Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull (7 page)

Jim ceased hopping around immediately and bit his upper lip to keep from howling. His cheeks burned at the thought of being seen breaking his own foot on a rock, so he tried to walk casually down the beach. This was nearly impossible, however, with a smashed toe, tired legs, and an aching head. But instead of letting him limp away with even a shred of his dignity intact, the pipes grew louder the further Jim walked. In only ten yards or so, he found a man sitting cross-legged upon a large stone, facing the sea and playing a strange flute with twin pipes. Jim furrowed his brow and approached the man slowly. It seemed strange to so plainly see this fellow on the rock, and to so clearly hear his sad song, Jim thought. For not a few moments before, when he had run past this very place, he had seen no man nor heard any song.

Jim finally drew up to the rock and his curiosity only deepened. The flute-player was perhaps the smallest man Jim had ever seen. Even perched upon his rock the gentleman came up only as far as Jim’s shoulders. He wore a tiny suit of green breeches with a brown waistcoat and cream shirt - clothes, Jim was quite sure, that could have been fitted for a small child. Yet the man’s bald head shone in the moonlight and a neatly trimmed gray beard hung from his chin. Jim thought by the man’s face that he was perhaps only a few years younger than old MacGuffy.

The little man kept on playing his song as though he never saw Jim at all. His fingers danced along the pipes and his eyes remained fixed upon the sea. It was as though he was hypnotized by the waves. Jim was about to clear his throat or say hello, if nothing else but to see if the man might reply, when the diminutive musician blew a final, wavering note and at last pulled the flute from his lips.

“Lovely night for a stroll,” said the flute-player with a voice not nearly as small as the man himself. “Lovely night for even as angry and woeful a stroll as yours, I’d say.”

“I’m sorry?” Jim said. He was taken aback by the man’s blunt words and felt once more ashamed that a total stranger might have seen him muttering to himself and kicking huge rocks like a fool. “Just so you know, I wasn’t even crying or anything,” Jim threw in with a ridiculous measure of indignation. “There’s nothing wrong with me at all!” One eyebrow arched high upon the old man’s bald head, and his eyes flicked for the first time from ocean to Jim’s face.

“A young man, racing like the wind down a dark beach with tears so thick in eyes that he nearly runs over a poor fellow playing his flute, without even knowing he did so, obviously has something wrong with him indeed! In fact, I would go so far as to say such a young man is in desperate need of a drastic change in fortune. It is quite clear to me, young sir, that you are afflicted - afflicted with an affliction as plain as the nose on your face.”

“Afflicted?” Jim said, a bit of bitterness trickling into his voice. “What would you know about it?” Yet in spite of Jim’s irritability, he could hardly tear his eyes from the pipe player upon the rock. The old gentleman’s eyes were clear as glass and green as leaves in spring. They struck Jim as being somehow very old, older than even the hills and the rocks on the beach. Jim felt the gaze of those eyes cut through his flesh and bone down to his soul, as a cold wind cuts through clothes to sting the skin.

“You, my boy,” the man said, those unnerving eyes fixed on Jim’s face. “Are afflicted with a broken heart.”

Jim thought of denying it, but what was the use? The truth was written all over his face and it would not be tucked away. Jim’s heart was utterly and completely broken and there were no two ways about it. The old man seemingly took Jim’s silence as an admission and reached out to tap him sharply on the top of the head with his flute.

“So,” he said. “Perhaps you and I should discuss this broken heart and these unfortunate circumstances in which you find yourself. Then, just maybe, we shall see if we might not be able to procure you a remedy.”

“No offense,” Jim replied. “But you hardly know a thing about me or my problems, sir. Even if you did, I’m not so sure there’s much you could do about any of it at all.” The moment those words left Jim’s mouth the old man clucked his tongue and threw up his hands as though Jim had just uttered the most ridiculous words he had ever heard.

