Chapter 9
“–I’m going to take it all! And I’m going to be the new Captain of The Spectre,” the boy said, his eyes filling with visions of gold, jewels, and riches beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.
The woman’s soft, pale eyes squinted as a warm smile crossed her face. “My darling boy, weren’t you listening? No crew nor captain has been able to even find, let alone tame, The Spectre. The ship is a cursed vessel, doomed to forever sail the seas and lure any sailor foolish enough to pursue her to an early, watery grave.”
“But the treasure–” the boy began.
“Is not the point of the story, darling,” she interrupted. “The point is that neither vengeance nor a ship overflowing with gold is enough to overcome mismanaged grief. What happened to Captain Lancaster was a terrible tragedy that no human should have to endure, but by giving in to his grief and his hatred, he squandered the sacrifice his wife made on his behalf. And though he terrorized the sea for another forty years, he never lived another day after his wife died.”
Her face blurred again as Jonathon’s consciousness surfaced.
Not the point of the story? he thought as he rubbed his eyes. What? That had never been part of it, had it? He’d been told that story countless times as a child, and dreamt of those stories at least every night for the past year, and this was the first time he remembered hearing anything beyond the lure of treasure. Had The Matriarch’s comments tainted his memories? Or had they reminded him of something he had forgotten?
“Nah,” he mumbled to himself as he stretched the night’s stiffness from his body, “it’s more likely her story got in my head and made me misremember things. Besides, even if it was true, I don’t have any mismanaged grief or hatred, so it’s not like there’s anything wrong with me pursuing her.”
Based on the pale morning light creeping in from outside, he could tell it was still fairly early. Still, he figured it wouldn’t be much longer before people started moving about, so he may as well go outside and survey the grounds. As he stepped out from his tent, he heard an almost inaudible gasp. He looked up and locked eyes with a very guilty-looking Naomi, who appeared to be leaving one of the other tents: Ryden’s tent, if memory served. So that’s what he heard last night. Unbelievable. Well, at least one of his crew was going to be in a good mood today. Naomi’s eyes widened as she quickly pressed her finger to her lips, a look of silent pleading in her eyes. She darted off before Jonathon even had a chance to formulate a sentence.
He stood straight and began looking around at the…camp? Tribe? Village? He wasn’t quite sure what to call it. As far as he could tell, they had no houses, shops, or buildings of any kind in the field beneath The Matriarch’s abode; there were only more of the tents like the ones he and his crew had slept in last night. Some tents were bigger than others, likely denoting a larger family. Some were plain and barren on the outside, some had simple paintings that appeared to be painted by children, and some had intricate drawings depicting what appeared to be stories.
Some of these stories appeared to involve hunting, with imagery suggesting the prey was many times larger than the largest horse he had ever seen in his life. Others depicted very detailed portraits of various animals. Others still depicted a bunch of tribe members bowing down before some kind of figure that was shaped like a human, but was most certainly not drawn the same way as the other tribe members. Perhaps this was one of their gods?
He moved on from the tents and turned his gaze towards the large, pointed structure behind The Matriarch’s tent that he hadn’t been able to make out the night before. It wasn’t just large, it was gigantic! Larger than any manor he had seen before. It was made entirely of stone and consisted of five levels. Each level was laid out in a square, with each subsequent level being a slightly smaller square than the one below it. At the top of the structure, he could make out a large opening with a staircase that traversed down the side all the way to the ground. Gods, it had to be at least a hundred stairs in total. Looking at it now, he was actually confused as to how such a structure came to be given that the stones that made up the structure were each large enough to need an entire crew just to move it, let alone find a way to lift it off the ground and on top of the structure. And did they really need such a large structure just to have a singular, small room way up at the top of such a large staircase? It seemed a bit excessive, unnecessary even.
As he stood there, he could hear the signs of life coming from each of the nearby tents as the remainder of his crew came to. Unsurprisingly, Cassie was the first to emerge from her tent. She stepped out, stretched, and joined Jonathon at the edge of their little circle.
“Captain,” she said formally, “how did you sleep last night?”
“I slept well, Quartermaster,” he replied mockingly. “And you?”
“Surprisingly well, all things considered,” she said, her tone or posture giving no indication that she picked up Jonathon’s teasing. “Their beds are not half bad here. Could have done without all the noise from the tent next to me, though.”
“So I’m not the only one who noticed,” Jonathon said, smiling as he tried to keep his voice down. “I saw her leaving Ryden’s tent this morning. It was The Matriarch’s granddaughter!”
“The Banshee?” Cassie asked, a small smile attempting to break through her stern face.
“Yes!” Their gossip session was cut short as the remainder of the crew joined them. “Good morning, crew,” he said, shifting his own tone to a more formal one. “I trust everyone slept well? No long nights of tossing and turning for any of you, I hope?”
“None for me, sir,” Beckett answered. “The wood bedstead was a mite stiff, but I rather enjoyed the furs.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“And what about you Ryden,” Cassie asked suddenly, her eyes sparking with mischief, “how did you enjoy the furs?”
The boy, still looking understandably tired, gave a slight start as he heard his name. “I liked ‘em well ‘nough, Quartermaster.”
As he began a large yawn, Dryden asked, “So, Cap, how long we s’posed to stand ‘round here, eh?”
“Hopefully not too much longer.” As he looked around the interior of their little circle, he noticed their packs had all been placed outside of their respective tents, along with a satchel of food and a pile of firewood stacked inside a small circle of rocks. “Ah, looks like we can at least start on some breakfast while we wait. Men,” he directed toward the rowers, “get to work.”
