For a long time we were all too happy just to be alive to say much of anything else, but in time that awed and stunned reaction began to ebb in favor of the kind of post-battle practicality I'd already seen from the pirates on Blue Dragon Key. They would mourn their dead, but life went on.
It was Jack who first thought to look for Teach, who'd made himself least-in-sight when the fighting started. We eventually found him dead, half-crumpled behind a massive iron-bound chest half-full of miscellaneous plunder. His face held a twisted, almost exultant look, and there were no wounds on the body.
"Likely 'is black heart gave out at th' thought o' all this booty," offered Condent, "'specially if he was watchin' as Jack an th' Cap'n killed Van Dierken."
"Or he decided to take Grimzol up on its offer and found his position less favorable when Mel split the thing's head open," said Jack.
"That's our Jack, always seein' th' good side o' people," answered Patch, slapping him on the back.
"I really don't think that was it, Jack. We--I, at least--felt all of Grimzol's offers to us in my mind, and Teach wasn't among them. I believe he was dead by then."
Mel nodded.
"Har, Miss de Alkirk, I think that's so."
"Amelie," I corrected him. "I believe the standards of etiquette provide that after destroying one's first demon-god those involved may continue therefrom on a first-name basis."
"Ahrrr, those fancy folk 'ave a rule fer everythin', ain't they?"
"She was joking, Patch," Ace told him.
"Since we're alive and Van Dierken is not," I continued, "I prefer to believe that Mr. Teach died happily with the relief that his soul was no longer bound to his dead captain's will."
"Maybe ya've got the right o' it," agreed Mel. "And since, as ya say, we're alike and none o' their side is, we can afford to be forgiving. I'd rather hoist a glass to Scrope and Lowe and Hornigold and the others with a clean heart."
"How am I supposed to stay bitter and resentful around you people?" Jack complained.
Speaking of hoisting a glass," Ace noted, "oughtn't we be checking to see if we need to add Morgan to that list?"
"You couldn't have left me a note?"
As it turned out, he was perfectly fine, not to mention worried and crabby. I would have been, too, if I'd woken up on a beach, deserted but for the dead and the remains of the living dead and my last memories having been of a battle with a ghost's hand around my throat.
"Pardon our rudeness, as we were a bit busy trying to save yer neck at the time."
Mind you, just because we understood didn't mean that we were going to let him give us grief over it.
Explanations were the order of the day, and once the story was told, apparently more explanations were necessary. Either that, or Morgan was just a stickler for detail.
"Let me get this straight. Even though swords and crossbows and axes couldn't do anything to scratch Van Dierken, Jack's hook killed him? Why?"
Jack shrugged.
"Beats me. Ask Amelie; it was her idea."
"Amelie's idea?"
"Well, I can't fight and I can't do magic," I said, a bit self-consciously, "but I can still think. Weapons couldn't hurt Van Dierken, but bare hands could. I thought that since Jack's hook is virtually a part of his body, it might be included, but since it was artificial, he could touch Van Dierken with it without getting hurt."
"In a manner of speaking," Jack said wryly. He held up his right arm, displaying the twisted stub that was all that was left of the hook. At least Van Dierken's magic had been consistent; the hook had been treated as an extension of Jack's body in all ways.
"I don't get'cher, Jack Hook," Patch declared. "We get ourselves marooned on an island o' the dead, with ghosts an' skeletons an' all th' devils as ever crawled out o' an old sea story, an' yer finds yerself a sense o' humor."
Strangely, Jack took Patch's joke seriously. He thought it over, then grinned.
"I guess I realized that, seeing what became of Teach and Van Dierken, there were things in my own life worth laughing about after all."
"Oh, great. Now I have competition for my job," Ace said in mock consternation.
"Which topic, Ace, brings me to me next point," Mel said when the laughter died down, "seeing as how we're talking o' changing positions and such."
"Oh? Who's changing positions?"
"Amelie. She'll be changing from hostage ta guest, as of immediately." The good humor had vanished from his voice in an instant, as if he was expecting a fight. Maybe he was; given what I'd learned of pirate democracy, Mel didn't have the power to just give away valuable goods that were the prize of an entire crew. Everything about his voice, his posture, though, said he was going to do just that, and Althena help anyone who got in his way.
"Mel..." I said softly, touched beyond words. But there was no way I was going to let this degenerate into a brawl. One thing about boys, be they highborn or commoners, is that if you back them into a corner they'll as often as not do something stupid just to save face, out of pride.
(You might want to remember that, Jessica, for when you have a young man of your own.)
