🏝️ Chapter 3: The Lion's Den
The silence in the Green Cormorant was heavier than the sea-chest I'd left shattered on my father's floor. It was a physical pressure, pushing the air from my lungs. Josiah Harker's gaze was a hook, sunk deep, and I was the fish being hauled inexorably towards the knife.
All the rehearsed words—Thorne's name, the coded phrase about the Serpent—evaporated from my mind, leaving only raw, undiluted terror. I was a mouse under the paw of a very large, very impatient cat.
"Well?" Harker's voice cracked the stillness like a whip. "Cat got your tongue, boy? I asked you a question."
A man at a nearby table, missing two fingers on his right hand, chuckled darkly. "Maybe he's a messenger from the revenue men, Josiah. Sent a babe to do a man's work."
This spurred me into action. My life depended on the next few seconds. I took a step forward, my waterlogged boots squelching on the filthy floor.
"Captain Thorne sent me," I whispered, the name feeling like a blasphemy in this place.
The effect was instantaneous. The last vestiges of idle curiosity vanished from the room, replaced by a sharp, unified focus. Harker did not move a muscle, but his eyes seemed to darken, the pupils swallowing the pale blue of his irises.
"Thorne," he repeated, the name flat and dead. "Is that so? And where is the good Captain now?"
"He's… he's dead, sir." The words were ash in my mouth. "Men came. A man with a scar. They gave him the black spot."
A sharp intake of breath came from the corner. The old singer made a warding sign with his hand. Harker's expression remained an unreadable mask of scar tissue and simmering violence.
"The black spot," he murmured, almost to himself. Then his eyes snapped back to me. "And why, in the name of all that's drowned, would a dead man send a drowned rat like you to my door?"
This was it. This was the moment Thorne had died for. I summoned every ounce of courage I had left, straightening my back as much as my trembling frame would allow.
"He said to tell you… 'Thorne sent you. That the Serpent stirs.'"
The air left the room. The man with the missing fingers froze, his tankard halfway to his lips. Harker's mask finally cracked. A flicker of something—not fear, but a fierce, hungry recognition—passed over his face. He stared at me for a long, long time, his eyes boring into mine as if judging the truth of my soul.
Then, he gave a sharp, almost imperceptible nod. "Barnaby. Two-Finger Tim. See that we're not disturbed."
The two burliest men in the room rose without a word and positioned themselves by the door, their arms crossed. Harker gestured with his head towards a low archway behind the bar. "You. Back room. Now."
I moved on legs of water, following him through the archway into a small, windowless chamber. It was an office of sorts, dominated by a massive, scarred desk littered with charts, ledgers, and a formidable-looking blunderbuss leaning against the wall. A single whale-oil lamp cast a smoky, dancing light, throwing long, distorted shadows. He shut the door, and the sounds of the tavern became a dull, muffled murmur. We were alone.
He didn't sit. He loomed over me, his presence filling the tiny room. "The Serpent stirs," he repeated, his voice low and urgent. "You're sure those were his words?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then he believed the time was near. Or that others believed it." He leaned forward, planting his massive hands on the desk. "Now, boy. You will tell me everything. From the moment Thorne limped into your… what was it? An inn?"
And so I told him. The words came in a rushed, stumbling torrent. I spoke of the Captain's arrival, his gold, his terrifying songs about the Ivory Isle, his paranoia about the scarred man. I described Dr. Hemlock's confrontation, Thorne's growing desperation, and the final, storm-wracked night. I recounted the knock on the door, the delivery of the black spot, the key pressed into my hand, and my frantic hide in the hearth. I spared no detail of the violence, the splintering chest, the search for the chart, and my final, guilt-ridden flight.
Throughout it all, Harker listened, motionless, his eyes fixed on me, missing nothing. When I finished, breathless and trembling, the only sound was the sputtering of the lamp.
"The chart," he said finally, the word hanging in the air between us. "You have it."
It wasn't a question. I hesitated for only a second before nodding. My hand, shaking, went to the hem of my shirt. I peeled back the damp fabric and carefully retrieved the folded parchment. It seemed to hum with a life of its own in the dim light.
I held it out to him.
He did not snatch it. He took it with a strange, almost reverent care. He moved to the desk, clearing a space with a sweep of his arm. Slowly, meticulously, he unfolded it. The sight of the island—the leviathan shape, the Whispering Wood, the Spine of the Serpent, the ominous 'X'—seemed to mesmerize him. A long, slow breath escaped his lips.
"By God," he whispered, his rough voice filled with awe. "He kept it safe. All these years…" His finger, thick and calloused, traced the route to Siren's Wail. "Flint's hand. I'd know it anywhere. The mad, brilliant bastard."
He looked from the chart to me, a new, appraising light in his eyes. The suspicion was not gone, but it was now mingled with something else: respect.
"You did well, boy. You kept your head, which is more than most seasoned men could claim." He folded the chart again, but instead of handing it back, he slipped it inside his own waistcoat. A knot of panic tightened in my stomach. It was my only leverage, my only purpose.
"What happens now?" I asked, my voice small.
"Now?" Harker said, a grim smile touching his lips for the first time. "Now, the game begins in earnest. If Billy Bones's crew is on the move, and they gave Thorne the spot, then they know the chart is in play. They'll be scouring the coast for a boy. They won't think to look for you in the belly of the beast." He gestured around the tiny room. "You'll stay here. You'll be my… guest. You don't set foot outside this room, you understand? For your own sake."
It wasn't a request. It was an order. I was a prisoner, but a prisoner who had, for the moment, been spared the gallows.
"And the Isle?" I dared to ask.
Harker's smile widened, showing yellowed teeth. It was not a pleasant sight. "The Ivory Isle has waited a long time, boy. It can wait a little longer. First, we need a ship. A fast one. And a crew that isn't afraid of ghosts, or beasts, or the devil himself."
He looked at the chart again, a fanatical gleam in his eye. "The Serpent has stirred. And we are going to answer its call."