Pirate Emperor Read online

  THE WAVE WALKERS

  Pirate Emperor

  ALSO BY KAI MEYER

  The Wave Walkers, Book One:

  Pirate Curse

  Dark Reflections, Book One:

  The Water Mirror

  Dark Reflections, Book Two:

  The Stone Light

  Margaret K. McElderry Books

  THE WAVE WALKERS

  Pirate Emperor

  KAI MEYER

  Translated by Elizabeth D. Crawford

  Margaret K. McElderry Books

  New York London Toronto Sydney

  MMargaret K. McElderry Books An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  English language translation copyright © 2007 by Elizabeth D. Crawford

  Die Muschelmagier: text copyright © 2003 by Kai Meyer

  Original German edition © 2004 Loewe Verlag GmbH, Bindlach

  Originally published in German in 2004 as Die Muschelmagier by Loewe Verlag

  Published by arrangement with Loewe Verlag

  First U.S. edition, 2007

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Book design by Paula Russell Szafranski

  The text for this book is set in Centaur MT.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Meyer, Kai.

  [Muschelmagier. English]

  Pirate emperor / Kai Meyer ; translated by Elizabeth D. Crawford.

  —1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.—(The wave walkers)

  Summary: Jolly and Munk start training with Forefather when they discover that their special abilities as “polliwogs” may be the only way to save the city Aelenium from the Maelstrom.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-2474-6 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-2474-4 (hardcover)

  eISBN: 978-1-439-10362-3

  [1. Pirates—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Fantasy.]

  I. Crawford, Elizabeth D.

  II. Title.

  PZ7.M57171113Pk 2007

  [Fic]—dc22 2006018132

  Contents

  The Attack

  Bridge of Fire

  The Sea Star City

  Polliwog Magic

  Underwater

  The Plan

  Visit by Night

  Forefather

  The Truth About Spiders

  Swallowed

  The Ghost in the Barrel

  Alone at Sea

  The Man in the Whale

  At the Council of the Captains

  The Cannibal King

  Old Friends

  The Water Spinners

  The Fleet of the Enemy

  1

  The Attack

  The scream of the Acherus awakened her. Jolly started up, her head throbbing so badly that she felt as though she’d banged it hard on something. She was lying on a scratchy raffia mat, the twisted roll of a woolen blanket beside her. A narrow stripe of daylight was falling through the cave’s crudely carved window, but it couldn’t drive away the shadows around the rumpled sleeping place. She must have tipped over the water jug in the night, and its contents had evaporated into the oppressive heat. Even the rock walls surrounding her were sweating in the humid weather.

  The scream of the Acherus.

  She’d heard it, most certainly.

  But now there was stillness—no, not stillness, only the distant murmuring of the Caribbean, the whispering of the wind, and the rushing of the surf. And … yes, voices. Very far away.

  Where was she? What was she doing here?

  Remembering took a moment. But then the images flowed back into her consciousness, most of them no less painful than the throbbing behind her eyes.

  They’d gone overboard. In the middle of a raging sea battle, between murderous salvos of cannon and powder smoke, she and Griffin had landed in the water. Jolly recalled how she’d looked for Griffin in the boiling sea, how she’d dragged him onto the rocky shore of an island with the last of her strength. And when the air cleared, their ship was gone.

  Their companions had gone with the Carfax: Munk, Captain Walker, the pit bull man Buenaventure, the pirate princess Soledad, and the Ghost Trader had vanished into the air with the smoke of the shots.

  “Jolly! You’re awake!”

  Griffin came through the doorway in a crouch. The pirate boy just fit through the narrow opening. Like all the shelters on the island, this one was hardly bigger than a narrow cabin. But after the two of them had been given food and water, the dark rock shelter had seemed like a palace to them.

  “I … I heard something,” Jolly said hoarsely, as Griffin squatted down beside her. “The Acherus, I think.”

  For a fraction of a second, the boy’s face showed concern. But then he grinned and shook his head so vigorously that the blond braids whirling around his head looked like garlands.

  “You dreamed it,” he said gently. “There’s nothing here on the island. At least no Acherus or something else that the Maelstrom could bring down on us.”

  Most probably he was right. Jolly had been dreaming a lot since this whole business had begun.

  Again and again she saw images of endless armies of kobalins lurking under the waves as far as the eye could see. She felt the dead fish on her skin as they rained from the heavens and smelled the foul breath of the Acherus. And yet, the evil that had called up these terrible happenings was no more comprehensible because of them. The Maelstrom and the Mare Tenebrosum stayed hidden behind their own creatures—inconceivable, incomprehensible, and thus even more terrifying.

  “Agostini said I should call you,” said Griffin. “He wants to take us out onto the bridge. You’ll come, won’t you?”

