Текст книги "Leviathan"

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

PART ONE: DOWN TO THE SEAIN SHIPS

PART TWO: THE SEA CHASE

PART THREE: THE BLACK QUEEN

PART FOUR: FROM HELL'S HEART

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

CHATEAU D'IF, FRANCE

1802

Three years in darkness. Since Napoleon's coup in 1799, Roderick Deveroux had been imprisoned at Chateau d'If for refusing to reveal the secrets of his magical and mysterious designs for seagoing warfare. Without a trial–without so much as a word from his captors or his jailers–he was cast into the old castle's dungeons with the other supposed enemies of France. The fates of his young wife and father were as bleak to him as his own future.

Three years ago the new emperor himself had begged Deveroux for the designs, drawings, and mathematical calculations for his newest ships. The emperor had asked for them, then pleaded, and then finally threatened, but still Deveroux had refused to give the brutish little man what he desired: the design for an oil-fired ship that could drive the implacable British navy–the most powerful force in the world–from the surface of the seas.

As Deveroux lay against the cold wall of his cell, he could hear the sea far below crashing against the rocks of the small island. Roderick Deveroux knew his prison walls were coming very close to driving him insane.

The small door at the base of his cell opened, and his daily ration of meat and bread was pushed through atop a rusty plate. The meat was good, rich, and ripe, as Napoleon would not be pleased if his great prize died of malnutrition before he received the gift that would secure his place as master of the world.

The meal delivery was the same routine as always–he waited for the prison guard to close the trap before he allowed himself to move. This time however, the door remained open. Deveroux allowed his eyes to move toward the door and the still shadow beyond.

"Doctor, there is news from the outside. Perhaps after you hear it you will finally deliver to the emperor that which he desires."

Deveroux didn't move from the damp, moss-covered corner of the cell. He watched and waited.

"Your father has been executed for his monarchist leanings. It was done publicly in Paris."

Deveroux lowered his head and tried to bring to mind the face of his father, but found his memory failed him. His throat refused to work as he tried to swallow. His eyes filled with tears and he raised a hand to his bearded face and covered his mouth, biting his lip to keep the guards from hearing his anguish. The thought came suddenly to his mind and the question was out before he could stop it.

"My ... my wife ... is she–" He croaked the first words he had spoken in more than six months.

"Your wife? You fool, she committed suicide last year because she could not face the humiliation of your treason."

Deveroux wanted to scream but would not give them the satisfaction of seeing him break. Instead, he again bit his lower lip until blood oozed from his mouth, and then he buried his face in his hands. He remembered– they told me she was dead with my unborn child in her womb.

His decision was now an easy one. He would rather die than continue on in life without his family. As his tears dried, his eyes seemed to burn. He grunted to let the guard know he was there and listening. Then he rolled to one side, and slowly and cautiously slid the plate of beef toward him. He swatted the meat and bread from the plate and then harshly felt the edge of the thick tin in the darkness. He was afraid he wouldn't find what he was seeking, and then his trembling fingers found it–the outer lip of the plate had been worn to a sharp edge.

"The new emperor seeks my knowledge ... still?" he asked.

"Seeks? He demands it, fool," the voice said from the far side of the cell door.

With shaking hands he slid his finger across the sharp edge of the plate once more, bringing the sensation he was looking for–the cutting of flesh.

Deveroux drew closer to the iron door, then he raised the plate and sliced the one area that would supply enough blood to be convincing to the captain of the guard–his head. He sliced deep and long through the ragged growth of hair, wincing as the plate's edge dug a deep furrow through his scalp. Soon he felt the satisfying flow of blood coursing down his forehead, and still he dug the sharpened edge deeper. There had to be enough blood to convince the keepers that Napoleon's prized prisoner was attempting to do the unthinkable.

As he lifted the plate from his head, Deveroux saw that blood was not only flowing but had begun to spurt, as he had dragged the tin plate through a small vein. He held on to the plate, moving the sharpened edge opposite his grip, and then lay down next to the food portal. He allowed his blood to splatter the iron of the door, and then he sighed and made gasping sounds. He reached up with his free hand and slapped at the growing puddle of blood, making sure it splashed into the corridor beyond.

