and charts fastened on to the walls, all in various states of decay. Barnacles crunched beneath their feet and long slimy strings of seaweed were stinking in the corners and draped around the wheel.
But the most startling thing about the scene was the view through the large panoramic windows that looked directly out on to the deck. There was a great hustle and bustle of activity going on out there. The deck was being cleared and scrubbed, nets were being raised and cannons were being loaded? all by the hands of a phantom crew.
Jesse whistled. ‘Well, blow me, that ain’t somethin’ you see every day.’
‘No,’ Lex said, eyes narrowed intently. Perhaps he was imagining it but it really didn’t look like there was any water out there? at least not on the immediate deck. There were no bubbles streaming past the windows and portholes; the sailors’ hair hung damp about their heads rather than being moved about by the water… ‘I think the crazy captain has found some way of keeping the deck dry,’ Lex said.
‘What for?’ Jesse asked, frowning. ‘It’s not like they need to breathe, is it?’
‘No, but they’ve been trying to attract the octopuses, haven’t they? Besides, even if you don’t need air to breathe, you still need it to talk.’
It was a good point. As any kid who’s ever tried to talk underwater in the bath knows, it’s not all that easy. And sea water doesn’t tend to taste all that nice, either. Lex moved a little closer to one of the portholes and peered out. It definitely looked to him like there was air out there. There were nets full of glowing starfish, which Lex suspected had been put there for the specific purpose of lighting the deck. And by their soft light he could even see water dripping down the clothes of the crew.
Well, there was no point simply standing there staring gutlessly out of the window. There was one way to find out for sure and that was by opening the door. Either he’d get swept away like a sandcastle, or he’d be able to walk out there quite easily. He had no idea where Lorella was and, although Jeremiah didn’t appear to be here yet, he could turn up? like the proverbial bad penny? at any moment. Lex had found that the best course of action ninety-nine per cent of the time was simply to march boldly in and hope for the best, relying on luck and his own natural talent for getting himself out of whatever trouble he landed in.
So he stepped right up to the door to the deck? and opened it.
CHAPTER NINE
Fortunately, Lex had been right? no water came rushing in to knock him off his feet. Instead there was just a blast of icy cold, slightly damp air rushing past him. It smelled of salt and seaweed and deep places and dark things. As far as Lex could tell from the light the stuffed nets of starfish were giving off, the force field keeping the sea out was about fifty feet high, stopping just above the crow’s nest at the top of the tallest mast. Above that, dark water pressed in in a most disconcerting way. Bits of dust and flotsam had settled on the top, outlining the dome of air that covered the deck where sailors ran about, slipping and sliding on the wet wooden boards. There was also a strange sensation of what could only be described as pressure. As if it was possible to feel the great weight of water pressing down on them from above, kept away only by the strength of the force field. For a fleeting moment Lex wished that he was still playing against Lucius. Then all he would need to do to have him cowering in the corner for the rest of the round would be to scream, ‘Look, there’s a poisonous octopus!’
There was such a lot of activity on the bridge that no one even noticed Lex and Jesse step out on to it. The captain was sure to be somewhere amongst this lot but Lex didn’t know which of the many sailors was the infamous Captain Jed Saltworthy. When Jeremiah or Lorella or both could be upon the scene at any moment, Lex didn’t have time to waste twitting about trying to find the captain in a more subtle way. So he cupped his hands around his mouth, raised his voice and shouted, ‘Which one of you is the captain? I need to talk to him at once!’
His voice seemed to carry unnaturally far in the strange, damp air down there and practically every single sailor on the bridge stopped dead to turn and stare at Lex with an expression of shock.
And then someone threw a spear at his head.
Lex ducked to the floor so fast that it didn’t even come close to hitting him. Jesse, too, had excellent reflexes and was flat on the boards a bare millisecond after Lex. As the spear whistled past them and embedded itself in the wall behind, Lex thought fleetingly that it was a really good thing he had an outlaw as his companion this time rather than an elderly lawyer. If that had been Mr Schmidt standing there, rather than Jesse, his head would now be impaled on a fisherman’s spear, like a weird-looking trout. It certainly would have dampened the hero’s welcome Lex received on returning to the Wither City if he’d been carrying his employer’s head on a pike. He was sure the rounds had been easier last time…
Within seconds, strong hands were hauling Jesse and Lex to their feet and the sailors were bellowing at each other for someone to fetch the captain. These members of the cursed crew all looked more or less the same as the harmonica player they had encountered downstairs? a bit damp and with a greyish tinge to their skin that made Lex think of zombies and walking dead but, other than that, not too bad, all things considered.
But then the legendary Captain Jed Saltworthy himself came into view and he was another thing altogether. Even Lex, who was relatively used to seeing weird and wonderful things, made a disgusted sort of sound in the back of his throat and had to struggle not to let the revulsion show too clearly on his face. In light of his new-found phobia, this was not at all easy.
Jed Saltworthy was not a large man? barely five foot eight? but he was built like a barrel and his coat was so stiff with salt that it looked like it would shatter if you smacked it against the wall. The same was true of his black beard and mane of hair. There were bits of seaweed hanging around him and even a few barnacles crusted to his tough black boot on one side and the wooden peg leg on the other. None of this overly bothered Lex for, although he may have had a thing about cleanliness himself, he had seen enough unclean people not to be overly distressed by it. He wasn’t even at all bothered by the peg leg. But there were two things about the captain’s appearance that did upset him.
The first was that he had an octopus on his shoulder. It had its tentacles wrapped around the captain’s upper arm and was just clinging there, looking all revolting and horrible and squidgy? enough to make Lex’s skin crawl. A sea captain having a parrot on his shoulder was one thing? as long as you didn’t mind the bird poo? but a highly poisonous, vicious octopus was something else altogether. Any way you looked at it, it was just plain wrong.
The second thing, even more horrible than the first, was that Captain Jed Saltworthy’s skin was covered in blue rings. His hands, his face, his neck? any part of his skin that was showing was sporting blue rings, identical to the ones on the Squealing Blue-Ringed Octopii sitting on his shoulder. He must have suffered hundreds of bites to look such a state? perhaps as a result of carrying one of the monsters around with him like that all the time.
To Lex’s surprise the sea captain glared down at them with an expression of almost ferocious approval.
‘What’s this, then?’ he boomed. ‘Volunteers?’
‘Volunteers?’ Lex gasped. ‘Volunteers for what?’
‘For bait, of course! ’Tis very brave of you, men. Very brave. Well done!’
‘Look, there’s been some sort of mistake,’ Lex said. ‘We’re not volunteering for anything. We just want your medallion.’
‘This old thing?’ the captain said, holding up the shiny gold disc that hung round his neck. ‘Certainly, my boy. Take it, by all means.’ He raised the chain over his head and dropped it into Lex’s outstretched hand. ‘’Tis the very least I can do seeing as you’ll shortly be going to your death.’
‘You mad old duffer! We are not volunteering to be bait! We’re just playing in a Game-’
‘Game?’ the captain interrupted. ‘Octopus-hunting’s no game, boy! You should ne’er have joined my crew if you weren’t serious about catching these things.’ He gave the octopus perched on his shoulder a pat on the head that made Lex wince. ‘Beautiful, ain’t they?’ the captain went on, pulling the octopus off and stroking it tenderly. ‘But we can’t allow them to rule our waters, can we?’ Lex practically had to look away as the insane sea captain actually kissed the thing’s squidgy head just as the octopus bit him on the neck. They could see he’d been bitten by the fact that blue rings? brighter than the others? suddenly spread out over his skin there. The captain hardly seemed to be aware of this, possibly because he’d suffered so many bites in the past.
