Syren

Chapter 12 Into the Fire

  S imon lay on the stony harbor bed, fifteen feet underwater, wondering why he had decided to lie down in such an uncomfortable, wet place. Dreamily he looked up through the murky green blur. Far above him, the dark hulls of the fishing boats moved lazily in the swell, long tendrils of seaweed wafting from their barnacle-encrusted keels. An eel swam across his line of sight and a few curious fish nuzzled at his toes. In his ears the swish-swash sound of the sea mixed with the rattle of the stones on the harbor bed and the distant thud of the hulls bumping above. It was, he thought as he watched his robes waft around in the cold currents of the incoming tide, very strange. Simon did not feel the need to breathe. The Darke Art of Suspension Underwater - something that the old bones of DomDaniel had made him practice every day with his head in a bucket of water - had automatically kicked in. Simon smiled to himself as he slowly came to and realized what he was doing. Sometimes, he thought, a Darke Art came in useful; he liked the almost forgotten feeling of being in total control, but. . . Simon frowned and a few bubbles loosed themselves from his eyebrows and drifted lazily to the surface far above. But that was not why he was down here. There was something he had to do - something important. Lucy!

  At the thought of Lucy, Simon's Darke control left him. A sharp pain shot through his lungs, accompanied by an overwhelming urge to breathe. Panicking, Simon tried to push himself off from the harbor bottom, but he couldn't move. His robes. . . they were caught. . . on what - on what?

  With frantic, cold fingers Simon pulled the frayed hem of his tunic off the barb of an old anchor and, with his lungs screaming to take a breath now, now, now, he kicked off from the gravelly harbor bed. The buoyancy of the water quickly propelled him upward, and a few seconds later he broke the oily surface of the harbor like a cork out of a bottle - to the amazement of a rapidly gathering crowd.

  The crowd had not actually gathered to see Simon. But when Simon's seaweed-covered head appeared suddenly, coughing and spluttering, it quickly switched its attention from Linda and her FlashBoard to Simon. And while the crowd watched Simon swim to the steps and climb out, his robes dripping dramatically, the Darke symbols standing out against the water-darkened fabric, his green eyes flashing in a way that some of the female watchers found rather interesting, Linda took her chance. Quietly she picked up the FlashBoard and sneaked away.

  Linda had not had a good reception when she had screeched to a halt on the edge of the quay. A crowd had quickly gathered, the majority of whom had been all for pushing her into the harbor. The Port Witch Coven was not popular in the Port, and as Linda slunk off into Fishguts Twist she knew that she had had a narrow escape. Saltwater and Darke Witchcraft do not mix well. A witch as steeped in the Darke as Linda would be in danger of dissolving into a pool of Darke slime within a few seconds of contact with the sea, which is one of the reasons you will never see a Darke witch cry. Lucy Gringe had taken advantage of this fact and had gambled that Linda would not dare take the FlashBoard out across the water - and she was right.

  But Lucy had not thought past escaping the dreaded Linda. And as the Marauder sailed out of the harbor Lucy began to realize that maybe she had - as her mother would have put it - jumped out of the stew pot and into the fire. Lucy and Wolf Boy had leaped aboard one of the nastiest boats in the Port, skippered by a most unpleasant - and deeply superstitious - skipper. If there was one thing that this skipper disliked it was women on board, especially women with braids. Theodophilus Fortitude Fry, skipper of the Marauder, did not like women - or girls - with braids. Theodophilus Fortitude Fry had grown up as the youngest brother of eight sisters. And they had all worn braids. And the biggest, bossiest one had worn them with lots of ribbons, just like Lucy did. And so Skipper Fry surveyed his unexpected passengers with an expression of dismay, his bellow of, "Throw her off! Now! " was perhaps understandable - but not to Lucy and Wolf Boy. To them, and Lucy in particular, it seemed very unreasonable. There were just two crew members aboard the Marauder: one was the skipper's son, Jakey Fry, a redheaded boy with a mass of freckles and watery green eyes like the sea. He wore his hair cut short and a perpetually worried expression. Jakey thought he was about fourteen, although no one had ever bothered to tell him his exact age. The other crew member was Thin Crowe, one of the Crowe twins. The Crowe twins were, theoretically, identical, but one was fat and one was thin - and that was the way it had always been, since the day they were born. They were exceedingly stupid, possibly not much more intelligent than the average Port fish crate - indeed, there were some Port fish crates that might have successfully disputed that. Apart from their alarming difference in size, the Crowes were remarkably similar. Their eyes were as blank and pale as those of a dead fish on a slab, their heads were covered in a short black stubble and cuts from the razors that they occasionally scraped across their bumpy skulls, and they both wore short, filthy tunics of an indeterminate color and leather leggings. The Crowe twins took turns crewing the Marauder. They suited Skipper Fry - they were nasty and stupid enough to do what he wanted without asking questions. And so, when Skipper Fry yelled, "Throw her off! Now! " he knew that that was exactly what Thin Crowe would do, without a second thought. Skipper Fry didn't like second thoughts.

