Kendra Kandlestar and the Shard From Greeve (16 page)

THERE’S NOTHING WORSE than that helpless feeling we experience when we come to the sudden realization that we’ve made a mistake. We might try wishing away our blunders, but no matter how many times we murmur
if only, if only
, it is no use.

And so it was with Kendra now. She had abandoned her watch duty only to satisfy her curiosity, and now her friends were missing. She frantically looked about the nook, but the only thing she could find was Jinx’s trusty poker, and that was a sure sign that something terrible had happened—for Kendra knew that the fierce grasshopper would never willingly leave her weapon behind.

Just take up the shard—tear apart this wreck of timber
, the voice inside her head urged.
You’ll find them then. You have power beyond reckoning.

For a moment, Kendra was tempted. She was angry (mostly at herself), and it seemed the shard might grant an instant fix to her problem. Then she shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. How could destroying the ship possibly help Jinx and Oki? If Kendra had not been so distracted by this battle of wills, she might have been more aware of the impending danger to herself—for in the next instant she found herself ensnared by some mysterious force. Her wrists were pinned tight to her waist, and when she struggled to break free, all she succeeded in doing was to trip over her own feet. With no hands to brace her fall, her cheek struck hard against the floor.

“No use strugglin’,” came a rough voice. “I gotcha, poppet!”

Kendra grimaced and rolled on to her back to see a Gnome looming over her. It was Squaggle, the
Golden Loot
’s first mate. In one hand he was holding a thin silver cord; the other end was looped around Kendra, and at once she came to the realization that she had been caught by the same magic thread as the peryton.

“Where are my friends?” Kendra demanded.

Squaggle’s only reply was a wicked leer, showing off his brown teeth. He yanked on the thread, forcing Kendra to her feet, and marched her up the companionway to the main deck. She could already feel a bruise rising on her cheek.

The sun was just beginning to show its face over the rim of the sea, and in the emerging light, Kendra found herself surrounded by the crew of pirates. They stared at her like a swarm of salivating beasts, cutthroat glints in their eyes. Then she noticed Jinx and Oki sitting at the feet of one of the ruffians; they too were bound by the silver thread.

Oki cried out in delight to see Kendra, but Jinx just scowled at her in anger. She had every right to do so, Kendra knew, and she quickly glanced away from her friends, her face flushing red with guilt.

“Ahoy, Cap’n!” Squaggle called. “Looks like we got ourselves a bunch o’ stowaways. Told ya I saw someone small and slippery sneakin’ cross our deck last night.”

“That wasn’t us,” Kendra told the Gnome. “We’ve been below deck the whole voyage!” Then a single terrifying thought rose to her mind:
Agent Lurk is here
.

But before she could dwell on this idea, a squeaky voice announced: “Yo-ho-ho, ya can’t trust an Een, don’t ya know! I reckon they’re after me treasure.”

Kendra looked up to see a figure standing at the railing of the poop deck. She realized at once that he was a Dwarf, for unlike the bald and hairless Gnomes, this fellow had an enormous red beard. And what a beard! It was wild and filthy, a tangled mess of shaggy hair streaked with grease and encrusted with stale bread, moldy cheese, and rotting fish heads.

Of course, such a beard came with a distinctive odor, and as the Dwarf swaggered down to the main deck, the pirate crew skittered aside, coughing and gagging. It was Captain Dirtybeard, Kendra knew, and now that he was standing right in front of her, she was given a chance to see beyond his beard. Like all Dwarves, Dirtybeard had large ears, a long sharp nose, and a beady sparkle in his eye—though, in fact, he had but one eye, the other was covered by a small patch. Atop his head he wore a wide-brimmed hat adorned with a long white feather (from a peryton, Kendra realized with a shudder). His jacket had long sleeves with fancy cuffs (though, like his beard, they were soiled). His trousers were patched and ragged, and one large toe peered out from a gaping hole in his left shoe.

It was no shocking surprise to Kendra that someone with the name of Dirtybeard was such a disheveled slob, but what did startle her was this: She knew the pirate captain—and all too well. For Captain Dirtybeard was none other than Pugglemud the Dwarf, that greedy rogue who had caused Kendra so many difficulties on her past adventures. Here he was, yet again, like a bad stain that she just couldn’t remove.

