Balin Van Buuren stepped into the sober Tudor-style hall of Hawthorn & Barrington Publishing House, located on Fleet Street. The walls were paneled in polished oak, where the flicker of bronze candelabra shimmered upon the lead-glassed windows. The air smelled of wood, wax, tobacco, and aged wine.
Shadows danced across the portraits of poets and allegories of the arts hanging on the walls, while a string quartet played discreetly in a corner. Ladies of society, wrapped in silk and lace, fluttered their fans with idle grace; gentlemen in powdered wigs and velvet masks conversed beside their glasses of sherry, laughing between murmurs. Some were nobles who had come incognito; others, wealthy merchants, editors, retired adventurers, and weathered sailors smoking long amber pipes.
Balin moved among the crowd, smiling at the guests, and thought he recognized a few faces from his past—old publishers, former readers, ladies who had once wept over his tales of corsairs and tempests. But no one looked at him. Conversations continued, laughter rolled on, and the masks hid eyes devoid of recognition. As he passed, a pair of young men stepped aside in disdain; a portly noble whispered something that drew a round of laughter from his companions.
Balin reached the lectern prepared for the evening's presentation—a place he knew all too well. He cleared his throat to draw attention: no one turned. He tried again, managing only a few indifferent glances.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he said aloud, yet no one bothered to listen; it was as if he were a ghost, invisible to all.
"Good evening," he repeated. "It is a pleasure to be here with you, and I thank you for your presence."
The crowd fell silent and turned toward him; then rose a murmur that soon became a ripple of mockery. A lady whispered behind her fan:
"He is not even wearing a wig."
"A pitiful has-been," added a gentleman with a cynical smile.
"Throw that decrepit old man out," said a former pirate with a grand, tightly curled wig.
Balin looked around, bewildered and mortified. Only then did he realize he was not dressed for the occasion—he wore no wig, and no one remembered him.
"Excuse me, sir," said a footman, bowing politely, "would you be so kind as to leave?"
Balin turned, astonished.
"Leave? Do you not know who I am? I am Balin Van Buuren, a celebrated author. These are my readers—my audience!"
The servant regarded him with a mixture of pity and irritation.
"This audience is here for Miss Liza Haywood, sir. She is presenting her new novel, The Gardens of Oblivion."
Balin froze, torn between shame and panic. The servant took him by the arm to escort him out. When he resisted, another joined him, and together they began to push him toward the door. Balin sought support from the crowd. He spotted his former publishers, Hawthorn & Barrington, conversing animatedly with the young writer. She laughed, basking in the attention of the room.
"They know me!" cried Balin, pointing. "I worked with them for years! They published my novels!"
The publishers cast him a sidelong, icy glance. One of them raised a hand, and immediately the footmen hastened their task of dragging him away.
"Please, sir, stop resisting," one of them said.
"I am Balin Van Buuren!" he shouted as they pulled him toward the exit—but his voice was lost amid the laughter and applause.
"And I am Daniel Defoe!" cried a man in a black mask, provoking another burst of laughter.
"And I am Julia Balbilla," declared a lady in a crimson velvet mask, raising her hand theatrically. "And to any who doubt me, I challenge you to read my epigrams carved upon the Colossi of Memnon in Egypt!"
The audience roared with laughter and applause. Then, as Balin was being manhandled toward the door, he caught sight of a hooded figure standing motionless by a window. Only the eyes were visible, gleaming with a supernatural light.
"I could be the Devil," said the figure, "or Death itself."
At once, the hall went dark. The candles extinguished one by one, and the murmur of laughter turned into the roar of the sea.
Balin awoke, slumped in his armchair, brooding, in the back room of his shop in Tiburon Bay. He blinked, disoriented, gazing around at the stacked barrels and scattered crates, the damp smell of wood and salt. He rose heavily and opened the door.
In the adjoining room, his granddaughter Sammy was working with a set of metallic discs, fitting them one by one into a machine of gears and a cannon pointed toward the ocean horizon. The girl adjusted levers; a rising hum filled the room before a beam of light shot from the cannon, illuminating her face for an instant before vanishing into the distance.
"It's frustrating… the beacon won't align with the vortex," she said, turning to her grandfather.
"One of them must work," Balin replied, rubbing his temples. "I'm going to the tavern."
"Don't be long," she answered, still focused on her discs. "It's raining."
Balin stepped into the cobbled street where water streamed along the stones. He met Mrs. Connie Harris, who was emptying a bucket of dirty water. Upon seeing him, she smiled.
"Been a long time, Mr. Van Buuren," she said. "Careful where you walk—the ground's slick… and the ghosts are out tonight."
"I always walk with a steady step," Balin replied, touching the brim of his tricorn in salute.
The drizzle soaked his hat as he made his way to The Bald Pelican Tavern. The narrow street reminded him of Wapping. Inside, the air reeked of beer, sweat, and stale tobacco. The wooden walls glowed with the dim light of rustic chandeliers whose candles dripped wax over a throng of pirates, prostitutes, sailors, and other sinister figures of the underworld. They drank, laughed, and shouted; some even challenged each other to duels in the alley outside.
Balin took a seat at a corner table beside a lead-glassed window overlooking the Thames. He lit his pipe and ordered a mug of beer. When he drank, the liquid dribbled down his chin; he looked down and saw his waistcoat stained crimson.
"Damn it… this isn't my day."
"Was it ever?" said a voice.
Balin lifted his gaze. Across the table sat the pirate from the journal, lounging casually, tankard in hand, foam running through his beard.
"You… here?" murmured Balin.
"Where else would I be?" the pirate laughed.
"But—you're dead!"
The pirate burst into a booming laugh that made several patrons turn.
"He says I'm dead!" he shouted, raising his tankard. The crowd joined in a grotesque chorus of laughter.
He drank deeply, foam spilling down his chest.
"Did you really think they'd still trust you?" he said between laughs.
Balin lowered his eyes.
"I… I thought they might. After all these years, I believed they still had faith in me."
The pirate pointed at him with his tankard, mocking.
"Your stubborn pride and vanity have brought you to ruin—and in doing so, you've opened a door that will not easily be closed."
"What do you mean?" Balin asked.
The pirate's grin grew sinister. His face began to twist; the eyes sank into their sockets, the flesh peeled away, revealing a laughing skull.
"You are damned… and Hell lies far beyond your reach," the ghostly pirate said, laughing without end.
Terrified, Balin rose from his seat. As he turned to flee, he came face-to-face with a group of specters—sailors in tattered rags, their faces flayed, their eye sockets glowing like embers. One, with the bearing of a captain, stepped forward. His face was eaten away, and his gaze burned with malice. He lifted a bony hand and pointed at Balin.
"Free us!" they cried in unison.
The sound merged with the crash of waves that seemed to batter the tavern walls—and then Balin awoke inside his cell.
The pounding of the surf against the rocks below the fortress of San José el Alto echoed through the dark chamber. A pale moonlight, breaking through the clouds, filtered through a narrow window barred with heavy iron.
The writer sat for a moment, breathing deeply as he gazed at the nocturnal light. He began to recall the fragments of his dream—the gleam of the strange device, the fixed stare toward the horizon, the hope he himself had destroyed.
"Forgive me, Sammy," he murmured. "I never meant to ruin our lives."
He remained silent, listening to the roar of the sea. Then he remembered the presence of Death; a chill ran down his spine at the thought that perhaps his dreams were premonitions of what awaited him.
"Good heavens," he whispered, collapsing onto the straw bed. "Why can't I wake from this nightmare?"