Chapter Text
“I’ll kill them, then revive them and then kill them again.” Layla facepalmed while looking out of the window. In the darkness she saw fire and smoke from over the northern coast.
“What happened there?!” Elsa’s ears rang; all of the sounds seemed to be strangely dimmed.
“The cavalry is coming.” The pirate threw the braids over her back. “And probably Bernard, as per usual, calculated the powder wrong. That’s what happens when your pyro specialist disappears… well. Now we have much less time than I estimated, so follow me, quick!”
She ran to the stairs leading to the higher levels – spiraling like a serpent around the whole chamber. The queen went after her, trying not to look at the dead Vizier.
“But what exactly are we trying to find?” she asked, staring at her friend’s back.
“I’ll tell ya when I’ll find it.” Layla hopped on the steps like a young chamois on the mountain, taking even three in one jump. “But to recap, do you know those storms are his doing?”
“Are they…?”
“Aye! So, I know it probably seems like we do things based purely on luck, but I assure you this is not the case. I don’t think there’s many professors who spend as much time in the libraries as the youngling does. He keeps whining he doesn’t read enough, but it’s just his personality – for him, nothing he does is ever enough— ouch!” He tripped and almost fell; grabbed the railing the last moment. Perhaps she wasn’t as indifferent as it initially seemed. “And when he goes to do research, I go too. And when I go, Bernard goes.” She collected herself and kept on climbing. “So we are regulars in a lot of book places. Heticia was a disappointment, sure, but it still may eventually come in handy. In general – we read a lot.” She pointed at herself. “Especially when we’re not sailing, because, you know, storms, monsoons, etcetera, when you’re stuck in some backwater port in Singapore or on the Saint Helen’s you need to do something with yourself. And it just so comes that we have read a little bit about Rampada before. We even wanted to come here one day to investigate, so it’s a nice surprise the business brought us here sooner than later. That one time when we were in London—”
“What were you doing in London?” Elsa followed her in her own pace and tried not to think about the corpse on the floor.
“The captain’s Kidd treasure, I’ll tell you later, but anyway – we have found a really nice bookstore. Cannot recommend it enough, if you are ever in London, go to Whickber Street, it’s easy to find. The kindest guy runs it, he has a magnificent collection of rare finds. He doesn’t like to actually sell them, but he sometimes lets you take a look.” She smiled over her shoulder. “Especially if you do him a favour first. He gave us this great album about the Coast countries.”
“Gave?”
“Aye, the youngling has it.”
“You just said he doesn’t like to sell books.”
“And he didn’t, he gave it as a gift.”
“What did Hans do to deserve it?”
“Well, it was more a favour for this bookseller’s boyfriend… but you know, ask him, just be sure to have up to three hours of time to listen. Anyway, the author had a hypothesis that the Vizier doesn’t have magical powers like you have.” She stopped for a second and turned around; Elsa almost bumped into her. “That those storms have to be controlled by some thing. I assumed that he hides it where he lives, so I wanted to pop in his house anyway… I have a hunch that it may be some additional feature of the Compass.” She jumped the last few steps, pulled on the doorknob and swore in Spanish. “Of course it’s locked.”
There was a long way down. Elsa involuntarily glanced on the far away floor.
The Vizier was still there. Right in the middle of the room, cluttered by books and signs of great richness. Only now she noticed, she didn’t even know why , the subtle bas-reliefs covering the walls. They depicted intricate geometric patterns, so twisted, interwoven, and overlapping that the walls seemed to undulate. For a moment, she thought they were beautiful.
There were a few dozen mummified bodies in the room next to them.
There was a dead man downstairs.
And right before her stood a pirate who killed him.
Who killed him – to protect her.
Not until now had this fact really got through to her. Layla really did protect her. She protected her from this other prisoner who wanted to snatch her food, she cheered her up in the dungeons and now she killed someone in her defence.
“Layla…” she stuttered and nervously brushed her hair. She felt the muslin from her scarf by the fingertips.
“Aye?” She barely heard her, still trying to work around the lock. “Eh. You don’t happen to have a lockpick on you, don’t you?”
“No. But… I wanted to say thank you. I really appreciate you being here with me.”
Now the pirate turned from the door and looked at her attentionally.
“No problem at all, Icicle,” she eventually said. “And now, if you may just take a step back?”
Elsa obediently walked a few steps down, and then she observed, to her horror, how Layla rams the door with her whole body, trying to bet inside with it… wherever they led to. It had no effect whatsoever. The hinges didn’t even squeak.