  She nodded vigorously but grimaced at once when the headache made its presence known again. Nevertheless, any distraction was all right with her. She stood up, a little shakily, washed perfunctorily at the spring in the rock cleft, and then hurried outside with Griffin.

  The bridge builders’ camp was situated in a multitude of tiny caves that ran like air bubbles through the cooled lava on this side of the island. Jolly and Griffin had landed on the north end of the island, where the cliffs of the mountain cones were filled with old, dried-out tree stumps and the ground was colored yellow-brown. But here, in the south, a gray layer of hardened lava several miles wide covered much of the former volcano. It must have belched out of the crater thousands of years ago and gradually cooled on its way to the water. A branching maze of cracks and crevices, cut into the rock by time and weather, protected the inhabitants of this wasteland from the heat and from the much-feared tropical storms.

  It had been four days since the two castaways, hungry and thirsty, had stumbled into the camp of Agostini, the bridge builder, and his workmen. The long hours since then had been filled with waiting and doing nothing. Jolly was almost relieved when no trace of the Carfax appeared on the horizon on the second and third days. It looked more and more as if their friends had continued on to the city of Aelenium without them. Let them, Jolly thought fiercely. Even if she was a polliwog, she most certainly was not keen to confront the Maelstrom. She intended to go aboard the next supply ship and return to her old life as a pirate at last.

  “There you are!” cried Agostini, when they left the lab
yrinth of rock fissures and reached the cliffs.

  The master bridge builder came striding toward them, gesticulating fussily with his long arms, giving orders to the workers as he passed, taking a roll of papers handed to him, giving his opinion, handing papers back, spitting chewing tobacco, biting into a banana, and pushing back his broadbrimmed hat—all without slowing down.

  Agostini was always doing at least three things at once. And not because he had no time: It was probably part of his nature always to be doing something, to be talking, moving, drawing up new plans, or reworking old ones. The man virtually seethed, as if a swarm of ants had taken on human form.

  Today he was going to take Jolly and Griffin with him onto the unfinished bridge for the first time.

  He turned on his heel when he reached the two of them and strode back beside them to the edge of the cliff, across a stretch of ash-gray porous rock covered with tents, workshops, and dark-skinned men. Dozens of islanders were working for him.

  Agostini had long, waving hair and wore an outfit that was part torn Spanish uniform, part English captain’s attire, and part French farmer’s garb, all lumped together. The main thing was, it fulfilled its purpose. His tousled gray hair billowed under his broad-brimmed hat and hardly differed from the faded, drooping feathers stuck under its red hatband.

  A crowd of chattering workmen parted as Agostini reached the building site with Jolly and Griffin.

  The master builder stopped and, for the first time, stood still for a moment. He breathed deeply. Jolly followed his gaze to the spectacular wooden construction stretching from the edge of the lava rocks into the distance.

  When she and Griffin had seen the bridge the first time, they’d scarcely believed their eyes. It spanned an arm of the sea to the next island. It wasn’t finished yet, but the sight of the gigantic construction was already enough to take one’s breath away.

  Agostini’s bridge was, in fact, astonishing: two hundred feet long, ten feet wide; curved high over the water like a sickle, but without a single column to support it; completely without ornament, designed only for functionality, and yet, of an elegance that turned the bridge itself into an ornament.

  It consisted of a filigreed latticework of planks and timbers that would have to be covered in the next few weeks. Until then, the workers balanced like rope dancers on the wooden crossbeams, only one step removed from the abyss. The bridge ended on cliffs high over the water on both sides. The highest point of its arch was a good twenty fathoms from the surface of the sea.

  Clearly the bridge was a delusion of grandeur. What brought a man to erect such a construction in the middle of nowhere? Who was going to use it when it was finished? Why would anyone go to such an expense to create a link between two deserted islands that lay far outside all the trade routes, far from any civilization? Agostini had given them no answers to all these questions.

  Jolly suspected that he was simply crazy. However, the master builder had taken her and Griffin in and provided them with every necessity. Until they left the island, they were dependent on his help, as little as it pleased her to be stuck here.

  The wind hissed at them as they left the firm ground and walked out onto the timbers of the bridge.

  “It was finished this morning,” Agostini declared. “The workers closed the last gaps.”

  Griffin took a slightly worried look at the holes between the planks. Like Jolly, he’d grown up on pirate ships. He moved over the yards of a ship with blind security. But this bridge, for reasons that weren’t entirely clear to him, was something else.

  They had to take care where they set their feet on the narrow crossbeams—especially Jolly. As a polliwog, she could walk on the water, but to fall and land on the surface of the sea would be fatal—the waves were as hard as stone for her, she’d break all her bones. Even for Griffin, to whom the water was only water, a fall from this height might have serious consequences.

  They went along the edge of the bridge, holding on to the railing firmly with one hand. A pair of islanders sprinted nimbly past them—no wonder; most of them had been working on the structure for more than a year.

