, Really?" replied the captain, who knew his crew well enough to suspect the truth, and didn't appreciate being lied to. "You were up late and overslept, and that's all? And you expect me to believe this load of bilge- wash, when I can see clearly the new bruise 'pon your brow?"
Azesh bristled and straightened, his dark eyes flashing angrily. "Aye, sir, I do, for it is the truth!" he snapped. "The bruise occurred last night, when I tried to stumble into the brig in the dim light of my candle!" Azesh unthinkingly allowed the iron blade that he normally kept hidden in his velvet voice to flash out. Azesh lied often and well, and anytime someone showed the slightest indication of seeing through one of his lies it both frightened and angered him.
In response to the younger man's ill-considered answer the captain backhanded him hard enough to slam him to the rough, wooden deck. "You will not address me with that tone of voice again, Azesh of Calormen, wherever that is supposed to be! If you insist on suffering on behalf these dogs, so be it, but expect neither gratitude from them, nor sympathy from me! And if you ever, for whatever reason, report to your duties this late again, you will bare the scars of the resultant penalty for the rest of your life, however short it might be. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"
"Perfectly, Captain." Azesh spoke softly from where he lay, eyes down in an expression of submission.
"Good! Now stop your lying about and get to work! You've a lot of time to make up for today, and I expect to get a full day's work out of you yet!"
"Aye aye, sir." The coffee-skinned sailor stood as his Captain spun on his heel and strode back into his cabin. Only then did Azesh lift his eyes from the deck; they were still flashing.
Later that day Azesh was kneeling on the deck scrubbing the worn wood industriously as nearby, Billy Jukes worked maintaining Long Tom. Jukes hadn't participated in the torments of his new shipmate, but neither had he made any motions to prevent it. After some time the young gunner looked up to watch the other Sailor for a moment. He was forced to admit that Azesh was something of an oddity, even on the Jolly Roger. When Azesh did speak, he sounded like one in love with his own voice, and once he got started it was often difficult to get him to stop. On the other hand, Azesh did not often initiate conversations, and spent most of his time avoiding the other pirates (although this last was really rather understandable), keeping to him-self, and working quietly but efficiently. When it came to the simple, day-to-day matters of running a ship, Azesh really was a jack-of-all- trades, the most notable exception being when it came to dealing with Long Tom. Azesh had been utterly amazed by the cannon at first, more so, in fact, then he had by any of the bizarre happenings of the enchanted island they were anchored at. Apparently, gunnery school was too strange for him! Additionally, although Azesh kept himself very neat and tidy, none of the other pirates could actually recall witnessing him in the act of maintaining what was obviously a very strict program of personal hygiene. This last had lead to a certain amount of speculation amongst the others. Starkey had proposed that the dark-skinned sailor must have hideous scars all over the rest of his body, while Cookson suggested that he mebee just had a veerry embarrassing birthmark, yez? and Mullins, of course, thought that he was hiding some sort of strange or unnatural feature that was the result of inappropriate dealings with the forces of evil.
After awhile Azesh noticed that he was being observed. He looked up at Billy. "You have a question?"
"Uhm, yeah." Jukes sputtered, caught off-guard. "You didn't. you didn't tell him." It was really a statement, but the question was implied.
The newcomer looked the young gunner straight in the eye and frowned. "Of course not. I am a sailor."
"Oh. Yeah. Of course. Sorry."
The other only shrugged in response and returned to work.
There was another moment of silence before Billy spoke up once more, asking about something that, though minor, had been bothering him since Azesh's arrival. "Uh, Azesh? Just out of curiosity, is that your first name, or your last one?"
Azesh smiled, but did not look up from his task. "It is my only name. I have no family name, for I had no true family prior to the crew of my first vessel, and I have no home name, for I had no true home before I left the deserts of Calormen and first set sight on the glittering seas." He shrugged. "The lack of a second name never bothered me."
Starkey looked up from where he was sitting, mending a spare sail. Although he still disliked the delicate-looking stranger, the desert-borne sailor's performance that morning had won him a certain amount of grudging respect, and there were a few things that he was rather curious about. "Calormen, hmm? And just where is that supposed to be, anyway? Somewhere in Africa, perhaps?"
The other appeared mildly surprised with this, and he shook his head 'no'. "I've not heard of this 'Africa', as you call it, but Calormen is the mighty empire that holds all the lands south of the Winding Arrow River, far south past the mighty river of Tashbaan, to contain the whole of desert between the two rivers, touching the Great Eastern Ocean and including the mightiest portion of the continent, missing only the wild lands to the north. It is a land of great culture and learning, where the art of the story is valued highly, but they are. strict in regards to one's birth station. This was a large part of why I took to the sea; I was the son of a destitute laborer, and had little hope of ever rising above my station, though my heart be firm and my mind, capable of reasoning far beyond such a level as was required by such menial drudgery." Here Azesh chuckled ruefully as he dipped his scrub brush back into the bucket, giving a brief, ironic smile to the others.