“Well, it was worth a try,” she stated, rubbing her sore shoulder. “Well, in this case we have to go down and look for a key. Or for anything that can replace it. A thin piece of wire, maybe a nail, maybe a screwdriver, whatever fits the lock. If you find a hammer or a saw, that’s good too, alright?”
Elsa, having no choice, nodded, and then they went back to the room with thousands of books.
*
This damned path was getting more and more slippery, though it shouldn’t be even physically possible – or maybe they just felt that way, because now they need to walk a lot faster. The rain poured, the wind blew almost surely an eight in the Beufort scale, everyone was exhausted already and their hands were all bloody from a long and complicated climbing, during which they put and secured those wrong-counted explosives.
Hans was sure this whole mission in the best case scenario will result in pneumonia, so when they got thorough the large, gaping hole in the wall he was already in the worst mood and dangerously close to being desperate. And when Hans Westergaard was getting desperate, the things might start happening – the things they would all end up regretting.
Therefore as soon as he got through, he snatched another vial full of colorful liquid from his vest, gave it a good shake, broke off the cap and threw where maybe, behind the thick cloud of dust, he spotted some movement. The effect was as if someone had set off the fireworks. The multicolour stars were born, lived through a few short seconds and exploded in big, sparkly supernovas, whistling, hissing and sizzling. What they left behind was green, acrid smoke, which, in mix with all other things, effectively blinded the approaching group of guards. They started to violently cough, some threw themselves to the ground, one apparently tried to run – but there was also this one, brave idiot, who, upon seeing the invaders, decided to charge at them, sword in hand.
He only stopped when Bernard shot the blunderbuss. In his mind, nothing was better to stop a hothead like this one better than a handful of coarse sea salt. The brave defender of the Isles fell to the floor screaming like a whoop hog; his uniform stopped most of the grains, but those that went through the shirt and caught the skin caused excruciating pain. Blood stains started to appear on the jacket’s front.
“You’ll be fine, you sea slug,” the big pirate spat, keeping his weapon and loading it with another bullet; his voice was slightly muffed by a scarf he tied around his mouth.
“Good job,” Hans admitted, nodding to his crew; they needed to fight off the others while they could. “And now blow up the next wall.”
“What?”
“What?” he frowned. “We can’t do it discreetly no more, right? And we need to get to the lasses as soon as we can! Screw those partisans of yours or whatever they are! *Blow up those walls!” And then he adjusted his own bandana over his face, jumped on the nearest guard and pinned him to the ground. And he spotted a pair of nice, heavy handcuffs on his belt. How nice!
“It would be great—” he said, as they tied up the others, “—if you would quickly tell us where we can find two new women inmates, both blonde, both wear braids and both are clearly not from over here, they were sentenced for sorcery. But you probably don’t know, and if you know, you’re not gonna tell us.” He crouched to check if the locks are tight enough; the sabre on his belt clanked on stones. “But at least you ain’t screaming, because then we would be much more rude.”
“Who ain’t screaming, ain’t,” Bernard grumbled, looking for a right place to glue the next, suspicious packet and nodding towards the lad he hit with the salt. “This one’s going to cough up his own throat.”
“Cap’n, should we shut him up?” Asked one of his crewmates.
“Just gag him with something before my head explodes!” He ordered, marching down the corridor, leading somewhere in the darkness. He hung the blunderbuss over his shoulder, but his hand was still on the sword.
Two pirates immediately went to gag the wounded, but even once his screams were muffled, the giant couldn’t be seen anywhere.
“Captain, you know what?” Egg started, as they sat another guard with his friends; they all seemed disoriented and terrified. “Taking that explosion into account, I’m not sure if we should let him—”
He didn’t make it to the dot at the end of the sentence. Somewhere behind the turn of the corridor another boom could be heard – and the sound seemed to shake all the bricks in the walls.
*
“Are they trying to blow up this whole Isle?!” Layla snapped with contempt, throwing another book at the side.
“Maybe… we should go there or something?” Elsa asked, ripping out a drawer from the wardrobe next to the Vizier's bed – the former vizier's bed - and spilling its contents onto the floor.
“Oh no, me hearty!” She waved her finger at her. “Those may be my best mateys, but I over my dead body I let them— damn!” She slapped her palm to her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of it sooner?!”
She got to the dead Vizier and threw him onto his back, and then started to go through his robe’s pockets. Elsa thought of commenting on it – she surely felt like she should – but at the same moment her gaze wandered to the door of that mass grave over there. So she didn’t.
