CHAPTER 14

Bell of the Desert Gold

Once they’d heard the bell of the Desert Gold crying out over the Ephygian Bay, they’d used the clapper to home in on the bell’s location, and now it and the Gold lay directly beneath them, more than fifty feet below the surface, with the map to the greatest treasure Kelanna had ever known. Captain Reed tapped his fingers impatiently, while Horse, the ship’s carpenter, and his assistants roved over the great wooden framework they’d erected on the deck of the Current, tightening bolts and checking pulleys, attending to the air pumps and long lengths of hose.

Horse’s diving bell was a wonder to behold: A dome of iron with an open bottom and portholes to let in the light, it would lower into the sea, using the water pressure to trap a pocket of air inside. As long as you continued to pump in fresh air through the leather tubes, you could swim in and out of the iron chamber as often as you pleased.

Nearby, the Crux lay at anchor too, her gold hull brilliant in the beating sun. On her decks, Dimarion’s crew prepared a diving bell of their own.

The chief mate sidled up next to Reed, all grizzled features and gray hair. “I don’t like you going down there after what Bee said about the Blue Navy,” he said.

Hundreds of outlaws blown out of the water. Hundreds of names lost. King Stonegold and the Evericans were obliterating their way of life, one ship at a time.

Reed touched the blank circle of skin on his wrist.

But some deeds were so great they couldn’t be contained by ships and mortal men. Some deeds were so great they’d outlast everything else—little kings, lies, and his own mistakes.

He hoped.

Reed removed his hat. “This far into Liccarine waters, you oughta worry more about Serakeen.”

“Oh, I do.” The mate pinched the bridge of his nose, between his dead gray eyes. He could sense everything that occurred on the ship, picking out rats nesting in the bilge as easily as he could pinpoint leaks. But sometimes, especially when he was anxious, all that sensory information gave him searing headaches.

“It’s a big stretch of water. If Serakeen’s pirates show their ugly mugs, you’ve got plenty of time to warn us down there.” Captain Reed unbuckled his gun holsters and stripped off the rest of his clothing piece by piece until he was in nothing but his braies.

“Anything happens, and we’ll literally be caught with our trousers down,” the chief mate warned.

“Don’t need trousers to fight off pirates.”

“Don’t need them. But you might want them.”

Reed clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. It ain’t today.”

The mate grunted, but as it always did, the answer satisfied him.

Captain Reed was one of a few people in Kelanna who knew how they were going to die. Folks said the water had told him while he was caught in a maelstrom that had nearly peeled the skin from his bones.

When he died, there’d be one last breath of salty wet air. A black gun. A bright dandelion on the deck. The timbers of the ship bursting. And darkness.

But it wasn’t this day.

Together they descended to the main deck, where Jules was waiting. She’d been a pearl diver before joining up with the Current, and still had the lungs for it, though thanks to Reed she’d left that life behind a long time ago. Today she wore braies and a leather bandeau that exposed her tattooed arms, and her skin was bronzy in the hot sun, except where a few silver scars, decades old, ran laterally along her rib cage, half-hidden beneath her top.

There was a cheer as the diving bell submerged.

Captain Reed glanced over at the Crux. Though they were allies now, for all intents and purposes, they’d been enemies for much longer, and there was no telling when the gold ship might turn on them.

“I know we’re supposed to be on the same side and all,” Jules said in her velvety drawl, “but if we don’t get that bell first, we’re gonna have trouble.”

“We’ll get it.” Reed flashed her a grin. “We’ve got you.”

With a great leap, they dived over the side of the ship, striking the water like arrows. Kicking and thrusting, Reed came up in the chamber of the bell, which was equipped with seats and footholds, safety lines and hooks, and a long umbilical of tubing connecting their air pocket to the bellows on the deck of the ship.

Jules surfaced beside him, and they hauled themselves onto the seats. As they knotted the safety lines to their waists, she picked up a small hammer tied to the wall and glanced inquiringly at him.

He nodded. “Go on.”

