Pirate Wars

The Dreaming Worm

Ray Flight

Into the Maelstrom

The Threshold of War

The Battle for the Anchor

The Hand of the Maelstrom

Aina

The Second Wave

On the Kobalin Path

Rain of Fire

The Heaviness of Deep Water

Two Giants

The Cannibal Fleet

A Conversation in the Deep

Tyrone

The Breach

When Gods Weep

The Old Ray

Where All Magic Ends

Destruction

Where’s Jolly?

Magic Yarn

The New World

On the morning
of her last day in Aelenium, Jolly visited the Hexhermetic Shipworm.

His house in the Poets’ Quarter of the sea star city was narrow, just wide enough for a low door with a window beside it. As everywhere in Aelenium, there were no right angles here and hardly a straight wall. The city’s buildings were formed from the ivorylike material of the coral, some having grown in a natural way, others created by stonecutters and artists.

“It’s me,” she called as she walked past the guard and opened the door. “Jolly.”

She didn’t expect an answer, and she received none. She knew how things stood with the worm. If his condition had changed, she’d have been told about it.

Jolly closed the door behind her. What she had to say to
the Hexhermetic Shipworm was none of the sentry’s business. Furthermore, she was afraid Munk might have followed her and stolen into the house behind her, unseen. The last thing she wanted was for him to overhear what she said to the shipworm.

This was her farewell. Hers alone.

She mounted the uneven stairs to the upper floor. There, in the largest room in the house, the worm hung in his cocoon and dreamed.

The room under the peaked roof was largely filled with the fine web being secreted by the worm’s motionless body—the only sign that he was still alive.

A few days before, when the first signs of his transformation became visible, Jolly had begged for him to be housed in the palace, even in her own room. But Forefather and the Ghost Trader had refused. They’d given no reason for their decision.

Jolly wasn’t really surprised. She and Munk were the two most important people in Aelenium, they were told over and over again. No unauthorized person was allowed to come too close to them. Certainly not some unknown thing that might hatch from a cocoon when the worm had finished his pupation.
If
something should hatch.

“Hello, Worm.”

Jolly stopped at the wall of silken threads. The windows of the roof chamber were covered with translucent material to impede the view from the houses opposite, but also because it was feared that hungry gulls might discover the helpless worm. Windows were glass only in the palaces of
Aelenium’s rulers, not in the dwellings of the simple folk; here they used wooden shutters to protect themselves from wind and weather, but those also blocked out the light. Instead, the fabric that had been stretched across the attic’s windows turned the light streaming in milky, dissolving the edges of the shadows. There was no longer any sharp delineation between light and dark in the entire space; everything blended together, mingled.

“Hello,” said Jolly once again, because the sight of the eerie thicket of silk affected her more than she’d expected. Buenaventure, the pit bull man, came here twice a day to make sure everything was all right. He’d told her of his visits, but this was the first time she’d seen the extent of the cocoon with her own eyes.

The silken threads were woven into a mighty net stretching from the floor to the peaked ceiling—not unlike a spiderweb, only with much finer mesh and without an obvious pattern. The uncanny thicket of threads was several feet deep. In its center hung an oval thickening—the worm’s cocoon. He seemed to float. The threads that held him over the floor at shoulder height were almost invisible.

The Hexhermetic Shipworm was no longer recognizable in the center of the cocoon, his form buried underneath a layer of silk a handsbreadth thick. Only a weak pulsing showed that he was still alive.

“This is quite…impressive,” said Jolly tentatively. The sight seemed to glue her mouth shut, as if it were filled with the webs too. “I hope you’re feeling all right inside there.”

The worm didn’t answer. Buenaventure had warned her that conversation with him at this time was a one-sided affair. Nevertheless, the pit bull man was convinced that the worm could hear them. Jolly wasn’t so sure of that.

“You gave all of us quite a fright,” she said. “You could at least have warned us that something like this was going to happen. I mean, none of us knows a whole lot about Hexhermetic Shipworms.” She sighed and stretched out her hand cautiously to touch the foremost threads of the web. The surface billowed like a curtain. It was as if a slight breeze had stroked her fingertips.

