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Post by simon darkshade on Dec 10, 2019 13:37:37 GMT
Phoenix Rising
Caribbean Sea, June 28th 1947
Beneath the dazzling golden rays of the morning sun, the warm tropical sea was a still azure mirror of the brilliant blue, cloudless sky, broken only by the occasional flash of a fish or the ripple of the endless tides. The calm of the ocean surface gave no hint as to the bounty that lay beneath, nor of the silent bringers of death who had stalked their prey so ruthlessly here but a few brief years ago. Theirs had been but a fleeting impact, one that had been a mere second in the long history of the sea that men called the Caribbean, but one that nonetheless had added to the shipwrecks and and watery graves that lay heavy on the ocean floor. Death and life – both were old friends here.
Long ago, in ages long forgotten, here had been dragons. Their shattered bones can still be seen at the bottom of shallow bays and in the soaring mountain heights of the islands, drawn by some force or desire beyond the ken of lesser beings. Then came the elves, flying across the waters in their white ships with sails of gold, following the path and power of the setting sun from their lost homes in search of warmer lands and greener forests. Their touch upon the islands was light and easily missed, for such is the way of elvenkind, working within the work rather than against it, but the great trees and ancient groves speak still of their time, even as their fairy gates flickered shut. It was a good and beauteous time for the land and its beasts, a fair time now as lost and as ephemeral as the ocean breeze itself.
Few remnants have been found of the mighty kingdom of Atlantis, the cyclopean ruins now almost entirely vanished in the jungles and their great pyramids now indistinguishable from the verdant hills. The legends of the elves that remain on this mortal plane speak of the Atlantean colonies of the Western islands as a rich and storied place of magnificent learning and culture, with little of the arrogance, cruelty and will to dominate that grew to corrupt the men of their home. From here came the silvered vessels that traded with the primordial tribes of the mainland and eventually exacted tribute from them. Yet even the tales of the Fair Folk cannot say what dread and destruction fell on the islands and the black waves of the wrathful ocean that drank Atlantis left little behind, save silent stone.
Time had ebbed over the seas and islands and, in time, men returned, first tentatively as fishermen and hunters from the mainland, then as whole primitive tribes settling amid the tropical warmth and lush abundance provided by sun and sea. Memory faded to myth and even myth faded into twilight over thousands of unchanging years and it seemed nothing could disturb the eternal tranquility of this reborn Eden, until that time, hundreds of years ago, when the Old World reached out once more to touch the New. Those little wooden ships with red crosses on their sails had slipped into this realm unheralded and unsuspected, but with them had come a world of changes. They stayed for but a short while ere they set off for the east once again, then were followed by the vast tide of the Spanish conquest. The mistaken presumption of Columbus that he had arrived in the outer reaches of the mysterious Orient was marked by the name of the West Indies and the islands soon swelled with conquistadors and colonists alike, much to the misfortune of the native populace, which suffered greviously from sickness, plague and ill-treatment.
Spain’s dominance of the Caribbean continued through most of the 16th Century until the rising powers of England, France and the Netherlands challenged their pre-eminence. Wealth flowed from the New World to the old, first in the form of fabulous hoards of gold, silver and jewels and then in the products of the warm, fertile soil – tobacco, spices, and above all else, sugar. For the next two hundred years, the seas and islands of the West Indies would see much war and conquest and would be considered the most valuable colonies of the burgeoning European empires. The crown jewel of Cuba was wrested from Spanish hands by Britain in the Seven Year’s War, signaling the ascendancy of the British Empire and Royal Navy over the West Indies, even as their wealth and power began a long and steady decline with the end of slavery. For many in the Andrew, the Caribbean was a familiar home, even as the colossus of the United States to the north extended its influence by the year.
For Captain Samuel Hood, this was something of a happy return to an old haunt of his youth. It was in these very waters that he had first commanded a ship in action as an 18 year old freshly commissioned lieutenant, some twenty-two years ago, taking the old gunboat HMS Magpie in to rescue some kidnapped British traders from a renegade band of Mexican mercenaries in the islands off the Mosquito Coast. That gained him no small amount of renown and notice, especially with the repute of his illustrious forebear. He’d been taking his first major command, the new light cruiser Oxford, on her shakedown cruise around the West Indies at the beginning of September 1939 when they’d received the fateful signal sending them and the rest of the fleet to war. Hood had been in the thick of things from the get go, chasing down German surface raiders back and forth across the Atlantic until the end of the year, when the Grand Fleet began to muster for action in Scandinavia. Then followed the months of ice and fire and blood that were the Battle of Norway, a desparate terrible struggle that had ground, battered and finally smashed the Kriegsmarine back to its lair in ruin.