“Youths these days - never thinking things through. Don’t you suppose that a fragile old man, especially one as tiny and defenseless as this one, sitting here on this rock all by his lonesome in the middle of the night, with god knows what manner of thieves and scoundrels lurking about, would not have at least one or two tricks up his sleeve?”

The little man snapped the flute to his lips and ripped off a trill that sent a spark through Jim’s arms and legs. He then flicked his sharp eyes over Jim’s shoulder with a wink and a nod. Jim looked back in that direction and nearly shouted in startled surprise. A wooden carriage sat on a patch of grass just beyond the sand. A bright fire burned beside the camp, crackling over a pile of large, cut logs.

Jim’s mouth fell open and his brow furrowed deep. He could understand how he might have missed the small man, alone on a rock in the dark. But there was no way Jim would have missed an entire camp, burning fire and all, just sitting on the edge of the beach. No horse or mule tracks of any sort led toward or from the inviting campsite. It seemed to Jim as though it had all simply appeared out of thin air.

“Does even a little magic startle you, my boy?” the old man said, clucking his tongue again. “As I said, youths these days - no respect for the older things in the world.”

“I wasn’t startled,” Jim said. “I’ve seen magic before!” But this was half a lie, for the magic had been so sudden and so unexpected that it had taken Jim quite by surprise. Perhaps, he admitted to himself, it even frightened him a little.

“Well then,” said the man, offering Jim a friendly smile and motioning up toward his magically produced camp with an open hand. “If it bothers you not, good sir, come sit with an old man for a time, and let us have a chat.”

“Actually, I really should be going, sir,” Jim managed, his heart beating wildly in his chest. If he had learned but one thing over the course of all his adventures it was this: magic was not a thing to be taken lightly. More often than not, it was a doorway leading straight to danger and trouble. But the old man was not so easily deterred.

“Then go you must, and on my word of honor I shall not stop you. But perhaps, oh broken-hearted one, it would be wise if you spared me only a moment, just one, even if only to hear what I have to offer. Would even a chance to mend your current predicament not be worth a few minutes of your time?”

Jim hesitated on the beach, just beyond the firelight’s reach. His chest ached and his throat was still tight. Tears yet threatened and nothing but a scorched piece of earth that used to be his home awaited him at the end of the beach. He cast one last glance toward a turn in the shore, where the beach led back to the stables on the manor grounds, where his friends waited for him. But curiosity - curiosity and perhaps even a touch of hope, pulled Jim’s eyes back toward the camp.

“Only a moment,” Jim finally said, starting up the beach toward the little camp as the old man cackled with delight.

The tiny pipe player blew a joyful tune as he and Jim approached the fire. He danced a spry jig around the flames in a circle or two
before making his way up to his wagon. There he came to a prancing stop and loosed another trill on his flute, finishing with a deep bow.

“Philus Philonius, purveyor of magical goods, remedies, relics, and potions, at your service, my boy. A pleasure and honor to meet you, young sire! And who, may I ask, might you be?”

“I’m Jim Morgan,” Jim said. He gave the old man a quick bow himself before checking nervously over his shoulder toward the beach, as though a small part of him was afraid he might be magicked away by Mister Philonius at any moment.

“Well, Jim Morgan, let us see what soothing balm I might offer to cure your affliction!” Philus seized the side panel of his wagon and with a flick of his wrist popped it open like a shopkeeper’s window. Row upon row of shelves revealed themselves there, lined from side to side and top to bottom with an assortment of vials, baskets, cauldrons, boxes, colored crystals, shiny stones, and even a polished skull or two. As nervous as Jim felt, that small flame of curiosity burned a bit brighter and pulled him nearer still to the wagon, his eyes poring over the goods there within.

Philus Philonius rubbed his hands together and giggled with anticipatory delight. With a dancing shuffle he kicked the lower edge of his wagon, releasing a step upon which he leapt. This made the small man just tall enough to reach his shelves, and also to look Jim in the eye.