  It took a long time to reach the highest point of the bridge. Jolly was so deeply lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed at all that the workers were gradually left behind. Now, when she looked up, she saw that they were alone with Agostini.

  Griffin asked a few questions for politeness, but Jolly hardly heard him. It was only when he wanted to know how all that wood could stay in the air without any columns at all and Agostini replied, “By magic,” that she became alert.

  Magic? But only polliwogs understood the art of mussel magic! Oh, well, not all the polliwogs. Of the two who were left alive, clearly only Munk had this talent. Jolly lacked the patience and also the ability—even if the Ghost Trader maintained otherwise. Munk, however, was far away; probably he’d already arrived in Aelenium with the others.

  But what about Agostini? What did he know about magic?

  She was about to pry it out of him when the master builder stopped. They were now in the middle of the bridge. Under them gaped a good one hundred and twenty feet of emptiness.

  Agostini placed both hands on the railing, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. His long hair fluttered in the wind like ashes on a breeze.

  Griffin and Jolly exchanged a look.

  In the distance came the sound of howling. Jolly turned around in fright, but it was only the wind, driving through the narrow gaps between the rock islands. The rushing of the boiling sea was thrown back whispering from the stone walls, the sound of the echo reaching even way up here.

  Jolly made a new attempt to get some answers. “Really, what’s the purpose of a bridge like this, out here at the end of the world?”

  The master builder smiled, looking not at Jolly but over the water to the other islands. The panorama resembled layers of gray and brown shades laid on a blue canvas.

  “The purpose of all bridges,” he said mysteriously. “It goes from one place to the other.” This was the first time he’d spoken so quietly and softly. Jolly had to strain to understand him.

  Griffin shifted from foot to foot. His uneasy expression made Jolly fall silent. What did she care? Probably the best thing would be for them to enjoy the breathtaking view for a moment and then return to land.

  “That other island over there”—Jolly pointed to the end of the bridge and the forested knob that rose behind it—“why didn’t you set up your camp there? It looks much more comfortable, with all the trees.”

  Something set off an alarm in the back of her mind, something in her own words, a hidden thought, whose meaning only became clear to her an instant later.

  The trees … all the trees. Of course: It looked as though not one single tree had been felled over there. They’d all been cut down on the volcanic island, but not …

  Not over there!

  But there could not possibly have been enough trees on the island to create this gigantic bridge. When she thought about it carefully, there could not have been enough trees on the entire island group.

  “Jolly?” Griffin had noticed that she was worried about something. “What’s wrong?”

  She didn’t answer but looked silently down at the wood under her feet. It didn’t seem unusual. She crouched down and touched it with her fingertips. It felt smooth, although the surface wasn’t sanded, and it was fibrous, almost like reeds or bamboo.

  “This isn’t ordinary wood, is it?” She lifted her head. That same enigmatic smile was still playing around Agostini’s lips.

  “No,” he whispered.

  Griffin looked from one to the other, then grabbed Jolly by the arm. “Let’s go back.”

  Jolly stared at the master builder. “Where does this bridge go?”

  Griffin’s eyes widened. “Where?” he repeated in amazement.

  “He knows what I mean.”

  Agostini nodded. “Not to that island over there, anyway.”

  “But—” Grif
fin was beginning when Jolly interrupted him: “You didn’t think up this bridge on your own, did you? Someone gave you a commission. And a large portion of the wood for it.”

  Again the master builder nodded. His right hand began to play absently with the brim of his hat. “You came too early” he said. “But now everything will fall into place, little polliwog.”

  She hadn’t told him anything about her abilities.

  “Jolly, let’s go.” Griffin had had enough of the two of them speaking about something he didn’t understand. “I’m going alone, if you don’t—”

  This time it wasn’t Jolly who interrupted him but a commotion on the lava cliff. His head whipped around. And Jolly’s did the same.

  The islanders were running and leaping toward the rocks, where dozens of men had clumped together. Slowly they formed a circle around something that was not discernible at that distance.

  “What’s going on there?” Jolly asked.

  Some of the workers cried out, and in several places the crowd broke apart. Many turned their faces toward heaven, as if they expected to see something out of the ordinary there. But the blue Caribbean sky was as empty and infinite as it was every day. Other islanders fell on their knees and spread out their arms in supplication.

  Something smacked at Jolly’s feet.

  “Not again,” she muttered between her teeth.

  Dead fish plunged down out of nowhere, slapped onto the wooden struts, slid off, and disappeared into the depths. Silvery scaled bodies, octopuses, round spiny fish, crabs with red claws, and swollen bodies without eyes or limbs—they were all raining down now out of a cloudless sky, flowing like a macabre shower of corpses over the bridge, the cliffs, and the surrounding sea.

  “Let’s get out of here!” bellowed Griffin, about to run.