Fire over Swallowhaven (11 page)

“Well, let’s
all
think about it, then,” said Jack. “What never goes in a pot, but is always found in a pail?”

“It’s me!” shouted Ishmael. “Me! Me! Me!”

“I don’t think
you
can be the answer, Ishmael,” said Jack.

“I am, too!” hooted Ishmael, hopping from foot to foot. “Old Ishmael, he knows! Old Ishmael is a strange bird!”

“Cut it out, Ishmael,” Trundle said crossly. “I can’t think with you yelling. I really don’t think the riddle has anything to do with things that go into actual pots and pails. It’s probably more to do with the letters used in the words.”

“Then what’s the answer?” asked Jack.

“I’m not sure,” moaned Trundle.

“Oh, I am so totally sick of all this nonsense!” hollered Esmeralda, stamping her foot. She jammed her fists on her hips and turned to the phoenix, every prickle on her body quivering with frustration and annoyance. “Now look here, Mr. Phoenix, we came all the way here—battling pirates and navigating through Slatterkin’s Reef, I might add—with the specific purpose of giving you back your feather so you could tell us your secret.”

“Esmeralda?” murmured Trundle, plucking at her sleeve. “It might not be wise to yell at him.”

“Be quiet a moment, Trun,” said Esmeralda. “I’m busy yelling right now.” She glared up at the bemused-looking bird. “So enough with the riddles and the brainteasers and the puzzles. I don’t care what your first is in, mister! Or your second, or, in fact, your third, fourth, and fifth. You want to know what you are? I’ll tell you what you are. You are a
loony
!”

“Correct,” croaked the phoenix. “Loony is the answer.”

“He’s right, you know,” said Trundle. “Loony
is
the answer. Well, I never! Ishmael had it right all along.”

“So
now
will you tell us where the Crown of Fire can be found?” asked Esmeralda.

“Not just yet,” said the phoenix.

“Oh, strike me pink and blue!” raged Esmeralda. “What now? Card tricks? A spelling bee?”

The phoenix lifted its head to the full extent of its threadbare neck and spoke in an increasingly dramatic voice. “The secret of the glorious phoenix bird will only…be…revealed…when…” He paused.

“Yes?” chorused Jack and Esmeralda and Trundle.

“…whe-en…”

“Yes—
when
?” they all yelled.

“When I die!” finished the phoenix.

An awkward silence descended within the cone of the volcano.

“Oh,” said Jack. “I see.”

There was another long pause.

“And, if you don’t mind us asking,” Esmeralda began, “would you have any idea of when that might be?”

“Esmeralda!” whispered Trundle. “You can’t ask a question like that.”

The phoenix frowned at her, as though thinking
hard. “Well,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I’d say…it should be…some time…about…
now
!”

Even as the final word came out of his beak, there was a tremendous roaring noise and a blaze of blinding red fire filled the entire crater, lifting the four animals right off their feet and sending them whirling through the air like dandelion seeds.

S
oaring through the air like a Swallowhaven swallow, Trundle came in to land upside down and partway up the crater of the volcano.

Wallop!

“Ow!” Blinking and coughing, he slid slowly downward. “Ow! Ouch! Ow-ow-ow!”

On either side he could hear the gasping and groaning of his companions. They’d fared no better than he had. The titanic explosion set off
by the dying phoenix had sent all four of them crashing through the nest and splatted them against the wall of the crater like four badly flung omelets.

It was a few moments before the white smoke cleared and Trundle and the others managed to get themselves upright and on their feet so they were able to see the full effects of the blast.

“Didn’t I tell ye it would blow smoke out o’ his parson’s nose?” croaked Ishmael, rubbing dust out of his rolling eyes. “Didn’t old Ishmael tell ’ee?”

“He’s gone,” gasped Trundle. “Completely gone!”

“He’s dead,” added Jack. “The poor old fellow.”

“But what a way to go!” said Esmeralda.

The straggly nest had been all but blown to pieces as the phoenix expired. And in the place where the old bird had been sitting, there was now nothing but a neat pile of gray ash, shrouded in wisps and strands of white smoke.

“That’s what I call a death scene,” said Esmeralda, straightening her clothes. “You have to admit, the old guy knew how to make an exit!”

“But he didn’t tell us the secret!” groaned Trundle. “He…um…went off before he told us where we could find the Crown of Fire.”

“I’m not so sure he did,” said Jack. He took a step forward.

“What’s
that
?” Trundle looked. There was something in the middle of the heap of ash.

Something small and flickery and blue.

“It can’t be…” said Esmeralda in disbelief.

“It is!” said Jack.

“It’s the Crown of Fire!” gasped Trundle. He ran forward, scattering pieces of blasted nest to either side. “Ooh! Ow!” he squeaked as his feet made contact with the hot ash. He stood hopping from foot to foot at the outer margins of the ash heap.

He could see the crown clearly now. It was quite exquisite—a tall, elegant shape with jagged points like the shards of a broken eggshell. It flickered and danced like blue fire trapped in a vessel of glass.

Esmeralda and Jack arrived at his side.

“The Crown of Fire!” breathed Jack. “It’s lovely! Absolutely gorgeous!”

“It’s rather more fiery than I had expected,” said Esmeralda. She looked at them. “Anyone got any bright ideas as to how we actually transport this thing?”

