Jim Morgan and the King of Thieves (32 page)

f it were possible, the next room was even drearier and darker than the Hall of Keys, cold stone blocks jaggedly set in the ceilings and the walls, pitch-black mortar crawling between the cracks. But it was what lined the center of the room that concerned Jim the most, three rows of bronze pillars, standing like limbless trees in a metal forest. More skeletons, draped in shreds of ruined clothing, the scraps clinging to the white bones, lay gathered in sad little clusters around the bases of each pillar like tired workers who sat down for naps, never to rise again.

“Well,” Jim gulped, aghast at the morbid scene. “At least there aren’t any spikes on the ceiling.”

“I suppose that’s a silver lining,” Cornelius agreed as he flapped down beside one of the long-dead raiders of the vault. “So I wonder what got these poor fellows.”

“It looks like they just sat down and died,” Jim said, turning his attention to the tall bronze spires that lined the room. “And what about these? Some are taller than others, and thicker, but they’re just stuck in the ground like flag poles or something.”

“A clue, I’m sure there’s a clue,” the raven cawed, flying back up to perch on Jim’s shoulder. “Let’s find the door.”

They wandered through the orchard of bronze poles for a few moments before finally reaching the red door on the other side. On both the right and the left of the door immensely heavy anchors of bronze hung by rusty chains from holes in the ceiling, balanced upon their points atop narrow, stone perches.

“Strange,” Cornelius murmured in Jim’s ear. “No apparent danger, large spires all over the place, a counterbalance by the door, a whole slew of dead men telling no tales…I’m not so sure I like this room.”

“I don’t like any of this,” Jim said, studying the door. As with the door in the Hall of Keys, this one, too was marked with carved letters of a riddle.

Feet flat, eyes sharp
,

No flags on the poles, no halves, only wholes
,

Solve the clue in guesses two
.

“What does it mean, Cornelius?” Jim asked.

“You’re asking me?” the raven said, ruffling his feathers indignantly. “These are supposed to test you! What do
you
think it means?”

“Well,” Jim said nervously, for this riddle seemed far more difficult than the last. “I mean, I guess there’s a key for the door, and it has something to do with the poles with no flags.”

Cornelius stared at Jim. Jim stared back at Cornelius. “Well, that’s just brilliant,” the raven said.

“All right then,” Jim said, more than a little affronted. “Let’s hear your idea, Mr. Genius!”

“Well, for starters, I don’t think the key is a traditional one like the last time.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Firstly,” Cornelius folded up his wings as though he was putting hands on his hips. “We already had a clue with keys like that and I doubt the maze would repeat itself. And second — this door doesn’t have a keyhole.”

Jim looked at the door handle and, sure enough, found no slot for a key. “Oh, I see,” was all he said, for he was truly stumped by this one and could tell that Cornelius was too, which made him extremely grumpy with the dark-feathered bird and his know-it-all voice. “Maybe it will open like the last one did, just by turning the handle.”

“That’s highly doubtful,” said Cornelius. “I already said, the vault probably wouldn’t repeat either a method or an answer.”

“Well we should try it, just in case,” Jim said crossly, reaching for the handle.

“No, Jim, wait!” Cornelius shrieked, but it was too late; Jim had already grabbed the handle and gave it a sharp turn.

The door refused to budge, much less open, and the room sat quiet as a tomb. “See,” Jim said, actually a little relieved that nothing awful had befallen them when he turned the handle. “It was worth a try. Nothing happened.”

“Ah, yes, fantastic,” Cornelius sighed. “Maybe all these blokes just starved to death from nothing happening!”

“Cornelius, you’re not being very—” A furious scolding was about to fly from Jim’s tongue when a loud groan rumbled from behind the walls. The boy and the bird froze. For a moment, all Jim could hear was his own heavy breathing and the thundering beats of his terrified heart. He almost breathed a sigh of relief when the groaning stopped—until hidden holes in the stone suddenly erupted in spouts of water.

