~Chapter 2~
An hour later, Elanor had dressed in her worst clothes and was heading toward the harbor. She had seen the Gold Flame from her balcony, and knew her way toward it by heart.
Anyone watching her would have seen an obviously rich girl (even her worst clothes weren't at all bad) talk to a passerby on the dock, hand them something, and talk with the Gold Flame's guard. In face, Elanor was playing the part of an innocent onlooker wanting to see the deck of the ship. He seemed reluctant until she gave him a gold guinea, and then all hesitancy vanished. She boarded, looking about in wonder, and she made sure to cast a glance at the guard. Yes, there was the commoner she had paid. He was asking the guard to lead him to the nearest tavern. She had told him to also tell the guard that he had seen her leaving the ship. No one would know where she was.
A man approached where she was hiding. She dove out of that place behind a different crate. She sighed in relief as the man picked up the previous crate and walked away.
Elanor crept all the way to a door which she knew must lead to below-deck, and she entered. She would find a place to stay and keep watch for Brian.
Speaking of which.
Brian was on deck, exploring the ship he would soon go exploring on. It was large and luxurious, not like some of the ships that managed to float into the Brookvul harbors. Brian had no idea how some of those stayed afloat, with holes in the bottom and in the sails, that looked more like cobwebs than anything else. But this ship was the definition of luxury on the sea.
"Here, lad, here's the passage to yer chambers, where yeh'll be sleepin'," said Scaggs, leading the boy further on.
"You mean I get my own place to stay?" Brian asked. He hadn't slept in a room or a bed since before his mother died, when he was three.
"Tha's right. Now, come, I 'spect the cap'n'll have summat ter tell yeh before tomorrow's departure."
Scaggs led Brian to the captain's quarters. On the way, Brian glanced around at everything around him. "Every boy's dream," he breathed, taking it all in. Most of the crew tipped their hats amiably to him, or grinned with yellowed teeth. One group, though, cast him a surly scowl and turned back to whatever they were doing, which looked like playing cards.
"Who're they?" Brian asked Scaggs, who had pointedly avoiding the glares directed at him from the group.
"Aye, lad, yeh don't want to know," Scaggs answered. "Them's the troublemakers on board. Rumor has it that they were once part of a pirate crew, but the cap'n don't believe such talk, so neither do I."
"But what do you really make of it?" Brian asked. "You've got to have your own opinion of them, don't you?"
"I wasn't hired to think, lad, and you weren't neither, so best to keep yer mouth shut and yer eyes peeled," Scaggs said. It was clear that he wished the conversation to end. Brian stayed silent for the rest of the path to Captain Erif's chamber.
"Lad, come in, sit down, have a look see at our library! My favorite place on the ship, besides behind the wheel," said John when Brian entered. "Scaggs, man, take a breather in your quarters, if you will. I've got business to discuss with young Master Cochran."
Scaggs nodded and left. Captain Erif turned to Brian. "Brian, I assume you're wondering exactly what we want you to do on this voyage, are you?" Brian contemplated this for a moment, and then he nodded. "Well, then, I'm here to tell you. We're going on this journey, and we're going to encounter a lot you never thought really existed. Legends, fairy tales, all of it. I was never so read up on the tales myself, so I needed an expert. And what better expert than a boy of the streets, who knows every tale underground as well as above? I admit, I didn't know exactly where to look, but someone told me to have at it, wherever I met people. So I met a maid, down at the market. Her name was Diane. Pretty little thing, too, and knows her place, and rightly so. She said her mistress knew a fellow by the name of Brian Cochran, who could spin tales like the girl in the tale of Rumpelstiltskin had him spin gold. Probably some of them you made up yourself, but that really wasn't any of my concern. So I asked the scullery maid where she worked, and she said at the Dayton house. Now, I know the young wench's master of old, lad, and I'd met his daughter before, too-"
"You've met Elanor?" said Brian.
"Oh, yes, it slipped my mind that you knew her. She looked, on the outside, the most prim and proper young lady who knew her place as well, on the tip of the social pyramid. But on the inside, she is as fun loving as you or me. And she has the biggest heart of all. She helped me out of a tight spot on my visit some years back when it looked to one of the maids that I'd stolen one of her father's golden candlesticks. That debt still is yet to be repaid. If I couldn't find anyone to tell me about anybody with tales in the market, I was planning to go to her house next. So I thought to myself, I did, 'If young Elanor's taken a liking to him, then I'll bet he's the best lad for the trip I'll ever meet.' Then I asked the maid where to find you, and she said either at their house, midday, under Elanor's window, or near the docks, because you were consumed with awe when it came to ships. I knew you must have seen mine, because it's not exactly hard to spot, is it?" He chuckled. "So I found you. But I still haven't explained what that has to do with the job, now, have I? I'm sorry, I owe you an apology, Brian, my lad; I get off topic sometimes. With so many things to think about, it's no wonder. I need you to tell us the legends as we meet them. I need you to be our information retriever. And at the end, you'll have an equal share in that flame as any of the crew, Scaggs, or myself. Now, lad, since you probably know more tales than is contained in any of these books," (he motioned around at the shelves upon shelves of bound pages) "tell me a tale. A grand adventure tale, about good against pirates."
