Crown of Dragonfire (25 page)

She gasped. "No!" She
shoved him. "Never tell anyone that story. That tale will be buried in time.
Damn goldshitters!"

Vale was about to say
more when a shrill cry rose in the distance.

He froze.

Tash shivered. "Ghosts,"
she whispered.

"There's no such thing
as ghosts," Vale said.

She rolled her eyes. "Giant
centipedes with human faces who poop out golden coins are real, but you think
ghosts aren't."

They continued walking
along the dark beach. The banshee cry did not return. The only sounds were the
waves and the wind. Perhaps that's all that they had heard; the wind, no more.
No clouds glided above, and the moon hung low, full and bloated and white as
bone. Its light spread across the sea like a spine, rising and falling, and it
seemed to Vale no longer a soft, beautiful light but sickly.

They walked onward
until they saw a pale glow ahead on the beach, strands of greenish light
wreathed around shadows. As they walked closer, they saw fluttering movements,
dark spikes like blades, a living organism of light and darkness beached on the
sand. A cry rose again, shrill and inhuman, a sound like an echo in deep
chambers, soon fading.

Tash squeezed Vale's
hand, staring ahead. Her face was pale in the moonlight, her lips tight.

They walked closer
until details emerged, and they stood before it: a shipwreck on the beach,
large as a palace. When working in Shayeen, Vale had seen many ships sail along
the Te'ephim River, but he had never seen a ship so large. When still
seaworthy, it must have held a thousand men. The hull now tilted, many of its
planks shattered, the stern missing. The bow jutted upward, and the ship's
figurehead reared toward the moon, forged of iron, shaped as a nude woman with
the head of a goat. Black masts still rose, tilted, coated in mold, dripping
strands of rotted rope and scraps of sails. The tattered canvas billowed in the
wind, rising and falling like pale ghosts in the night. The wind moaned through
the ship's hull, rattling the shattered planks, emerging from portholes and
rusty cannons in a frosty haze like breath. The wreck seemed alive, moving,
moaning, breathing, creaking. The moonlight limned its form, but a different light—greenish
and gray—seemed to lurk within its ancient hull, seeping between the planks
and bristly deck.

"We found it," Tash
whispered, staring up at the wreck with wide eyes. "The ship of ghosts."

Vale grunted. "No
ghosts, Tash. Just wind moaning through the hull and billowing the sails."

"There are ghosts."
Tash shuddered. "Ghosts who guard the Chest of Plenty. It's in there, Vale!"
Her eyes shone. "It has to be! Just like the tales. The greatest treasure in
the world, a chest that can duplicate any treasure you place inside it, turning
but a single coin into a hoard. And the dead guard it."

"I fear the living, not
the dead. I fear the searing sunlight, not the darkness." His voice darkened. "I
died in Shayeen. I died upon the ziggurat. There is nothing to fear from the
souls of the departed, no more than there's reason to fear the shadows."

"But I'm afraid." Tash
gulped. "We can fight the living with blades, with tooth and nail. But how can
we kill those who are already dead? Many have tried to claim the Chest of
Plenty, and none have succeeded." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "But we
will. We have to. Meliora might fix her key, but we'll need half a million
keys—one for every Vir Requis—if we're to ever rise together. And so I will
enter this ship, and I will fight whoever guards that old treasure, and I will
bring it back."

"Hopefully we won't
have to fight anything more than wind and maybe a few crabs." Vale hefted the
axe he had found in the centipedes' lair. "Whatever's inside, I'm ready for it."

Tash did not draw her
dagger. "I doubt steel can cut whatever's inside. It didn't help those warriors
from the tales who came to this place." She winced. "I'd wait until sunrise,
but the sun brings seraphim. So we enter in darkness, seeking light."

They stepped closer
across the sand. Until now the night had been sweltering hot, but now the air
was icy. Vale couldn't suppress a shudder; he had never felt cold before, only
heard of "cold" from the northern stories, yet now an iciness ran up his feet,
trailed along his bones, and filled his belly. The sand felt like ice. Tash too
was shivering.

As they moved closer,
Vale looked at iron cannons that thrust out from the broken hull. He had never
seen cannons before—the armies of Saraph did not use them—but he'd heard of
these weapons from ancient Requiem tales, great guns that could blast out metal
and fire.

