Chapter 14
A Betrayal?
"You're related to Captain Magnum's first mate?" exclaimed Oliver in disbelief. Anthony nodded, but Clay's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Wasn't it still possible that this man was simply pretending to be a relative just in an attempt to claim the dagger?
"How do we know you are truly related?" Clay demanded. In response, Anthony stood up and crossed the room to stand before the bookcase in the left corner. Reaching into the bottom shelf, he pulled out a thin, worn book and laid it on the table.
"You can read through that as long as you're very careful with it," the man offered. "While you're up, grab some meat off the stove. I didn't plan to let you two starve under my roof." Clay picked up two more of the wooden plates on the table and stepped over to the stove to carefully pull two generous pieces of pork out of the pan. He handed one plate to Oliver who had decided to remain sitting on his mat. The fox made eager snaps at Oliver's plate until Anthony gave a sharp whistle. "Come, Shadow!" The fox obediently trotted to his master's chair and was rewarded with a strip of meat.
Clay seated himself at the remaining chair and gingerly opened the book. The book was actually a diary, for the owner's name was written on the leather cover in flowing capitals: Thomas D. Kaliber. The pages within were yellowed with age and threatening to disintegrate in his hands. The first entry recounted Kaliber's first day as a crew member of the Ancient Terror's Bane, including the names of his fellow crewmates, it's current reputation with the different trading companies, and so on. Clay carefully began turning the pages until he reached the center of the journal, which seemed to be the time period he was looking for. The first important entry he found was Kaliber's account of the phoenix's attack on his crew.
"The creature was awe-inspiring: a beast with unbridled power and fury. Why Collin decided to take a shot at the creature is beyond me (although I suspect intoxication). In any matter, the phoenix had awakened and was upon us before anyone could properly react. The heat it radiated felt so intense that I feared the whole vessel would burst into flames. In the next instant, Collin was snatched from the deck like a rag doll and carried away, screaming either in fear or the searing pain, I could not tell.
When the phoenix dove into the volcano with him, no one spoke for a solid minute. Then came the cries of fury and thirst for revenge, and I cannot deny mine was among them. But our captain was firm: trying to avenge our shipmate's death at this point would be a futile effort. So we were forced to simply extinguish the blaze that the phoenix had caused in our rigging and return to the nearest port.
Clay couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for everyone who had been aboard the ship that fateful day. All of them had stared death in the face, and when the dust settled, one had met it head on. Now further intrigued by hearing the story from an important eyewitness, he flipped ahead another page or two until he found the account of Captain Magnum's return to Devil's Thirst and his defeat of the phoenix. He read the final passages about Captain Magnum's tragic end.
As he lay there, dying an excruciatingly painful death, he called me to his bedside. I approached but could say no words. What could I say? My captain, the man I had grown to idolize during the nearly fifteen months I had sailed with him, had nearly run out of time, and there was nothing anyone could do. No one could reverse the path of time to save him.
I bent over him to hear what he whispered: "Take this dagger and hide it where no one will ever lay hold of it again." Part of me was conflicted. Why would I want to hide such a treasure? This dagger should be a trophy: a monument to his bravery. It should be displayed so that everyone who saw it would remember the man who had single-handedly eradicated a mythical beast of immortality. But, then again, perhaps hiding this weapon would be for the best. If the power encapsulated within landed in the wrong set of hands, it could spell utter disaster. So I whispered in return a promise that I would hide the dagger so that no man could ever find it.
The funeral the next day was a very sad and somber one indeed. We sent the captain's body away in a rowboat, surrounded by some of his most cherished belongings; however, what no one else knew was that I added one other item: the enchanted dagger. I had decided that the only way to fulfill my promise of hiding the weapon in an obscure location was to send it beyond the shroud. I am sure that the captain would understand.
"The last entry in that diary was written by Kaliber a week before he died." Anthony's voice jolted Clay from his reading, and he looked up to see the man sitting in the rocking chair by the fireplace. A pipe was clamped firmly between his lips, and thin wisps of smoke drifted out the end. Shadow had curled up in his lap, and the fox's chest rose and fell gently with his sleeping breaths. "When he was lying on his deathbed, Kaliber told his son to take the diary but keep it hidden so as to never reveal the fate of the dagger. He knew that trying to completely suppress the story by destroying the diary would give rise to questions, and someone would be spurred to discover the truth. However, if one person per generation was allowed to keep the diary, they could tell the story to others while taking liberties to alter certain details. I've decided to add a bit at the end in which Kaliber threw the dagger into a volcano. No one would be motivated to find it then." He twisted his head around to give Clay a questioning gaze. "Do you believe me now?"