Brian racked his brains for such a tale, but none came. "Er-any specific requests?" he asked hopefully.
"Let me think. Ah, yes, how about Captain Jack Sparrow, Barbossa, Will Turner, and the Black Pearl? That's one of my favorites. And Miss Elizabeth Swann plays a part in that too, if I remember correctly."
Brian seized the opportunity and was off on a tale-spinning expedition about the madman and his unfortunate simple assistant who hated pirates, only to discover that his father had been one. Will really was Brian's favorite character in the story. He got the girl and everything, even got to wear a big hat in the story's finale.
"And so, Will and Elizabeth were married, and Jack became captain of the Black Pearl again, with Gibbs and Ana Maria as co-first mates, I believe. People say it isn't true, but they say Will Turner is a real person and he testifies to the truth of it all. Sometimes I close my eyes and wish I were there, fighting Barbossa and the pirates with Will and Jack. Too much to dream, though, right, Captain?"
"Not at all, Master Cochran. Hope big, dream big, plan big, win big; that's my motto. Never one for deferred dreams, I was. Always carried through with my plans, except the one with Miss Alexandra Harmon. That one went awry from the beginning, it did."
"Will you tell me what happened? If you don't mind my asking, of course, Captain."
"Not at all, lad. She was the most beautiful lass in the world, was Alexandra. I planned to woo her, like every boy at the age of nineteen hopes to do to the girl of his dreams. Then, before I could put my plan into action." He sighed deeply, with the air of a man recounting a theft against him. "She was gone."
"What happened to her?"
"Pirates. Bloody pirates, every single one. That's why the tale of the Black Pearl never was my favorite tale. They kidnapped my Alexandra. Pirates can never be on the right side of things, can they? If Elizabeth thinks Will is a pirate at heart, so be it, but he doesn't seem like one to me. As for Jack Sparrow, I'm glad he got his ship back, but I don't think he deserved to live if piracy was his course of action. Taken out of her bed in the middle of the night, she was. Not so much as a peep out of her, according to the guard at her door. She was a well-to-do lady just like Elizabeth, and just like our friend Elanor, and she was important enough to merit a guard every night. But they never thought one of those bloody pirates would scale the wall and climb through her window. I never saw her again."
"I'm sorry, Captain," said Brian after a moment. "I see why you dislike pirates. But not all pirates are bad. I, for one, think Jack and Will were pirates and good men, like Will says about Jack. But it's your opinion."
There was silence for a few minutes, as each contemplated everything that was on his mind. Then John Erif roused himself from the reverie he had gotten into about Alexandra and sat upright. "Well, lad, I told you what we'll need you for, didn't I? And this library, you can be in here whenever you like. You can read, can't you?"
"Yessir. I snuck into a rich boys' school one week and left after I figured out how."
"That's my lad. You can read any of the magnificent books I've provided for the voyage. It can be quite dull at times. But after that there's always some adventure, looming on the horizon, just waiting for us. I think someday, I'll sail to that horizon and find Alexandra waiting for me there, and then I'll have died and gone to heaven, lad. You got a girl you fancy?"
Brian hesitated slightly, and then he said, "No."
"I thought maybe.but I guess you don't meet many female scamps such as yourself." The captain stood and stretched. "I'll be heading out now. Continue your observations tonight, because tomorrow we set sail, and if you're a landlubber, as those stinking pirates put it, you won't be feeling well at all once we're out on the ocean." Captain Erif patted Brian on the back and walked out.
Brian now had his chance to pay full attention to the library. It was incredible, just as the captain had told him. Incredible and full of the sort of tales Brian thrived on. He opened the first book he got his hands on to find a recounting of the exact same story he had just told the captain. "Proves how good you are, mate," said a voice from behind him.
Brian turned to see a thin, scrawny-looking boy enter the chamber. "Have you been listening to me and the captain this whole time?" Brian asked him.