Whilst much of the fleet had been sent to the far side of the world to take on Japan in the Pacific War, Hood had been assigned to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, both bitterly contested theatres that had finally been won by the Royal Navy and the Allies by war’s end. Two years ago, with peace, Commodore Hood had returned to his substantive rank of Captain, yet seemed marked for greater things in the view of the First Sea Lord and the world after the war was filled with unfinished business and new conflict. Now that most terrible of conflicts finally seemed to be over, yet the cause of his return to these seas of his youth was, as ever, duty. For Hood and his flying squadron of three men of war were charged with putting an end to that oldest and most pernicious scourge of the Caribbean.
Piracy.
It seemed quite remarkable that such knavery would raise its wicked head once more, especially in such circumstances as these, with the Royal Navy and United States Navy at the greatest ever strength. Yet, all the same, that was the conclusion reached by the meeting of captains in the Commander-in-Chief’s office at Port Royal. Admiral Sir William Tennant had laid out the facts with simple clarity – two tramp steamers and three private yachts had been found adrift on the seas between Providence and Grand Dracaria, without a trace of their crew or cargo onboard, save for bullet holes and bloodstains. Several other vessels had disappeared altogether. None of the patrolling bombers and airships of the Royal Naval Air Service had been able to detect or apprehend the villainous perpetrators in their action and there was considerable speculation as to their identity. The shadowy agents of the Andrew’s Naval Intelligence Department had turned up little but rumour and hearsay while trawling the dives and backstreets of Port Royal, Kingston, Havana and Tortuga, most of which pointed towards a new group of mysterious criminals operating out of a base somewhere along the Mosquito Coast, but painstaking surveillance and surveying had turned up nothing. Therefore, the nature of the mission fell back upon that oldest of the Royal Navy’s methods – long and painstaking patrol.
The entire predicament was occurring under a heavier cloud, albeit not one that could be seen in the dazzling skies above. Admiral Tennant had been quite blunt in his assessment of the weight of the mission, as it amounted to little less than the long term British position in the West Indies. The Americans had been pushing for overall operational control of what they termed the Caribbean theatre throughout the war and with every day of the peace, their commercial pressure on the remaining European colonies around the sea had been mounting. Should the news that the Royal Navy was unable to control waters it viewed as its own backyard leak out, then the portents would be dire indeed. As such, the remaining four cruisers assigned to the West Indies Station were tearing around Trinidad on a heavily publicized exercise whilst the smaller, more forgettable escorts took part in 'routine antisubmarine warfare training'.
Hood scanned the long stretch of empty azure ocean before him for the third time on the forenoon watch, before lowering his binoculars and sighing deeply. Still nothing. The horizon seemed to shimmer with heat as the sun beat down on the vessels of his squadron with silent, merciless rays. At least the bridge on his own vessel, the squadron flagship HMS Phoenix, was enclosed and equipped with air conditioning, a function of its long deployment out in the Far East and Pacific, unlike Snapdragon and Windflower, the two corvettes having seen hard service in the bitter Battle of the Atlantic. All three vessels were equipped with new ASDIC, RDF and spectrometer sets, none of which had yet rendered any indication of the pirates. His own ship, as he thought of it fondly, was now getting on a bit as men of war went, even if she had only seen a dozen years at sea. This was supposed to be the light cruiser’s last posting prior to being paid off with the rest of the Arethusas. She was an old ship, but a good one; for this purpose however, she was old, underestimated and expendable.
He frowned as he looked out onto the emptiness of the sea. The latest Admiralty signal had added a further degree of urgency to their mission. Apparently, the most recently disappeared private yacht was carrying a rather well-connected crew of public schoolboys on some sort of expedition. One of the lads was the son of a Cabinet member - which one was not mentioned - and their paters and maters were naturally quite interested in their immediate location and deliverance. They had scoured the area of the vessel's disappearance meticulously for the last two days. And yes, as ever, their efforts had been fruitless. It was typical, really. Ruffle the scions of the upper class and England would spare neither Hell nor high water. But such as it was. Duty was duty, after all.
“Captain Hood, sir.” He turned to see Lieutenant Commander Fotheringay, captain of the Phoenix. There was a look of deep concern on his pale face, accentuated by the black eyepatch covering the scarred ruin of his left eye, a vestige of the bloody Norwegian Campaign.
“Yes, Archie?”
“Master Skanden's compliments, sir. He requests that you attend him in the arcanic sanctum. He's found something."
"What is it?"
"He said it was something different, sir. Like nothing he had seen before."
Hood immediately stood up and put down his binoculars. If it had the wizard perplexed, then it must be important.
