Across The Sea (26 page)

Francis and Lily watched as
Bodin stood and placed the silver key ring back inside his
robes.

Alianna turned to Michael.
“Close your eyes,” she said, in her soft, warm voice. Michael did
as he was told.

“Find the girl on the dock that
I spoke of, Alianna,” Bodin instructed. “Linger not in the
meaningless passageways of his mind, or I shall begin... with the
little girl.”

Alianna took both Michael’s
hands in hers and closed her own eyes.

“And I will know if either of
you lie,” Bodin warned. “I will know if you tell me the incorrect
location.”

Francis noticed that Alianna
was no longer paying attention to what Bodin was saying. She
appeared to be in a trance, tilting from side to side. She shook
then.

Francis’ eyes
widened.
What just
happened
?

The Dream Finder opened her
eyes, turning her head to stare up at Bodin. “You…” she said.

“What?” Bodin asked.

“I just saw inside your
dreams,” she replied.

“What are you going on about?”
Bodin hissed, irritated.

“You spoke,” she said. “And
your dreams came to me.” She paused as she tried to take a better
look into his eyes. “You have seen terrible things. Terrible,
terrible things.”

A chill shot up through
Francis.

“Get on with it,” Bodin
charged.

Alianna turned away, closing
her eyes again and tightening her grip on Michael’s hands. Michael
closed his eyes again as well.

Francis looked up at Bodin. He
appeared jolted – his stare more intense – by what Alianna had just
told him.

“I see inside,” Alianna said.
“There is water. The sea. An empty sky…”

The Dream Finder stopped, as if
hesitating, searching. Francis looked at Michael. He was now
rocking from side to side himself.

“A dock,” the Dream Finder
said. “And a young woman. Ill. She holds her secret close to her
heart.”

“Where is the Acadae!” the King
shouted.

Bodin shot him a severe
look.

“There is a barrier,” the Dream
Finder said, her eyes remaining shut. “Beyond it lies a heart. The
earth shook once. Things changed. All around. And this heart was
broken.”

The Dream Finder said nothing
for a moment, then concluded with, “That is all.” She opened her
eyes and looked up at Bodin. “That is all she hid inside this boy’s
mind.”

The King turned to Bodin. “What
does it mean?” he asked.

“Red herrings,” Bodin replied.
He stepped toward Alianna. Michael, eyes remaining closed, was now
still as a statue.

“You are not looking hard
enough,” Bodin continued to Alianna. “I know. There is more. Tell
me now.”

Alianna shook her head. “There
is nothing else…”

“There is more!” Bodin
boomed.

Alianna shuddered. As did
Francis and Lily.

Bodin’s face was red. He was
flustered. Disappointed. And enraged. “There is more, Alianna,” he
said between clenched teeth. “Find it!”

Francis
swallowed. He was scared. What would Bodin do to them if the Acadae
could not be found? After everything they had done. Francis
swallowed again.
There is
more
, he realized.
Alianna is
holding back.
She doesn’t want these killers
to lay their hands on the Acadae. She doesn’t want that weapon used
again.

Alianna turned to look at
Michael. She squeezed his hands and closed her eyes again.

Bodin took a step back. He
placed his right index finger and thumb against his forehead,
trying to concentrate and focus through his rage.

Francis felt free. No one was
watching him. He could run off now if he wanted to. But he would
never leave Michael behind. Or Lily and Alianna. He turned to look
at Bodin again.

Bodin was not there.

No one had noticed. Bodin was
gone.

Francis moved backward a few
steps. Lily looked up at him. Francis shook his head, raising his
left hand to signal stop. Lily understood. He was going after the
square keys and she was to stay behind. If both attempted to leave
the cave, someone would notice.

As everyone waited to hear what
the Dream Finder would say next, Francis slipped out of the cave
and into the main tunnel. He hurried in the direction they had all
just arrived from, and caught a fleeting glimpse of Bodin’s brown
robes as Bodin turned a corner. Francis hated leaving his brother
and friends behind with those cruel men but he needed the special
keys to free Michael. He could not let Bodin leave the island with
those keys.