She struck the hammer against the inside of the bell. The sound reverberated around them and traveled through the water.

Distantly, there was an answer from the ship and a slight tug on the line before the diving bell began to sink deeper into the sea.

Through the portholes, the water turned turquoise and teal and green as they traveled farther from the surface. The bell echoed with the steady whoosh of air from the hose, the quiet splash of the sea dripping from their fingers and toes.

Every so often there was a toll from above, like a question: All right down there?

And they’d rap the side of the bell with the hammer: All right.

Then the hulk of the Desert Gold appeared before them.

The ship had tipped sideways in the sand, her masts snapped, her flanks encrusted with coral. Blue fish like spearheads darted through the gun ports, and algae fuzzed the ancient decks.

But she was a beautiful ship, festooned with the exquisite craftsmanship that had once made Liccaro the richest kingdom in Kelanna. Even now, at the bottom of the sea, Reed spied precious metals, gems, and cabochons the size of his fist adorning the rotten rails.

As they neared the seafloor, he struck the diving bell twice to halt their descent.

There was an answering ring from the surface, and they eased to a stop above the warped decks. “All right, Cap.” Jules’s lilting voice echoed around them. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Reed flicked her a quick salute and, taking a breath, submerged.

Water closed over his head as he swam toward the Gold, the safety line at his waist unreeling behind him. Where the decks had collapsed, the crisp fans of sea scallops lay among elaborately carved doorways, and fish flicked through the ruins, waving ethereal white fins.

Reaching down, he collected a chipped tea saucer and scraped algae from its surface, revealing the gilded crest of Liccaro—a desert flower in full bloom.

He looked around. Faintly, he thought he could make out the massive shadow of the Crux’s diving bell hovering over the prow.

They had to move fast.

Dropping the saucer, Reed launched himself upward again.

He emerged in the air pocket, gasping. “Two minutes,” Jules said approvingly. “Not bad.”

Coughing, he hauled himself back onto his seat, still trying to catch his breath.

Jules laughed at him. “I’m on it, Cap. You rest your lungs a bit.”

He kicked water at her.

Slipping easily into the sea, Jules ducked beneath the surface, leaving him alone in the iron chamber. He shut his eyes, listening to the waves.

It was as if he could hear the ocean murmuring to him, telling him of nearby coral reefs and basins empty of everything but sand, of the Crux’s divers exploring the wreck, of the Current above and other ships on the surface, cutting through the water.

Jules came up beneath him. “I found it, Cap. Only . . . I think you oughta take a look yourself.”

They switched places, Jules settling into the seat again and him dipping into the water. He swam toward the fractured remnants of the ship’s helm, where a skeleton, picked clean by scavengers, stared up at him from the deck, its jawless face unsmiling. Nearby, the ship’s brass bell lay on its side.

Brushing aside silver minnows that fluttered once around his hands before dispersing, Reed pulled the bell upright. It was inscribed with the insignia of the Desert Gold—a sun rising over a flat desert—but that was all.

No map.

No key to the location of the Trove.

Frowning, he peered inside the bell.

There, half-obscured by a crust of verdigris and limpets, were words.

Words.

His hand went to his chest. He recognized those uniform shapes, like the prints of snakes in the sand. Like the marks in Sefia’s book. Like the tattoos that had been forced on him when he was sixteen.

Legend said the clapper would lead to the bell, and the bell would lead to the long-lost hoard. It hadn’t mentioned words.

Suddenly, the water filled with the sound of the Current’s bell clanging over and over, ringing all around him, making the sea shiver with noise.

The alarm. Something had gone wrong above.

Leaving the deck of the Gold, Reed resurfaced at Jules’s feet.

She grabbed a hook from the hangers on the ceiling. “We need that bell.” Before he could protest, she dove into the water and kicked toward the deck below.

The diving bell jerked and rose a few feet. Cursing, Reed scrambled onto the seat and rapped the hammer against the side of the bell.

Stop.

But the alarm was growing more frantic with every second. He waited a breath and signaled them again.

Stop.

