image [https://i.imgur.com/15eGPa6.jpg]

“Heave to!” – “Stop!”

image [https://i.imgur.com/ptGiWRg.jpeg]

THE ISLAND CHAIN was called the Red Bird Islands, and had garnered that name because the first to explore it were Englishmen who, upon anchoring nearby, claimed they saw a large red bird with a wingspan they said was wider than any man’s armspan. It was bright red with a huge black beak, and impossible to miss against all the greenery that covered the largest island, Big Bell. The red bird flew constantly, they said, from one island to the next, up the green hills and down to the rocky shores. For a hundred years every explorer that came near the island chain claimed to see it. One wrote in his rutters, “You cannot but wonder at this singular beauty, and wonder where the rest of its kind are. It seems so truly alone, and wondrous in its solitude. What a beauty!”

But whatever the red bird had been, it was now long gone, having not been spotted in a decade. Things tended to disappear around the Red Bird Islands, including some of the islands themselves, because many were just raised sandbars that shifted in heavy storms or currents.

The pirate ship came coasting slowly through the islands, disappearing behind hills, passing around treacherous cays, until at last someone cried out, “Heave to!” The Hazard dropped her anchor two hundred yards out from Big Bell Island. Two longboats splashed down into the water and twenty men rowed ashore. Akil was one of them, and he and the surviving Africans had the captain in their boat—Laurier was breathing but he had a fever, and was in and out. Akil was thankful that the Long Night had passed and that the heavens were in order again, he would not want to approach this fearsome-looking island at night.

It has all the makings of an ambusher’s hideaway.

Indeed, that was exactly what some of the Hazard’s men had warned him sometimes occurred here. He had argued briefly with Okoa. “Then why are we going to this place?” Akil had asked. “With the captain hurt and Hazard still in repair, we should not risk going to any place where we cannot be sure we are hidden. The Spaniards will be after us soon.”

Okoa had nodded while gazing out at the rising sun. “I don’t disagree, rafiki. However, I must tell you that we are at least a day or two ahead of any pursuers, and few of them would come this way. Few would dare.”

“Why?”

Okoa looked as if he was struggling with how much he ought to tell Akil. “We are in Caesar’s territory now.”

Akil had held onto a stay and leaned in. “What do you mean?”

“Somewhere in all these islands—and there are hundreds, Akil—somewhere out here is where Caesar is said to keep his harem.”

“Pardon? His harem? He has a following of women?”

“Yes, many dozens of them. That is what they say. He keeps them all stashed away selfishly like some treasure. And there are stories he sometimes moves them around. The women will fight and die for him. Fight and die to keep his secrets. There are tales of ships seeing a smoke signal on various shores around here and slave women waving their arms, like they have survived some shipwreck, but when men go ashore to rescue them they are murdered and the women row out to the boat to slay the crew, who usually are enough to get away but then their numbers are dwindled and they limp back to some harbour. By the time any English ships come out this way to find them, the women are gone, as though they are phantoms, and either Caesar or Zuri has moved them.”

“Zuri?”

“The woman said to be the matriarch of his harem. The head woman. Like a chieftain, understand? Caesar has his own ship, and often sails away, leaving them here.”

Akil had shook his head in wonder. “But how can the women move about without a ship?”

Okoa’s smile had been grim. “Caesar taught them well. Taught them how to pull in the sails of their ship, break down the masts, and fill the bilges with water to half sink her. By half sinking the ship, no ship passing by can see them hidden behind the islands. When they want to leave they simply pump water out of the bilges and their ship floats back to the top again, they reassemble the masts and avail themselves of the winds and leave.”

Akil winced. “Women do this?” he said astonished.

“Many things happen in this part of the World that happen nowhere else, rafiki. The Caribbean breeds survivors and killers and thieves. I thought you knew that by now.”