“It’s fitting,” Kendra told the Dwarf. “You always acted like a pirate, Pugglemud—and now you are one.”

“I ain’t go by that name no more, don’t ya know,” the Dwarf retorted, leaning so close to Kendra that his beard prickled her cheek. “And I don’t got to take no sass from you! Why if it wasn’t fer you, I’d still be rulin’ the underground kingdom of Umbor. But ya had to ruin that, didn’t ya, girl?”

“You tried to enslave us in your mines!” Kendra retorted. “You deserved to lose your throne!”

“Well, now I got me a new life,” Pugglemud said. “I be Captain Dirtybeard, King o’ the Seas, Master o’ Pirates, Explorer of the World, in search of silver and gold. Tee hee!”

“Let us go!” Jinx hollered. “I swear,
Puggledud
, if I even get one fist free, I’ll—,”

“I ain’t afeared of you anyhoo,” Pugglemud told the grasshopper. “But what about that old feller with them white whiskers? Where’s he?”

“My uncle?” Kendra asked. “He’s not here. Just us three.”

“Likely story,” Pugglemud muttered. “But I see ya got yer own wand now, little miss braidy braids. I guess I’ll be takin’ that, don’t ya know!”

“Hey—that belongs to me!” Kendra exclaimed as Pugglemud yanked her Eenwood from her belt.

“Well, now it be ol’ Dirtybeard’s,” Pugglemud chortled as he slipped the wand inside his coat.

“You haven’t changed a wit since we last met,” Kendra muttered.

“Not even his underpants, I bet,” Jinx added.

“C’mon, Cap’n, what we goin’ to do with these landlubbers?” Squaggle asked, but before Pugglemud could reply, the pirate crew broke into a chorus of suggestions:

“Slit their throats!”

“Make ‘em walk the plank!”

“Na—hang ‘em from the yardarms!”

Kendra didn’t even know what a yardarm was, but she surely didn’t want to hang from one. Neither did Oki; he let out such a loud “EEK!” that Pugglemud himself jumped.

Then Kendra heard that voice inside her head.
Destroy them all
, it urged, and beneath her robe Kendra could feel the shard throbbing angry and hot, hungry to lash out at the pirates. But Kendra’s hands were still cinched tight to her waist by the silver thread; even if she had wanted to, she couldn’t reach the stone.

Then Pugglemud said, “There’s nothen’ I’d like better than to drown these no-good Eenie-weenies, but they’re worth more to us alive, I tell ya. I betcha ol’ Queen Krakey hates Eens more than me! If we can sell her that fancy-smancy flyin’ horny down below, then we can certainly sell her these scurvy brats, don’t ya know. Think of all the gold we’ll make! Tee hee!”

“Aw, c’mon, Cap’n!” Squaggle protested. “We’re tired o’ this kidnappin’ and sellin’ business. We ain’t no bunch o’ nannies. We want to be murderin’ and stealin’ like real pirates.”

“Then yer all yeller-bellied scallywags!” Pugglemud bellowed. “What ya should all be a-thinkin’ about is gold! Tee hee! I be the captain, and I say we sell ‘em.”

“All right, Cap’n, all right,” Squaggle muttered.

Then Pugglemud marched over to Oki and Jinx and looked them over with his one beady eye. Jinx had nothing but a belt, but Oki still had his pack slung over his shoulder, so Pugglemud yanked it away. He took a quick look inside, but after deciding it contained nothing of value, he heaved it over the side of the ship.

“Eek!” Oki squealed. “The sh—,”

He stopped mid-sentence, and he looked so stricken with panic that for a moment Kendra thought the little mouse would faint. Then she remembered that Oki thought the
real
shard was inside his pack. As far as he was concerned, it was now sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

“Now listen here, ya bilge-sucking blaggards!” Pugglemud yelled at his crew. “There’ll be no tricks now from the rat and the bug, see? So you put ‘em to work! They can be swabbin’ the deck and servin’ us grub. But don’t go abusin’ them none; I want them in top condition fer sellin’ to that big fat Queeny.”

“But Cap’n,” Squaggle said, “What ya goin’ to do with the girly then?”

Pugglemud stared down at Kendra and stroked the filthy nest that was his beard. “This girl is the biggest heap o’ trouble you ever know’d,” he said after a moment. “We don’t dare let her go runnin’ about free.”