  Thin Crowe was wiry, with muscles like steel ropes. He grabbed Lucy around the waist, lifted her off her feet and headed rapidly to the side of the boat. "Let go!" squealed Lucy. Wolf Boy lunged at him - the only effect of which was to make Thin Crowe grab hold of him too.

  "Throw 'em both off," said Skipper Fry.

  Wolf Boy froze. He had a horror of falling from boats.

  As though he were throwing the day's trash overboard, Thin Crowe heaved Wolf Boy and Lucy over the side of the boat. But the Marauder's hurried departure had led to what Skipper Fry would call sloppy seamanship - a loose mooring rope hung down over the side. Wolf Boy and Lucy grabbed the rope as they fell and dangled like a couple of fenders as the Marauder sped through the waves.

  Expertly - for he had done this many times before - Thin Crowe leaned over and began to pry Wolf Boy's fingers from the rope. A more intelligent seaman would have cut the rope, but this did not occur to him. This did occur to Skipper Fry, however, who was watching impatiently.

  "Cut the rope, fishbrain," he growled. "Let 'em sink or swim. "

  "I can't swim!" Lucy's voice came from over the side.

  "Then yer can do the other thing," said the skipper with a gap-toothed scowl. On the tiller Jakey Fry watched in dismay. By now the Marauder had cleared the harbor and was heading out to open sea, where Jakey knew there was no hope for anyone who fell into the sea and could not swim. He thought Wolf Boy and Lucy - especially Lucy - looked like fun. With them on board, the prospect of the long days on the boat with his unpredictable father and the bullying Crowe suddenly took on a less dreadful aspect. And besides, Jakey didn't agree with throwing anyone off boats - even girls.

  "No, Pa! Stop!" yelled Jakey. "If they drown 'tis worse luck even than the witch's evil eye. "

  "Don't mention the witch!" yelled Skipper Fry, beset with more bad omens than any skipper had a right to be.

  "Stop 'im cutting the rope, Pa. Stop 'im or I'll turn back to Port. "

  "You will not!"

  "I will!" With that, Jakey Fry pushed the tiller hard away from him; the great boom of the mainsail swung across and the Marauder began to turn. Skipper Fry gave in. To return to Port on the very tide on which a boat had left was known to be the worst luck of all. It was more than he could take.

  "Leave 'em!" he shouted. Thin Crowe was energetically sawing the rope with his blunt fish knife. He was enjoying himself and was reluctant to stop.

  "I said leave 'em!" yelled the skipper. "That's an order, Crowe. Pull 'em in and take 'em below. "

  Jakey Fry grinned. He pulled the tiller toward him and, as the Marauder swung back on course, he watched Lucy and Wolf Boy being pushed through the hatch into the hold below. The hatch was slammed shut and barred, and J
akey began to whistle happily. This voyage was going to be much more interesting than usual. Back on the harborside, Simon shook off concerned inquiries. He politely refused offers from three young women to come to their houses to get dry and, instead, set off back to his attic room in the Customs House.

  "Simon. Simon!"

  Simon ignored the familiar voice. He wanted to be alone. But Maureen from the pie shop was not easily put off. She caught up with him and placed a friendly hand on his arm. Simon turned to face her and Maureen was shocked - his lips were blue and his face was as white as the plates on which she displayed her pies.

  "Simon, you're freezing. You come back with me and get warm by the ovens. I'll make you a nice hot chocolate. "

  Simon shook his head, but Maureen was adamant. She linked her arm firmly through his and propelled him across the square to the pie shop. Once inside, Maureen put up the Closed sign and pushed Simon through to the kitchen at the back.

  "Now, sit," she instructed, as if Simon were a soaking wet Labrador that had been stupid enough to jump into the harbor. Obediently Simon sat in Maureen's chair beside the big pie oven. Suddenly he began to shiver uncontrollably. "I'll go and get some blankets," Maureen told him. "You can get out of that wet stuff and I'll dry it overnight. "

  Five minutes later Simon was swathed in a collection of rough, woolen blankets. Now and then a shiver passed through him, but the color had returned to his lips and he was no longer pie-plate white. "So, you saw Lucy?" Maureen was asking. Simon nodded miserably. "Much good it did me. She's got someone else - she was running away with him. I told you she would. I don't blame her. " He put his head in his hands and another uncontrollable bout of shivering overcame him. Maureen was a practical woman, and she did not put up with being miserable for very long. She also believed that things were not always as bad as they might look.

  "That's not what I heard," she said. "I heard that she and the boy were escaping from the Coven. We all saw the witch, Simon. "

  "Witch?" Simon raised his head. "What witch?"

  "The really nasty one. The one that Shrank poor Florrie Bundy to the size of a tea bag, so they say. "

  "What?"