"This ship belonged to
men," he whispered. "Perhaps to Vir Requis. It predates Saraph's conquest of
the world."

Tash nodded. "And now
it belongs to the dead."

They crossed the last
few feet of sand, and they reached the back of the ship. The stern was gone,
perhaps lost in the shipwreck centuries ago. In its place gaped open a cavern,
cloaked in shadows, leading into the hull. The moonlight did not reach this
place; Vale saw nothing but darkness inside. Creaking, a whisper, and moaning
wind rose from within. The air grew even colder, and their breath frosted.

Vale lifted the tinderbox
and dragon-head lantern he had found in the centipedes' lair. He sparked flint
against firesteel, then lit the lantern's wick. Orange light flickered through
the iron dragon's eyes and mouth.

He glanced at Tash. She
looked back, the light reflecting in her brown eyes, and she raised her chin.
Holding the lantern before them, they entered the ship.

A nave of rotten wood
awaited them. Vale had thought the ship looked large from outside; from in
here, it seemed twice the size, large enough for dragons to fly through. All
around rose curved planks like the ribs of a wooden whale. Portholes rose high
above, peering out to the night sky; the moonlight filtered in, beams like pale
fingers. Moss and algae hung from a bannister high above, and the skulls of men
lay strewn across the sandy floor.

Tash started and drew
her dagger with a hiss. She pointed. Vale looked and saw shadows scurrying, and
he hefted his axe and raised his lantern. But the orange light only revealed a
crab scuttling away. He lowered the lantern, heart racing.

"See any chests?" Vale
said. He only spoke softly, but his voice seemed loud as a shout in here,
echoing between the beams.

Tash winced and put a
finger against his lips. Her eyes darted.

A shriek sounded across
the ship.

The cry rose louder and
louder, impossibly high pitched, until it shattered and broke apart into a
thousand little cries that faded. In the silence that followed, Vale's ears
rang.

"Still think it's the
wind?" Tash whispered.

This time Vale wasn't
too sure. "Let's find the chest and get out of here."

They kept walking,
moving deeper into the ship. Ahead rose an anchor, taller than a man, the iron
covered in barnacles and moss. Water pooled by a smashed balustrade, and white
eyes shone there, then vanished with a pattering. A face in the shadows, stern
and pale, made Vale start and raise his axe, but it was only an old painting
still hanging from a wall, half the canvas rotted away.

Tash knelt, brushed
sand away, and lifted a dark object. Vale brought his lantern closer, revealing
a skull, snails nesting in its eye sockets. Tash grimaced and tossed it away. It
knocked into femurs and scattered them.

They froze as the bones
clattered, waiting for another shriek.

Instead they heard a
deep voice.

"Go . . . go . . ."

Vale spun around. The
voice had spoken right behind him. He raised his lantern and the flame swayed,
casting dancing shadows like demons. Nothing. Nobody there.

"Did you hear that too?"
he asked Tash.

She nodded. "It sounded
so mean. I thought . . ." She peered into the shadows. "But nothing. Whoever
spoke is gone."

Or still here around
us,
Vale thought.

"It wants us to go,"
Vale said, smiling grimly. "I think not. I think we'll stay for a while."

Tash nodded, sweat on
her brow. "Just a short while."

They kept walking until
they reached a dilapidated wall. A doorway led into a dark chamber, smaller
than the grand hall they had entered. An old table stood here, covered with
scrolls, the parchment so rotted it crumbled when Vale touched it. Sand rose
around the table's legs. A skeleton still sat in a giltwood chair, its clothes
rotted down to the buttons and buckles, and a beard still clung to its skull.
No wing bones; this one hadn't been a seraph.

"Old Captain Bony here
has seen better days," Vale said. "Wonder what tales he'd have to tell."

Tash looked at the
skeleton and grimaced. "He'd tell us where to find the chest, I wager. I—" She
started. "Vale, did you do that?"

He tilted his head. "Do
what?"

"Grab my arm."

He shook his head. "I'm
only holding your hand."

"Something grabbed me."
She spun around, dagger lashing. "Somebody is here with us."

Vale looked around the
captain's chamber. Nothing but the table, the scrolls, the skeleton in the
seat. He lifted his lantern, banishing the shadows from the corners, the
ceiling, the floor. Nothing.