“Ah-a!” Layla finally lifted her hand as she snapped the delicate chain with the key on the end from the Vizier’s neck – the next which now bore a nasty, red welt on the throat. “Of course you had it on you! Eh. They’re all the same. The youngling’s father also had—” She suddenly stopped, as if realizing she'd said too much. Far too much.
“The youngling’s father?” Elsa’s senses immediately started to tingle. “You mean king Rudolph?”
“Um.” Layla, suddenly skittish, looked to the side. “Yeaaah.”
The queen frowned, recalling the story Hans told them the first night – on how he became a pirate. And since his father played a role there, yes, but not on that night when the pirates attacked. At least he didn’t even peep about him being there at any point. So – how did Layla know where the original key to the treasury in the office was?
“Huh.” She crossed her arms and seized the pirate up. “That’s interesting.”
“I mean, well, Hans told me so later.” She giggled nervously. “You know, because that’s why he had a spare key for himself, because his father always carried the original, so…”
“So he didn’t feel like chasing after him through the whole castle when he came with money, yes, he said that.” Elsa didn’t seem convinced. “And he told you the king wears the original like a necklace?”
“You know how it is, Icicle.” She shrugged and showed the key in her own hand. “Apparently, that’s fashionable nowadays.”
“Maybe, but why did he feel the need to tell you about this detail and only after the attack?”
“Because we didn’t steal as much as we could.” She pouted a little as if insulted. “I couldn’t even take a teaspoon.”
That threw her off the trail.
“A teaspoon?”
“Ah, yes! Because I collect them, you know?” She smiled. “Cutlery in general, but especially the teaspoons. From every place I robbed. Oh, and speaking of it!” She spotted the cup the Vizier left behind, the tea in it now cold, like he was. A small, silver handle stuck out from it. “As if ordered.”
“So…” Elsa once again swallowed any commentary as she looked at how the pirate hid her loot under her shirt. “You intend to go back there?”
“One day, maybe.”
“And rob them for good?”
“Oh, definitely, yes.”
“Hm. Maybe it makes sense. That spare key from the book… probably a goner, right?”
“Elsa, stop interrogating me and come upstairs!” Layla was clearly trying to distract her from the conversation; she was just hopping up the first step. “I have a strange feeling this little gem will fit perfectly in the lock!”
*
“I don’t care if we have to blow up the whole Isle! If we don’t find her, Anna will eat me alive!”
“Licelad, I know you’re panicking on the possibility of her sending you back to daddy wrapped up on the ribbon, but—”
“I’m not!”
“—but let me do my work, damn it!”
Another door in their way. Preposterous.
And then another one, as so many prisons have. Unacceptable.
And another, another, another…
And their trail was marked with the pacified, tried, chained or unconscious guards. Up to this moment they were too surprised to put up a serious fight, but pirates knew they would soon catch a second wind.
“Alright, we’re about to be by the cells.” Bernard once again glues the explosive to the wall which was about to become history . He lit a match on his heel – something Hans still couldn’t learn and envied him of the skill. He put the fire to the fuse.
They both launched back and over the nearest turn. Covered their ears, opened their mouths.
Another big “boom!”, another cloud of smoke, another shake. But now – it was followed by the choir of high-pitched, desperate wails.
“Finally,” Hans muttered, peeking over the bricks.
Dozens of hands peeked out from behind bars on both sides of the corridor. Some held bowls and banged them against the bars. They also saw contorted faces, illuminated only by a dim light of…
Torches. Held by a squad of what looked like thirty guards, standing in the very center of the corridor. They were clearly ready for a fight.
“Take them down!” Their commander barked, drawing out the sword. They came prepared. The guards formed a column and marched on them, banging their blades over the shields with the Rampada’s coat of arms painted on them.
Bernard and Hans looked at each other and then – to their crews. The crews who already held their own cutlasses and sabres, and who, definitely, already had the firearms at stand by.
The sound of the hobnailed boots rang through the walls.
“You remember what I told you in Pouitelle?” Bernard asked, smirking.
“Sure.” Hans smirked back and drew his own revolver. “Never bring a blade to a shooting match.”
”What are you doing here?!”
They looked surprised on the three – apparently – inmates, who seemed to materialize from the thin air on their right. They were dirty with soot and ash, and confused to no end. Their apparent commander clutched a thick stick.
”You were supposed to come quietly!” he yelled, gesticulating like a madman. “Quietly, you said! That was the plan!”
Bernard sighed deeply, at the same time adjusting his blunderbuss.
”Mister Mansur, I presume?”