The Undead Captain Takes No Living - Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Auguste did not die right away.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he had been dead for a long time.
Blue fire burned outward from his chest, like a lovely sheet of human skin slowly being scorched through.
He looked at Victor, and for the first time, anger appeared in his eyes.
“You think killing me will close the Ghost Port?”
Victor said nothing.
Auguste began to laugh.
“The gate has already accepted its master.”
He turned his head and looked at me.
“Ilya, you can’t close it.”
“You can only stand there in its place.”
Cedric’s hand tightened around his knife.
I could feel that he wanted to pull me back.
I did not move.
Because Auguste was right.
The Lighthouse Gate had been split open, but the Ghost Port had not disappeared.
It was merely searching for a new gate.
The black water beneath the planks surged toward me all at once.
That water no longer looked like water.
It looked like path after path, each one knowing exactly where it was meant to return.
Leon struggled to his feet.
“Lia, the Salt Crystal.”
I lowered my head.
A crack had split across the Salt Crystal on the knife hilt.
Leon’s expression turned ugly.
“It won’t hold much longer.”
Gloria came running over with an armful of bronze bells.
“Captain, the Ghost Ship is about to be pinned down by the port too!”
In the distance, the ship listed beside the dock.
The Shroud Sail was tangled up in black water.
The crew hacked at the water with their knives, but every time they cut it apart, it closed again.
Victor clutched his wound.
“Is there any other way?”
No one answered.
I hated this kind of silence, the kind where no one answered.
It usually meant someone was going to die.
I looked at Cedric.
“Is there?”
He looked back at me.
“There is.”
Leon immediately cursed, “There isn’t!”
I ignored him.
“Tell me.”
Before Cedric could speak, Leon rushed over.
He grabbed Cedric by the collar.
“If you dare say it, I’ll kick you back into the sea right now.”
Cedric did not fight back.
I looked at Leon.
“Brother.”
He froze.
This was the first time I had called him brother since learning the truth.
Leon’s eyes reddened at once.
He turned his face away.
“Don’t call me that. It won’t work.”
“It will.”
I said, “Every time you feel guilty, you don’t dare look at me.”
He laughed once, furious despite himself.
“Ilya, I really did raise you.”
“Then you know I’m not stupid.”
I walked up to him.
“Tell me.”
Leon was silent for a long time.
So long that the black water of the Ghost Port had already crawled to my feet.
At last, he said in a low voice, “House Melowen wasn’t originally meant to seal ports.”
“We were ferrymen.”
“A Soul-Crosser can send the dead souls lingering in the mortal world back beneath the sea, and can also bring back the living who have been bitten by the Ghost Port.”
I understood.
“So we don’t have to block the gate.”
Leon’s voice was hoarse.
“We have to ferry the entire port away.”
Gloria sucked in a sharp breath.
Victor lifted his head as well.
“How do we ferry it?”
Leon looked at me.
“The Soul-Crosser boards the ship.”
“The Undead Captain takes the helm.”
“One living, one dead. Together, they ferry the Ghost Port across Sunken Bell Reef.”
I asked, “And then?”
Leon did not answer.
Cedric answered for him. “The ship will sink.”
Gloria’s face went white.
“Captain.”
Cedric looked at me.
“But the living can go ashore.”
It took me a moment to process that.
“What about you?”
He did not answer.
Leon held back his anger.
“He’s the Captain. If the ship sinks, he’s gone with it.”
I looked at Cedric.
He looked as if he had accepted this ending long ago.
So calm that it made me angry.
“You just said you would live once with me.”
“Yes.”
“And you call this living?”
He pressed his lips together.
“If the Ghost Port isn’t ferried away, more people will die.”
“Don’t you start lecturing me about the greater good.”
My eyes stung.
“Have you never once thought that you could go ashore too?”
Cedric fell silent.
And suddenly, I understood.
The answer was no.
From the moment he was at the bottom of that well, he had never believed he could be saved.
Seven years ago, he pushed me up.
Three years ago, he became the anchor in Leon’s place.
And now he wanted to take the ship down with him again.
Every chance for someone else to survive, he had counted as a debt he ought to repay.
I walked up to him.
“Cedric, you finished paying what you owed me a long time ago.”
He said softly, “I haven’t.”
“I said you’ve paid it back.”
“Ilya.”
“Shut up.”
He really shut up.
Beside us, Leon muttered, “That part, I like.”
I glared at him.
He immediately looked up at the sky.
I shoved the Soul-Crossing Blade into Cedric’s hands.
“You can take the helm.”
“But sinking the ship is not allowed.”
Gloria grew anxious.
“But that’s the rule.”
“Who made it?”
Gloria froze.
I said, “If those are the Ghost Port’s rules, why should we follow them?”
Victor suddenly spoke.
“There is also the Navy.”
We all looked at him.
He braced himself on his bow and stood.
“The Sea Patrol Navy died here three years ago. They shouldn’t have to keep serving as firewood for the Ghost Port.”
He looked toward those white bones.
“If they are willing, they can be a sail one last time.”
The skeletons stood silently in the blue fire.
They had no eyes.
But I felt them looking at Victor.
Victor dropped to one knee and pressed his right hand to his chest.
“Victor of the Kingdom Navy requests all senior officers to return to sail.”
A long time passed.
One skeleton lifted its hand and knocked on its own breastplate.
Dong.
Then another.
Dong.
More and more joined in.
An orderly knocking echoed through the entire harbor.
Like war drums.
Cedric looked at that field of white bones, something stirring in his eyes.
Leon suddenly laughed.
“All right then.”
He hoisted the last half sack of Melowen Salt onto his shoulder.
“Lia, dare to make this a big one?”
I wiped away my tears.
“You’re only finding out now that I dare?”
Leon laughed until his eyes were red.
“Then let’s go.”
“Time to send this damned port on its way.”
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