I found a smile somewhere and said airily, "Mel, really, there's no need to get all huffy and puffy about it." Keep it light, Amelie! "We've just defeated horrible monsters and found a legendary treasure. There's no reason to start picking fights over the obvious."
I sent a beseeching glance at Ace, when I hoped had both the wit to pick up on the cue and the temperament to go along with it.
Thankfully, he did.
"Quite," he decided. "Isn't it written in the ship's articles, 'any hostage who shall, by exercise of her wit, save half of the crew from becoming blood sacrifices and the other half from becoming soulless undead slaves, shall at once be set free at the convenient port of her choosing?' I thought I remembered something to that effect."
"Ahr, as do I," agreed Patch. "'Course, it helps as me share o' the ransom'd be pocket change as compared ter the treasures we found."
"Deuced inconvenient to try to spend that wealth while fending off House de Alkirk rescue parties," was Morgan's contribution.
"You three are idiots," Jack stated flatly, and paused just long enough to worry me before continuing. "Just come out and say that we're not the kind of backstabbing scum who'd do Amelie a bad turn after the night we've survived and leave it at that. We have treasure to load, and that's a job that'll take days."
"Days?" Morgan asked. "There's really that much of it?"
"There's also the point that we'll have to cart it out here, then take it out ta the Fancy by boat, but aye, there's more here than the ship will hold," Mel told him. "We'll not be taking the grave-goods stolen from the Prairie Tribe, o' course, but there's more than enough else ta make our fortunes."
"And it was just laying around, out in the open?"
"Remember them pits ya found? I think Van Dierken had his loot dug up from where he'd hidden it, after he died."
"Because there wasn't any point in hiding it?" Ace wondered. "Or just because he wanted to revel in it?"
"Maybe to hide from the fact that he'd become a damned horror who'd never get the chance to spend any of it even if he did get off this island?"
"Jack Hook, you are officially a cynic."
"I think you were right the first time, Ace," I said. "The money didn't matter to him, so he deliberately had it strewn here and there. But Jack, I don't think he had any regrets. If the things Teach and everyone else said about him are true, the money wasn't the point. Van Dierken was a pirate because he wanted to hurt people and take what they had. It wasn't for money or for freedom from rules or even for revenge. It was just cruelty and hate."
No one answered me for a second, only the waves splashing against the rocks out past the lagoon.
"I propose," Morgan finally said, "that we've wasted enough of our lives on that piece of shark bait to stand here debating the whys and wherefores of his life. Since the dead of Dead Man's Isle are apparently now staying that way, I for one say we should get some sleep. We'll be doing a lot of heavy lifting tomorrow."
"Aye!" was the enthusiastic chorus.
It took the better part of three days for the pirate crew to load the Fancy's hold (and pretty much everywhere else on board) full of treasure from Van Dierken's haul. It was hard work; goods had to be packed up in the caldera, carried over land to the beach, rowed out to the sloop, hoisted on board, and stowed. I was impressed that there were no accidents along the way; it would have been all too easy for the heavily-laden longboat to be swept off-course by the current and smashed onto the reef. I was even more impressed by the near-total lack of complaining; it had been my experience that a group of men doing hard physical labor will usually let anyone within earshot hear all about it regardless of how well-paid they were for the job, usually with a very colorful choice of vocabulary.
All told, we managed to get perhaps half of what was there stowed away, which was better than I'd expected. The Cape Matapan treasure had reportedly filled a full-sized merchantman's hold to bursting, and on top of that there had been Van Dierken's loot from years of sea-roving.
"Do you think some of it is still buried?" I asked Mel. "Or that some of the Cape Matapan treasure actually went down on the Balthasar?"
He gave a great, booming laugh that echoed across the deck.
"What, lass, do ya be getting a touch o' the gold fever as well?"
I made a face.
"If you believe Jack, all we aristocrats are born with it."
He looked almost stricken by my snappy rejoinder, which in turn cut me to the quick. Big, bad warrior and pirate captain he might be, but when his feelings were hurt he looked just like a sad puppy--even his ears drooped. I supposed it was lucky I seemed to be the only one who could bring on that look, or else he probably wouldn't have lasted too long as a pirate. I might have been new to the buccaneering lifestyle, but I didn't think "Awww, how cute!" was the reaction pirates wanted their leaders to inspire.
"I'm sorry," we both blurted at once, then stammered out a few, "Oh, no, it was my fault" type of things, and ended up looking aside sheepishly at the farcical turn things had taken.
"Anyways, ta answer yer question," Mel finally took about the only way out of the conversational hole we'd dug, "it ain't too much o' a surprise, concerning the treasure."
"Why is that?"