"Well, not the whole time, but most of it, yeah. Cap'n never mentioned what sort of fairy-tale creatures you'd be encounterin', did he?"
"The Gold Flame," Brian answered uncertainly.
"Well, of course he said that one, mate, it's the name of the ship," said the boy with a maddening air of authority.
"Who are you?" Brian asked warily. Maybe he was an onlooker who just happened to be passing by and decided to get on and take a look at the beautiful ship.
"I'm Thomas. I clean floors. Don't mind me. I'm a good-for-nothing scamp." He said the last word with strong emphasis. Brian knew he was referring to the fact that the captain had picked him to practically navigate off the streets. He willed his hands not to clench into fists. "My father's part of the crew," said Thomas. His eyes seemed to be asking, "And where's your father? Drunk or dead, I expect." And the fact that he was right, even if it was just in his eyes, made it worse for Brian.
"What's his specialty? Does he clean floors with you?"
"Nah. Mostly he plays cards."
This gave Brian a thought. "He isn't sitting almost right outside this door, is he?"
"He is that. Playin' with his friends. Not too happy with the captain at the moment. He made them scrub the galley this morning, and it was rough on their hands."
Brian thought swiftly that that was the job they had been hired to do, but he forced that back down. "Can you read?" he asked.
"Read? Nah, what's the use? I don't see meself ever needin' to read a word for anyone or anybody. I clean floors. I'll be workin' on this bloody ship for as long as I live."
"After this no one's going to need to work, Tom. The captain said we'd all be rich."
"Aye, but I'm not thinkin' we're goin' to live that long. I know a fair few legends meself, you know, and I know that the Gold Flame is guarded by the plants of the ground, and the birds of the air, and some great monsters no one seems to be too keen to mention. They'll kill us all before we so much as see the legendary thing. Who knows if it exists, anyway?"
Brian once again felt the fury welling up inside of him. "I do. It's out there. We're going to find it. If you don't believe in this quest, then why are you on this ship?"
Thomas smirked and rolled his eyes, even though Brian was much bigger than he was and could have beaten him up. "Even if I could tell you, I wouldn't do it, Cochran. Master Cochran. Have a nice sail on your sailboat, because it won't be on the seas much longer, now, will it?" And he strode out of the chamber just as the captain had, leaving Brian very upset about the whole ordeal, and wondering what Thomas's words had meant.
An hour later, Elanor had dressed in her worst clothes and was heading toward the harbor. She had seen the Gold Flame from her balcony, and knew her way toward it by heart.
Anyone watching her would have seen an obviously rich girl (even her worst clothes weren't at all bad) talk to a passerby on the dock, hand them something, and talk with the Gold Flame's guard. In face, Elanor was playing the part of an innocent onlooker wanting to see the deck of the ship. He seemed reluctant until she gave him a gold guinea, and then all hesitancy vanished. She boarded, looking about in wonder, and she made sure to cast a glance at the guard. Yes, there was the commoner she had paid. He was asking the guard to lead him to the nearest tavern. She had told him to also tell the guard that he had seen her leaving the ship. No one would know where she was.
A man approached where she was hiding. She dove out of that place behind a different crate. She sighed in relief as the man picked up the previous crate and walked away.
Elanor crept all the way to a door which she knew must lead to below-deck, and she entered. She would find a place to stay and keep watch for Brian.
Speaking of which.
Brian was on deck, exploring the ship he would soon go exploring on. It was large and luxurious, not like some of the ships that managed to float into the Brookvul harbors. Brian had no idea how some of those stayed afloat, with holes in the bottom and in the sails, that looked more like cobwebs than anything else. But this ship was the definition of luxury on the sea.
"Here, lad, here's the passage to yer chambers, where yeh'll be sleepin'," said Scaggs, leading the boy further on.
"You mean I get my own place to stay?" Brian asked. He hadn't slept in a room or a bed since before his mother died, when he was three.
"Tha's right. Now, come, I 'spect the cap'n'll have summat ter tell yeh before tomorrow's departure."
Scaggs led Brian to the captain's quarters. On the way, Brian glanced around at everything around him. "Every boy's dream," he breathed, taking it all in. Most of the crew tipped their hats amiably to him, or grinned with yellowed teeth. One group, though, cast him a surly scowl and turned back to whatever they were doing, which looked like playing cards.
"Who're they?" Brian asked Scaggs, who had pointedly avoiding the glares directed at him from the group.
"Aye, lad, yeh don't want to know," Scaggs answered. "Them's the troublemakers on board. Rumor has it that they were once part of a pirate crew, but the cap'n don't believe such talk, so neither do I."
