"Is he gone?" Mariana asked.
"Well, do you see any ghosts around here?"
She sighed and lit the rest of the candles. The relief was spectacular; it was like a ton of stones had been lifted from her shoulders.
"This is it, then," she said. She was not sure that she was entirely free from her anger, though. After all, Daniel had killed one of her men.
"I have to tell you something," Roinar said. "Sit down, Captain Adams. I will now reveal the reason why I was so eager to work with someone who has the skills of a pirate and the prestige of a privateer."
"I am listening," Mariana said, but she did not sit down.
"I am dying already," the witch sighed. "I'm not going to make it past this year without the help of the Potion of Life. You have to find it as soon as possible. The infection is spreading fast, and there have been no doctors who could ever cure such an illness."
Mariana swallowed.
She was racing against the clock and the calendar now. She needed to learn about the musicians who could perform the song, immediately, right now, before the worst would happen and her only hope against a vengeful ghost would vanish in the throes of sickness.
Mariana asked Roinar a couple of questions. For one thing, they would have to search the tropical wilderness of Aja Vana. Secondly, the musicians were reclusive and very reluctant to open up to outsiders. They would have to get some goods from the nearby ports to persuade these expert harp players to give them the song of life.
The captain fashioned quite a tale for the crew - it was true that they would probably have to rob a pirate ship to get something nice like tobacco, coffee, or gems. Artistic people tended to like such things.
The weather got better, hotter, wetter. Mariana had missed the tropical area so badly that she was amazed by how fresh it felt to be able to walk around on the deck wearing nothing but a simple summer dress without a corset. It was not like she would have needed anything to cinch in her waist, anyway. The portions she ate were not plentiful, and she had more to worry about with the disappearance of all womanly softness on her body. She remembered the witch surgeons saying that her weight should never drop too low.
Making a mental note to eat more nuts and dried fruit, Mariana guided her crew towards the trade routes and spotted an enemy ship.
It was one of those tribal merchants that were free prey for anyone with a Sennite letter of Marque. Distinctly sophisticated for something so northern, the vessel was rigged according to the sensibilities of those who only sailed in shallow waters. Indeed, there were many dangerous reefs nearby, and Mariana took care to have the lads with the sharpest eyes judging the quality of their route. Sometimes, even the deepest shade of turquoise could hide a surprisingly bad turn that would rip their belly open and let them drown in these idyllic waters.
Mariana was at the helm with Wolfe. Contrary to popular belief, a helm was not an easy or light wheel to spin, and most grown men required the assistance of another strong pair of arms. It was quite flattering to her that she was able to do it with Wolfe without a third person.
The sun was drilling into her forehead, as her hat did not quite cover every sensitive spot of her head, but she had been born a brunette who was naturally pale but tanned more easily than she took any damage from daylight.
In fact, these waters were the territory of that beast…the one that had changed the color of her hair out of sheer terror. For some reason, it was easier for people to believe that a hydra of some sort lived in these waters than it was to accept the fact that Mariana's hair had once glistened in a glossy, deep shade of dark brown.
Why was it so impossible to think that some sights could change a person's appearance, when most people still believed in deadrousing, that whole necromancy business? It made no sense - those who listened to tales from the high seas simply did not act according to any known logic.
"These are the hydra waters," Mariana said to her first mate. "We need to be especially careful around here."
"And you have battled a thing like that." Wolfe paused for a moment, merely holding the helm in place so that his captain could rest her arms.
"I do hope we do not encounter such things, or your hair may turn white. You'd make for an amazingly stunning old grandmother, though, my dear Captain. Not a single wrinkle around your eyes…"
Mariana laughed, all hatred and fear dissipating for a split second. "Stop it, Wolfe, you are so awful!"
"And did you hire me for some other purpose? Here I was thinking that I would get paid for being my lovely self…wait…"
His amused response died, hanging in the air as the last comment before the sight of doom itself raised its ugly head from the sea between them and the ship they were hunting.
Well…it was one of its ugly heads. It was hard to assess just how many of them the hydra had. It had the disgustingly moist-looking skin of amphibians, but its claws were like those of a dragon, and the vivid anger it displayed due to the intruders coming this near to its nest was most certainly the hot rashness of a red-blooded and warm animal.
The horrible black beast kept on raising its muscular body from the depths. Its distorted faces were so numerous, and its hideous anatomy so suggestive of death and getting mauled by the needle-like protruding teeth that Mariana had to check her reflection in her little pocket mirror.
No, she had not become a white-haired grandmother, but it had been pretty close.