The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [93]
Charles and Bert could not resist casting fearful glances at the sky now and again, but the monkeys did not reappear.
Inside of an hour, they exited the forest and found a well-crafted dock with a broad raft, and a cable strung overhead to guide the raft across the water to the neighboring island.
Carthos Mors bowed again, this time to each of them in turn before facing Laura Glue. She laughed and scratched the scruff of his neck. The wolf hesitated, then licked her, once, with a great pink sandpaper tongue.
“Fare thee well, Daughter of Eve,” he said before disappearing into the trees.
Moving onto the raft, the companions unfastened the moorings and quickly moved away from Centrum Terrae.
Crossing to the next island was much less stressful than the crossing from Haven had been, or even the crossing from Croatoan Island to Haven. As Daedalus had said, the tides had indeed receded, leaving only a shallow track of water to guide the raft through. It beached some distance out from the approaching dock, and the companions were easily able to cross the rough, pebbled ground to the Hooloomooloo.
The pirate island existed in the same geographic space as the other islands they’d seen, but instead of being illuminated by the wan, omnipresent light from above, Hooloomooloo seemed mired in perpetual twilight.
There were wisps of fog drifting about, grazing at the edges of buildings before moving on to other pastures.
The entire island was built up in a shantytown of shacks and taverns. Every inch of arable ground was covered in hastily constructed buildings that looked as if they might collapse in a stiff wind. There were rings of docks lining the visible shoreline, and surprisingly, they were filled with ships.
Whatever or whoever had torched the ships of the Archipelago had obviously not done so here.
“Remember Daedalus’s warning,” Bert cautioned. “He said to skirt the island and avoid any contact with the inhabitants, if we can.”
Moving under cover of the fog and mist, the companions kept close to the docks, with the expectation of using the bulk of the ships for hiding places if they encountered anyone. But they never did.
There were a number of cats mewling about the docks, fighting over scraps of fish and offal and proclaiming their love for one another in screechy sonnets sung from fence tops, but those were the only living creatures they saw until they reached the far side of the island.
There, at a waypost, they found a single, solitary sentry. They would have taken pains to avoid him altogether, but the mists obscured their sight, and they were upon him before they had a chance to hide.
He was a pirate, grizzled, old, and garbed as they expected a pirate to be, with broad pantaloons, thick boots, a weathered captain’s coat, and a tricornered hat. He also wore a patch over one eye and waved at them as they approached.
“Be ye friend or be ye foe?” the sentry called out. “Old Pew, he would rather you were friend, for I’m afeared that my fighting days be numbered, they be.”
Unlike with the wolves, Laura Glue was frightened, and she kept hidden behind Bert and Aven. Jack eyed the pirate with a curious expression, though, and Charles and John both realized that a direct answer would be best.
“We are, ah, we be friends, yes,” Charles stammered. “Aren’t we, John?”
John stepped forward and handed the pirate a folded piece of parchment Daedalus had placed in his bag. “Yes, friends,” he said.
Pew unfolded the parchment and gasped, then switched the patch to the other eye and looked at it more closely.
“You have Hook’s Mark,” he said with awe. “Ye may not be friends, I thinks, but ye be not enemy, either.”
On the parchment was a black spot. But it was apparently enough of a passport to allow them to move through unhindered.
Pew took off his hat, exposing a nearly bald pate covered in the thinnest of gray hair, and bowed deeply, pointing.
Just past the end of the dock was a large, flat stone, rising almost a foot above the water. Through the fog, they could see that it was only the first of a line of stones,