It had been two nights and days since
they set sail to find the Black Ship, and the crew was beginning to
become restless and tense. Sabre was pacing back and forth across
the deck as Corsair leaned over the railing, his head resting in his
paws.
“I thought you said we were going to
see some action?” she said, annoyed, her tail swishing back and
forth. “It's been two nights now and we haven't seen so much as a
black speck.”
Corsair made no reply. He was trying
to sort out where they could have gone wrong. “Surely, the Black
Ship must travel across water, like any other ship.” he thought.
“How could it elude us when we've given it nowhere else to go?”
“The Black Ship's not natural”,
said Pegleg, as if reading Corsair's thoughts. “It doesn't sail
the seas the way that we do, it just appears in the dead of night,
bringing nothing but trouble to all those who set eyes upon it.”
Sabre laughed derisively. “Don't
tell me you believe that. We've followed the Black Ship before, it
rides atop the waves just like any other ship. If the sun hadn't
rose we would have caught it.”
“Maybe so, but who know what horrible
things we would have found? There's something about that ship that's
not right, I tell you.”
Corsair thought back to the strange
experience he'd had when they found the Black Ship the first time.
He hadn't told anyone else about the strange white room, the
dark-skinned man, or the strange void that lay beyond the door. He
looked back to the two of them, Sabre pacing restlessly and Pegleg
covering behind the mast, and he decided he would continue to keep
that part to himself.
“In any case”, Cross piped in,
“we'll have to make a decision soon, we're near the end of the
known waters. Do we turn back?”
“We press on”, Corsair answered,
quickly. “We've come this far, we might as well see this through
to the end.” He still wasn't convinced that his theory could be
wrong.
Night slowly gave way to dusk, and the
air grew cold as they approached the edge of the world they knew.
Beyond this point the waters were rough and the winds pushed back
against ships that tried to cross, rendering it virtually impassable.
Corsair slammed his paws on the railing. “It's no use.” he
said, “We might as well go back. The Black Ship must have slipped
by us.”
No sooner had he turned away from the
railing did he spot Pegleg sprinting over to him as fast as he could,
his arms flailing wildly. “Captain! The Black Ship! It's behind
us!”
Gritting his teeth, Corsair ran to the
rear of the ship. Sure enough, under the faint light of dusk the
frame of a boat could be seen in the distance, traveling
perpendicular to their current course. “I told you!” He cried,
shaking Corsair by his shoulders, “See how it appears out of
nowhere!”
“Calm down”, Corsair clasped his
paws around the hysterical sailor as he darted off towards the helm.
“It's a swift-moving ship with black sails, we probably just didn't
spot it in the dark. It's not coming straight towards us anyway.”
He took the wheel in his hands and turned it hard. “We're bringing
the ship around!” he shouted. “We're in pursuit of the Black
Ship!”
Pegleg dove to the deck and folded his
arms over his head as ship gradually swung around. Cross examined
the Black Ship through a spyglass. “It's really moving now,
Captain. We'll have a hard time catching up, it'll take us a while
to get back up to speed.”
“Odd”, Corsair thought aloud, “it
barely seemed to be moving at all just moments ago, and now that
we're coming after it it pours on steam. It's almost as though it
wants us to follow.”
“No, it's a trap, and we're sailing
right into it!” Pegleg wailed, pathetically.
“I don't care whether it's a trap or
not”, said Sabre, licking her claws with anticipation. “I can't
wait to catch it and see who's on board. Then I'll show you there's
no such thing as a disappearing ship.”
“That's assuming we can catch up to
it at all.” Corsair said, gripping the wheel tightly and guiding
the ship towards an intercepting course.
“We will, I have faith in you.” she
said, putting her paw on Corsair's arm and giving it a little
squeeze. “You said we'd find it and we did. Now let's go get
them!”
In her excitement, she squeezed his arm
very hard, and Corsair was briefly overcome with doubt as he
remembered the pain he'd felt in his arm after he had encountered the
Black Ship the last time. Could Pegleg have been right? Was there
truly something sinister about the Black Ship? He had chased after
it without hesitation, but he could be leading them all into grave
danger.
But there was nothing to be done about
it now. The sun was already rising in the sky and the Black Ship lay
dead ahead. He was going back there, wherever he had been.
---
Corsair regained his awareness to the
sound of people talking and milling about. For a moment, he dared to
hope he might be in a place he knew well, like a market or a tavern,
but he opened his eyes to find himself in a small carpeted room with
large windows on one side. It was elaborately furnished, with ornate
lamps, plush furniture, flowers, and an elaborate wooden chest. He
judged there to be about 20 people in the room, most talking in small
groups, others sitting down and sipping glasses of wine. He let out
a sigh of relief. “It's some kind of upper-class party”, he
thought to himself, noting his own jacket and tie. “Perhaps the
captain of the Black Ship intends to meet us here.” He
straightened his tie and smoothed out his shirt. “I'll show him
that I can play the diplomat when the situation calls for it.”