As he rowed now towards Big Bell Island, Akil’s senses were tautly aware. He looked at the craggy shore and the large boulders by the small cliffs, and knew that, were he organizing this island’s defences, he would have men trained with spears and bows hiding there. Farther up the shore, the jungle was so thick it was black inside, like death waiting for him. To Akil’s eye the jungle looked a little haggard, limbs sagging and turning brown. They are sun-starved. He knew that trees needed sunlight to grow, and having gone so many days without sunlight had caused parts of the jungle to wither.

The effect was that the jungle looked even more evil.

“Boat your oars,” he commanded when they were in shallow enough water. The men obeyed him and Akil was the first to jump into the waist-deep water and pull the boat to shore. Wordlessly, he gestured for someone to hand him a spear and shield out of the boat. He and his men formed a shield wall facing the jungle, while Okoa and the white men and Anne Bonny all came swaggering up the shore in disorganized fashion.

I wonder they did not all die their first time in combat, these white men. Their tactics are so nonexistent.

But Okoa and the white people had pistols, so perhaps that gave them false security.

The whole island seemed to hold its breath. Even the tide was soft, barely a whisper. Okoa strode ahead of them all and stared into the jungle. Akil saw that the man was well in range for a spear, should someone from that jungle decide to hurl one at him. We are exposed here. He looked back at the Hazard, anchored two hundred yards away. He looked at the boat, where Captain Laurier lay unconscious and sweating profusely.

Then, Okoa called out, in a voice louder and more commanding than Akil had ever heard him, “We are friends to Caesar!” Akil was surprised to hear the cripple speak so, and to do it in his native language. “We do not deny his greatness! Mighty Caesar’s reputation travels far and wide, everyone knows these shores are his, and his women’s, and his children’s! May it be so for a thousand years! We come only for the medicine this island holds! We will take nothing else—not water, nor fruit, nor firewood! Nothing! I direct your attention to the guns currently facing your shores!” Okoa gestured toward the Hazard.

Akil and his people kept their shield wall up. Nothing but silence emanated from the jungle.

“We respect all that is Caesar’s, but we will defend ourselves if we must! Queen Zuri have mercy on our pitiable souls, for one of us gravely ill and we require great medicine!”

There was silence from the jungle.

Okoa turned back to the others. He spoke now in English for the white people’s benefit. “Well, that seems to be that. We make camp now. Here. Akil, make sure your men go no farther than jungle, yes?”

“Yes, rafiki.” He thought, I would not go in there even if the Ladyman commanded me. If Okoa is right and Caesar has warrior women, this place is evil. It is a fool that trusts warrior women. He stared at the dark jungle, and it seemed to stare back at him.

“Anne, help the others with captain,” Okoa said. “He need more water now.”

An hour later they were settled, and some of them ventured a dozen or so feet into the jungle to collect the wood they needed for campfires. Captain Belmont began stripping a tree of its bark, and while he did, Akil and Bogoa guarded him. Except for the occasional buzzing of mosquitoes, the jungle was deathly silent, like a tomb. They did not even hear any birds, nor any vermin. Nothing at all.

____

Their campfires flickered along the shoreline. They made camp well away from the jungle, clearing away rocks to make the ground level enough to sleep on, and built their shelters from old sails. Akil and Bogoa oversaw the changing of the watches. Some of the white men scoured the beaches for mussels and snails to eat. Aboard the Hazard food had gotten scarce. All that extra treasure meant less room for food and supplies, and so the men had been rationing and tossing nets into the sea to catch what fish they could.

The Ladyman was tended to by Okoa and Captain Belmont. Belmont had some skill as a physiker, and Akil made sure to watch everything he did. Recently, he’d had a dream that told him he ought to learn the white man’s medicine. He was walking in a grassy field with children of his tribe, and they were somewhere in the Colonies. The children had become sick from some poison the white man had fed them, and Akil had seen them wither into ash and blow away like leaves. “Dreams are visions from Tua,” his mother had told him, “and you must listen closely to glean what wisdom she offers.” To Akil the dream meant he ought to learn the ways of a healer, so that his people could flourish in the New World.

