Laughing Jack’s grin had gone. Hair dye mixed with sweat ran down his face, making dark tracks through the white powder that masked his face.
‘Remember the lesson you learned at Bone Point,’ Lief said, holding his gaze. ‘There are some things that people of honour will not do, no matter what you threaten.’ He picked up the Belt and fastened it again around his waist.
For a moment Laughing Jack simply stared. Then he spat.
‘So be it,’ he sneered. ‘Then if I cannot have the Belt of Deltora, I will exchange the life of the girl for safe passage away from here. You say you are people of honour. If that is true, you will not follow me, wherever I may go.’
‘We will not,’ Lief said grimly, ignoring Jasmine’s eyes, which were darting in anguish at the horses. ‘I swear it.’
Jasmine struggled violently, ignoring the choking grip around her throat. She tore at her garments, as if trying to reach her dagger. Possessions fell from her pockets—a comb, her jar of balm, and, with a soft chinking sound, the Dread Gnomes’ money bag.
‘Ah,’ breathed Laughing Jack. He snatched up the money bag and patted it, grinning broadly.
‘I think it is only fair that I am paid for my inconvenience,’ he announced. ‘So this gold is mine now. All mine.’
And suddenly, everything seemed to stop.
Lief caught his breath. Jasmine’s eyes burned in savage triumph.
Laughing Jack’s grin grew fixed. And then his own voice came floating to him across the water, echoing through the years.
All the gold is yours, my loyal crew… If I take one piece of it for my own, I myself will take to the oars. I swear it on my soul!
His face became a mask of horrified disbelief. He stared at the money bag in his hand. He screamed.
Then he was gone, and all that remained where he had stood was Ava’s feathered cloak, collapsing silently onto the ground.
Shuddering, Lief swung around to look at the place where he had last seen The Lady Luck. The ship was still visible. It was very near. And it was no longer deserted, no longer still, no longer silent.
I hear your words, James Gant, and they will bind you…
The ringing voice was Verity’s. The wooden figurehead was turning, turning to gaze with clear, painted eyes at the skull-faced man scrabbling on the deck in an agony of fear. And without emotion, hard as the wood of which it was made, it watched as rotting arms reached for him, and dragged him below.
20 – Old Friends
For a moment there was utter stillness. Then there was a creaking groan, and slowly the hulk of The Lady Luck tilted and sank beneath the surface of the sea. Great bubbles rose as it slipped into the depths, and as it disappeared Lief saw that the prow was empty. The figurehead had gone.
He heard a strange mixture of sounds behind him—a whispering sound like sand falling, the snorting of horses, the clattering of hoofs and Jasmine’s loud squeal of joy.
And when he turned to look, he saw that the wagon had fallen into dust, and three horses stood pawing the ground among Laughing Jack’s possessions, still scarcely able to believe they were free.
Only one horse, the smallest, was still black. The second was a powerful chestnut. The last was golden, with a creamy white mane and tail. She pawed the ground and whinnied to Lief delightedly.
‘Honey!’ he breathed, holding out his hand to her in disbelief. ‘Bella! Swift! How…?’
Then he shook his head. He knew that he would never find out exactly how Laughing Jack had come to own the horses the companions had last seen at the edge of the Forests of Silence. Honey, Bella and Swift could not tell them, and the guards who had been in charge of them were all dead.
Perhaps Laughing Jack had found the horses straying. More likely a villager had caught them, and had later been forced to give them to the moneylender in payment of a debt.
It did not really matter. All that mattered was that their suffering at Laughing Jack’s hands was over.
He turned to Jasmine, who was hugging Swift, her face a picture of delight. Now he knew why she had not been able to forget Laughing Jack’s horses.
‘You knew the horses were ours, Jasmine!’ he said. ‘You have known ever since we saw Laughing Jack’s wagon at The Funnel, on the way to Shadowgate!’
‘And you did not tell us!’ Barda exclaimed. He was cutting Ava’s bonds and helping her to her feet, while Bella rubbed his shoulder with her velvety nose.
Jasmine shrugged. ‘I saw no point in making you as miserable as I was myself,’ she said. ‘We could do nothing to save the horses then.’
She shook her head, her eyes darkening as she remembered.
‘But I wanted to tell you. It would have been bad enough leaving any beast in slavery to Laughing Jack. But it was agony leaving our own three horses—’
Three horses…
Lief looked around, startled. ‘But there were four!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where is the last?’
‘Here,’ said a gruff voice from behind the horses.
And then, astounded, the companions saw, climbing unsteadily to his feet, a big man with a rough red beard and eyes as blue as the sea.
In that moment they understood how Laughing Jack had spent the largest part of the sorcerer’s powers given to him by his evil master. He had chosen to use it for spite—revenging himself on the one man who had defied his will.
For they all recognised the man standing, swaying, before them. He was Red Han, the lost keeper of the Bone Point Light.
Much later, when all the stories had been told, Bella, Honey and Swift had been fed and stabled in the boatshed, and Red Han and Ava had fallen gratefully to sleep in Ava’s cottage, Lief, Barda and Jasmine sat with the amethyst dragon, looking out to sea. The baby diamond dragon was beside them, gobbling fresh fish for the first time in its life.
The sun was setting as Lief opened Doran’s silver flask.
The flask was filled to the brim with sand. And hidden within the sand, as Lief had suspected, was a rolled scrap of parchment—the fourth and last part of Doran’s map.
Lief shook his head, dumbfounded. He had been certain that the Sister of the South would be in some wild, deserted place. But it was not so. It was in the city of Del, where their quest had begun!
‘No wonder poor Josef is half mad with worry,’ Jasmine murmured. ‘If he has guessed that the fourth Sister is in Del—’
‘We cannot be sure that he has,’ Barda broke in. ‘He may only have guessed that the Isle of the Dead was our third goal. According to Lief, Josef knows of the Blood Lilies and Fleshbanes on the red island. Surely that would be worry enough.’
‘Josef knows where the Sister of the South is,’ Lief said flatly. ‘He has worked it out. As we could have done ourselves.’
He took out the other three parts of the map and fitted them together on the rock.
‘You see?’ he said, pointing at each of the four Sister signs in turn. ‘The Sister of the East was hidden at Dragon’s Nest, Deltora’s most eastern point. The Sister of the North was at Shadowgate, Deltora’s most northern point. The Sister of the West was on the Isle of the Dead, our most western point…’
‘And the Sister of the South is in Del, Deltora’s most southern point,’ Barda finished heavily. ‘Yes, I see. The Enemy was taking no chances. He circled the land with evil.’
They sat for a moment in silence. The sky flamed as the sun slipped below the horizon.
Barda felt in his pocket and pulled out the little puzzle box. ‘At least I can now look at the sea without the fear of seeing The Lady Luck haunting us,’ he said.
‘I do not think it ever was haunting us,’ Lief replied. ‘It was haunting Laughing Jack. And now it has him, forever.’