King nodded slowly. “Guess so,” he said.
“Not gonna try and practice your punches while I’m flying are you?”
“Doesn’t sound like the brightest idea.”
“Seems to me you’ve not been too bright lately anyway.”
King sighed. “Guess not,” he admitted. He looked at Raine and offered the whisky bottle as he said, “I’m sorry.”
Raine laughed. “You know what, I like you Benny,” he said. “In fact, you’re probably the only schmuck in this place that I do like, except for your good lady of course.”
“For someone who doesn’t like these ‘schmucks’, you certainly made a good impression on them.”
The pilot took a swig, handed back the bottle, put his hands behind his head and leaned back, seemingly oblivious to the sheer drop below. “They’re my employers. Regardless of what you really think of them, you’ve gotta put on your smiling face and make ‘em happy if you want that pay cheque at the end of every month.” He tilted his head in the direction of the sleeping camp. “And what hot blooded male who spends most of his time flying a Huey over one of the most isolated places on earth is going to turn down a little female attention, huh?”
“You’ve got a point,” King conceded.
They each took another swig of bourbon. King felt his head start to swim already but enjoyed the sense of relaxation the alcohol brought to his tense muscles.
“So, what is this crazy-ass theory of yours, and what’s it got to do with that thin looking fellow I pulled out from a crocodile pool earlier?”
“Ah, it’s complicated,” he replied casually.
“I’m listening,” Raine replied.
King studied him for several seconds, looking for any signs of piss-taking. “Okay,” he said and proceeded to layout the theory that he and his father had spent years working on. He told the pilot all about the Bouda, about their city of stone and their belief in a magical mask which could travel through time, but which did not save them in the end.
He explained how initially his father had come to the conclusion that the Bouda had been a great civilisation which had spread throughout the African continent, but that his theory evolved to suggest that they too had been the remains of an even greater, global culture. The Progenitor Race, he had come to believe, were the gods of the Bouda who had divided up the Moon Mask and carried it on their journeys to different lands, one of which being South America. Finding the Moon Mask not only proved the existence of the mythological Bouda, but of their ancestors, the Progenitors.
Raine listened with a surprising degree of interest, asking the occasional question between taking gulps of bourbon.
“So how does our emaciated friend fit into all this?” he asked, referring again to the skeleton they had found earlier.
King’s face sank. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Not now. I mean, I thought I did, but…”
“Who did you think he was?”
King took another swig of whisky. His words came out breathlessly. “The Black Death.”
“As in… the plague?” Raine asked uncertainly.
“The pirate.”
“Oh.”
“Between the years 1707 and 1712 there were a number of scattered reports about a pirate raiding ships and ports around the Caribbean — a large, black African. An escaped slave.”
“What’s so unusual about that?”
“Nothing,” King admitted. “Except that most of the pirates of that era were well documented at the time. Blackbeard, Henry Morgan, Bartholomew Roberts—”
“Jack Sparrow,” Raine added with a grin.
King smiled. “But, there have never been any official logs or reports that specifically mention anyone I can identify with the Black Death. It’s more of a legend, verging on a ghost story. I’ve only ever found two references to him by ‘name’, or nickname anyway. In each account he is described as a giant black man, wielding a golden sword and dagger.”
“Would pirate ships of that era have travelled such distances?”
“It’s not unheard of, though they ordinarily concentrated on particular areas.”
“Hence, Pirates of the Caribbean,” Raine said with a grin. Apparently, Hollywood was his only fount of knowledge concerning pirates.
“But,” he continued, “for the right prize…”
“The Moon Mask,” Raine realised. “The Black Death was searching for the pieces of the Moon Mask.” He frowned. “Why? Surely there were much more lucrative treasures to be found?”
“The Black Death wasn’t interested in treasure,” King said. “I believe he scoured the earth, travelling any distance necessary, in order to find all the pieces of the Moon Mask. I’m not saying I believe it,” he added defensively, “but there is no doubting that he would have believed the ancient legend.”
“About the mask giving its wearer the ability to travel through time,” Raine remembered what King had told him. He also made another connection. “He was part of the Bouda. He thought that with the entire mask, he could go back in time and save his people from dying on that slave ship.”
“Or, from ever stepping foot on it,” King nodded. “My father and I spent several months travelling with a group of Tuareg nomads around the Sahara,” he continued. “One of their stories tells of how, several hundred years ago, one of their parties fled a violent enemy and sought shelter in a great stone city.”
“The city of the Bouda.”
“There, a prince of the city, a man named Kha’um, they told us, fought and destroyed the Tuareg’s enemies and offered them sanctuary. As thanks, they gave him a sword and a dagger.”
“Gold?”
“Not gold,” King corrected. “Brass.”
“Which, in the heat of battle,” Raine realised, “you could be forgiven for mistaking as gold. Just like the descriptions of the Black Death you found.”
King nodded. “The cave paintings I told you about, they depicted a black hulled ship coming to a great stone city and the entire surviving inhabitants being loaded on-board in chains. The oral traditions also say that the feared Bouda were conquered by white devils.”
“So they were captured by slave traders,” Raine said.
“And, it stands to reason that whoever conquered the Bouda would have claimed the Moon Mask for themselves. In 1705, a log entry was made by a Lieutenant Percival Lowe, of the HMS Swallow,” he flicked through his notes to show Raine a photocopy of an old ship’s log. “Lowe was ordered to board the slave ship L'aile Raptor which had been found drifting off the coast of Jamaica. On board, he found that all but one of the human cargo had died of starvation, because all the crew, save for the ship’s captain, had died of disease. That captain, a British man named Edward Pryce, was found in his quarters, rocking back and forth like a madman, while holding a brightly coloured mask.” He glanced at the quote that Lowe had taken from Pryce. ‘“Savage mumbo-jumbo’ he said again and again.”
“So, the surviving ‘slave’,” Raine said delicately, “you think is the Black Death.”
“That’s right,” King agreed.
“And, other than the captain, he was the only survivor of a disease which, one way or another, killed everyone else. So what happened?”
“Lowe’s log doesn’t mention what happened to the ‘heathen’ as he put it. Pryce was admitted to an asylum and I’ve never found any further mention of the mask itself.”
Raine pulled himself back up into a sitting position and ran his hand through his black hair. He took another swig of bourbon then handed the bottle to King. “So, it’s a dead end.”
King took a gulp and felt a wave of nausea pass through him. The world spun as the copious amount of whisky he had consumed in a short period of time hit his head.