  "A tea bag. The tea-bag witch was chasing Lucy and the boy. She was after them on one of those FlashBoards - dangerous things. "

  "Chasing Lucy?" Simon lapsed into silence. He was thinking hard. In the past he had paid the occasional visit to the Coven. It was not something he enjoyed doing, but at the time he had respected the Coven for their Darke Powers, and he had particularly respected Linda, who, he remembered now, was indeed rumored to have Shrunk her neighbor. But Linda's commitment to the Darke, combined with her maliciousness, had scared even him, and the thought that she had been chasing Lucy made him shudder. Maureen added another blanket. "It does explain why they escaped on the Marauder," she said, getting up to tend the boiling kettle that dangled above the fire.

  "The Marauder is the last boat anyone would choose to jump aboard. "

  Simon looked up at Maureen with a frown. "Why, what do you mean?"

  "Nothing," Maureen replied quickly, immediately wishing she hadn't said anything. What good would it do Simon to worry about something he could do nothing about?

  "Tell me, Maureen. I want to know," Simon said, looking her in the eye. Maureen did not reply. Instead she got up and walked over to a small stove, where she had set a pan of milk to heat. She busied herself there for some minutes, concentrating on dissolving three squares of chocolate into the hot milk. She brought the steaming bowl over to Simon. "Drink that," she said, "and then I'll tell you. "

  Still beset by the occasional shiver, Simon sipped the hot chocolate. Maureen perched on a small stool beside the oven. "It's strange," she said. "There's something about the pie counter that makes people think it's a soundproof barrier and you can't hear what they're saying on the other side of it. I've heard a lot of things while selling pies - things I wasn't meant to hear. "

  "So what have you heard about the Marauder?" asked Simon.

  "Well, it's more about the skipper really. . . "

  "What about the skipper?"

  "He's bad news. They remember him here when he was just plain Joe Grub from a family of wreckers up the coast. But now that there're more lighthouses, it's not so easy to go wrecking, is it? And that's a blessing, if you ask me. It's a terrible thing to lure a ship to her doom on the rocks, a terrible thing. So with the profit gone from the wrecking, Grub got himself taken on by one of those pirate ships that call in here sometimes, and he came back with a bag of gold and a fancy new name to boot. Some say he got both from some poor gentleman he threw overboard. But others say. . . " Maureen stopped, unwilling to go on.

  "Others say what?" asked Simon.

  Maureen shook her head.

  "Please, you have to tell me," said Simon. "If I am going to be able to help Lucy, I must know everything I can. Please. "

  Maureen was still reluctant, partly because it was considered bad luck to talk about such things.

  "Well. . . others say that a change of name means a change of master. They say the skipper's new master is an ancient ghost up at the Castle, and that's where all his money came from. But imagine working for a ghost - how creepy is that?" Maureen shivered. "I don't believe a word of it myself," she said briskly.

  But Simon did. "A ghoul's fool," he murmured.

  "You what?" Maureen asked, getting up to put another log in the fire below the oven. All the talk of ghosts made her feel cold.

  Simon shrugged.

  "A ghoul's fool, a phantom's bantam, a specter protector - whatever you want to call it. I think the real term is a Spirit's Bondsman. It's someone who sells himself to a ghost. "

  "Goodness!" gasped Maureen, slamming the door to the firebox. "Why would anyone want to do that?"

  "Gold," said Simon, remembering the time Tertius Fume had made him a similar offer. "One hundred and sixty-nine pieces, to be precise. But they all regret it in the end. There's no escape, not once they've taken the payment. They are Haunted to the end of their days. "

  "My," said Maureen, "the things people do. "

  "Yeah," Simon agreed. "Er, Maureen. . . "

  "Yes?"

  "So. . . what is the skipper's new name?"

  "Oh, it's a nutty one if ever there was. Theodophilus Fortitude Fry. It makes you laugh when you think he used to be just plain Joe Grub. " Maureen chuckled. Simon did not join in Maureen's laughter. He did not find the Darke obsession with names at all funny.

  "T. F. F. ," he muttered. "Same initials as old Fume. I wonder. . . " He sighed. "Oh Lucy, what have you done?"

  Maureen tried to think of something positive to say, but all she could come up with was, "But his son, Jakey - he's a good boy. "

  Simon put down his empty bowl and stared gloomily at his bare feet sticking out from under the blankets. He said nothing.

  After some minutes Maureen murmured, somewhat unconvincingly, "Look, Simon, Lucy's a resourceful girl. And brave too. I'm sure she will be fine. "

  "Fine?" asked Simon incredulously. "On a boat with a skipper like that? How can she possibly be fine?"

  Maureen did not know what to say. She quietly got to her feet and set about making up a bed for Simon on one of the wide benches along the side of the kitchen. Early the next morning, just after dawn, when Maureen came down to the kitchen to get started on the first batch of pies, Simon was gone. She was not surprised. She began kneading the pastry and silently wished him and Lucy luck - they were going to need it.