...........………
Hood stooped to cross the threshold of the ship wizard's chamber, taking care not to bump any of the thaumaturgical equipment that was crammed into the cabin; the advancements in sorcerous machinery and devices over the course of the war had been tremendous, but only the largest of the more modern cruisers and battleships could deploy them with anything approaching maximal efficiency. The sharp scent of astringent herbs and mystical spell components cut into the familiar aroma of the rest of the ship and a slight tingle passed through him as he entered the darkened room. From behind his crystalline scrying table, Natherby Skanden looked up and smiled grimly at the two officers.
"What have you got for me, Master Skanden?"
"For the life of me, Captain, I'm not sure. The spectroscope started going wild ten minutes ago, followed by the arcanograph and the taleph. They all pointed towards an anomaly 32,456 yards to our north, or just beyond the horizon."
"Anything visual on the farscry?"
"Yes and no. In the visual spectrum, there is nothing but sea, but once I switched to the thaumaturgical, it gave me this." Skanden gestured towards the remarkable picture that rippled on his scrying table. It looked a hole in the air just above the waves, flashing and glimmering with rainbow light like a crystal chandelier.
"Any ideas as to what it could be?"
"I attempted to project a few exploratory divinations towards it, but it seemed to suck in and absorb the energy of my spells. After that failed, I sent forth a spectral hawk with my staff, but just as it flew over the edge of the anomaly, I lost contact. There was only a fleeting feeling of rushing speed. It was like rushing down a mountainside on skis and leaping out over a cliff to ...somewhere else... I've scoured my tomes for any mention of a mystical gate in these waters, but have found nothing so far."
This was not what Hood had expected or wanted to hear. Crazed bally sorcery.
At that point, the picture on the table began to shift. Through the flashing lights, what looked to be a verdant green rainforest could be seen, rising up from a brilliant golden beach. However, it was what was on that beach that sent a shiver down Hood's spine. It was unmistakeably the barrels of a gun turret, stretching up through the sand.
It was a half-buried warship.
Skanden broke the tension and rubbed his shaved head, at last letting the tension of the situation show. "I could send a signal through to Stonehenge and see what the Ministry could come up with..."
Captain Hood shook his head firmly. His orders had been extremely specific on such matters. "No. That would let the cousins know that we're onto something strange and then they'd be down upon us quicker than a halfling on cheese."
He looked up towards Fotheringay, who stared back at him, already seeming to know his captain's will.
"Set a course for the anomaly. We will go through it ourselves and find out what and where it is."
Whatever this was, they would discover it themselves, confront it themselves and if needs must, defeat it themselves. His duty demanded no less.
...............................................
Like many things, courage is easier from afar than the immediate proximity. As the coruscating portal now loomed up before the squadron as it steamed forward in line ahead formation, Hood could not but feel a distinct trepidation at the prospect of the unknown. They had sent off a banal signal to Port Royal and the Admiralty that they were looking into some wreckage they had spotted, but the exigencies of the situation had limited their interaction to simply that.
The bow wave of the Phoenix hit the portal and simply disappated into nothingness, rather than crashing through to the other side. Hood only had a second to wonder whether they would experience the same smooth transition before the ship crossed over the boundary and all hell broke loose.
With a terrific roar that overcame the entire being of every soul onboard, the vessel was sucked up from the disintegrating waves and sent hurtling up, up, up into the dark grey storm above that swirled and raged. The stout steel of the cruiser buckled and strained as it fell upwards, even as Hood, barely now clinging to his senses as he sprawled on the floor of the bridge, perceived that such movement should not be possible. The cruiser was now cartwheeling through the air as it flew onwards and a tremendous shuddering began to overcome the roar of the howling winds. It seemed as if the forces of the portal would tear them apart and leave them part of the storm, lost forever beyond their world.
And then, without warning, it all stopped.
Captain Hood pulled himself unsteadily to his feet and looked out of the glassteel windows of the bridge, which had been warped and cracked by the eldritch energies of their strange journey, to behold an idyllic visage. Around them stretched a broad bay rimmed with white beaches and fabulously verdant jungles soaring up the steep slopes of a large mountain, with what looked to be a long ridge leading right down to the waterline. The Phoenix now sat in shallow water, with the golden seabed clearly visible through the shimmering blue crystal sea that lay motionless around them. Snapdragon and Windflower lay off to their port and starboard, still seemingly intact and afloat, although the latter vessel appeared to have run aground and sat skewed precariously to its side. After the chaos and confusion of the passage through the portal, it seemed as if there was nothing else about them but the sea and the sand. This momentary sense of comfort rapidly disappated as he raised up his binoculars and focused more closely on the shore before them. That was no ridge leading up to the jungle, but a large metallic object covered in sand. Hood put down his binoculars and blinked, then looked again to see if he had been mistaken, but it remained clear before him.
It was the warship.