He raced to the corner and
spied Bodin turning into a tunnel opening on his left.

Bodin bent down and crawled
into a hole, approximately four feet in diameter, drilled right
into the rock.

* * *

At the other
end of the long, slim tunnel, Bodin dropped down into a cave and
lit a series of four torches affixed along the wall. He was certain
no one was following him as he scanned the colossal cave he had
just entered. The rock ceiling hung forty feet above. He stepped
with purpose toward the high wall across from him. Hundreds of
holes, one foot in diameter, had been drilled into this wall. At
the centre, a square
had been dug out,
three feet long on every side, revealing a grey, metal square
inches deeper into the stone. Bodin grabbed a tall, wooden ladder
leaning against the wall and moved it several feet to his left
before climbing up halfway. With one hand, he reached into a hole
and pulled on a handle inside. He moved back down the ladder,
stepped to his right, past many holes, bent down and reached into a
hole at his knees. He pulled another handle inside. He moved back
to his right, reached into another hole almost at floor level and
pulled yet again.

The metal square pushed
forward.

Bodin moved the ladder, climbed
to the metal square and pulled the loosened object a good twelve
inches back before the thick, solid piece ended and fell into his
arms. He moved the heavy piece down the ladder, placed it on the
floor and hurried back up to the square hole. A dozen inches deep
sat a rectangular, brownish, metal box.

Francis
watched all of this lying down, on his stomach, hidden inside the
constricted tunnel. Bodin
had
received everything he had needed from the Dream
Finder. What she had told them
had
been enough. It had given Bodin the clues he
needed to open up this piece of wall, even if the Dream Finder had
attempted to provide him with as little information as possible.
Francis watched as Bodin pulled this brown, metal device from the
wall. It was no bigger than three large books stacked together, and
perhaps just as heavy. That is all, however, that Francis could
make out, for once Bodin stood back on the floor, the giant’s back
blocked it from view.

“So, what are you going to do
with it?” a voice asked behind Bodin. “Sell it to the one who
offers you the most gold?”

Bodin did not turn around nor
did he whip out his sword as Francis had half expected him to. The
other half almost knew that this is how he would react. Francis
lowered himself from the tunnel and stood by its entrance.

Bodin, with his back still
facing Francis, knelt with the box. No one would ruin this moment
for him. He had laboured a lifetime for it.

“Or maybe now you can control
all of England,” Francis suggested. “Or maybe even destroy it. The
entire place. Get back at them for what they did to your family.
Maybe after that, you won't need to hurt anybody else.
Anymore.”

Bodin remained silent as he ran
his hands over the rectangular box. He did this with extreme care,
as if any thoughtless move could set the weapon off.

“That was a long time ago,”
Bodin responded finally.

“It still happened,” Francis
stated. “A long time didn’t undo it.”

“England would deserve nothing
less,” Bodin said, gripping the ancient, brown box. “They razed
that village to the ground.” He stood. “They left nothing but
ashes. Not even air to breathe.” He remained standing in place,
with his back still to Francis, as if pondering to himself. “Just
ashes,” he continued. “You choked on them as you walked through.
Everything was burnt. No prisoners, no dead bodies.”

And then he cried out, “I came
home to ashes!”

Francis shook, startled by the
sudden shout.

Bodin turned. “I spent years
looking for who was responsible,” he continued, at low volume
again. “Who lied about our village. Who gave the order in the
Military. No one would answer me. It was as if everyone in the
Kingdom was involved in the treachery. And for the crime that was
committed in the name of God, no one has ever paid.”

“You have,” Francis said.

Bodin was speechless. He looked
pained, as if his heart had just been gripped by Francis’ two
words.

“Where did you all run off to?”
a voice spoke behind Francis.

Francis turned at once. Behind
him, Lily was pushed into the immense cave from the tunnel. She was
followed by Ratwell, who whipped his sword up to the side of her
neck. Captain Leonard, who had just asked the question, Elroy,
Martino, the Spanish guard, and even the King of Spain all
followed.