So he watched Belmont’s ministrations closely. He saw that the application of warm wet towels reduced fever; festering sores around the Ladyman’s new Corrupted hand were treated by smearing honey and wine across his arm; olive oil and vinegar mixture were ointments for other blisters. But then there was the reason they had come here—some of these Caribbean islands had certain trees with a special bark. Strip that bark, and then shred it and turn it into a powder, and it could be used to eliminate pain in a patient. Akil made sure to watch and memorize every step of this process.

Akil patrolled around the campfires, seeing that the white pirates were not really sleeping. They were lying down but they kept opening their eyes, watching the jungle.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

He looked out at the Hazard, bobbing gently two hundred yards out. He thought he heard something. A twig snapping. Akil spun around with his spear and shield ready. There was nothing there, nothing but the black jungle.

At one point during the night Bogoa walked over to him. “The man…Belmont,” he wheezed, still struggling to speak through his deformity. “He gave me…something for…the pain. A tea that helps…ease the itchiness.”

“Did it work?”

Bogoa nodded his head slowly—his face and neck were now covered with black sores similar to the Ladyman’s. “Yes. The pain had subsided somewhat.”

“Good. I am glad for you, rafiki, you have suffered many long months for your heroic efforts that night. I think we will need the white man’s medicine if we are to survive long term.”

“Yes, my prince.”

Akil said nothing. The other Africans had taken to calling him that, especially after their success at the Spanish fort. They loved him for not leaving behind their dead, and they loved him even more for forcing Captain Laurier to help them collect their dead. As far as the Africans were concerned, there were two captains aboard the Hazard, and one of them had a greater destiny to bring liberty to the African people throughout the Caribbean and the New World. Akil thought it was Bogoa who was spreading this dream, and Akil allowed it. They would need to stick together if they were going to survive.

“Do you think…the sun will…come back up?” wheezed Bogoa.

Akil shrugged and watched the jungle. “I do not know. I have been studying the white men’s methods for gauging the stars for navigation purposes, and listening to Okoa talk about how they predict the weather out here, when storms will come and go. But their methods do not seem to account for this phenomenon. Not yet. But Captain Laurier says wise men in England are trying. The captain has books called rutters, and in it he writes his observations about the Long Night and he has shared some of that with me. I hope to learn to read English as well as I have learned to speak it these past months. Better, even. Okoa says he will teach me. Maybe then I can find books that will tell us what to expect from—”

He stopped talking. They both sensed it. It wasn’t a noise, nor anything they saw, but both of them swung back to the jungle and stared at it, shields up.

“There is something…watching us from inside that place, rafiki,” Bogoa said.

“Yes.”

“Or someone.”

“Yes.”

They gazed into the darkness. After a protracted moment, they backed away from the jungle and rejoined the others by the campfires.

“You get some sleep,” Akil told his friend. “I’ll take this watch.”

____

Nothing happened on Akil’s watch. He woke Bogoa up and they switched watches. Akil finally rested, but his sleep was much like the white pirates’ sleep: fitful. He would only drift for a few moments and then wake up and gaze into the jungle. Mosquitoes hounded him, biting him, buzzing in his ears. He kept his spear in his hand, his shield at his side. Once or twice he jolted awake for no reason at all and rose up, gathering his shield like their camp was under attack, only to relax again when he saw there was no threat.

When he did sleep, Akil experienced fitful dreams, dark shapes flitting past his notice, like he was in some dark castle—or a fortress like Bateria de la Lanza—and he could hear lots of fighting going on, the sounds of swords clanging in hallways close by, but try as he might he could not find where the fighting was happening. “Help us, rafiki!” cried his brothers. “Help us! We are outnumbered and need your help!”

“Where are you?” he called out to them. “Call out to me! I’m coming—”

“Here! We are here!” they screamed.

Then he heard an awful sound. Songiya, his wife, crying out, “Akil! Help me! They have me in chains and I cannot escape!”