"What–?"

"It is blood, Captain, the fool has slit his own throat."

The captain of the guard did exactly what Deveroux had hoped: He panicked at the thought of losing him to suicide. He could never explain that to the emperor. He heard the other man as he pulled keys in an attempt to get the door open. So, this was it, the moment of his death.

He never had any plans to escape, but neither did he have the courage for ending his own life, so he would force them to do it for him. A self-satisfied smile etched his wretched features.

"Hurry, you bumbling fool, he'll bleed to death!"

Finally, Deveroux heard the key slide home into the rusty lock. Then he heard the scraping sound as it turned, and then the hasp of the lock was thrown back, and then came the sound of a man straining to get the door open. He felt and smelled the first fresh air in over two years as it hit his face and he breathed it in, preparing himself, gathering what strength he could for the next few seconds–the last seconds of his life. He let his eyes flutter open and his eyes instantly felt the jab of pain from the candlelit corridor beyond.

He felt hands roll him roughly onto his back, and before the guard could react he swung the tin plate as hard as his atrophied muscles would allow. The sharpened edge came into contact with the man's neck.

The captain gasped as he watched the guard take a blow to his throat just as he turned the prisoner over. He straightened and started to shout for others, but Deveroux lashed out with his bare feet and caught the young captain in his left knee, bringing him down to the rough stone floor. Before the captain could fully react to the assault, the prisoner Deveroux had leaped blindly to his back and brought the tin plate solidly down onto the back of the man's head, imbedding the sharpened edge deeply into his skull.

Deveroux was crying as he rolled off the captain and lay still, listening for the footsteps that would signal his death. As he tried to bring his breathing under control, he opened his eyes to the glare of the candles. The pain in his eyes slowly subsided as he tried to focus on the darkened far wall. He swallowed and tried to stop his tears but found his control was lost. His hand tried to reach out and feel the chill stone beneath him for reassurance that the world was real; instead his hand hit the keys that had fallen from the guard, who was just at that moment taking his last, rattling breath.

He clutched the large set of keys with both hands and brought them to his chest. As his eyes looked about he saw the other cells neighboring his own. He wondered if each was filled with the cruelness and brutality he had endured the past three years. Was there a man behind each door who had been subjected to the same horrific treatment that he had endured? His mind refused to answer as he rolled onto his knees. The pool of blood from the captain had spread thickly on the blocks of stone that made up the floor of the corridor. He stumbled as he tried to rise, using the wall for leverage. He became light-headed, and then he felt his stomach lurch and he spewed bile as a geyser would let loose water. Still, he stumbled and fell, stood and slid down the wall until he found steps leading upward.

Deveroux made his way slowly up the stone steps, constantly aware that his dealings with the guards would soon be discovered from another, unknown direction he wasn't aware of. He kept climbing, still holding the keys to his chest as if they were his wife's crucifix.

He stopped when he heard sound. A door, iron by the sound, had opened. As he tried to see in the darkness forward of his position, he made out a dim hallway that curved off to the right on the next level. He heard the sound of men from what he believed were two levels above him. Not fearing death, Deveroux moved to the next level. Then he smelled it. The only thing that had kept him alive the past two years had been that smell. It was the sea. He could now hear the crashing of the breakers far better than he had ever heard them before. He moved forward once the landing of the next level was reached. Then he heard shouts as he had been spied from above.

"Stop!"

Deveroux heard the command and the running of more than one guard as he stumbled toward the sound and smell. He fell, cried, and found his legs would not work. Finally he spied the door through his flowing tears. This one was wooden, not iron. With the footfalls sounding louder, now on his level of the fortress, he stood and pulled down on the latch. As he did, the door swung open and he was blinded by bright sunlight from the setting orb that seemed to blaze just beyond the open window.

Several women gasped and one screamed as he fell blindly through the doorway and into the kitchen. The smells of cooking meat, fish, and garlic now rode roughshod over the smell of the sea. He erratically made his way toward the fresh air streaming through the open window. More screams, and then the sound of the door opening and men running inside.