~~
They had finished their breakfast and were sitting around talking when they saw the group approaching them from The Matriarch’s tent: a group of four Banshees, being led by a fifth. As they approached Jonathon and the crew, he realized Naomi was the one leading the group. She stopped in front of Jonathon and said, “Captain, The Matriarch requests your presence at the top of the ziggurat.”
Jonathon was impressed, not even so much as a glance in Ryden’s direction. Her slightly reddened face was the only thing that betrayed her otherwise convincing performance. “The ziggurat,” he answered, “I take it that’s what you call that large structure atop the hill?”
“You would be correct, Captain Harding,” she replied and turned to start marching up the hill, leaving the rest of the crew no choice but to follow.
As they made their way up the hill, Jonathon noticed more of the Barmuru people exiting their tents and beginning their day. He could hear the sound of chopping wood and small chatter as most of the men were either gathering wood for fires or walking into the forest with large baskets of clothes. His eyes followed a group of talking men to the edge of the forest, where the women stood, preparing for the hunt. Some would sharpen spears, some would inspect the tautness of their bowstrings or the arrows in the quivers at their hips, and still others would check the quality of their bolas, ensuring they were strong enough to hold whatever creature they ensnared.
To Jonathon’s surprise, not many of the members paid attention to the group of outsiders walking the outskirts of their home. Were they that disciplined? Perhaps they were more accustomed to outsiders than he had been led to believe. Regardless, Jonathon and his crew attracted minimal attention as they made their way up the hill.
Naomi stopped just short of the stairs to the ziggurat. She turned to them and said, “You are not familiar with our ways, so please pay attention. Once you step foot on the ziggurat, you will be on sacred ground. It is asked that you keep unnecessary talking to a minimum and that you not wander outside of where you are directed. If we kneel, you kneel. If we pray, you pray. Lastly, though I imagine it may be against your nature, do not take anything from this temple. Theft is punishable by immediate execution. Attempted theft, or intent to commit theft, will result in immediate and permanent banishment from the tribe for you and all of your companions. Do you understand?” She finished this statement staring directly at Jonathon.
He had never been keen on being told what to do, especially when that ‘to do’ involved not taking something he may or may not want. But, so long as it got him the piece of The Spectre, he figured he could keep his hands to himself for the day. “Understood, Banshee.”
She gave him a curious look, then chuckled and said, “Banshee is not my title, Captain, it is my role. You may call me Naomi.”
“Understood, Naomi,” he corrected.
At that, Naomi turned and started up the side of the ziggurat.
~~
It was a tedious, quiet, and boring walk to the top, but they eventually reached the final step in their climb. They stood before a large entryway flanked by two more Banshees. Up close, Jonathon was astounded at the level of detail that went into the arch of the opening. Unlike the walls of the tents in the valley, the carvings engraved in the archway did not tell a story; they were simply a collection of intricate shapes and lines that resulted in a beautifully complex design accented by a deep green stone.
Inside, the carvings continued on every column. The walls were also carved, but these were more like the tents outside. They seemed to depict what he assumed were either religious tales or important events in the tribe's history–or both. They, too, were accented with the green stone, but they also had a large amount of gold intertwined in the design, as well as a broad sheet of gold that lined the top and bottom portions of every wall.
The floor was a mosaic of green stone tiles with golden borders that intersected, creating a network of shimmering paths beneath their feet. Walking quietly down this long hallway, Jonathon understood why Naomi had taken the time to warn against theft. At the back end of the room stood a small dais where The Matriarch stood, awaiting their arrival.
Naomi signaled the crew to stop, and she and her girls took their places on either side of The Matriarch.
“Good morning, Captain,” she began as everyone took their places in front of her. “I trust you and your crew slept well?”
“Indeed we did, ma’am. Well, most of us anyway,” he said with a quick wink to Naomi.
The old woman laughed out loud. “It did seem as though my dear Naomi got rather lost during her late-night trip to the ‘bathroom.’” Naomi’s face flushed, and she suddenly found her navel to be of particular interest. When the old woman had finished having her fun, she continued, “Last night, I offered to enlighten you as to the portions of Captain Lancaster’s life that you were unfamiliar with. Please, take a seat, and I will begin my tale.”
She gestured toward them, and, as if from shadows, Banshees materialized and set down cushions for the crew on the ground and for The Matriarch on the dais. They made themselves comfortable as she continued, “While your recounting of Captain Lancaster’s life was mostly accurate, you did make one mistake: his wife was not pregnant when she died. She had given birth to a healthy baby girl no more than a month prior to the expedition that took her life. She had proposed to Captain Lancaster that she and the child stay ashore with her parents while he and his crew made their trip, but he would hear none of it. He insisted that she and the child both accompany him as a symbolic start to the line of Lancaster traders. Unfortunately, she was not able to dissuade him from this notion. Thus, the wife and young baby Lancaster were present during the journey.” She paused as she saw the look of confusion on Jonathon’s face. “Yes, child?”
Jonathon, not sure how she knew he had a question, said, “Apologies, ma’am. While I do find this to be very intriguing, I’m failing to see the relevance. The baby had been born by the time of the attack, sure, fine, but what exactly does that add to the story? She was still present in one form or another when the ship was attacked, and Billy was still the sole survivor.”
“Ah, but there is where your lack of knowledge staunches the flow of understanding,” she said as she leaned forward, smiling. “For the captain was not the sole survivor of the attack.”