“Yer parrot done flew off last week,” Squaggle said. “Why don’t ya jus’ stick her in Polly’s old cage?”

“That’s a dandy-smandy idea!” Pugglemud declared with a mischievous grin, but Kendra just stared at him, fuming. Beneath her robe, Greeve’s shard flared with anger—and so did her heart.

AND SO IT WAS that Kendra was freed of the silver thread, only to be crammed into a battered, rusty birdcage that was far too small for her. She had to sit with her knees at her chin, her long braids poking out between the bars.

In truth, the cage could not keep her, not with the power of Greeve’s shard at her disposal. She still possessed the dark stone, for Pugglemud had neglected to search her thoroughly. Yet, Kendra knew she could not use the shard. Its power was so erratic, so virulent, that the whole ship might be destroyed. Then what would she do? Drown in the sea? But the shard was relentless in its urging.
Use me, use me
, it seemed to say. And so the war raged inside Kendra’s heart. She had great power, but she knew she must resist enacting it until the boat approached shore.

Kendra spent many a long day in her cage, hanging from one of the masts on the main deck of the
Golden Loot
. Thankfully, the weather was warming (they were definitely headed south), and she suffered from cramping but not from the cold. From her vantage point, she watched the pirates go about their activities tending to the operation of the ship—though they now made Oki and Jinx do most of the work while they drank from bottles of dirty grog and ordered them about with cursing tongues. They even made them help row from the oar deck when the wind slackened.

Whenever he could, Oki tried to sneak over and speak to Kendra.

“We’re free to roam about,” he told her. “They untied the thread—but that scoundrel Squaggle said if we try anything they’ll just pitch you overboard, cage and all.”

“Don’t worry; they’ll soon pay for all of this,” Kendra assured the mouse.

“Well, it’s not so bad,” Oki said with a whiskery frown. “Those pirates won’t cause us any real harm, on account of Pugglemud’s warning. And we may be aboard, but at least we’re not
bored
.”

“Still trying to amuse yourself with those silly puns?” Kendra asked.

“I’m trying to keep my spirits up,” Oki said. “But, Kendra, what about the shard?”

“Well, you let Pugglemud cast it to the bottom of the sea,” Kendra told him pointedly.

“It’s not my fault!” Oki squeaked. “But maybe it’s for the best anyway.”

“That’s a stupid thing to say,” Kendra retorted, and Oki, not seeming to know how to respond to such hard words, slunk off.

As for Jinx, she would have nothing to do with Kendra.
I don’t know who she thinks she is
, Kendra told herself. But it didn’t matter what she thought; she still had to bear Jinx’s cold shoulder.

Pugglemud didn’t trust having Kendra’s cage placed in his own quarters at night (he was afraid she might devise some ploy to get him in his sleep), and so each evening Squaggle took the Een girl down to the bottom of the ship where the peryton was imprisoned.

“Ah, we meet again, Arinotta,” Prince said that first night after Squaggle had returned to the upper decks.

The Gnome had left no light behind, and it was so dark in the hold that Kendra could not see the great peryton, not even his outline. But she could feel him staring at her.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

“Do you, Arinotta?”

“You don’t believe I’m a sorceress.”

“Well, you
have
been captured,” Prince pointed out.

“I’ll get us out of here yet,” Kendra retorted. “I just have to bide my time. Unless . . .”

“You have an idea?”

“I can cut through this cage—and your thread,” Kendra declared. “But we’d have to leave this ship immediately, try to make it to land.”

“How close are we to the castle?” Prince asked.

“I don’t know,” Kendra admitted.

“I may be able to fly to shore,” Prince mused. “But how will you and your friends make such a journey?”

“We’ll ride on you,” Kendra said.

“Fur and feathers!” the great beast bellowed. “Am I some common mule that you underlings might saddle and ride? I am a peryton, a creature wild and free. No one rides a peryton. You insult me, Arinotta.”

He was so enraged that Kendra could hear his great nostrils flare in the darkness. As for the shard, it rumbled too.
Let him rot here then
, the voice inside Kendra’s head told her. But Kendra herself could not be so angry at the peryton. His beauty overshadowed the shard’s rage.