“Come on, Jules,” he muttered, staring down at the water. On the side of his thigh, he nervously traced two interconnected circles—once, twice, three times, four . . .

She didn’t resurface.

The diving bell lurched again and began to ascend. Jules’s safety line tightened. If they went up too quickly, even a strong swimmer like her wouldn’t be able to catch up. She’d drown, her body pulled along by the rising bell.

Captain Reed grabbed the second hook and dove after her.

He found her wrestling with the bell of the Desert Gold, trying to tie it to the hook and line. Her head jerked up as Reed hit the deck beside her, and she nodded briefly before they continued securing their prize.

Without warning, the alarm ceased. The ocean went silent.

Reed cursed. Bubbles burst from his lips. This would have been the time to tell Horse to stop the ascent.

Above them, the diving bell began to shoot through the water. Their safety lines went taut. Reed and Jules launched themselves upward. Below, the bell of the Gold was pulled from the decks.

Reed swam as hard as he could, but it wasn’t hard enough. They’d run out of air before they caught up. His chest burned. Almost there. He coughed. Water flooded his throat.

Jules grabbed his arm and hauled him upward.

Just as spots began to whirl before Reed’s eyes, he and Jules surfaced inside the diving bell. Air rushed into his lungs. Jules pulled herself onto a seat, dragging him after.

“Thanks,” he wheezed.

“It ain’t every day you get to rescue Cannek Reed,” she said. “I’ll be milking this story for a long time yet. Might even make a song about it.”

The light changed again—blue to teal to cyan—and the diving bell halted. Sky shone in the portholes. They’d made it. Unlooping their safety lines, Reed and Jules dropped through the opening at the bottom of the bell and resurfaced in the shadow of the Current.

“Cap!” Marmalade cried as soon as he came up again. “It’s Serakeen!”

On deck, Horse and his assistants threw their weight into the winch, and the diving bell rose out of the water like the head of some enormous sea creature. Behind it came the smaller bell of the Gold. While Marmalade and Killian, a sailor from the larboard watch, secured their find, Captain Reed and Jules climbed back onto the Current.

Shedding water, Reed bounded up the steps to the quarterdeck, where Aly, his steward, pressed a spyglass into his hands. “How many and how far off?” he demanded.

“Four,” she chirped in response. “Three scouts and a double-decker.”

He tossed the glass back to her. “Keep an eye on ’em for me, kid.”

With a nod, she flicked her blond braids over her shoulder and dashed away.

Across the water, the decks of the Crux were swarming with activity as Dimarion’s crew hoisted their own diving bell out of the water, drew up the anchors, and unfurled their goldembroidered sails. Oars appeared from her sides like the legs of a water centipede.

Dimarion’s mountainous form appeared on his quarterdeck. “Did you get our bell?” he called in his great basso profundo.

“What kinda treasure hunter you think I am?” Reed hollered back.

“We’ll split off, draw some of them away from you.”

For a moment, Reed thought he’d misheard. The Crux was going to draw fire for them?

“Meet east of Hye,” Dimarion continued. “You know the place?”

The last time they’d joined forces, Captain Dimarion had stranded him on a sandbar east of the island of Hye—a betrayal that had brought them to a standoff inside a roaring maelstrom and sparked five long years of competition and hostility.

And now Dimarion was sticking his neck out for the Current. What had changed?

“Couldn’t forget if I tried,” Reed said.

The diamond rings on Dimarion’s fingers flashed as he raised a hand in salute. “If they catch you, make sure they remember your name.”

“They won’t catch me.”

With a laugh, the captain of the Crux disappeared from the rail.

The chief mate appeared at Reed’s side. “The wind’s flat. Can we outrun them?”

Reed scanned the water for signs of a current, but the surface was still as a lake. “We’ve gotta try.”

The mate pivoted on his heel, bellowing orders. The crew ran to their posts.

Reed pulled on his trousers and stuffed his feet into his boots, buckling on his holsters as he squinted at the horizon. The ships were closer now—close enough to count their sails.