“I’ve come to say good-bye.” She pulled her hand back and hooked her thumbs awkwardly into her belt. “Munk and I, we’re going to start out. To the Crustal Breach. Everyone here in Aelenium—the nobles, Captain d’Artois, the Ghost Trader, Forefather—is hoping that we manage to seal the source of the Maelstrom. We do too, of course. And I don’t know…Munk is really good at mussel magic. Perhaps he actually will manage it.” She stopped for a moment, then went on. “Myself, I’m not ready yet, even if no one wants to admit it. Anyway, no one says it to my face. I’m not half as good with the mussels as Munk. He…well, you know him. He’s so ambitious. As if he’s possessed. And he’s still mad at me—because I turned the mussel magic against him on the
Carfax
. But did he give me any choice?”

She began to walk back and forth in front of the web. She’d rather have had this conversation with someone who could give her advice. But even if the companions here in Aelenium were
on her side—the pirate princess Soledad, Captain Walker, and his best friend, Buenaventure, the giant with the head of a dog—none of them could really put themselves in her place.

Except perhaps Griffin. But Griffin had vanished. His sea horse had returned to Aelenium alone. At the thought of him, Jolly felt her knees grow weak. Before they could give way, she dropped down onto the floor, rather clumsily, and sat cross-legged. It was too late to hold back the tears that were running down her cheeks.

“No one can tell me what’s become of Griffin. Everyone thinks he’s dead. But that can’t be. Griffin’s not allowed to be dead. That’s just how people talk, right? I mean,
not allowed to
…pretty silly, huh? As if there were some sort of rules and regulations.” She shook her head. “I firmly believe he’s still alive.”

The cocoon in the heart of the web pulsed on undisturbed. With every faint expansion, every contraction, a wave ran through the silk like a deep breath.

“What will you have turned into when you come out of this stuff?” she asked. “Do you have any idea yourself? What about the wisdom of the worm
now
?”

She noticed that as she spoke her fingers were clutching her knees so hard that it hurt. Frightened, she let go.

“Forefather and the Ghost Trader whisper together from morning till night. They say the attack on Aelenium is about to happen. And this morning they decided.”

She brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “We’re leaving,” she said wearily. “The practices are finished. I don’t
think Munk and I can do half of what we’re
supposed
to be able to. But there’s no more time. Tyrone’s fleet will be here in two or three days, at the latest, and the deep tribes will probably attack at the same time, or even sooner. No one knows how long the soldiers of Aelenium can hold out. Maybe a few days. Maybe only a few hours.”

Again some time passed in which she said nothing, staring thoughtfully at the attic floor in front of her. She imagined what would happen when the servants of the Maelstrom reached the city. The monstrous whirlpool thundering on the open sea out on the horizon had brought the kobalins under his rule. Thousands of them were advancing on Aelenium in mighty swarms. And the dreaded cannibal king, Tyrone, would fight on the side of the Maelstrom with his fleet.

Sooner or later Aelenium would have to acknowledge defeat. Sooner than ever if she and Munk weren’t successful in conquering the Maelstrom. But the fight for the sea star city was supposed to create the necessary time for them to do just that. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, would lose their lives to gain precious hours and minutes for the two polliwogs to try to close the Maelstrom back into his mussel deep on the floor of the sea.

And besides everything else—Griffin’s disappearance, Munk’s ambition, and fear of the gigantic whirlpool that was bringing all the evil to Aelenium and across the Caribbean—that was what concerned Jolly the most: the fact that men would die in order to support her and Munk. Because they placed all their hopes in two polliwogs.

“I don’t deserve so much trust!” she whispered sadly. “They must know that, mustn’t they? That I’m going to let them down for sure.”

She was just not ready yet. Maybe she never would be. But it no longer mattered. Her departure was decided.

She’d resisted, rebelled against it—all in vain.

The Crustal Breach awaited her.

Her fate.

Jolly stood up, blew a kiss to the cocoon in the center of the web, and wiped the tears from her eyes.

“The rays are ready to leave,” she said. “Captain d’Artois is going to lead us to the Maelstrom. The Ghost Trader is going with us.” She smiled wearily. “And Soledad. You know her—she insisted on coming with us as far as possible. No one dares to contradict her.”

She pulled herself together. “Farewell,” she said sadly. “Whatever you are when you hatch out of that thing—farewell!”

Then she turned, left the cupola chamber, and walked slowly down the narrow stairs. The eyes of the sentry at the door widened when he saw that she had been crying. But he said nothing to her, and for that she was grateful.

“The whale is being attacked!”