Clay nodded in consent. "I'm sorry to have doubted you before. It's just that, considering all that my friends and I have been through, we can't be too careful."
"A good habit to acquire," Anthony agreed.
"So… will you let us use the enchanted dagger?" asked Oliver.
The man gave him a hard look. "You still haven't explained how you got the dagger in the first place. Also, isn't there supposed to be a gem at the top of the hilt?"
Oliver stood to place a hand on Clay's shoulder. "I think he has the right to know, Clay." So Clay told Anthony about his ashen curse and their spine-tingling journey to find the dagger, only to have the amber brimstone fall into the enemy's hands. Anthony listened to all of this in silence, stroking Shadow with his left hand while holding his pipe in his right.
"It sounds as though you're in dire straits," Anthony declared when Clay had finished. "Flameheart has the amber brimstone which contains the phoenix, and unless you can get it back, the dagger is all but useless."
"Could we find another brimstone?" Oliver suggested.
"Those stones are native to the Devil's Roar region," Anthony pointed out. "Not only are they found exclusively in deep lava pockets, but that entire region must be crawling with ashen skeletons. The risks are extremely high."
Clay looked thoughtful. "I know that the Merchant Alliance company sells crates of volcanic stone. Perhaps we could buy one and search through it for a brimstone."
Anthony scowled. "Those crates can cost at least a couple hundred gold pieces, and I don't have that much money just lying around." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Although, it wouldn't be out of the question to 'borrow' one."
Borrow. The word had taken a sour note for Clay since, in his latest experience, it was usually just a better face for the word steal. But, once again, the situation was desperate. They had no money, and if they wanted to be able to use the enchanted dagger, they would have to acquire an amber brimstone.
Anthony cast a glance out the single window at the rapidly fading sunlight. "It's too late to do anything now, though. Both of you get some rest, and we'll make further plans tomorrow."
"Where will you sleep?" Oliver asked
Anthony settled down in his rocking chair with a sigh. "Here will do fine. My back prefers this chair over those rock-hard mats anyway." A few minutes later, the man was snoring softly with Shadow curled up at his feet.
Before Clay and Oliver retired for the night, they held a small conference of their own.
"We could take the enchanted dagger while he sleeps and escape," Oliver suggested.
"And do what?" Clay challenged. "The dagger has no brimstone, and Wooly and Matt haven't found us yet. We're basically trapped here."
Oliver nodded reluctantly. "You do have a point. In that case, we'd best go along with whatever Anthony plans and hope that he will remain an ally."
Clay lay down on his mat. "Agreed. For now, let's make sure we're well-rested for tomorrow."
The sun rose to find Anthony, Clay, and Oliver having a hearty breakfast of leftover pork and some fruit. Anthony had let Shadow out of the house to go hunting. After they had finished, Anthony pulled out his knapsack, filled it with provisions, donned his hat with the bright green feather, and made sure the enchanted dagger was secured firmly in his belt. He also gave Clay and Oliver swords of their own he had hidden behind the bookshelf.
"We're going down to the eastern coast of the island," he explained. "I don't have a boat of my own, but some good friends of mine come by at about this time every day to check on me. I'm sure they'll be more than willing to give us a ride."
As Anthony reached for the latch, however, the door was kicked roughly open, sending the man bowling backward onto the floor. Wooly and Matt rushed into the room, guns held at the ready.
"Stand up with your hands where we can see them!" Matt barked, aiming his pistol at Anthony's forehead. "And let those two go!"
"Wait, Matt, please! This is our friend Anthony. He's trying to help us find another amber brimstone."
Wooly's eyebrows rose. "You don't say."
"Indeed," Oliver chimed in. "He has shown great hospitality to us, and-"
Matt took one look at Oliver's legs, and his mouth fell open. "How did… when did…?"
"Oliver gave up his tail in order to save me from drowning," Clay explained. "But never mind that. How did you two manage to find us?"
"Once we were out of the storm, the ashen lords had abandoned the chase, and we retraced our steps to the closest islands," Wooly explained. "While we were exploring this island, we found the cabin and decided to investigate."