"Aye, and you seem a right clever lad, too," Smee piped in from where he was inspecting some of the lines.
Everyone else on deck stopped and looked at Smee for a moment, then went back to work. Starkey sighed. "Smee, old boy, just what is the color of the sky in your world, anyway?"
Smee stopped his work for a moment so he could look up and check. "Oh, blue, t'be shure."
It was at that point that Mullins jumped up excitedly and pointed, not at Smee, but at Azesh. "That's it!"
"Of course that's it, you uncouth ruffian!" snapped Starkey. "Although I didn't expect anyone besides Smee to be dimwitted enough to take my question seriously!"
"No, no," the sea dog brushed aside the former public-school usher's snide comments. "Not that! His world! Azesh's! Don't you see? That's why he keeps babbling on about all those places we've never heard of! He's from another world! I told you all that some sort of foul magic was involved in his comin' here!"
The subject of their conversation paused in his duties as he studied the excited pirate thoughtfully. "Mr. Mullins, with all due respect, we are anchored off the coast of an island where we are, almost daily, beset upon by flying devil-children. In the two weeks I've been here, I've witnessed no less than three changes of season on the shore, and the last time we went out for supplies the longboat was nearly overturned by a school of the rudest mermaids I have yet encountered. It would appear something of a given that 'some sort of foul magic' is involved in virtually everything that happens here, and therefore hardly worth mentioning."
The rest of the pirates laughed at the Calormene's observation, while Mullins gave the newcomer a sour look. Azesh returned to his task as the others settled down. "He does, however, make a good point. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. I. recall hearing once of a ship that fished a small group of children out of the middle of the ocean. The children had appeared out of nowhere, and claimed to have come from a world they called 'England'."
"Naw," argued Mullins. "England's not the whole world - "
"Although its empire very nearly is," Starkey interjected smugly.
The American pirate glared at the Englishman. "Whatever," he grumbled. "Like I was saying, though, England's not the whole world. It's just one country."
"That rules nearly the whole world!"
"And still couldn't manage to hold onta one tiny group of colonies, hmm?" Mullins finished, a huge, malicious grin plastered on his face as he managed to get in the last word. This time it was Starkey's turn to glare as the others chuckled at the little back-and-forth.
"Ah, forgive me, then," Azesh grinned. "And thank you kindly for the. clarification, Mr. Mullins."
The crew settled back to working for awhile, and Azesh got up and relocated the bucket so he could work on a different section of the deck. After a moment Jukes, who really was feeling rather curious that day, broke the silence yet again. "So. another world, huh? It must be a pretty strange one. Nothing here really seems to surprise you, except for Long Tom," here Jukes patted the cannon fondly, "and you even speak like you'd dealt with mermaids and such before."
Azesh shrugged. "This is simply another enchanted island. Anyone who spends enough time wandering the waves is bound to run into a few of them."
Mason barked out a laugh at Azesh's casual reply. "That so? Well, I've spent my whole life on the sea, and I have to say that this is my first 'enchanted island.'" He paused to look out at Neverland, an almost sad expression touching his features for a moment. "And by the way things are going, it'll probably be my last," he finished softly.
Silence fell once more, this time a bit more heavily than before, as each of the longer-time pirates became lost in their own thoughts. Finally, Azesh decided that it was his turn to ask a question or two. "But why is that?" he began quietly, reluctant to intrude. "I mean, why don't you - why don't we leave? We are sailors, are we not? Why do we not sail?"
The others shifted uncomfortably, and Mullins muttered something about having "asked m'self that plenty." Azesh watched curiously, patiently awaiting an answer.
"Well, the thing is - " Jukes finally began before he was interrupted when a fish slammed into the back of his head. "What the - ?" he exclaimed as he began looking around.
"Ha haaaaa!" laughed Peter Pan from above, where he floated with his Lost Boys, all of them with their arms full of. fish? Yes, fish. "Codfish for the Codfish! Where is he, anyway? Oh, Admiral Anchovy." he called out playfully in as loud a voice as he could manage.
The door to the captain's cabin slammed open and Hook stood in the doorway. "Pan!" he called out angrily, and would have probably said more were it for the fact that he became immediately pre-occupied with being on the receiving end of several thrown fish.