With a burst of strength he didn't know he could muster, Deveroux ran for the open window. Through his hurting and failing eyes he saw the sea far below. The men would not stop him from sending himself down into that sea and its waiting embrace of death. As a hand grabbed a piece of his rotted shirt, Deveroux leaped.

The guard ran to the wide window as a woman screamed. He saw the thin man plunge a hundred and fifty feet to the rocks and the crashing sea far below.

Napoleon's prisoner was content to let the blue ocean take his body. The smashing caress of the water stunned him when he hit from such a dizzying height. He opened his eyes against the sting of salt and saw that breakers were pushing him toward the jagged rocks that made up the bulk of the island that Chateau d'If sat upon. To drown, or to be smashed upon the rocks? The equation didn't concern him; what did was the horrible thought of being pulled from his death by guards who were surely on their way down to recover his body.

With this thought in mind, Deveroux knew what he had to do. He opened his mouth to take in as much of the salt-laden sea as he could, so as to cheat Napoleon of his destiny. As his suicidal moment came, he felt a sharp nudge on the left side of his body and felt the skin of an animal, a shark possibly, push against him. Then another, and then still another. As he opened his eyes he saw he was in the middle of a family of dolphins that were playing with him, pushing him first one way and then the other. Suddenly he found himself being pushed toward the one place he didn't want to be, the surface. He kicked and kicked, trying to get the playful animals to let him die in peace, but they still nudged him toward daylight with their hard noses.

"Damn you," he whispered as water flooded his mouth. His imagination and hallucinations then brought his end into perspective–he felt small, soft, almost gelatinlike hands grab at his tattered clothing, keeping him afloat as the dolphins chattered around him.

Deveroux gasped for air as a breaker smashed over his head. He was then pushed back to the surface by the strange, dreamlike hands of angels, with fine hair and silken soft bodies. Were these mermaids of the old tales he had listened to as a boy?

When he managed to open his eyes he saw that he had been pushed almost a mile from the point where he had struck the sea around Chateau d'If. As he weakly treaded water he saw men at the base of the fortress searching the area where he had struck the sea. He laughed for the first time in two years, a hoarse, very desperate-sounding thing. The dolphins joined in with their strange chatter and swam about him as if they were a part of the warped and twisted joke. Of the soft-handed, strangely glowing mermaids, or angels, he saw none.

The tide was taking him farther from land; he could no longer see the coastline. Even the dreaded and cursed fortress was now but a small speck on the horizon.

Floating contentedly, awaiting his new fate, he felt a sharp pain as something hit him from the side once more. As he rolled his thin body over, expecting his playful saviors, he came face-to-face with a large tree trunk, detritus of the ocean. Several of the dolphins had pushed the tree toward him. He decided he would wait for the friendly creatures to leave and then he would allow the sea to do its best. For reasons he did not fathom, the smartest animals in the ocean wanted him to live.

As he floated for hours on end, Deveroux thought about why God was sparing him. He had sent his marvelous creatures, and what Deveroux thought of as angels, to delay the death of this poor man of science for a purpose. The thoughts and memories of his family swirled in his mind as darkness came. He was being swept farther out to sea as the moon rose and set, and then dawn was upon him once more.

The sound of breakers and the coldness of the waters awoke the delirious Deveroux from a nightmare-filled sleep. He had been dreaming not of the murders of his wife or father, but of the evil men who had taken them from him. The dream seethed with hate and a desire for vengeance upon these men and their master. The force of the nightmares had kept his heart beating throughout that cold night and into the hazy morning following. Two days and two nights he floated on the gentle currents of escape.

Now, the sound of normalcy returned to replace the cries of his unjust treatment. The cawing of seabirds strangely mimicked the cries of his dream wife and father as they swooped low to investigate the floating tree trunk. The chatter of his constant companions, the dolphins, made him turn toward their sound. There, a hundred meters away, was a small island. Scanty trees broke up the outline of its rock-strewn shore and made him think for a terrifying moment that he was floating right back into the arms of Chateau d'If.

