Across The Sea (20 page)

A thought walloped Francis like
a bag of bricks to the head then. It physically hurt. “You killed
him,” he accused. “You were the skilled assassin they hired. You
killed Robert of Dreighton.” Now Francis himself was furious. “And
I’m sure they gave you loads of gold! Who could have done it but
you? Who would have the heart? That burnt up black heart. And
heaven knows you love your gold.”

Bodin’s angry stare turned. It
changed. His eyes did not look so enraged, as perhaps sad.
Guilt
, Francis thought.
He’s feeling guilt.

Bodin could no longer look into
Francis’ eyes. He turned away. “This is his ship,” Francis
continued. “That’s why she doesn’t have a name. You stripped it
off. You killed him and stole his ship. And everything else he
found out about Atlantis. All for this stupid treasure. For
nothing… you killed a hero.”

Bodin looked down at him, his
face screwed up in repugnance. “He was never a hero. He was
dim-witted and could never bear to walk the streets of London
without having everyone clamour for his autograph. All he craved
was attention. That man was a narcissist, filled with hot, putrid
air. I gave England a bargain. A gift.”

“You murdered someone. In cold
blood. That doesn’t really sound like a gift to me.”

“Can we not shut him up?”
Captain Leonard implored. “Please.”

Francis felt the icy tip of
Ratwell’s sword pressed with more pressure, but he was so incensed
at all these evil, despicable men that he did not care.

Bodin moved out of the room,
leaving Ratwell and Captain Leonard to do with Francis whatever
they wished. “We need him unharmed,” Bodin then muttered as he
walked away. “The brat’s much too important to us.”

Ratwell threw Francis to the
floor. Francis lifted himself to his hands and knees, and Captain
Leonard backhanded him, full swing, across the back of the head.
The Dream Finder gasped again as Francis’ body slapped the floor
once more.

“He is only a small boy!” she
shouted.

Ratwell and Leonard chuckled as
they vacated the room.

As Francis stood, he caught the
Dream Finder staring at him with what looked like pity. He turned
away, holding his loose belt, and walked out into the corridor,
shutting the door behind him. Bodin stood in the open doorway of
their chamber. He never looked at Francis as he let him walk past.
Francis hopped into his hammock, his heart racing and his face
flush. Bodin shut the door and walked toward his own bed.

* * *

It was a only few hours later
when the sun shimmered through the white clouds, and far away, on
Modo’s ship, Lily was in Mica’s stable, petting him on his soft
nose. She wanted to brush him but she thought Mister Wazee might
notice that someone else was tending to his coat so she decided not
to. She heard a voice just outside the stable. It was the slithery
drawl of the pasty-faced man, Modo. He was going on about being
cheated out of something. Lily moved to the door to listen. Mister
Wazee now spoke.

“It is too late to make an
attempt at impressing the King now. You have been charged with
returning His Majesty’s horse to land.”

“Come with me,” Modo replied,
in his accented drawl. “I would like to, at the very least, hint at
my capabilities.”

“Modo, this is no time to
attract the attention of the British.”

Lily heard Modo and Mister
Wazee step away. She pulled open the door to the stable and poked
her head out to look at where they were heading. The sails were
down, and the ship immobile.

Toward the stern, Lily saw Modo
unlock a door to what looked like a small cabin and then both men
stepping down a narrow stairway, Mister Wazee shutting the door
behind them. Lily stepped out of the stable and crouched down
behind a nearby barrel. The way was clear. Lily moved, opened the
door and stepped down the narrow staircase herself. She saw light,
shining from the room below. She treaded to the bottom of the
stairs, and discovered that the room was much larger than what she
had expected. The side walls were part the ship’s hull and were
dark wood. Black-stained, grey blankets covered three large objects
which each stood in different areas of the room.

Four closed gun port doors hung
on each side of the ship’s hull.

Lily hid behind the covered
shape closest to her. It was just over four feet high and four feet
wide. She poked her head around to spy on the two men. Modo stood
before another covered shape. He pulled the grey blanket off,
revealing a table underneath with a vast array of polished, black
and silver metal tools.