Corsair proceeded to a table at the
back of the room to pour himself a glass of wine. He sipped at it,
it was a sweet white wine with a very mild taste. On the table
beside the wine he spied a notebook, similar to the one he kept in
his cabin. He opened it to the first page, where a variety of
stranger names were written. He quickly scanned the list for Steven,
but that name did not appear. The rest of the pages seemed to be
blank. “Won't you sign your name?”, someone asked him, giving
him a pen. He briefly considered writing “Corsair”, but thought
better of it, and wrote “Steven” instead, and closed the book.
He returned the pen, and left the table hurriedly.
He chose a seat on a sofa next to a
rather large woman who was telling a story to several other women
seated nearby: “We had such a good time at college, you know”,
she said. “She was always the responsible one. I would be out
until one in the morning at the pub, then she would drag me home and
remind me that I had four finals the next day. And then I'd ask her
why she had been on the phone with her boyfriend for the last five
hours when she was writing the same finals, and she'd say that I was
drunk and needed to get to bed.” The woman laughed. “Those were
the days...” she pined, wistfully. Corsair polished off his wine
and went for another glass.
After pouring himself another, he went
to join another group of people who were standing in one corner of
the room. “They'll never be able to replace her”, one of the men
remarked, drinking from his own glass.
“No”, said another, “She truly
was one of a kind.”
“To her”, they agreed, in unison,
raising their glasses. Corsair raised his as well.
Corsair's attention was suddenly drawn
by the sound of someone crying softly, and he saw a man sitting on
one of the chairs wiping his eyes with a handkerchief while a woman
patted him on the back.
“We hadn't spoken in a long time.”
His voice was broken up and hoarse: “I just wish I had a chance to
say goodbye.” The woman patted his back reassuringly.
“Are you all right?” Corsair asked
the man.
“I will be”, he managed, “it's
just too much for me right now.” He started crying again. Corsair
finished the last of his drink, and returned to the table.
As he picked up the wine bottle yet
again, someone tapped Corsair on the shoulder. “Excuse me”, a
deep voice interrupted him, and a chill ran up Corsair's spine. He
put the bottle back down and turned around, and a dark-skinned man
with pale yellow eyes stood before him. He looked straight at
Corsair, stone-faced and inescapable.
“Sir, do you not wish to pay your
respects?”, the man asked him, gesturing towards the chest by the
window. “Everyone else has already done so, and we'll be closing
soon.” Corsair thought he caught the slightest glimpse of a smile
on the man's face, which made him feel even more ill at ease.
The crowd fell silent as Corsair
cautiously approached the chest. It had a lid, which was closed. He
put his hands on the edge of the lid and opened the chest.
There was someone inside.
The lid nearly slipped from his hands,
but he regained his composure and lifted it all the way up where it
snapped into place and took a closer look at the person inside. It
was a woman, lying on her back, with her paws folded over her chest
and her eyes closed. On the right side of her face was a dark patch
of fur, and there was another on her right shoulder.
“Sister...” he said out loud, in
disbelief. She made no reply.
“Sister!” he called to her, lifting
her paw, but there was no response, and her paw just slumped back
down with a quiet thump the moment he released it. The room was
completely silent. “What are you doing?” he demanded of her.
“Answer me!”
Slowly, one of her eyelids lifted, but
there was no pupil underneath. “Why?” asked Sister's voice, but
it sounded far-off and strained. “Why, Corsair? Why did you leave
me? I needed you. Why?” Corsair stood there, frozen.
A bony paw reached out to him. “Stay
with me.” The paw grabbed his throat, and he dropped his wine
glass. “Stay forever.” He felt the chest tipping backwards, and
he tried to scream, but he could not, the paw's grip on his throat
was too strong. There was the sound of glass shattering, and the
chest and Corsair tumbled out the window. As he fell, he thought he
caught a glimpse of the dark-skinned man in the window. He fell past
the entrance to the building and hit the ground hard, hurting his
back terribly. To his side was a wall of earth, but there was light
above them, and he quickly deduced he must have fallen into a hole in
the ground. He tried to reach out, but dirt was pouring in above
him. It quickly covered the hole completely and blotted out all
light.
Corsair tried to scrape against the
earth covering him, but he could hardly move. “Isn't this better?”
Sister's voice asked, hauntingly.
“No!” He cried. “We have to get
back!” He tried to throw his weight into the wall of earth above,
but it was no use. It didn't shift an inch. He was completely
trapped.
“Our adventures have to end someday”,
the voice said, and he felt the bony arms wrapping around his body,
squeezing him. “At least now we'll always be together.”
“Help me!”, he cried out,
desperately. “Somebody, help!” He felt his awareness slipping
away as her arms gripped him tighter. He tried to yell again, but
she pressed her lips tightly against his and he couldn't even
breathe. Just before he faded completely he thought he heard a
scraping sound coming from above...
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