Griffin started up. He lowered the hammer with which he’d just struck the first blow and turned his eyes from the coarse wooden chair that lay in front of him on the floor. The twenty-eighth. He’d counted as he went. Twenty-eight
chairs for Ebenezer’s Floating Tavern—the first tavern in the interior of a giant whale.

“Harpoons, Griffin! They’re attacking Jasconius with harpoons!”

“Who is?”

“Who, who…kobalins, of course!” The former monk had appeared in the doorway, arms flailing.

Griffin had believed himself to be looking certain death in the eye when he was swallowed days before by the gigantic animal. But in some amazing way he’d landed in the stomach of the whale very much alive and had been rescued by Ebenezer.

The monk must have gone crazy in the long years of solitude down here, of that Griffin was convinced. His plan to open a restaurant in the stomach of the monster was the best evidence of it. This mad plan was the reason that Griffin was spending his time making chairs and tables. Until he was finished with the job, Ebenezer had threatened, Griffin would never walk on land.

“Harpoons, Griffin!” the monk repeated excitedly. “The kobalins have harpoons.”

Indignant, he was running back and forth in the wood-paneled room. Outside, in front of the opened door, stretched the dark stomach cavity of the giant animal. But here inside, on the other side of the magic doorway, the atmosphere of a solid country house prevailed: very cozy, very comfortable, very well appointed.

“How many kobalins are there?” Griffin asked.

“How should I know? Have you ever heard of a whale that could count?”

Griffin opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment there was an earsplitting noise in the dark grotto of the whale’s stomach. Something shot toward the open door like a wall of shadows, accompanied by a roaring and raging as if someone had torn a hole in the body of the whale.

“Flood!” Griffin bellowed, and then they both plunged forward, threw themselves against the door, and together pushed against it with all their strength.

The house-high wave crashed against the outside and brushed aside the man and boy along with the door. Water shot into the room, swirled over the parquet, flung tools and finished chairs together, and smashed some of them against the walls. Griffin and Ebenezer both howled with pain as their heads and backs were shoved against corners and wooden edges.

The water withdrew just as quickly as it had come. A second flood wave never came. In no time the water began to seep away through the cracks in the floor. When Griffin staggered to his feet with a groan, a damp film over everything was all that was left—but it was enough to make it slippery. With a wild pirate oath he sailed backward onto his behind, landing on his tailbone, and wanting in his pain and rage to throw around all the dumb chairs he’d just made so laboriously.

Ebenezer’s breathing was wheezy. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, listening to the voice of the whale. He claimed that he and the whale understood each other through the power of their minds alone, and Griffin
had become convinced that there was something to that.

Suddenly Ebenezer gasped. “He’s swallowed them,” he said. “Griffin, he’s swallowed the kobalins!” His eyes swept worriedly to the open door and searched the splashing, gurgling darkness out there.

“How many?” Griffin was on his feet in one leap.

Ebenezer groaned. “Not many. But they’re hardly likely to have drowned. It might be that he’s squashed a few of them.”

Griffin hurried to a chest where Ebenezer stored some of the weapons that had collected in the whale’s stomach over the years. Whole shiploads of sabers, daggers, flintlock pistols, and rifles had been swallowed by Jasconius. Unfortunately, the guns were of little use in the whale’s stomach—the dampened powder made it impossible to fire them. And besides, the danger of missing the target and wounding the stomach wall was too great.

Griffin pulled a saber out of the chest, tried its weight in his hand, and also stuck a long knife into his belt. Ebenezer looked from the door back to Griffin. “Are you really going out there?”

“Got any better suggestions?”

The monk was torn. “Jasconius has never swallowed a kobalin. Until now they’ve always given him a wide berth.”

Griffin picked up a lantern and pushed through the door past Ebenezer. “Stay here and bar the door. I’ll see what I can do.”

“We could both hide.”

“And what would become of your tavern? Besides, we’ll
have to go out anyway to look for food soon. The supplies in the kitchen won’t last forever.”

Ebenezer nodded, but he didn’t seem convinced. Griffin was unexpectedly touched by the older man’s concern. Until now he’d rather felt himself the prisoner of the whale and his occupant, just good enough to cobble together the chairs and tables for Ebenezer’s cockeyed dream. But now he realized that the monk liked him. And he couldn’t really deny that it was the same on his part. Ebenezer was certainly a little crazy, quite definitely odd, but he was a lovable fellow.