“What manner of devilry is this?” Cornelius flapped his wings in panic. Jim looked all around for some means of escape. Then he glanced down at his feet — the water was already frothing up to his ankles.

“Well,” Jim said matter-of-factly, “I don’t think those other blokes starved to death, anyway.”

“Excellent observation!” the bird cawed. “We need to get out of here, and quickly! Think, boy, think!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Jim cried, the panic rising in his voice. “Maybe we can use the poles to knock the weights off their perches!”

“Try it, try it!”

Jim splashed through the water, already up to his knees, and tugged at the closest pole. “It won’t budge!” he said after yanking at it several times.

“Try another, another!” urged the raven. “Clue said two guesses, so maybe only two move!”

Jim threw himself at two more spires, but not only did they feel firmly planted in the ground, his hands quickly grew slippery in the water, sliding uselessly along the metal poles.

“This isn’t working!” Jim slapped the water, now bubbling up around his waist, with an angry fist.

“Well, we’d better find something that works,” Cornelius fumed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but ravens aren’t exactly built for swimming!”

“Well I don’t know if you noticed, Cornelius, but swimming won’t help either of us when the water rises over our bloody heads!”

“Oh, hang it all, hang it all!” The raven flapped his wings as the water crested Jim’s chest and a pile of bones floated by in roiling foam. “In the clue, the clue! There must be something in the clue!”

Jim tried to concentrate, but the rushing roar of the water and its cold waves were now encircling his neck like a cold noose, making thinking more than a little difficult. “Okay, okay! Keep my feet flat and my eyes sharp,” he said aloud. “Our flags have no poles.”

“A key, a key, and something to do with the poles!” Cornelius squawked, taking to the air and hovering above Jim’s head.

“Yes, I know it’s a key that has something to do with the poles, Cornelius!” Jim raged as the water touched his face for the first time, the terrifying thought of that water covering his mouth, his face, and his eyes
suddenly flashing in poor Jim’s mind. He grabbed a thighbone floating passed his shoulder in the churning waters and waved it at Cornelius. “And if you interrupt my thought process again, you stupid bird, I’m going to knock your head up against one of these stupid poles and put you out of my misery!” And with that, Jim swung the bone hard, striking the closest bronze spire with such furious force that it gonged like a crashing cymbal, louder than Jim ever could have imagined.

Jim looked back at the anchors beside the door. They trembled upon the stone notches, shaking from the vibration of the sound, but not quite enough to be unseated from their perches.

“Cornelius, that’s it! How could I be so stupid?” Jim cursed himself, for fortunately, one of the few things he’d ever paid attention to in his lessons was music. “It’s all in the clue! No halves, only wholes, no flags on the poles, keep flat and sharp — these are notes, notes in the right key! The keys are musical sounds that will knock the weights down and open the door!”

“Brilliant boy! Brilliant!” Cornelius cried. “Get to it, get to it!”

Jim wasn’t a very good swimmer, but he used the bronze poles to help himself stay above the rising water, splashing from spire to spire and striking them with the bone. Finally, he struck one of the right poles and the reverberating note sent one of the weights crashing into the water.

“Yes!” Jim cried and moved on to the next pole. But the water was rising fast and there were still many poles to choose from. Jim coughed and spit as he tried a few more, but he was running out of time, for soon the water would cover all of the poles, and he wouldn’t be able to swing hard enough to ring the notes.

“Hurry, boy, hurry!” Cornelius said, perched atop one of the highest poles, the water moving up fast. Jim was close to the last of the poles, knowing the correct choice was was surely one of the last two before him. But as he reached back to strike, the wet bone slipped from his soaked fingertips.

“No! Cornelius, the bone!” Jim splashed into the water after the bone, but the waves carried it out of reach.

From his perch, Cornelius swooped down and seized the bone in his claws. The valiant bird flapped as hard as he could to carry the bone back to Jim, but the water had almost covered the last of the two spires.

