The Silver Casket by Chris Mould Page A

rogues and so I had strapped the pike across my back. But as we walked across the moor I slipped and the
pike ended up in the water. And now we sit in wait for the grim and the gruesome.”
    â€œStanley, it all sounds more than ridiculous, you must admit,” insisted Mrs. Carelli.
    â€œI know it does, but the pike has never lied to me or warned me of anything that didn’t happen.”
    â€œWhat on earth do you mean, lied to you?”
    â€œMrs. Carelli, the pike speaks. In a strange tongue but nonetheless, he very definitely speaks!” Stanley persisted.
    â€œWell, that’s the daftest load of old hogwash I ever did hear. A talking pike! He never said anything to me, and I dusted him down a million times. The sooner you get ghostly pirates out o’ your head, the better. I said you wasn’t well and I know I’m right. You need a good night’s sleep, lad. And before you get
any ideas, young man, I think your precious little Ibis is better off left where it is for now. Out o’ sight and away from here.”
    Stanley turned up his nose at the thought. He was determined to retrieve the pike and the Ibis as soon as possible.
    There was a knock on the window. The top of a face appeared, and a hand waved at them.
    â€œThat looks like Daisy from the lighthouse, Stanley,” sighed Mrs. Carelli. “Come in, poppet,” she shouted through the glass. “Door’s open.”
    Daisy’s fresh-faced entrance brought light into the room and just naturally eased the argument.
    â€œI brought fish from Uncle Lionel,” Daisy announced.
    Stanley lifted the cloth from Daisy’s basket, and as he did, a live fish jumped into the air and slapped him on the face.

    â€œOuch!”
    â€œHa! Saves me doing it,” said Mrs. Carelli as she wandered off into the kitchen.

    One of the grim and gray shipmates pulled out a map. He pinned one corner of it to a wooden table with a nasty-looking blade that was hanging out of his shabby sleeve, and rolled out the rest with a grubby hand.

    Another man stood behind him, peering over his shoulder at the greens and blues of the map. Taking a long knife from his inside pocket, he dropped it on a small olive-colored shape in the southwesterly corner. It stuck in firmly, the blade swaying from side to side.
    â€œThat’s where we wants to be, sir.”
    â€œFanking you kindly,” came a sneering reply. “Best get goin’, then. Hoist the mainsail, you dirty, stinkin’ old sea dogs.”

    While Stanley lay sleeping in his bed that night, the creaking wooden shape of a rotting ship moved stealthily through the night. Its ragged black sails flapped violently in the wind, and a band of grisly shipmates drank to their own good fortunes down below.
    Soon there would be more. From far and wide they had begun to assemble; some came in groups, some alone. All heading for the same remote corner of the earth.

2
    Beyond the Bronze Warrior
    Stanley lay comfortably wrapped up in the warmth of his bed. He had drifted off into a deep sleep, with a candle still flickering by his bedside. The faint light illuminated his face in the darkness until it finally petered out.
    Stanley began to dream. In the dream he swam effortlessly through the lake out on the moor. Deeper and deeper he went, until there
was nothing around him but a bottomless black.
    Staring eyes and sharpened teeth soared up toward him from the abyss. It startled him before he realized it was his old friend the pike.

    Circling Stanley’s head and drifting effortlessly around him, the pike began to speak.
    â€œHelp me, Stanley. It is time for me to return. Do not blame yourself for what happened; it was a mere accident. You are sitting in wait for the full force of the Quickening to materialize, and I fear that down here, I cannot help you. Take me home, Stanley. The Ibis sits in my stomach, and her heart beats so hard that it gives me a bellyache. I long for my