As he backed away, Francis
hoped with everything he had in him that they had left Alianna and
Michael unharmed. He looked into Lily’s eyes. She did not appear
scared but Francis guessed that she was masking her fear.

“You were double-crossing me,”
the King accused Bodin. “All along. Was I not paying you
enough?”

Bodin said nothing.

Captain Leonard smirked and
shook his head at Bodin, as though chastising him.

“The Acadae was always much
bigger than you,” the King continued. “You only wanted to treasure
it. Like some toy. Something to make you feel superior inside.
Something to comfort you. But the responsibility of the Acadae was
never meant for you. You were always such a child.”

“Grandeur,”
Bodin muttered. “That was what
you
always wanted it for,” he then said clearly. “To
fulfill your destiny as you used to say.”

“Whoever cradles the Acadae,
cradles the world. You were never a ruler, Robert. You are and will
always be a soldier, following orders.”

“Who is the child now?” Bodin
asked. “You have always had such delusions regarding your stature.
Your destiny…” Bodin drenched that last word with much disdain.
“What is power for really but for a lonely child left in the dirt,
alone, trying to make everyone stop to listen, and not leave.”

“And what have you become?” the
King asked.

Bodin never answered.

“I should have done this years
ago,” the King said, turning to Ratwell. “Kill this relic,” he
ordered. “Time is of the essence.”

Ratwell smiled as he shoved
Lily to the hard floor, moving forward, but he stepped back then
and swung his sword backward, piercing one of the King’s royal
guards right through the heart.

Francis reached for Lily and
pulled her aside.

Martino and the eleven other
royal guards encircled their king, drawing their swords. Ratwell
pulled his own talisman out of the dead guard’s heart, letting the
corpse fall away.

“You have committed a grave
mistake, Mister Ratwell,” the King fumed.

“The mistake was all yours,”
Captain Leonard said.

Ten guards turned and thrust
their swords into the King, as the eleventh plunged his through
Martino’s back.

Bodin looked on, stunned.

Captain Leonard stepped between
the guards toward their dying king, still skewered on all ten
swords. “Well,” he began. “While your aim for owning the Acadae may
have been power, ours is finance. Why bother with the work of
governing the world when you can own everything in it? Think of all
the funds we’ll raise, coercing entire countries, kingdoms, with
the threat of being drowned. Your goals may have been ambitious,
but ultimately, not practical enough for eleven of your
guards.”

The King had one last breath in
him. He used it to look over at Bodin and exhale, “We were never
this ruthless…”

Bodin looked upon him,
unfeeling. “You’re being nostalgic,” he said. “We were plunderers
and killers.”

Everyone retrieved their
swords, and let the King fall, dead.

“You never told me this part of
your plan,” Bodin announced, toward Leonard.

“I did not trust you,” the
Captain answered. “And now I can see why.”

“But you told the King’s own
guards. They are strangers to you.”

“It needed to be done. I needed
the King’s men just as he believed he needed mine. He should have
known better than to deal with pirates.”

“I don’t take too kindly to
being lied to.”

“Really?” Leonard said. “You
were about to leave us all here, empty-handed. Bodin, I just saved
your life. I suggest we leave now and as we all merrily sail away,
we can gleefully determine how to divide our future earnings.”

Bodin was quiet for a moment
before he responded with, “Very well.”

Leonard turned to Ratwell, and
then glanced toward Francis and Lily.

Francis knew that this was the
order to kill them. He glared up at Bodin as the aging beast
carried the Acadae across the cave.

“You used to help people,” he
said.

Bodin looked down at him,
confused. “What?”

“My brother said you used to
look straight into the eyes of great odds, fear; not because it
made you well-liked or become a legend, but because you were trying
change things. A change for good. Not for glory. Or for people to
want your autograph.”

Bodin looked at Francis as if
the boy had just lost his mind. “Be quiet now,” he ordered. “We
must leave immediately,” he said to Leonard. “Whoever wins up
there, will come looking for us.”