A somewhat battered, rusting and twisted ship, that seemed to have been thrown up bodily into the sands decades ago, yet one of clearly familiar lines and misshapen gun turrets partially buried in the beach. Her aerials were wrecked and torn apart, as if they had been wrenched off by a capricious child, and much of what was visible above the sand had been worn away by the wind and rain, but it was clearly an American ship and a cruiser at that. The bow of the ship distinctly jutted above the sands and two faded numerals could be read against the corroding grey of the hull.
50.
The Philadephia?
That was impossible – he’d seen it up at Norfolk just a few weeks before on a flying errand up to the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington. That had been the new Philadelphia, the automatc 8 incher. This looked as if it had been here for twenty years or more. CL-50 had been the old Philadelphia, sunk out in the Solomons five years ago. What manner of devilry was this?
Now he heard movement and groans behind him as the other occupants of the bridge roused themselves from their state of shock. Thankfully, the worst of the injuries was merely a matter of assorted cuts and a broken arm and they were taken away to the sick bay as the ship came to life. Within a short while, Fotheringay, Master Skanden and Captain Foster of the Royal Marines stood alongside him, gazing out at the island as the Phoenix came to action stations. They were as grim and as silent as he.
“Can we get hold of Snapdragon and Windflower?”
“Radio and arcane transmissions are out, sir – seems like the passage fried them.” Skanden responded.
“They look to be coming back to life and we’re trying signal lamps.” added Fotheringay.
“If that doesn’t work, use flags; no time to bring the captains over for a council. My plan is for Snapdragon to cover our flanks and rear whilst we land a party from Phoenix under cover of the foreward guns. If there is any hint of trouble, I want us to be able to engage it with everything we’ve got – 6”, 4”, Bofors, Maxims and even the damn kitchen sink if necessary. Foster, how many men can you muster?”
“I’ve got 54 fit Marines ready, sir. 25 wounded, all up. Bit of a bumpy ride.”
“You can say that again. Gather up as many spare men from Phoenix as we can spare without inhibiting her fighting power. I intend to go ashore within the hour. While we’re there, the squadron is yours, Fotheringay.” He glanced over to see Skanden purse his lips thoughtfully. “You think not, Master Wizard?”
“No sir, we must get ashore to find out where we are and what is going on, you’re quite right. I just don’t like the prospect of storming the beaches not knowing what is out there…”
“Do you know anything that could do something like that to a cruiser?”
“Nothing natural, certainly – even a kraken couldn’t manage that. And if that was supernatural, then it is far beyond anything I can countenance…but if it had been, every wizard between Alaska and the Falklands would have felt something like this. It takes a heck of a lot of power to do something on that scale; there would only be half a dozen sorcerors in the world capable of this.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Hood looked out onto the island grimly. There was something else as well that stuck in his craw. Although the whole bay was lit with a strange, grey radiance, there was no sun despite the cloudless sky. This whole situation stunk of something far beyond his ken, yet he would do his duty, God willing, or die trying. It wasn’t just the right thing to do – it was the only thing to do.
Death is lighter than a feather; duty is heavier than a mountain.
………………………………………………………..
The sand yielded softly beneath their boots as the men splashed ashore from their motor launches. The idyllic beauty seemed to draw them in, almost cloying in its pervasiveness and sense of calm, of peace; the peace of the grave. Yet there was a different smell to the air, a strange scent that Hood had never quite experienced before, although it seemed to dance on the edge of his senses, on the brink of reality. There was a strange heat, as well, that had not been apparent on the water. It beat down upon them none too kindly, such was its dazzling power, but there was still no sun. Each step they took seemed to drag them further into the spell of the island, looming around them like a shadow they could never quite see.
Phoenix’s landing party spread out across the beach, seamen warily clutching their rifles alongside the heavier armed Royal Marines. No sound of wind or birdsong broke the silence that hung heavily about them, nor even a whisper of the trees. All seemed still, too still. The wreck of the Philadelphia loomed up out of the sand, red with corrosion and age. Further up the beach, a trail of footprints lead up from the water’s edge into the green depths of the jungle. Hood’s men forged ahead along and around the narrow path that had been beaten into the dense and tangled vegetation, several Marines climbing up into the canopy to provide some modicum of cover for the advancing search party. The very air was oppressive, bearing down upon them with a strange combination of heat and melancholy, of a profoundly unnatural doom. After half a mile, the winding track halted at the opening of a dark cave that lead into the overgrown side of a gentle hill.
“Anything, Skanden?” Hood whispered to his wizard,who stood beside him, gazing pensively at the cave mouth, lips pursed in concern.
“Not a jot. The closest I can come to explaining it is a television screen covered in static.”
“Arcane Window?”After what had happened to Jerry over Hamburg, that was a nasty thought.
“There’s a thought that’s not too pleasant. It isn’t just the cave, though. The whole area - the whole island in fact – gives off enough background magical radiation to make my skin crawl. The last time I felt like this…I was standing next to Wardenclyffe Tower.”