He leapt down to the helm, where Jaunty, his stringy, taciturn helmsman, was already maneuvering them to catch the stale breeze. “Get us outta here, Jaunty.”

The helmsman grunted.

“Make clear for engagement!” Reed cried.

The sailors scurried down to the magazine and back up again, bringing rammers and sponges, crows and handspikes, powder horns and cases of shot. Dripping seawater, Jules joined them, calling out instructions over the din. They loaded rifles and mounted swivel guns to the rails, and between the cannons they set tubs of seawater and swabs for battling fires.

Every minute the enemy ships were gaining on them, growing larger and more fearsome on the horizon. Their black-and-yellow hulls made them appear like wasps, with thorns of weaponry along their flanks.

Serakeen’s pirates. For over a decade they’d besieged Liccaro: plundering cities that opposed them; attacking incoming merchants, military ships, privateers; sparing only those that funneled resources to their corrupt allies in the regency. They were a disgrace to outlaws everywhere—they were men of land and war, not men of water and freedom.

Off to starboard, the Crux edged to the northwest, propelled by the oars of Dimarion’s galley slaves.

There was an explosion behind the Current.

Reed’s crew flung themselves against the decks.

The cannonball struck the edge of the quarterdeck, chewing out a corner of the rail and falling into the water with a splash.

The mate let out a string of curses that could’ve seared a side of beef.

Reed threw himself against the rail, scanning the sea. If there was a way out of this, he’d find it. He had to. He wouldn’t die today.

Behind them, two of Serakeen’s ships peeled off in pursuit of the Crux.

That left two quick scouts and the Current of Faith. Poor odds.

Captain Reed blinked spray out of his eyes.

It was as if he could see the pull of the moon, the rising of the tide, and the swirling storms out there on the Central Sea, the wakes of ships and the rumbling of volcanoes in the deep.

He began counting. Always to eight. Never more. His favorite number. It kept him focused. Eight after eight after eight.

Then he found it: a break in the waves, like a channel through the crests. A rip current.

If they made it there before Serakeen’s ships caught them, they just might escape.

“There!” he yelled to Jaunty. “Off the port bow!”

The helmsman nodded once and turned the wheel. Serakeen’s ships were close now, the flags of the Scourge of the East flying from each of the yards, with the fore guns thundering one after another.

At the stern, Cooky and Aly crouched with their rifles, popping up every so often to let off a round.

On the deck, the gun crews prepared the broadsides, readying for battle.

Reed gripped the rail so hard his fingernails dug into the wood.

Then they hit the current. The waters surged up around them, carrying them rapidly over the troughs. Spray washed over the forecastle.

Serakeen’s ships fell behind as their helmsmen tried to adjust. Jaunty cackled, pointing the ship into the fast water. The aft gunners cheered.

The Current of Faith drew ahead. The distance between them and the enemy increased.

They were going to make it. The currents would sweep them out of range, and Serakeen’s scouts would flounder while the Current skimmed the surface, speeding out of the Ephygian Bay into the Central Sea.

As his crew let out a cheer, Captain Reed began pacing the quarterdeck. They’d gotten what they’d come for. They’d gotten away. But now they had a riddle to solve.

He only knew one person who could decipher the marks inside the ship’s bell, and the last time he’d seen her, she’d been striding into the maze of Jahara’s Central Port with a boy who fought like a wild beast.

Picking up his shirt, Reed scooped a folded scrap of canvas from the breast pocket and traced the letters written there: REED.

Words meant trouble, and not the good kind.

Because of words, an assassin had come prowling onto his ship, seeking them out the way the Executioner sought blood.

Harison, the ship’s boy, had died.

And long before that, when Reed was only sixteen, he’d been kidnapped and laid flat while words were carved into him, letter by letter, line by line. The memory of it lanced through his chest, and he put his hand over his drumming heart, where beneath the years of ink and glory those first tattoos lay hidden.

He didn’t know who’d done it.

He didn’t know why.

But with the way words kept circling back to him, he suspected he’d soon find out.