By now, Anthony had scrambled up from the floor and was giving the two newcomers a dirty glare. "Of all the nerve! Storming in here like a couple of vigilantes with guns aimed at my face!"
"It's all right, Anthony," Clay assured him. "They were just trying to protect us. They really are good people… once you get to know them."
"Not that we've all been properly introduced," Anthony grunted. "Let's get down to the dock. My friends will be here any minute."
"Matt and Wooly could take us," Oliver suggested.
Before Anthony could respond, there was the crack of a pistol, and the window shattered into a burst of glass. Wooly slammed the door shut, rushed to the window, and used his spyglass to peek around the corner. "Ashen skeletons!" he reported. Another shot was heard, and all of them could hear a loud thunk of something striking the wooden door. "And it sounds like they've got us surrounded."
"What do we do?" Clay panicked. "We can't fight them all off."
Anthony stamped out the burning logs in the fireplace and swept away the remaining ashes and charcoal to reveal a large metal ring in the floor. He pulled on the ring, and a hidden trapdoor swung upward. "There's a ladder under here. Get down, quick!" He barred the door as the four remaining fugitives carefully lowered themselves through the hole and began to descend down a rickety ladder into the dark shaft below.
Anthony had rushed to the table to grab the candle when the door disintegrated into splinters, and a dozen ashen skeletons flooded into the room. Matt began climbing back up to help, but Anthony just shouted, "Go! I'll hold them off and give you some time!" Standing in a guarding position before the fireplace, Anthony blew the first skeleton to pieces with his rifle, knocked the skull off another with his hunting knife, and hurled the stool at a couple more.
Meanwhile, Clay, Oliver, Matt, and Wooly had reached the bottom of the ten-foot shaft and began groping their way through the pitch blackness. After a minute or two of stumbling along, the passage ended in a wooden door which Clay cautiously pushed open. The door had been disguised with foliage on the outside and sat just around a corner from the waterfall that cascaded down the western cliff of the island.
Wooly moaned in dismay as he peered toward the bay. The prow of the Splinter was just slipping below the waves, and a skeleton galleon was moored hardly five hundred feet away from it. "They've sunk our ship, and now we're stranded here."
"Not necessarily-" Clay began, but instantly fell silent as they all saw something. The procession of ashen skeletons was coming down the hill toward the beach, towing a prisoner along: Anthony. He was struggling wildly, but his hands were tied firmly behind his back, and he was blindfolded.
"Finally, the dagger is ours," chortled the leader of the group. "Flameheart will be quite pleased to hear this report. But for now, let's take the prisoner back to our camp at Molten Sands Fortress." The skeletons boarded three row boats moored on the beach and rowed Anthony back to their awaiting ship. Clay and his friends could do nothing but watch their departure.
Once all the skeletons had boarded and hauled their prisoner up, the vessel weighed anchor, turned around, and began sailing northeast for open waters. When the ship disappeared around the tip of the island, Matt pushed open the door, and all four of them stepped cautiously out into the sunlight.
"They've taken Anthony and the dagger," moaned Oliver as he sat down heavily in the grass. "How did they find us so quickly?"
Matt shrugged. "It's possible they've been tailing Seth and I from the beginning. When they saw us land here, they must have sent in a squadron to capture us."
Clay was growing upset as well but for a different reason. His mind had flashed back to the parting words of Red Ruth: "You won't escape again, Seth Asbury! You will join us once more, and this time, we will make sure your loyalty will never waver!" Now the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into place, and Clay turned on Wooly in white-hot fury.
"You told them!" he hissed in a voice filled with wrath.
Wooly seemed shocked. "What? Why would you accuse me of-"
"You told them!" Clay bellowed in his face. "It seemed awfully suspicious that Red Ruth and Captain Grimm found us so quickly yesterday. Not only that, but I remember that Red Ruth called you by name!"
"It means nothing!" Wooly shot back, but everyone could tell he seemed nervous about something. This was all the proof Clay needed.
"You," he finished, his voice dripping with venom and hatred, "are a traitor. In fact, you're probably one of those cursed Servants of the Flame!"