“Curious. What about you, Captain? What can we glean from the tracks?”
“No sign of a fight or disturbance, but quite a crowd has been marched through here. There’s a host of footprints bunched close together and other, deeper ones around the outside. Either this is where a group of captives has been herded in or that is the impression that someone is trying to give us.”
Great. Either it was a trap or a literal step into the unknown. Well, it wouldn’t be for the first time that day.
Captain Hood raised and lowered his arm for his men to move in. As they walked cautiously into the dark cave, their lanterns lit, a moment chill came over them, just as they crossed the threshold. The inky blackness within seemed to swoop in upon them like a corporeal presence possessed of its own consciousness, although it held back from completely enveloping them. Shadows danced and flickered on the dank yet smooth walls of the cave, swirling around in patterns that a simple torchlight should not and could not have cast. The passageway seemed to angle down almost immediately, although not so sharply as to impede their ingress. Deeper and deeper they delved and as they went, it began to happen.
First it was just momentary flashes, as if of movement or a memory of light. Hood blinked sharply and it was as if they had never been. A trick of the light, that was all. Then they began to pulse for longer, although never more than half a heartbeat, merely long enough to break past the threshold of denial. Like the flickers of an old cinematograph, images flared up at the edge of his eyesight only to disappear before he could turn to see them. Gradually, the flashes melded into a shimmering, breathing reality. They began to speed up and up into a swirling sea of colours. As if in a dream, he watched what happened next.
Hood and his men wended their way through the tunnel onto the other side of the island. The lair of the villains, replete with the bones of many of their victims and their very much alive recent quarry alike, was ripe for the taking. Lying in wait for hours in the dense jungle undergrowth, drenched in sweat, they had leapt from ambush as their quarry, the wretched pirates, came ashore unawares. Their motor yacht had been smashed to smithereens by a single contemptuous broadside from Phoenix’s gun as the trap was sprung. Half a dozen lay bleeding and still on the ground, whilst the other score were tied up none to gently and frogmarched back to the cruiser. Another section of Royal Marines shepherded the captive schoolboys out of their underground captivity.
Towing the Snapdragon and Windflower back out of the pocket dimension, they passed through a much easier ride back to the more natural seas of the Caribbean and thence to Jamaica in triumph. In the days that followed, the full details of the piratical plan unraveled under interrogation, with their raids design to raise monies for the purchase of heroin from the port of Marseille to smuggle into the United States. These ill-gotten funds would be channeled into a larger scheme to unite the various Nazi splinter groups trying to go to ground across South America into a broad effort to create a Fourth Reich.
Their ingenious plans had been on the verge of success before Hood’s squadron had caught them redhanded. There he stood on the dock at Port Royal, the Governor-General of the West Indies personally decorating him for his valour. Now he stood on the bridge of his next command, a brand spanking new Tiger, as it sped through the brilliant azure waves on his way to great adventures and glorious deeds.
This was all too easy, though, thought Hood. Nothing in life that is worth achieving is easy.
As if rebuffed by his lack of faith in the vision, he found himself swirling outwards and was then in the passageway once more, heading down into the depths of the earth. Then, after a brief moment of normality, that almost made him question if the entire thing had simply been a passing fantasy, the flickering images began anew.
This time, they were far from welcome.
Flashes of light, of a roiling sea, of a green forest, of running figures.
Flashes of laughing faces, of dancing, of the first rays of a warm sun.
Flashes of gunfire and rolling smoke, of screaming faces, of the green turned red.
Flashes of doom.
The light shifted to a garish and stomach curdling crimson and reached forward toward him, like a tender caress that passed within a hair’s breadth of his face. Now began the real horror in earnest, as if he had tripped across the edge of something, even as he continued down, down, down the now winding passageway of the cave. The pressure mounted and the walls of the tunnel seemed to undulate and bulge, as if something was trying to break through.
Flashes of vile, bloody tortures, of broken corses, of faces screaming without end.
Flashes of fire, of black lightning, of man’s myriad means of destruction.
Flashes of frenzied cavorting, of a swelling tide of gore, of a chorus of the damned. Flashes of death.
It was all that Captain Hood could do not to break away and run. Now, somewhere beyond ordinary sound, began the whispers. He could escape this, avoid the blood and horror that lay ahead. The pain, the tremendous, beautiful and delicious pain. Blood. There would be blood. An eternity of blood. An endless ocean of crimson awaited those who went on ahead. Yet he would be spared. There would be time enough for him later.
Flee. Flee now for your life while you still can. Surrender.
The chorus of diabolical whispers ceased on that last word, having reached a crescendo of terror. Hood stood stock still, barely able to breath, such was the blanketing pressure. He looked up at the enveloping darkness, the too-warm looming darkness and stared at it coolly and without blinking. When all else was gone, when even the sun was gone, he had his duty. That was all that mattered, as surely and firmly as cold iron.