“What are those?” Mister Wazee
asked.

“Weapons,” Modo answered. “My
collection,” he added with great pride. “I created each piece
myself. All for the King’s army of course, once we face
battle.”

“You are young, Modo,” Mister
Wazee said. “You have yet to witness battle in your short life.
War, I can assure you, has no use for toys.”

“Toys?” Modo erupted. “And what
do you know of battle? You are but a mere stable hand.”

“One who only tends to horses,”
Mister Wazee replied, “which are about to enter into battle.
However this…” he said, gesturing toward all the items on the
table. “Surely the King did not employ you for all this. You,
yourself, are but one of His Majesty’s many stewards.”

“With his own ship,” Modo
argued, between clenched teeth. “I am his favourite. That is why he
entrusts me with his horse.”

“His Majesty has let you
indulge in your fantasies long enough,” Mister Wazee retorted, his
voice rising. “If you do not cease plying him with your silly
inventions, he will be rid of you soon, you can be certain of
that.”

“Well, perhaps I should indulge
you
,” Modo burst. “This very minute.”

He moved to the starboard side
of the room, past where the third covered object stood. Modo lifted
one of the gun port doors, swinging it upwards, and hooking the
lifted door onto the wall.

“What are you playing here?”
Mister Wazee asked, moving closer toward Lily’s end of the room. He
lifted open a second gun port door and hooked it to the wall just
as Modo had done. Through this gun port, Lily could see the sea,
and a ship, not so far in the distance.

This must be the British
ship that Mister Wazee doesn’t want Modo to attract attention
from
, she thought then.

“Believe me,” Modo said,
smiling as he yanked the blanket off the covered object before him,
this time revealing a glimmering, black monstrosity of a cannon. “I
am not playing.”

This portly contraption sported
three ample-sized barrels to fire roundshots from instead of just
the usual one. A telescope was mounted on the top barrel, and all
three barrels sat on an upward slant on a lustrous, black,
two-wheel carriage. Beside the carriage lay a stack each of silver
and black cannonballs.

“Do not do this!” Mister Wazee
shouted. “You shall only annoy them and they, in turn, shall
respond by blowing us
and
the King’s horse to itty
bits!”

Modo grinned as he looked
through the telescope and positioned his triple-barrelled weapon.
He pressed the gunlock. “I have never tried it on a real ship
before.”

“All the reason why you should
abort this idiocy,” Mister Wazee answered, stepping toward Modo
himself. “We need to move away, now, before they suspect us of
being with the Armada.”

Pawk
! The cannon kicked
back, shaking the floor and making Mister Wazee almost fall
back.

“What have you done!” Mister
Wazee shouted, regaining his balance.

Lily looked out at the water
again as the air tasted like spicy powder. She could still see the
British ship. She wondered if Modo had hit his intended target.
No, the British ship is too far.

Modo pulled his cannon back
with great effort.

“Do not worry yourself thin,”
he told Mister Wazee. He picked up a wooden stick from a bucket of
water near his feet. The stick had a dripping, wet cloth tied in a
knot at the bottom end. “They are much too far to retaliate.”

Modo inserted the wet cloth end
of the stick into the cannon opening and swabbed back and forth
three times. He placed this makeshift mop back into the bucket and
picked up a ladle from a cloth sack on the floor. The ladle was
filled with white powder. He ladled all the powder into the opening
of the top barrel and then grabbed another stick by the wall and
inserted it into the cannon, pressing the powder to the back of the
barrel. He placed the stick down and loaded a silver ball into each
opening.

“Now pay close attention,” Modo
said, pushing the cannon back toward the gun port. “The first shot
was only a warning.”

“You are not following His
Majesty’s orders,” Mister Wazee answered. “I must advise you to
cease this attack immediately.”

Pawk
!
Pawk
!
Pawk
! The cannon shot three times, each shot from a
different barrel.

“Yaaaaaaaaa!” Modo burst. “The
range it can cover is unparalleled.”

Jolted, Lily hung onto the
covered object before her to retain her balance. She looked out at
the sea. A small puff of white smoke burst forth from the British
ship, followed a split second later by a far-off
pok
. The
British ship had just fired its own cannon.