The Servants of the Flame were a combat-based faction that scoured the seas for those who opposed Flameheart: especially members of a rival faction called the Guardians of Fortune. The Servants of the Flame was mostly made up of particularly violent members of the Reaper faction and were rewarded handsomely for killing opponents and sinking their ships. If a member earned a great enough reputation with the Servants of the Flame, they were bestowed with the skeleton curse. This curse was given during a ceremony in which a pirate pledged his body and soul to Flameheart's cause, and once the curse had been given, it made a pirate's skin and organs disappear completely, leaving nothing but a gruesome grinning skeleton behind.
Wooly opened his mouth to vehemently deny this, but Matt put a hand on his shoulder and spoke softly. "Clay deserves to know the truth."
Wooly sighed. "You are correct, Clay. I joined the faction before Flameheart returned. I was drawn in by the potential riches, power, and glory that I could obtain. I wanted my name to be feared across the waters, and, yes, I did earn enough renown to take on the skeleton curse." He shuddered. "But as rumors began flowing in that Flameheart was returning, I grew uneasy. I had heard many stories about his villainous deeds, and now I was beginning to question if I really wanted to become a mercenary for this monster. So, one day, I simply slipped away.
"I sought out someone from the Order of Souls to ask if my skeleton curse could be removed. I thought that if I removed my curse, all the ties that chained me to the Servants of the Flame would be gone. However, they told me it could only be highly suppressed: not eliminated entirely." Here, Wooly removed his playing card eyepatch to reveal, not a deformed eye or scarred socket, but an empty socket of pure white bone. "So, yes, I was once a member of the Servants of the Flame, but I would never go back to that way of life. Not for any amount of fame or riches."
Clay, however, had stopped listening. As Wooly spoke, a red haze had clouded his vision, and he could feel his body temperature rising dramatically.
"I should have left your worthless carcass to rot back in the Crimson Crypt!" he spat. "I helped you escape, and this is how you repay me? You have not only endangered us who stand here, but also gotten Anthony kidnapped!" Oliver shrank away from Clay. The boy's voice had suddenly changed, and it no longer seemed to be Clay who was speaking. It was something, or someone, much worse.
"Clay, you must believe me," Wooly pleaded. "I have no idea how the skeletons found us so quickly. They simply must have spotted our ship-"
"Liar!" Clay bellowed, and before anyone could react, the boy grabbed Wooly around the throat with his right hand and slammed him up against a rock with his feet dangling slightly above the ground. With his left hand, Clay pulled out his sword and pressed the tip of it into Wooly's stomach. "All Reapers are liars and cutthroats," sneered Clay in that terrible voice that was no longer his. "I find you guilty of betrayal, and you will now pay the consequences… with your life!" He reared back his sword to deliver a devastating blow. Matt and Oliver could only stand there, frozen in horror. If they tried to interfere, Wooly would certainly be run through on the spot.
"Clay, I'm telling you the truth!" garbled Wooly. His face was becoming an unattractive mix of red and white from fear and lack of oxygen. "I would never betray you, and I admire what you are trying to do to save the Sea of Thieves! I told you that I would never want to go back to being a Servant of the Flame, honestly!"
Perhaps it was the new level of panic in Wooly's voice, or perhaps the overall shock of the situation had passed. Whatever the case, the red haze before Clay's vision faded, and his grasp around Wooly's neck loosened. The man tumbled to the ground, coughing. Clay just stood there, his eyes round in horror as he realized what he had been about to do. Flameheart's words from his last dream came rushing back: "Mark my words, boy! Just as when he last met, all those you love and cherish will die… by your own hand!"
The sword in Clay's hand clattered to the ground. "What have I done," the boy whispered in horror.
Oliver tried to approach him slowly. "It's all right, Clay," he assured him. "I understand why you would have been angry, but we need to focus. Anthony is gone, and we need to-"
"I could have killed him," Clay whispered again. "I can't do this anymore. Flameheart was right. I… I can't…" Without another word, the boy whirled, charged back up the path, and vanished into the foliage.
"Clay!" cried Wooly. Matt and Oliver began sprinting after him, but Wooly commanded that they wait. "This is all my fault. I need to settle this with Clay personally."
"Don't you realize what he nearly did?" Matt retorted. "He almost killed you, and he might do it again if you get too close!"
"I don't care," Wooly replied stubbornly. "Clay is on borrowed time. We can't lose him now, and his curse isn't going to get any better. Besides, I have broken his trust in me, so I have to be the one to restore it." And with that, he plunged into the undergrowth after his fleeing friend.