As the darkness were a living presence, he whispered at it in defiance.
“Is that all you have got? I have lead them into this and I will lead them out of this, God willing.”
The quiet words rang out in the black confines of the corridor and, although he had no idea how or why, he felt the passage grow larger once more and the warm pressure disappate. It melted back away from his invocation of the divine in fear and chastisement. After an eternity, he dared to turn around and look behind him. They had scarcely gone ten yards from the cavemouth and the grey light of the sky shone in clearly behind them. Master Skanden moved up next to him, his face white and drawn.
“Did you see it too?”
“I…I…I saw something. A Presence. It defied the Art, even if I could use it here; I tried. There was nothing. I have heard tell of things beyond this world, beyond time, that would seek to enter through the thinner walls and bounds of reality. There is none so thin as fear and terror, nor so easily broken as desire.”
“Captain Foster! Are all the men accounted for?”
“Yes, sir. The passageway circumstance seems to have rattled them some.”
“Send two men back outside to get a hold of the others.”
“Already did, sir. They set off five minutes ago and were back in two. Said they had been gone for hours.”
The wizard stiffened. “A sorcerous loop, I’d wager, or I’m a herring. Stops us going forward and halts us from going out. Every action of power has an opposite reaction threefold greater – it’s Newton’s Third Law of Magic. No wonder we can’t move – they’ve binded us with science!”
“So…if we cannot get anywhere by trying to forward or back…Foster!”
“Sir?”
“Every man is to sit down where they are, immediately. Keep completely still.”
If any were to suddenly see over one hundred armed men sitting down cross-legged on the floor of a dank tunnel almost in unison, it would have struck them as decidedly incongruous, yet it began to take effect almost at once. The corridor began to warp, to lengthen and to shift, sending the opening to the surface back far beyond them. Looming ahead now was a low and twisted archway and the huge chamber beyond was lit by a strange blue-tinted glow. As if through an inexorable attraction, Hood got up and walked towards the archway, followed by his men.
Entering the cavern took their breath away. It seemed to be shaped out of the rock itself by some eldritch force that left every one of the black, featureless walls as smooth and flawless as glass. No roof was visible as it soared up beyond sight into the darkness above, yet the centre of the room glowed with a cool blue radiance that seemed comforting for some reason. Hanging up in midair were dozens of still bodies, almost completely motionless and without anything visible holding them in place. Hood looked closely at them – it was the captives, alright. He recognized some of the faces of the public schoolboys he had been shown back in Port Royal. Damn. Too late. Yet even as he cursed his failure, he saw their chests rising and falling.
“They’re alive.” said a strange, boyish voice from the shadows of the far corner.
Hood and several of his men automatically pointed their guns towards the sound and Skanden drew out his dirk and began to conjure up an arcane shield to repel danger, yet they relaxed ever so slightly as they saw the source of the noise.Walking towards them was a tall boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen years of age, dressed in much the same sailing garments as those hanging silently in the air. His face was fair and unblemished, his golden shock of hair flowed down almost to his collar and his deep brown eyes sparkled with some unknown humour and something else that Hood couldn’t quite put his finger on. He carried himself with an easy grace and bore a friendly and untroubled countenance.
“Who are you?” Captain Foster demanded of the boy, not lowering his Sten gun in suspicion.
“I? My name is…Phoenix. Yes. Phoenix.” The boy spoke with a cut glass accent that was almost too perfect, but his timing was stilted and …different somehow. Hood shot a sideways glance at Skanden, who inclined his head in response. They had both seen the boy looking out at the tallys on the sailors’ caps before replying.
“Phoenix. That is a strange name. Was your father perchance a scholar of Ancient Greece?” Skanden spoke smoothly, hiding any suspicion from his tone and sounding more like an intrigued academic.
“Why yes, yes he was!” As the boy called Phoenix spoke, he seemed to become more at ease with his words and they flowed more naturally, although for some reason, he drew the collar of his shirt up over his mouth after he spoke, as if to conceal a smile rather poorly. The affectation, rather than seem smooth and fitting made him seem alien and different.
“Remarkable.”
“What has happened to the others? Why aren’t you sleeping with them? Where are the pirates?” Hood shot out his questions rapidly, yet it did not seem to perturb the boy.
“They sleep, at least until they can be woken. The pirates said so earlier. I slipped away as they were bringing us in and hid in that crack over there.” He indicated a narrow crack in the wall that had hitherto been obscured by the shadows, which now seemed to pull back.
“How did you get here?”