"Nobody is here," he
whispered.

Tash cringed. "He's
here. I can feel him. I can feel his breath against my neck. I can feel his
presence here. He's behind me." Her voice was a trembling whisper. "He hates
us, Vale. He hates us so much."

"Who, Tash?"

"The captain. All of
them! They're all here." She closed her eyes, taking a shuddering breath. "So
much hate."

Vale groaned and
squeezed her hand. "Tash, listen to me. Don't be frightened. They can't hurt us
anymore. If they're here, they're nothing but echoes, just whispers, just
spirits still clinging to old bones. But the danger in Tofet is alive and real,
and it's what we must fight."

She nodded. "Let's keep
exploring."

They kept searching the
chamber, and when Vale kicked aside sand, he found a wooden trapdoor. The wood
was so old and damp the iron lock tore out when Vale tugged it, and the
trapdoor swung open. A staircase plunged down into shadows.

Tash grimaced. "I don't
suppose you think the Chest of Plenty might be up on the deck, resting in the
moonlight."

"I've never heard of
treasures kept up on deck, Tash."

She gulped and nodded. "You
go first."

Holding his axe and
lantern, Vale took a step down, testing the staircase with his weight. The wood
creaked but held, and he took another step. Tash followed, and they descended
down a narrow staircase. Sand covered the stairs, mold spread along the walls,
and the waves whispered outside, flowing across the outer hull. In the murmur,
Vale thought he heard other sounds: the clanging of swords, the dull thunder of
cannons firing, wind hitting sails, and many voices rising together, then
screaming, endless screams, the sound so muffled he wasn't sure he wasn't imagining
it.

"They're still
drowning," Tash whispered. "Again and again, they're crashing. Do you hear
them, Vale? So many lives lost."

He winced. "All right,
so maybe there are a few ghosts here. But they can't harm us, Tash. No more
than reflections in a mirror can leap out at you. They're just reflections on
the beach."

He kept descending the
staircase, heading toward a dark doorway, when eyes flashed below.

A creature emerged from
the shadows, bloated and gray, like a waterlogged corpse, only half in this
world. It unfurled from the cavern below like a mollusk from a shell. Alabaster
claws reached up, and a jaw unhooked, lined with teeth, revealing organs that
gleamed and pulsed within its gullet. Its eyes shone white, then became black
pools, expanding, sucking in the light, and the creature screamed.

Vale did not hesitate.

With a wordless cry, he
charged downstairs and swung down his axe.

The blade passed
through smoke. The creature vanished, leaving only a cackling echo. The walls
creaked, and strands of frost spread across them. The sounds of the ancient
battle faded.

"Rephaim live here,"
Tash whispered, face pale. "These are not usual ghosts, Vale. I've read about
them in the old scrolls. Most ghosts are souls who don't realize they died, souls
trapped in this world. But not rephaim. Rephaim made it into the afterlife . .
. and were banished, too cruel and hateful to rest in peace." She winced and
touched her temples. "They're so hateful, Vale."

"And easy to kill,
apparently." Vale nodded at his axe. "If you like, you can wait outside."

She shook her head. "No.
You need my help down there." She looked down at the dark passageway the
creature had emerged from, and she shuddered. "Let's go."

The lantern flickering
before them, they stepped into the lower chamber. No moonlight shone through
portholes here, and the lantern's light seemed so weak, barely piercing this
darkness. Vale could see only several feet ahead, and even then the vision was
smudged. Shadows lurched with every step, leaping, swooping, dancing around
him. The air was so cold he thought it could extinguish the flame.

"Whole lot of junk down
here," he whispered.

As he stepped forward,
shining the light from side to side, he revealed piles of objects. Sacks hung
from hooks. Jagged swords hung on a wall. Cannonballs piled up in the corner,
and the bones of both fish and men lay across the sandy floor. Rusted chains
coiled like cobras. Countless chests and crates lay everywhere, coated in
grime.

"More like plenty of
chests than a Chest of Plenty," he muttered.

Tash groaned. "You've
already told that joke." She knelt, lifted a seashell, and nodded. "We're going
to have to test them, one by one. I'll put my seashell into the chests.
Whichever one duplicates it is our winner. Keep that axe handy!"