"But what do you really make of it?" Brian asked. "You've got to have your own opinion of them, don't you?"
"I wasn't hired to think, lad, and you weren't neither, so best to keep yer mouth shut and yer eyes peeled," Scaggs said. It was clear that he wished the conversation to end. Brian stayed silent for the rest of the path to Captain Erif's chamber.
"Lad, come in, sit down, have a look see at our library! My favorite place on the ship, besides behind the wheel," said John when Brian entered. "Scaggs, man, take a breather in your quarters, if you will. I've got business to discuss with young Master Cochran."
Scaggs nodded and left. Captain Erif turned to Brian. "Brian, I assume you're wondering exactly what we want you to do on this voyage, are you?" Brian contemplated this for a moment, and then he nodded. "Well, then, I'm here to tell you. We're going on this journey, and we're going to encounter a lot you never thought really existed. Legends, fairy tales, all of it. I was never so read up on the tales myself, so I needed an expert. And what better expert than a boy of the streets, who knows every tale underground as well as above? I admit, I didn't know exactly where to look, but someone told me to have at it, wherever I met people. So I met a maid, down at the market. Her name was Diane. Pretty little thing, too, and knows her place, and rightly so. She said her mistress knew a fellow by the name of Brian Cochran, who could spin tales like the girl in the tale of Rumpelstiltskin had him spin gold. Probably some of them you made up yourself, but that really wasn't any of my concern. So I asked the scullery maid where she worked, and she said at the Dayton house. Now, I know the young wench's master of old, lad, and I'd met his daughter before, too-"
"You've met Elanor?" said Brian.
"Oh, yes, it slipped my mind that you knew her. She looked, on the outside, the most prim and proper young lady who knew her place as well, on the tip of the social pyramid. But on the inside, she is as fun loving as you or me. And she has the biggest heart of all. She helped me out of a tight spot on my visit some years back when it looked to one of the maids that I'd stolen one of her father's golden candlesticks. That debt still is yet to be repaid. If I couldn't find anyone to tell me about anybody with tales in the market, I was planning to go to her house next. So I thought to myself, I did, 'If young Elanor's taken a liking to him, then I'll bet he's the best lad for the trip I'll ever meet.' Then I asked the maid where to find you, and she said either at their house, midday, under Elanor's window, or near the docks, because you were consumed with awe when it came to ships. I knew you must have seen mine, because it's not exactly hard to spot, is it?" He chuckled. "So I found you. But I still haven't explained what that has to do with the job, now, have I? I'm sorry, I owe you an apology, Brian, my lad; I get off topic sometimes. With so many things to think about, it's no wonder. I need you to tell us the legends as we meet them. I need you to be our information retriever. And at the end, you'll have an equal share in that flame as any of the crew, Scaggs, or myself. Now, lad, since you probably know more tales than is contained in any of these books," (he motioned around at the shelves upon shelves of bound pages) "tell me a tale. A grand adventure tale, about good against pirates."
Brian racked his brains for such a tale, but none came. "Er-any specific requests?" he asked hopefully.
"Let me think. Ah, yes, how about Captain Jack Sparrow, Barbossa, Will Turner, and the Black Pearl? That's one of my favorites. And Miss Elizabeth Swann plays a part in that too, if I remember correctly."
Brian seized the opportunity and was off on a tale-spinning expedition about the madman and his unfortunate simple assistant who hated pirates, only to discover that his father had been one. Will really was Brian's favorite character in the story. He got the girl and everything, even got to wear a big hat in the story's finale.
"And so, Will and Elizabeth were married, and Jack became captain of the Black Pearl again, with Gibbs and Ana Maria as co-first mates, I believe. People say it isn't true, but they say Will Turner is a real person and he testifies to the truth of it all. Sometimes I close my eyes and wish I were there, fighting Barbossa and the pirates with Will and Jack. Too much to dream, though, right, Captain?"
"Not at all, Master Cochran. Hope big, dream big, plan big, win big; that's my motto. Never one for deferred dreams, I was. Always carried through with my plans, except the one with Miss Alexandra Harmon. That one went awry from the beginning, it did."
"Will you tell me what happened? If you don't mind my asking, of course, Captain."
"Not at all, lad. She was the most beautiful lass in the world, was Alexandra. I planned to woo her, like every boy at the age of nineteen hopes to do to the girl of his dreams. Then, before I could put my plan into action." He sighed deeply, with the air of a man recounting a theft against him. "She was gone."
"What happened to her?"