"The thing about pirates, lass, is that we tends ta spend what we make, on drink and food and--" Mel stopped suddenly, his ears blushing red.
"Carousing?" I suggested, to get him past that part.
"Aye, ta say nothing o' gambling. Bloodheart may have kept the dragon's share fer himself, but that still leaves quite a bit fer his crew ta fritter away. Besides that, ya can't stow most trade-goods fer too long, on account o' they tends ta be perishable, so's ta have ta sell them fer coin or something lasting at any rate. Seeing as how the market ain't so large and the authorities can be all kinds o' interested, ya don't get so good a price fer stolen goods. The Cape Matapan treasure were a special case, not only on account o' its size, but because o' Van Dierken being hunted fer in so's he and his crew had no time ta spend any, and beyond that because it were all in treasure ta begin with, not kegs o' brandy or bolts o' cloth or suchlike."
"I see." I was impressed by Mel's easy command of the financial complexities and his ability to apply them to this particular case. Like any good trader, he knew the market in which he dealt.
I shouldn't have been surprised. To be a successful pirate took more than looting and pillaging. Skill in battle; leadership and charisma outside of combat; attention to the logistics of planning a voyage and preparing the supplies; a keen knowledge of sailing and tactical combat; and the public-relations skill to build a reputation for brutality and fair dealing simultaneously were all involved. How to dispose of the proceeds for maximum profit was only the icing on the cake.
At the end of that mental recital of Mel's sterling professional qualities, I gave a little sigh.
"Eh, lass, be something wrong?"
I shook my head.
"No, nothing. I was just thinking."
I did a lot more thinking during the first few days of our trip back to Blue Dragon Key. I had some hard questions to ask myself and hiding from them would do no one any good, particularly myself. It is very difficult to get one's head and heart to work together, and even more difficult to disentangle one emotion from another. I was in the middle of more excitement and adventure than I'd had in my entire lifetime combined, and figuring out just what was due to those thrills and what wasn't...
One can understand, then, that by the fourth day out from Dean Man's Isle I still wasn't sure of my answers. I specify the fourth day because it was on that day the usual shipboard routine was broken by a shout from the crow's nest.
"Ship ahoy! Bearing at two o' clock!"
Mel whipped out a telescope and peered through it, scanning the horizon. After a moment he let out a few choice oaths that turned my ears red.
"Hard ta port! Steer due north and pray she ain't seen us!"
"What is she? Meribian Navy? House de Alkirk?" Morgan asked.
"I can't be certain, but she belongs ta someone with money ta burn. There be a funnel amidships, between the main and mizzen masts."
"A funnel?" Morgan was confused.
"A steamship?" So was I, but for different reasons. "She can't be one of our family's; Father doesn't trust them. He says putting fire elementals on board a wooden ship is putting Althena's mercy to the test."
The Fancy began to turn in response to the spinning helm and the work of the hands at the sails. Even I could see, though, that with a hold full of treasure she was no longer the agile sailor she had been on the trip out.
"What's a steamship?" Morgan wanted to know.
"She's something thought up by thrice-cursed magicians as won't leave well enough alone!" snapped Mel.
Pleased to know something that at least some of the others didn't for once, I explained more fully. "It's an engine similar to the kind used on airships. A magician conjures and binds a fire elemental, which is used to boil water into steam. The pressure of the steam is used to turn a shaft which ends in a propeller under the water to push a ship forward."
"How good are they?"
"I'm not sure. What I know about them is because Jered Kantrell was bragging about them at a ball this past season. House Kantrell is financing research into steam power. Father says that they're very expensive both because magicians skilled enough to perform the spells do not work cheaply, and because metalwork of the quality needed for the engine is not common either. If the steam pressure causes the engine to crack, not only is there the possibility of a dangerous steam explosion, but the elemental is freed as well."
Morgan shuddered.
"I can see why your father would avoid that."
"Har, but that ship can sail dead inta the wind or in a calm if she be working, or else add steam power ta her speed with the wind."
"Cap'n, she's turnin' ter follow!" called the man aloft.
"I can see that, curse ya!" Mel peered intently through the telescope. "She's getting up steam besides, not that she'll need it as we're sailing like a sea cow. I can almost see her colors..."
Suddenly, Mel let out a blistering stream of oaths that put pretty much the entire crew of hardened sea dogs to the blush.
"Dare we ask?" Ace shouted from amidships.
"Meribian Navy?" asked someone else.
"Worse," Mel said grimly. "She's flying the Moon and Four."
"Althena's flag?" Morgan gaped.
"Aye. Congratulations, lass; it seems yer about ta be rescued by the Dragonmaster himself."