“Songiya!” he shouted, and came awake saying her name. All around him the Africans, and even some of the whites, looked at him strangely.

“My prince,” said Ozu, one of Raymond Smith’s former slaves. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said, sweating. “Go back to sleep.”

But now he was up and pacing. He patrolled the campfires again, which were all mostly dwindled down to glowing embers and ash, except for the one beside the captain. The Ladyman had been placed on a soft blanket beside the largest fire and Okoa and Anne Bonny slept close to him, pistols in their hands. Anne woke up and saw Akil coming but said nothing. Akil checked in on the Ladyman—his strange Corrupted hand was like some demon’s claw, five black, elongated fingers with shimmering black-and-silver talons that stretched out like spear tips.

After a while he returned to his bedroll, certain he would not be able to sleep but he tried anyway. Once or twice he did drift off, and he saw strange lands, places he had never visited, a place with no ground, only infinite black sky above and below him, filled with lightning and churning rocks. Akil tossed and turned. Then he was walking in fields of cotton and knew somehow he was in the New World again. He saw his brothers and sisters hanging from trees by long nooses and they were all gazing at him reproachfully, like he was somehow at fault.

He awoke and gazed into the jungle, sensing eyes on him.

He drifted, somewhere between dreaming and reality. He sensed water beneath his feet, and looked around and found himself standing on the ocean, walking on water and with the Hazard nowhere in sight. Nobody was within sight, just him.

“Akil kaKhayi,” a voice said to him. Akil spun around in the field. It was a woman’s voice, almost like his mother’s but it was not hers, he was sure. It was a voice he had never heard before. “Akil kaKhayi, Prince of the Hadza People, where are you now?”

“Who are you?” he called out. He reached for his spear and shield but realized neither were here. Not only that, but he was completely naked, and the water all around him gleamed under five alien moons, all of varying colours, and the water reflected his naked body to him and the stars raced both overhead and underfoot.

“Poor warrior. Without clothes or even his weapons. Naked and alone. And lonely. And afraid. Poor, poor Prince.”

“Who are you?” he shouted again. “Show yourself!”

“What would your father and mother think of you now?”

“They know me! They know I have kept my honour and they know—”

“And Songiya? What would she think?”

He snarled. “Vile spirit! Do not speak her name! Show yourself and I will strangle you!”

“When the Messenger comes, and his Master, will you protect our People?”

“What Messenger? Whose Master?”

“Is that the question you have for me? What Master?”

“The question I—?” That’s when Akil shut his mouth, and smiled savagely. Ah, I understand. Because he knew where he was and to whom this voice belonged. His mother had warned him about Gawa, a spirit or goddess who found a man in his dreams and spoke to them. She only spoke to men—women had their own Dream Visitor, and it was a male spirit called Katak. Gawa tested men’s pride, stripping them naked or perhaps tying them down, making them feel vulnerable. And if they endured her humiliation they got to ask a single question from her, a question about one’s destiny, their future or their past, or the destiny of their loved ones, or even the fate of their enemies. “I know where I am now. I know your game, great goddess. And I apologize for speaking to you so disrespectfully. Forgive me.” He went to his knees and knelt in the water.

“A prince who is humble. That is a good start,” the voice said. “What question do you most desire answered?”

Akil did not have to think long about it. “Where is Songiya? Is she still alive? Is she still in chains?”

“That is three questions.”

Akil gritted his teeth. “All right, then. Is she alive?”

“Yes, Prince of the Hadza, your Songiya still walks this plane.”

“Where is she?”

“No more questions.”

“I have to know!” he rose to his feet. “Where is my wife? Is she with child? She thought she might be with child when we were last together—”

“This was our Visit, Prince. And now it has ended. But as a man who has humbled himself before me, I will tell you that dark skies are your friend now.”

“What does that mean?”