"Pirates. Bloody pirates, every single one. That's why the tale of the Black Pearl never was my favorite tale. They kidnapped my Alexandra. Pirates can never be on the right side of things, can they? If Elizabeth thinks Will is a pirate at heart, so be it, but he doesn't seem like one to me. As for Jack Sparrow, I'm glad he got his ship back, but I don't think he deserved to live if piracy was his course of action. Taken out of her bed in the middle of the night, she was. Not so much as a peep out of her, according to the guard at her door. She was a well-to-do lady just like Elizabeth, and just like our friend Elanor, and she was important enough to merit a guard every night. But they never thought one of those bloody pirates would scale the wall and climb through her window. I never saw her again."
"I'm sorry, Captain," said Brian after a moment. "I see why you dislike pirates. But not all pirates are bad. I, for one, think Jack and Will were pirates and good men, like Will says about Jack. But it's your opinion."
There was silence for a few minutes, as each contemplated everything that was on his mind. Then John Erif roused himself from the reverie he had gotten into about Alexandra and sat upright. "Well, lad, I told you what we'll need you for, didn't I? And this library, you can be in here whenever you like. You can read, can't you?"
"Yessir. I snuck into a rich boys' school one week and left after I figured out how."
"That's my lad. You can read any of the magnificent books I've provided for the voyage. It can be quite dull at times. But after that there's always some adventure, looming on the horizon, just waiting for us. I think someday, I'll sail to that horizon and find Alexandra waiting for me there, and then I'll have died and gone to heaven, lad. You got a girl you fancy?"
Brian hesitated slightly, and then he said, "No."
"I thought maybe.but I guess you don't meet many female scamps such as yourself." The captain stood and stretched. "I'll be heading out now. Continue your observations tonight, because tomorrow we set sail, and if you're a landlubber, as those stinking pirates put it, you won't be feeling well at all once we're out on the ocean." Captain Erif patted Brian on the back and walked out.
Brian now had his chance to pay full attention to the library. It was incredible, just as the captain had told him. Incredible and full of the sort of tales Brian thrived on. He opened the first book he got his hands on to find a recounting of the exact same story he had just told the captain. "Proves how good you are, mate," said a voice from behind him.
Brian turned to see a thin, scrawny-looking boy enter the chamber. "Have you been listening to me and the captain this whole time?" Brian asked him.
"Well, not the whole time, but most of it, yeah. Cap'n never mentioned what sort of fairy-tale creatures you'd be encounterin', did he?"
"The Gold Flame," Brian answered uncertainly.
"Well, of course he said that one, mate, it's the name of the ship," said the boy with a maddening air of authority.
"Who are you?" Brian asked warily. Maybe he was an onlooker who just happened to be passing by and decided to get on and take a look at the beautiful ship.
"I'm Thomas. I clean floors. Don't mind me. I'm a good-for-nothing scamp." He said the last word with strong emphasis. Brian knew he was referring to the fact that the captain had picked him to practically navigate off the streets. He willed his hands not to clench into fists. "My father's part of the crew," said Thomas. His eyes seemed to be asking, "And where's your father? Drunk or dead, I expect." And the fact that he was right, even if it was just in his eyes, made it worse for Brian.
"What's his specialty? Does he clean floors with you?"
"Nah. Mostly he plays cards."
This gave Brian a thought. "He isn't sitting almost right outside this door, is he?"
"He is that. Playin' with his friends. Not too happy with the captain at the moment. He made them scrub the galley this morning, and it was rough on their hands."
Brian thought swiftly that that was the job they had been hired to do, but he forced that back down. "Can you read?" he asked.
"Read? Nah, what's the use? I don't see meself ever needin' to read a word for anyone or anybody. I clean floors. I'll be workin' on this bloody ship for as long as I live."
"After this no one's going to need to work, Tom. The captain said we'd all be rich."
"Aye, but I'm not thinkin' we're goin' to live that long. I know a fair few legends meself, you know, and I know that the Gold Flame is guarded by the plants of the ground, and the birds of the air, and some great monsters no one seems to be too keen to mention. They'll kill us all before we so much as see the legendary thing. Who knows if it exists, anyway?"
Brian once again felt the fury welling up inside of him. "I do. It's out there. We're going to find it. If you don't believe in this quest, then why are you on this ship?"
Thomas smirked and rolled his eyes, even though Brian was much bigger than he was and could have beaten him up. "Even if I could tell you, I wouldn't do it, Cochran. Master Cochran. Have a nice sail on your sailboat, because it won't be on the seas much longer, now, will it?" And he strode out of the chamber just as the captain had, leaving Brian very upset about the whole ordeal, and wondering what Thomas's words had meant.
