Chapter 6 - Give me stones or lose yours
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As the late night rolled on, young Melody bolted back home to deliver the bad news, But her trip would take at least the night plus all the fatigue she would get.
Her father could only hope & pray that his daugher could return home safe, and that he would be safe in the custody of Cervantes. He was awaiting his fate at the far left end of the dinner table, with a bottle of rum in front of him. He knew not to drink it, for it could have been tainted with poison, and even if it was rum, his concentration would be lost in a sea of pure alcohol.
He did not have to wait long for his captor to come to him. He came into the dining room, and sat down in the big chair at the end of the table, where Eric sat to his left.
"So, Your name is Eric. A man of nobility. A man with a kingdom back home." Cervantes interrogated his prisoner.
"Who told you so?" asked Eric
"Lets just say your crew members aren't as quiet as they want to be with a longsword aiming to cut off more, personal parts." Cervantes laughed at his almost foolproof way of getting an answer.
"Fine...I'm a king, but also a sailor." Eric replied
"So it is true...ye Danish flag was not a lie...if it were, ye would be sitting at the bottom of the north sea, your body being picked apart by sharks, your skull in my collection of men who dared sail in my waters." Cervantes spoke. Eric knew he was not lying.
"What is it you want?" Eric asked
"Ah, what do I want? Something that has eluded me for 30 years, something that has eluded my soul, something that has to be served cold...I WANT REVENGE!" Eric almost fell out of his seat when Cervantes shouted his last line.
Eric recovered his senses as Cervantes continued.
"Those priests...Those cursed priests. Swallowing the treasures they collect from the people, promising eternal salvation in exchange when they are in more need of it than their victims! Arrrgh, and then they turn to your orphaned brothers and sisters, and take advantage of their innocence, as they themselves are not allowed to feast in the pleasures of flesh."
Eric figured it out. Cervantes was an orphan, like most pirates were, But was also the victim of priests with human desires, driven to insanity to not act upon them, as they were men of the cloth.
"What I need...is Devil's Island."
Eric's eyes widened. He knew Devil's island and what it would mean if a pirate were to go there and try and remove the stones.
"Devil's island? Never!" Eric quickly made a decision.
"Don't be rash, King Eric." Cervantes pulled his experienced, homicidal sword from it's sheath. Even the sword seemed to laugh as it was pulled. "You must have a beautiful wife back home, right? Children too? I'm sure they would miss you if you were dead?"
Eric kept quiet.
"Or perhaps...I bring you to your precious wife, but you will be missing that piece that would please her in those late nights of passion..."
Eric had enough of the mental torture.
"...OK, OK! You'll get Devil's Island, just...don't...hurt me...or my crew!" Eric was almost ready to beg.
"Ahhh...there's a good boy." Cervantes put his longsword away.
Eric was still worried about saving his own extremities to the fate of the stones of Devil's Island.
"You know what will happen when the stones are taken from their resting place?" Eric asked the pirate captain.
"Why, why, King Eric. I know what the stones keep captive. I know the fates of those who remove them from their place...I also know that the fathers and clergymen of Spain shudder to think what would happen if Zeeonx would devour their dreams and give them eternal nightmares."
"Zeeonx was darkness. A stain on all europe!" Eric remembered the tales his own father told him about the dreaded spirit.
"And a stain that Europe will feel again! A stain that pirates from the world over will feel when their ships are at the bottom of the Carribbean, rotting away like bodies in the desert, and the stains that those lustful monsters who prey on the helpless will feel when their churches burn and their riches melt into the cobblestone cracks. A stain...that will give my enemies who I once trusted, the ultimate reason to fear Captain Cervantes De Santa."
And with one last breath, Cervantes took a swig from the bottle of rum, and placed it in front of Eric.
"This will help ye sleep. Tommorow, we set sail for Denmark. Ye be leadin' the way. So say yer prayers. Arrrgh-men."
Cervantes left the dining room.
"Cook, set him up in the special quarters. I want him healthy." Cervantes left to go to sleep.
Eric sat there, and against his earlier wishes, took a drink from the bottle of rum. He had just potentially doomed the continent. But at the same time, he might have bought himself just enough time for young Melody to gather a rescue party to come save him in time. Maybe enough time for him to wrap his arms around Ariel again and maybe deliver passion that loving couples share, and perhaps end the living nightmare that was Cervantes De Santa.
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