“These Long Nights are to your benefit. Be not afraid of them. The World was on one track of history, but now all things are in play. The New World is yours to seize, if you would be brave enough to try. A legacy of bondage need not be the tale of the Hadza People. The New World can be yours to rule, Akil, and yours alone. But beware those of Our People already changed by the dark skies. There are others of our People who cannot be saved.”

“What do you mean?”

“Master the waters, control the seas, and destroy the Messenger and his Master, and then it will all be within your reach.”

“What are you talking about? What Master? You mentioned him before! Who—”

“Farewell, Prince of the Dark.”

“No! Wait!” Akil fell to his knees and beat his chest in frustration. He woke up again, scrambling for his shield and spear. The others around him were again annoyed by his disturbance, and some came awake reaching for their weapons, too. When everyone had settled down again, Akil gazed back into the jungle. Ozu was on patrol and was walking around the Ladyman’s campfire.

Akil realized he was trembling as he eased back down into his bedroll. He wanted to believe it had been more than just a dream, because that would mean Songiya was alive. But he was also concerned about Gawa’s warning. For if she was correct he now had a new foe. Two of them.

Messenger and Master. Who are you? And why have you drawn Gawa’s ire? What does she choose me as her agent?

Destroy them both, Gawa had said, and master the waters and control the seas, and Akil might very well conquer the New World. Gawa had indicated history might be altered, and seemed to suggest that the Long Night had upset the order enough he might wrest control of his people’s destiny. He might become some sort of leader, a Prince of the Dark.

He looked out over the waters, out the Hazard, and now he saw new purpose in that vessel.

____

In the morning they woke up and broke camp and prepared to leave the island. Captain Belmont said he had gathered all the tree bark he needed to make the tea for the Ladyman, and so they hauled everything onto their two longboats.

When Akil broke down his tent, he noticed something in the rough sand nearby. Footprints. Though, they were small, much smaller than those of the men he had put on patrol. He asked Anne Bonny if she had done a patrol, and she said, “No, I never left the captain’s side.” So Akil inspected the footprints closer and followed them until they disappeared in the rough rocks. He looked around the shore and saw no sign of anyone.

“Gawa?” he whispered. “Are you there, goddess?” There was no answer.

Then he started back to the boats and stopped when he saw movement. There, in the jungle, a set of white eyes stared back at him, not twenty yards away. Akil lifted his spear and almost called out to the others, but then he saw that it was a child’s eyes. A girl, in fact, her face painted in a way he recognized, almost like a Hadza girl’s prayer face. He stared at her, and she stared back.

“Akil?” Okoa shouted from the beach. “Rafiki, come along! The boats are ready!”

Akil looked to the longboats, preparing to shove off. And when he looked back at the jungle the child was gone. It was as if he’d dreamed her. He took a few steps towards the jungle, and stopped. Something told him to go no further. He sensed it was dangerous to go into that place, that something terrible lay beyond. But beware those of Our People already changed by the dark skies. There are others of our People who cannot be saved. Akil heeded the warning of Gawa, and returned to the boats. He never mentioned the child to anyone.

____

As the pirate ship raised her anchor and cast off, its crew began singing a chanty. Her sails bloomed in an easterly wind and her timbers creaked as she laboured on. Storm clouds piled high in the west, chasing them, but she would likely outrun them.

Soon enough, the ship had gone, disappearing over the horizon and leaving little sign its crew had ever set foot on the island. The jungle was silent as always, the only noise the gentle soughing of the waves against the sand and rocks. What was left of the pirates’ campfires was soon washed away, and the many sets of eyes that were watching the ship leave retreated back into the jungle. They retreated until they came to the center of the island, returning to the large black octopus that had fallen from the sky days before.

They knelt at the feet of the great octopus, and prayed to it and offered it one of their elderly women as a sacrifice. The octopus’s many limbs undulated excitedly as it picked the old woman apart and ate her, piece by piece. Its many purple eyes flashed and oscillated and the women all gyrated in ecstasy that their gift was received.