“Cornelius!” Jim gasped, choking on the water that splashed into his mouth. Cornelius tugged the big bone back to within Jim’s reach, but when he set it in the water a wave from the churning tide surged up and caught the poor bird unawares, sinking him under the surface.

“Cornelius! No!” Jim howled, but he could see the bird no more under the white froth and bubbles. There was no time to search. Jim turned back to the poles. There was only time to strike one before the water covered them both. Jim closed his eyes and swung at the one on the right. The crashing tone shook through even the water, and with just enough force, dislodged the final weight. The door opened.

Jim felt the pull of water like powerful hands around his waist, dragging him beneath the surface. He gulped down one last breath, then down he went like a bug caught in a drain. The water flipped and turned him, dragged and spun him, knocking him about and finally spitting him out the door, tumbling him into another hallway.

Jim sat up, coughing and sputtering and spitting up the foul water. He wiped the dripping foam from his eyes and face as best he could, looking around for his winged comrade. Bones and piles of old pirate clothes were everywhere. Then he saw him: a haggard pile of waterlogged feathers in an awful heap. Cornelius’s poor legs stuck straight up in the air, his proud beak open, his little red tongue lolling out the side.

“Cornelius!” Jim cried, hot tears mixing with the cold water already running down his cheeks. Jim crawled through the muck and the bones to the soaked bird’s side and picked him up, cradling him. “Oh, Cornelius,” Jim sobbed, pulling the bird’s still body close to his chest.

“I’m so sorry I said you were stupid. You’re not! You’re brave and you’re kind. I don’t think I ever would have gone with someone into a place like this. Especially not if that person was me. I’m so sorry, Cornelius, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?” a small voice croaked from Jim’s chest. “Sorry for what? You saved our lives.”

Jim’s eyes flew open, and when he looked down, he found the bird looking back at him, with dazed black eyes.

“Cornelius! You’re alive!”

“Yes, yes,” the raven replied, shaking the water from his feathers and all over Jim’s face. But Jim was thrilled to know that his friend was not dead and even laughed as the water splashed him. “I suppose it will take more than a little wetness to finish off old Cornelius Darkfeather.”

“Cornelius, if you hadn’t gotten the bone—”

“And if you hadn’t solved the puzzle!” Cornelius reminded Jim. Warmth flared up inside Jim’s chest and the shivering cold from the water faded away. “Well done, Jim Morgan, well done indeed.”

“Only one more puzzle to go,” Jim said, climbing to his feet. He picked up Cornelius and set him on his shoulder. The room in which they stood was merely a hallway between two rooms, only a few meters long, with drains on the floor to empty the water, and small slits for windows at the tops of the walls to dry it out. At the far end of the corridor was a blue door.

Jim took a deep breath and made his way up to the door. Slowly, a carved symbol grew visible in the soft moonlight – a three-tipped spear before a pearl on an open shell.

“Cornelius, look!” Jim exclaimed. “That’s the symbol on my father’s box. This room must have something to do with his treasure.”

“And that’s not all,” Cornelius said grimly, pointing his beak toward two words engraved just beneath the symbol.

“
Only one
.” Jim read off the door, and he swallowed hard.

“I don’t think it would know if you came in with me, would it?” Jim suggested hopefully. “I mean, you’re so small and sitting on my shoulder and—”

“Remember this is a magic vault, Jim.” Cornelius shook his head sadly. “Somehow the tree will know. This room is meant only for you, and you’ll have to go in without me.”

Jim nodded gravely. He marveled at the fact that he never really thought he would make it this far, but here he was, and now he had to go on alone. “I guess it will be all right, then,” Jim said, trying to chase away the doubts and fears suddenly clawing at his mind.

“Yes it will, my boy. You’ve done marvelously thus far. Just remember, it is what you will happen upon the world, not the other way around.”

“Right then.” Jim tried to smile, but he was sure it looked only as convincing as it felt, which was not very. Cornelius flapped up to one of the small venting windows at the top of the ceiling and perched at the edge.