“Now, we can hardly just give you anything, can we? Only the proper remedy will cure the proper malady, eh?” Jim opened his mouth to say something, but the small man held up his hand and shook his head. “No, no, no, master Jim – I am a professional, a craftsman at my trade, I am, I am, so no hints, no hints!” Philus ran his finger down one of the shelves, pausing when he came to a small pot, teeming with bright green, four leaf clovers.

“A pinch of Irish Luck to do the trick, perhaps?” Philus blew a note on his flute and a rainbow leapt from the pot, flitting into the air like a brilliant butterfly. But no sooner had the rainbow flown in two circles than Philus swatted it from the air with his flute, bursting it
like a soap bubble and shaking his head with a distasteful frown. “No, no, no, not nearly enough, is it? Not nearly enough!”

Further down the shelf the old man searched until he came to a tall vial of pink glass, which he plucked gingerly off the shelf with two fingers, a bright smile upon his face.

“Now here’s a little beauty: Perfume of Summer’s Love!” Philus pulled the cork with a slight pop and a tendril of pink mist rose into the air followed by the unmistakable scent of strawberries and cinnamon, with just a hint of hot chocolate. But after a long, deep breath of the delicious odor, the little merchant’s nose suddenly twitched and he unleashed an enormous sneeze, blasting away the pink fumes and leaving only an annoyed wrinkle on his brow. “No, no, no,” he said, corking the vial and tossing it back on the shelf. “Too young, too young! Perhaps in a few years, eh, my boy? We need something bolder for you, don’t we? That I can tell!”

Philus grabbed a small box next, holding it tight with both hands, and for good reason. The box shook so violently in his grip that the small man was nearly thrown to the ground. Jim took a step or two back in fear of his safety.

“These little beauties are a pair of Bulgarian Boxing Rocks!” Philus announced, his voice herking and jerking. “Hold one of these stones in each hand and you’re guaranteed to knock any foe into the dirt, regardless how big or how strong he may be!” Jim arched one eyebrow at the Boxing Rocks, thinking for a pleasant moment of using them on Bartholomew Cromier. But the old man snorted again and all but threw the box into the back of his wagon, breathing heavily and wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve.

“No, no, no!” Philus repeated once more, stomping a foot on his little wooden step. “Hardly proper for a gentleman such as yourself. Besides, they’re a devil to get back in the box, believe you me.”

The old man sighed and his shoulders slumped. He hung his head and tapped his flute on his bald crown as though on the verge of surrender. Again Jim looked back over his shoulder to the beach. He very nearly thanked Philus for his efforts and insisted he should be going,
when the little man suddenly shrieked as though struck by a bolt of lightning. Mister Philonius threw back his head and laughed a long, how-could-I-be-so-foolish laugh. When his cackling laughter finally subsided, Philus snuck a long, sideways glance at Jim, as though measuring and weighing him with those old, green eyes. Then he slowly, slowly turned his shrewd, bearded face back toward the shelf.

“There is one other possibility, isn’t there? It could be just the thing.” Philus rose up on his tiptoes and reached to the very top shelf, taking down a square, glass bottle, red as blood and capped with a burnt black cork. Stepping down from the wagon, Philus crept slowly and purposefully over to Jim and handed the bottle over.

“This is the number, isn’t it, my boy?” he whispered.

Jim took the bottle and nearly dropped it immediately. It was surprisingly warm, no, almost hot to the touch, as though it had just been heated over an open flame. Jim turned the bottle over in his fingers until he came around to the label, bearing but a single word, written on the side. When Jim read this one word, a desire as hot as the liquid in the bottle began to burn in his chest. The one word was written in black letters on a white label, and the word was this:

REVENGE.

SEVEN

im looked up at Philus and found the old man staring back. The eager gleam in Jim’s eyes and the white knuckles with which he gripped the bottle seemed to be answer enough for the magician. The old man smiled from ear to ear. The fire danced like coals in his clear, green eyes.