The boy seemed to pause for a long while, his brow furrowed with concentration. Finally, he began to speak, all in a rush. “We were on our expedition with Mr. Eccles and Mr. Hawkins from school, trying to find the original island treasure of Flint and Long John Silver. Old Eccles had spent most of the war over in America and was sure he had found something; he was always gabbling on about great things he wanted to do if he could find the time. He always said that – ‘if I can find the time’. All was going well until we were boarded late one night as we slept. They took us boys prisoner and the masters…things were done. Neither was spared.” He paused as tears flooded his soulful brown eyes at the memory.
“They kept us locked up in the hold of their ship for three days or more. It got very rough right before we got here, rougher than I’ve ever heard. It was like the storm had a spirit of its own. They herded us off their ship, past the old wreck on the beach, and locked us up here in the cave, with the others. Most were all ordinary chaps like us, but there was an old blind fellow in the corner in chains. He was quite mad and kept raving about a strange experiment, holes in the world, holes in time and finding the gate. A day after we arrived, he died.”
“What of the pirates, lad? Can ye tell us any more about the scoundrels? Who were they?”
“They did not say anything to us, simply lashed us to make us march. I heard them talking, though. They were German, beastly Germans. Oh, but shall we ever see the sun again? Will you free us?”
“Don’t worry, Phoenix lad, the Navy’s here. But tell us more about these others in the air. How can we wake them?”
“Move them into the sun, I think. If anything might rouse them now, the kind old sun will know.” The boy’s words seemed familiar, but Hood’s attempt at remembering them was futile; for some reason, the boy seemed to sound older as he spoke them. He turned to his wizard.
“Get them down, if you can, Master Skanden. We’ll carry them out, men, gently does it.”
The process of pulling down the sleeping figures from their airy beds within the hill was much easier than they had feared and soon each of the forty two captives was lying on the cavern floor. They were each taken up by a pair of sailors and Marines and borne out on their shoulders into the corridor. Whilst they filed through the entrance, Hood glanced over and saw Phoenix reach up and touch the lintel as he passed under it, even though it seemed far too tall for such a young boy to reach it. As they stepped into the long, dark passageway, their torches flared and then dimmed as the walls seemed to contract in on them, but the malign Presence held back from them.
“Don’t be afraid. It will not harm you when I am with you.”
The words seemed to come in the voice of the boy, but his lips did not move. They walked steadily forward and the pressure gradually reduced and the walls drew back into their ordinary form. Even as the passageway continued to loom out in front of them, long and straight. Up, up they went as it sloped towards the light and then, as they passed some imperceptible midpoint, they began to tip and rush forward, falling.
Falling,
Falling.
Falling towards the light.
Images flashed past them as they fell, taking but an instant but searing themselves into the consciousness of Hood and his men like a white-hot branding iron. First there was the sight of a ship falling from the sky and striking the beach of the island like a meteor, yet without sound, being swallowed up by the sands as if they were water. Then came long ages of peace and stillness, with no man disturbing the sanctity of this place, which hung heavy and dire. Trees grew and then disappeared, the skies shifted and stars and moons rose and fell as fast as the blink of an eye. Then there was another ship, this one of wood with broad black sails and a skull and crossbones flying from the mainmast. Garishly clad pirates carried heavy chests ashore, heading up a tall, broken hillside to where a fearsome seafaring man with one leg awaited them. In a flash, they were gone and the hills rose and fell, the emerald tide of the forest waxing and waning, leaving no trace of what had come after, if that were at all possible; for it was clear now that they were slipping through time, back through the centuries. To go back was the only means to go forward, to escape the mystery of this strange isle.
Suddenly, here was a new sight, one of much older sailing ships approaching the tranquil shore, carrying the older standard of Castile and Leon. Fighting men in morions with pike, arquebus and sword came ashore to the pounding of drums, lead by a tall figure with long grey hair, all of them seeking a path to a distant sea that they would never find, for the glory of new conquests for their faith and their liege. Back and further back they now went, leaving the Spaniards far off in the future as ages and ages slipped by into the flowing river of time. Now there was another ship, far more alien to their eyes, made out of shimmering gold painted wood, set with a pair of billowing white sails and lined with oars rowed by tall men in bronze breastplates and golden helms. Silently, reverently they came to shore, carrying forth first goats and then a maiden, writhing in their unrelenting grasp, offering their life’s blood to a still and responseless sky. These last of the lost men of Atlantis, for so they were, disappeared into nothingness, gone like their sunken home, their efforts to find it to no avail. Blood fed the darkness and it supped its fill.