“I’m . . . I’m sorry, Prince,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

But the mighty beast did not reply, and despite her protests and apologies, he had nothing more to say.
Don’t worry about that silly beast
, the voice inside her head said.
Why shouldn’t you ride him? You are a sorceress, after all
. But Kendra’s heart ached all the same.
First Jinx and now Prince,
she thought.
Soon there won’t be anyone left on this ship to talk to me.

Unfortunately for Kendra, Pugglemud was all too happy to have her as a captive audience for his odd ramblings. In particular, the portly Dwarf seemed to love nothing better than to stand at the prow of the
Golden Loot
, singing at the top of his voice as he gazed upon the open seas. He would often hang Kendra’s cage from the nearest hook, and she had no choice but to listen to his dreadful shanty:

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle o’ gold—

The greatest adventure you ever row’d.

Find me riches and find me gold,

The most wondrous treasure I ever know’d.

“Aren’t you a little worried about just turning up at Krake castle?” Kendra asked the Dwarf one breezy afternoon, trying to distract him from singing another verse of his ill-rhymed poem.

“What ya mean?” Pugglemud asked. He suddenly became aware of a big black fly stuck in the bristles of his beard, and he began trying to ferret it out with his greasy fingers.

“Well, for one thing, you enslaved hundreds of Krakes in your mines, back when you were king of Umbor,” Kendra declared. “Don’t you think the queen will be just a little upset with you?”

“That wasn’t me—that was King Reginaldo, the old blaggard,” Pugglemud declared with a wink, still digging in his beard. “I’m just a humble pirate tryin’ to make me a livin’.”

“And just how did you become captain of this ship anyway?” Kendra wanted to know. “The last time I saw you, you were scrambling about Umbor without so much as a pair of trousers.”

“Well, that’s a tale, don’t ya know,” Pugglemud said. He had finally succeeded in detangling the fly from his beard, but instead of letting it go, he squashed it between his fingers in a burst of black pulp.

“You might as well tell it,” Kendra urged, hoping that he wouldn’t decide to sing again.

“Well, it goes like this,” Pugglemud said. “You see, after losin’ me throne, those Dwarves kicked me out of Umbor without so much as a lump o’ gold. So I set to wanderin’ the land, lost and poor. After weeks o’ that, I done ended up in Ireshook where I met this old fisherman’s widow. She gave me some grub and a little hammock for me bed, and don’t ya know, it turns out she was a bit of a witch, and her little shack on the sea was just rumble-tumble full o’ all sorts of magic knickery-knacks.”

“Like the silver thread?” Kendra guessed.

“Exactly,” Pugglemud said. “Well, she done said it ‘d been forged by the ancient Dwarves, so I figured it was rightfully mine, on account that I’m a Dwarf.”

“So you just stole it?” Kendra exclaimed.

“That ol’ crone woulda jus’ turned me into a frog or somethen’ eventually,” Pugglemud said in his defense. “So one night I jus’ waited til she was asleep, then I snatched that thread, see, and snuck on me way. And there I was a fishin’ on the rocks the next day when I happened to catch me this purty little mermaid. Now mermaid’s are a slippery bunch, don’t ya know, but nothen’ can snap the silver thread.”

“What did you do with her?” Kendra asked, her pointed ears perking up with curiosity. She had read about mermaids, but had never seen one.

“Well, it turns out she was the daughter of the King o’ the Sea,” Pugglemud replied. “So I done ransomed her off. The king raised this old sunken galley from the bottom of the sea, burstin’ with gold an’ treasure, and he gave it to me in exchange fer his daughter. So I patched up this old boat here, made meself captain, found me a crew, and now I jus’ sail the seas lookin’ fer gold. Tee hee!”

“But how did you lose your eye?” Kendra asked.

“Oh that?” He flipped up his patch to reveal a perfectly healthy eye. “This is jus’ fer show,” Pugglemud said. “Any pirate worth his salt oughta have a patch or hook or somethen’.”

“You’re despicable,” Kendra told him. “You just make your gold by the misfortune of others.”

“You little Eeenies always think yer so righty-right,” Pugglemud countered. “But ol’ Dirtybeard can tell you this: At the end o’ the day, every feller does what he wants without a-worryin’ what it means to another.” And with that, the pirate leaned over the edge of the ship and broke into song once more:

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle o’ gold—

The greatest adventure you ever row’d.

Find me riches and find me gold,

The most wondrous treasure I ever know’d.