It wasn't long before fish were flying everywhere. Because the Lost Boys were still out of the reach of the pirates, many of them resorted to retrieving the spent aquatic ammunition and returning fire. "I spent all day cleaning this deck!" Azesh groaned quietly before being smacked in the chest with a mackerel. He looked up to see Curly laughing at him. Over the last week and a half, Curly seemed to have become Azesh's personal nemesis. Curly enjoyed playing tricks on Azesh because the newest pirate seemed to take himself far too seriously, while Azesh became infuriated at being the butt of these jokes because he really did take himself far too seriously. "Laugh at me, will you, cur?!" Azesh shouted, picking up the offending seafood before hurling it back at the trickster Lost Boy. Curly ducked the fish and laughed even harder when Azesh slipped on another one and fell on his rear.
"Enough of this tomfoolery, you rattlebrained imbeciles! Jukes, load up Long Tom and eliminate these adolescent aberrations!"
Jukes stood at attention briefly and saluted his captain. "Aye aye, sir!" He then rushed over to position the cannon while Mullins ran to supply the ammunition. Jukes had some difficulty in lining up an appropriate target, as children hovering directly over the deck made for poor mark with a cannon. Finally he spotted John and Michael, who were hovering a way off from the others. John considered the whole affair too silly to take part in, and so he kept himself and Michael out of it, despite his younger brother's protests. Jukes had the shot set up perfectly, and was about to fire before Peter Pan happened to glance his way and see what was happening.
"Oh, no you don't!" he exclaimed, changing the direction of the oceanic creature he was in the process of tossing, slamming it into Mullins' back hard enough to knock the grizzled old sailor into cannon and spoiling the shot. The noise startled the rest of the Lost Boys (as well as Azesh, who was not yet used to what he termed 'the noisy cat') who backed up a little. Pan simply laughed. "Well, it looks like Admiral Anchovy doesn't want to play with his fishy friends anymore! A shame. I suppose we'll have to leave them alone now!" And with this the Lost Boys flew off, but not before dropping the remainder of the fish on the deck and crew of the Jolly Roger.
Azesh rubbed his head and sighed at the mess on 'his' deck. This certainly wasn't his day, although come to think of it, he hadn't had a 'his day' since coming to that island. He kneeled to begin cleaning up the seafood until Hook shouted, "Not now, you dunderhead! Ready the longboat, we're going after those delinquents!" As the crew scrambled to obey, something seemed to occur to the captain. "Cookson," he barked at the large Greek who had come topside during the excitement. "See if you can't do. something useful with all this!"
Jukes sighed softly. "Great," he whispered. "We'll be eating this for the next three weeks."
Azesh gave the gunner a confused look. "Fish is the most common meal a sailor can expect, but these fish won't keep for three weeks."
"That won't matter to Cookson," Jukes murmured darkly.
As Azesh had observed earlier that day, there had been two changes of seasons on shore in the week and a half since he had arrived. Thus, rather than the glorious spring he had woken up in, it was now a crisp, clear autumn, and the fallen leaves crackled loudly beneath the pirates' feet. "It's very noisy here, isn't it?" Azesh murmured quietly to Mullins, who happened to be nearest to him. "I abandoned land long ago, but even then, what I did know was vast, rolling sands that devoured sound as a lion devours his kill."
Mullins grunted. "I hate goin' on land at any time," he grumbled almost too quietly to be heard over the sounds of their progress, "but times like this are the worst. You can bet the redskins have heard us the second we came ashore. Won't be long before they catch up with us." The grizzled seadog snickered, "Or are they another thing you're an old hand with?"
Azesh had never even heard of "redskins" before his arrival at Neverland, but after Mullins' comment he certainly wasn't going to admit something like that. He quickly thought over all he had heard about the island's first natives and cobbled something together. "An old hand? Nay, for I have only encountered such as they one other time. The Joyous Occasion had had a bad run amongst the Seven Isles before bad became worse as a Royal Narnian vessel gave chase. For six days and six nights they pursued us doggedly, raining arrows down 'pon us anytime they drew near enough, but on the seventh day they turned back. A quick consultation with charts told us why: we were nearing a remote, much dreaded island with no name, marked only with the words, 'Death be here.'" Azesh knew he was taking considerable liberties with geography, but had already figured out that these people were clueless when it came to the lay of the Eastern Ocean. Besides, there were so many mislabeled lands, cartographic phantoms, and small, untouched islands that even a Narnian would find the story believable, provided they were lubbers.
"We would have turned back then," the dark-skinned sailor whispered as they walked, partially to hold the mood and partially to keep from drawing the captain's attention, "but for the fact that we were so low on stores that to continue on would put the crew at risk of starvation. So it was that a small group of us, including myself, were sent on a shore party to gather the needed supplies from the wild island." By this time Billy Jukes had drifted a little closer in order to listen. The effective doubling of his audience only encouraged Azesh as he began to weave a tale of wild men and women who moved more silently then the wind, had eyes like eagles, and made dark pacts with wild animals. He was just getting to the part where his landing party, reduced from half a dozen to a mere two survivors, was finally making their way back to the ship and to salvation while being pursued by the sounds of drums, ever by the drums, when the three realized that the others had stopped their progress.