“Iron tongs to pick it up,” suggested Jack. “And an insulated fireproof box to keep it in.”

Esmeralda eyed him. “So we have those things
aboard the
Thief in the Night
?” she asked. “Because if we do, I haven’t spotted them.”

“Um,” said Jack.

“What a pretty gewgaw, me hearties!” chortled Ishmael, his paws clutched together under his chin and his ears spinning. “What a lovely, toasty thing to keep a fellow’s head warm in these chilly climes!”

And so saying, he went prancing into the ashes, kicking up fine white dust as he went.

“Ishmael, no!” shrieked Esmeralda. “You’ll be burned to a crisp!”

But Ishmael ignored her. He danced across the ash heap and began to leap and cavort around the flickering blue crown, sending the ash billowing all around him.

“Don’t touch it!” called Trundle. “Be sensible!”

Ishmael bent down and picked up the crown. Trundle winced, not wanting to watch.

“I’m the king of the ca-astle, and you’re all dirty raascals!” came Ishmael’s crazy voice. Trundle opened
his eyes. Ishmael had put the fiery crown on his head. It was rather too big for him—if not for his ears, it would probably have been dangling around his neck. But it was clearly not burning him. He was tripping the light fantastic in the ash, singing and chuckling and snapping his fingers as he danced.

“Isn’t it rather hot?” called Jack.

“Not at all, not at all,” cackled Ishmael. “Warm as woolly mittens, it is—I can feel it doing me head the world o’good. I can feel it warming up the old brain like soup in a kettle!”

“Amazing!” said Esmeralda.

Quite suddenly, Ishmael stopped dancing. A glazed look came over his bulging eyes, and he began to speak in a strange shrill voice.

“
This clue you have found in the phoenix bird’s fire.

You must seek for the Crown of Ice in the land of Spyre!”

Then, a moment later, Ishmael shook himself all over and started dancing and singing again as if nothing had happened.

“Did you hear that?” said Esmeralda. “We’ve not only found the Crown of Fire, but we’ve just been given a clue to help us with the next one!”

“The land of Spyre?” puzzled Trundle. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“I have,” said Jack. “It’s an odd place, to be sure. Full of mystery and mysticism, so the stories say. And it’s a curious shape, too—like an elongated teardrop with jungles at one end and snowy mountains at the other. And in the middle…”

“Yes?” prompted Trundle. “In the middle?”

Jack put a finger to the side of his muzzle. “Marvelous secrets!” he whispered with a slow wink.

“Such as?” asked Esmeralda.

Jack shrugged. “I don’t know, they’re secret.”

Ishmael came gamboling through the ash.

“We’re off to Spyre, yo ho, yo ho!” he sang. “We’re off to Spyre, in the snow, in the snow!”

They stared after him for a few moments as he went scrambling up the mountainside with the flaring and fluttering Crown of Fire still on his head.

“Follow that pirate!” said Esmeralda.

It took a while for them to persuade Ishmael to part with the crown, but in the end he agreed to take it off. It was an extraordinary, wonderful thing, quite solid to the touch, smooth and still a little warm—like sun-heated glass—its blue fires flickering and flaring.

They found a box with a lid that had once held windship’s biscuits. The crown fitted perfectly in there. And so, with everyone aboard, and with Jack at the boom and Esmeralda at the tiller, the
Thief in the Night
lifted off from the mountainside and sailed back toward Slatterkin’s Reef.

They hoped that the Fates would guide them
through the reef again—and if the Fates proved less than totally helpful, they could always get Ishmael to dance Slatterkin’s Folly backward.

“I do feel a bit sad about the phoenix, though,” remarked Trundle as they sped away from the lonesome island. “I know he was old and curmudgeonly and all that, but it’s a shame he had to die.”

“If you gotta go, you gotta go, Trundle,” said Esmeralda. “He was at least a couple of thousand years old, don’t forget.”

“All the same.” Trundle sighed.

“Fetch hot water and plenty of towels!” screeched Ishmael, staring back the way they had come. “It’s on its way!”

“What is?” asked Jack.

“The newborn chicklet!” shrieked Ishmael. “Do ye not know the legend? The phoenix rises from the ashes of its own funeral pyre, so it does!” His
voice rose to a whoop. “Happy birthday and many returns!”

As he spoke, a beam of bright red light came shooting up out of the mountain’s cone, bathing the entire sky with a ruby glow. And rising within the beam of rosy light was a truly magnificent young phoenix bird! Its glorious wings spread out as wide as the crater’s rim, radiant now in shining scarlet plumage. Its noble head lifted majestically on a long sinuous neck, and its eyes shone like twin suns.

“Oh…wow…,” gasped Trundle, shading his eyes from the glorious radiance.

Up and up the newborn phoenix rose, revealing jeweled claws and a long, sweeping red tail. It flapped its scarlet wings; its eyes filled with light and joy as its beak stretched wide open.

“Good luck!” called the beautiful bird, its voice ringing out like a peal of golden bells. “Good luck and thank you!”

And with that, the wonderful creature sank back down into the cone of the volcano and the ruby light faded.

“Well,” breathed Trundle. “Now there’s a bird who knows how to make an
entrance
!”