Back now they flowed once again, into ages before man, to the time of the ancient ones. Here, the isle, barren and lifeless, lay beneath a dark and troubled sky and ne’er did the sun break through the clouds. They moved no more, for they were at the beginning of the island. The elves too came to the isle, but not with blood and death, not with golden treasures, nor in the quest for glory. In gossamer-like ships the shape of swans, they floated down from the clouds that now criss-crossed the wild, grey skies to the west, bearing gifts of brilliant flowers, the flowing green of the branches of great trees and glowing stones of wondrous sunlight. As the fairie folk lay their gifts of light upon the beach, the mists rolled back from the shore and the sea was sprinkled with golden light as the sun broke through the clouds and beamed down them, bringing life and love and warmth and joy and hope. It was as if it was smiling at the sight.
The light surrounded them, the glorious Light.
Then they began to move again, rushing upward through time. Scintillating visions coruscated about them. Out of the darkness, a new sun bloomed over a desert, changing the world forever…a tall robed man stood screaming in defeat beneath a dead tree, surrounded by green fields…lances of fire coursed from one side of the world to the other across blood red skies…men in white gazed out upon a ringed world in wonder…a wild figure stood atop a broken mountainside, raising a sword against dark shapes above…somewhere in the black void beyond the worlds, three points of light grew ever larger. About them, their reality roared and flowed around in a rainbow storm of power and light until all was still.
Captain Hood and his men now stood at the mouth of the cave, looking out upon a brightening sky. Even as they did, the youngsters that they bore began to stir, as if coming out of a long dream. Passing through their ranks was the boy who had called himself Phoenix, aglow with a shining gold radiance that made them shield their eyes. On the other side of the clearing, behind his remaining men who stood stock still, the withered and sun-dried bodies of the Nazi smugglers came into sight, in the midst of the air. The boy walked forward, now softly singing a low melodic song beneath his breath, moving through their men towards the green embrace of the trees.
“Wait! Phoenix!” Hood called out.
The boy turned around. Now he was taller, ruddier and swelling with light. “I said they would be fine in the sun, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did. Thank you. Who…what are you? Are you…” Hood could not put his thoughts into words, thinking what might actually be standing before him. “No, I am not that, nor the other. I am a piece of something, as it were. My brothers and I have had many names down through the years, by all those who have come here, through all the gates. Belin. Tawa. Surya. None of them touch upon the truth, but the truth does depend on the Light that we walk in. My favourite has been that which those men of the far shores of the Western Sea call me. Child of the Sun. Yet the name of your ship, that of the firebird that rises from its fall – that is a good one. I believe I shall be known by it hereafter.”
Master Skanden stepped forth and inclined his head in a bow. “Have we leave to go from here?”
“Of course. When I am…gone…simply set your course towards me. All shall be well. I must leave you now. But I have slept too long. Much ill and dread has been wrought. The world needs the Light. The Dark cannot fall without the rise of the Light. That is the will of the One.”
“Whatever do you mean?” The wizard asked reverently.
“You know. It is the nature of things, just as this place and the other points are in the nature of the world, like the Three forming the triangle. The darkness that took this place spread out for far too long. Yet every night ends in dawn.”
The boy called Phoenix turned and walked into the trees, seeming to meld into the green and then rise up into the light. Now there was a more natural light and warmth that immediately struck Hood’s party, the light of a rising sun that even now peaked above the horizon of an island that was not of their world for the first time in more than ten thousand years. They walked down through the jungle to the beach, their moods buoyant and gay. From all around them came the sound of new beginnings, the sound of life. Whilst Captain Hood had a hundred hundred questions on his mind, he did not seem able to verbalise them at this time, so bright was the day and merry the mood.Their restored and likewise thoroughly grateful burdens were soon fully awake and able to walk alongside them, their delighted laughter joining in the rush of sound.
As the Phoenix began to move back out of the lagoon of the nameless island beyond time, towing the Snapdragon and Windflower behind it, Hood cast his eyes back upon the strange land they had been delivered from, awakening as it did from its long grey sleep under the rays of a burgeoning sun. He shook his head in wonder.
“Whatever will I put in my report?” he wondered aloud.
Skanden now moved next to him. “I have thought on it. There are things of Darkness in this world and in the beyond. Beings. Presences. Powers. Call them what we will. They work in insidious ways.”
“We hardly need ‘help’ from them to work evil, Master Skanden! There has been so much wickedness and suffering these last years, goodness, even this last two thousand! If there is one sound that has accompanied man and his march forward, it is the scream.”
“Yes. But there is also more than that scream. Even in this rotten world that can produce such monstrosity as we’ve seen, as we all have seen in this war, that there is hope. If there are devils in some men, there are angels in others. What we’ve seen here…there may be the creatures of Darkness, but also of Light, after so long."
"Is this His work, or something else?"
"I don't know about you, Captain Hood, but if it is good, I know from whence it comes. Where there is Light, there is hope. Hope for the world, hope for us all.”
“Perhaps there is, Skanden. Perhaps there is. I hope.”
Captain Hood turned back towards the Child of the Sun and smiled as the Phoenix began to rise through time.
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