The party stood in complete silence for a moment, allowing Azesh to realize why they had stopped; in the distance could be heard the mournful beating of drums.
"Stay alert, boys," the Captain growled softly. "Move into a circle, and see if you can't determine what direction they're are coming from." The party responded, tensing their bodies and holding up their weapons in preparation for the fight as they did so. Azesh adjusted the coil of rope he had been forced to carry for the purposes of tying up any captured Lost Boys, wishing at the same time that he had somewhere out of the way to stash it.
Mullins glanced at his newest shipmate out of the corner of his eyes. "So, Pretty Boy, care to offer up any of yer 'expert advice'?" he muttered sarcastically.
Azesh gave the Brooklyn-born pirate a swift, sharp glare. "'Expert advice?' I encountered a group of similar savages once. That hardly qualifies me for an expert. The lot of you have had far more ex-"
"Uhm, sir?" squeaked Jukes with as much volume as he dared. "Doesn't this seem a bit. off? Normally, you don't get the drums until after the fight."
The eyes of all the pirates widened in realization. "'Ay, he's right," rumbled Mason. "Drums come after. It's coyote calls ya get before hand." The sea-borne robbers looked from one to the other, the expressions of each saying clearly, 'We've been duped.'
Hook stood straight once more, although his sword remained in hand. "Pan!" he shouted angrily. "We know you're out there! We'll not be deceived by this foul mimicry!"
"Very good, Captain! I must say, I am impressed with how quickly you figured that out!" And with that, the eternal youth choose to reveal his hiding place amongst boughs of a nearby tree.
"Enough of this foolishness, boy-eee! Come down here, and we'll make an end to this game!"
"I'd love to, Captain, but it's almost our bedtime," Peter gestured, and the rest of the Lost Boys released the ropes they were holding, dropping a net full of crisp, autumn leaves down upon the pirates. The weight of the leaves was so great that the sailors each lost their footing and had to dig their way out from the bottom of the pile. "Wendy will be upset if I don't bring the boys home soon," Peter explained by way of final explanation before he and the other children took off, chasing each other about in the sky as they made their way generally homeward.
"Blah!" Starkey spat several leaves out as he pulled himself atop of the crackling mass. "How wretched! Can't imagine how they even managed to get all those leaves up there."
"Probably that blasted fairy of theirs," Mullins grumbled from somewhere within the mass.
"So they didn't have help from the trees themselves? That's something of a relief; I wouldn't wanted to deal with any walking trees that counted us as enemies." Azesh was having a bit more trouble then the rest, having become tangled in the rope he had been carrying when the leaves fell.
"Walking trees?" Mason snorted. "In the Were-tree Forest, maybe, but not here. And those trees count everyone as enemies, Lost Boy and Pirate alike."
Starkey rolled his eyes. "So now you're going to tell us you've dealt with walking trees now, are you? Another one of your 'enchanted islands,' perhaps?"
Azesh would have glared, but he was still underneath the leaves. It seems the rope had become knotted around something, and he was working to get it loosened. "Not I," he replied. "Trees and I do not get along. Although some of my mates hailed from a land, not an island, where some of the trees supposedly walked. I was always taught such trees were inhabited by demons."
"Enough of that clap-trap, scugs!" snapped the Captain. "We'll need to be returning to the ship as expeditiously as possible. It's no more use hunting for the rapscallions tonight, and if we stay out much longer, we really will attract the attentions of Tiger Lily and her braves."
By now most of the men had clambered their way out of the mass of dead foliage, with the exception of Azesh, who had finally managed to get his knots untied, only to find that not all the rope was his. A particularly ancient tree stood near to where he struggled, and twisted amongst the roots, as though the tree had grown up over it, was a length of knotted line. By mistake he had undone a knot or two of the other cord, as well. Somewhat curious, but when Azesh noticed that the others were ready to leave him behind he dismissed the anomaly from his mind.
"Wait for me!" he called as audibly as he dared, his eyes darting about for signs of the "redskins" as he took off ran to catch up with his fellows.
Knots are special. They hold things together. A knot in the right place can save a life or end it. Sometimes, sailors would tie a rope in knots, saying that it held the wind, and when they needed a breeze for the sail, they'd untie one of the knots. Knots can hold a lot of things in place.
There's almost a magic to knots. A length of rope by itself is rarely much use, but tie a knot in it and suddenly it's valuable. There are a lot of beliefs that have grown up around knots, which have been making ropes useful for as long as man knew how to braid fibers into cord. And in Neverland, things that have a lot of belief behind them, so much so that they're almost magical. well, sometimes they actually become magical.
Knots can hold a lot of things in place. And that night, after the pirates returned to their ship, something unbound began creeping all over Neverland.
End part 2