“We must move away, Modo!”
Mister Wazee cried.

“We are perfectly fine,” Modo
assured, reloading his canon with more silver roundshots. “Their
cannon will never reach us from this distance.”

Modo stopped what he was doing
and watched as the British roundshot splashed into the sea before
them. “Idiots!” he yelled, and then laughed. He pressed the gunlock
another time.

“You are doing this again?”
Mister Wazee asked.

“Yes!” a festive Modo answered.
“I did not know how much fun it would be!”

Lily moved from her hiding
spot. She had to find a way to stop him.

Pawk
!
Pawk
!
Pawk
!

The cannon shot three times,
rocking Modo’s ship with its raucous blasts and making Lily fall on
her back.

Lily jumped to her feet and
looked out at the British ship. It now appeared to be leaning
toward its starboard side. Its bow lifted up into the air and, at
an alarming rate, the ship’s stern sank into the water. The entire
vessel slipped downwards and was soon gone from sight – Lily could
only see water, two lifeboats and a few men as they climbed up from
the sea aboard the boats.

Pawk
!
Pawk
!
Pawk
!

Modo’s cannon went off again
and Lily crouched down to maintain her balance. She looked up.
There were no lifeboats in the distance. Vanished. The men from the
British ship were now stranded at sea, or worse, dead, and Lily had
done nothing to help them. But what could she have done? She had
not anticipated any of this.

I have to help the
survivors
, she told herself, hiding once more behind the
blanket-covered object.

Modo smiled at Mister Wazee,
brushing his long, dark bangs from his pallid face. “What do you
think of my weapons now? What do you think of me?”

Mister Wazee just muttered
something to the effect that it was all very impressive but his
tone of voice suggested that he was embarrassed at having doubted
Modo’s cold, technologically advanced, efficient brutality.

* * *

Captain Strick, standing on the
deck of the HMS Glide, looked out at the empty waters with his
telescope. He had just witnessed, with utter shock, the HMS Clear
being obliterated on the horizon.

Impossibly, it appeared a
diminutive, stationary, black ship in the distance had done the
deed.

Strick was in a difficult
position. Moving in to rescue the survivors would have to wait
until he and his crew could properly defend themselves against this
fatal, black sprite.

Before the surprise attack, the
HMS Clear and the HMS Glide had been in the process of following
orders to meet with the rest of the Royal Naval Fleet.

BOOM
!

Captain Strick was knocked
over. Something had just rammed the side of the ship.

Strick lifted his head from the
deck. “Kenworth!” he barked. “Port! Cannons at the ready!”

“Aye, Captain,” answered First
Lieutenant Kenworth, short of breath.

Captain Strick stood,
repositioning his telescope to his right eye. He saw a cloud of
white smoke rise from the black ship’s starboard side.

“Brace yourselves!” Strick
yelled. He grasped onto the side of his ship and ducked.

BAM
!

Another roundshot struck the
Glide.
We are being demolished
, Strick thought.

He stood up straight.

BAM
!

Strick fell forward, on his
face.
Surely they cannot have more than one cannon on that
thing.

BA-BAM
!

Yet again.
What was
that?
Strick thought.
That roundshot sounded different from
the others.

As he shuffled to his feet,
crackling flames rose from the port side. He backed away. The HMS
Glide was on fire.

* * *

Francis awoke. There were men’s
voices outside the room. He turned to Bodin’s bed. It was empty. He
stood out of his hammock, stepped into his breeches and shoes and
walked to the door. He peeked into the corridor. The men were gone.
They’re all out on deck
, Francis thought. He noticed the
keyhole lock on the Dream Finder’s door. It had been replaced with
an older, rusted one.

Francis turned back and moved
to the table beside Bodin’s bed. He snatched the candle and candle
holder, and proceeded out into the corridor, toward the room with
the desk. As he entered, he pulled the flint from his pocket and
lit the candle. He then rubbed one hand along the wall until he
found the edges of the secret door. He grabbed the thin, square key
from his pocket, inserted it into the invisible gap and drew it
down.