A large breaker caught his floating tree and pushed him toward what he now knew would be his final moment; the jagged rocks lining the shore came at him at a breakneck pace. However, something strange was afoot; the dolphins were taking the wave with him, jumping and chattering as they rode the wave in. As the waters crested he lost his grip on the tree and found himself being sucked through the rocks and into a cave opening revealed at the low tide of the morning hours. He hadn't seen it from his position behind the breakwater, but as soon as he was swept inside, it was cold and dank, almost as lightless as his onetime prison cell. The dolphins pushed him to a small sandy beach, chattered, then swam away, as if content they had accomplished what they set out to do. Deveroux rolled over, feeling the blessed earth beneath his tattered clothing. He collapsed and allowed a dreamless sleep to overtake him.

When Deveroux awoke, he tried to sit up. The sun outside the cave opening was setting, but in its waning death it allowed light to be cast into the interior. The former prisoner of Napoleon stood on shaky feet but collapsed. Then, more slowly, he rose, braced himself, and looked around.

He tilted his head as he saw something recognizable to his salt-encrusted eyes. Lining the interior walls were torches. He stumbled, righted himself, and approached. They were old–very old. He removed one from the hole that had been carved into the wall and hefted it. He sniffed the burned, dead end and smelled the aroma of grease–old and dry, but grease nonetheless. As he turned to look back at the cave's opening, his bare foot struck something sharp. He reached down and felt the dry sand, running his fingers though it. He hit upon an object and brought it up into the diffused sunlight. It was flint, used at one time to ignite these very torches lining the wall. With flint in hand, he brushed up the cloth-and grease-covered tip of the torch, then he knelt and started striking the flint against the stone wall.

It took him more than thirty minutes and five bloody fingers, but in the end the torch finally smoldered, then caught and flared to life. As he averted his eyes from the brightness of the flame, he saw the skeletal leg in the sand. He stepped back, brought the flame closer, and followed the leg upward. There, lying against the wall, were the remains of a man. He was tied by rope and spike to the very wall where Deveroux had found the torch. The clothing on the skeleton was old and falling apart. The corpse had several gold teeth, and even more were missing. However, there was one feature that made Deveroux look around nervously. This was the fact that this man had been slashed through the head by a sword, shattering the front of the skull. As Deveroux held the torch closer, he could see that the sword had smashed everything from the skullcap through the nasal cavity.

He shook his head and stepped back nervously. The remains had to be more than a hundred years old, in his estimation. The bloused pants, tattered vest, and red shirt made the skeleton look as if he had been a Gypsy, like the flotsam he had seen in the streets of Paris in the past. The bony fingers had rings upon each, even the thumb.

Deveroux brought the torch around and looked farther into the cave. The body was sitting upon a small shelf that seemed to wrap around the large interior. The small cove that rose and fell with the tide was up at that time, so he moved cautiously along the wall, staying high above the water.

He had traveled for what he estimated was a half mile into the bowels of the cave when he came to a huge gate. As he brought the torch to bear on the makeshift wall, he screeched a hoarse bark and stepped back as he saw two more bodies. These were not like the first, which had been tied to the wall and executed. These two skeletons were lying beneath the sharpened points of the bottom of the wall, which was imbedded in the men's torsos, crushing their ribs and spines.

As Deveroux examined the trap, he could see that the wooden device at one time had been placed into a separation in the cave's natural ceiling. These men had somehow triggered the pitfall, and been impaled by the sharpened base of the wall as it crashed down upon them. Deveroux grimaced at the horrible specter before him. The men were dressed as the first man had been. Jewelry of every kind adorned the skeletons. The one major difference–these men had been armed. One still grasped the sword he had more than likely used against the defenseless man Deveroux had discovered tied to the cave wall.

Deveroux examined the wooden trap and surmised it would harm no other. He gently pushed on the gate. It creaked and bent, but held firm. With eyes wild, he knew he had to find out what was so important about the rear of the cave that men would be driven to create such horrible deaths for their fellows.

He looked around him, and using the torch for light he leaned down and pulled upon the sword entwined in the skeleton's bony grasp, then cringed when three of the dead man's fingers came off with his effort. He looked at the skeleton and watched its long dead and empty eye sockets for a brief moment. Then he raised the sword, and while still looking at the dead man, slashed at the wood with a weakened blow. The sword severed the rotten rope where it crossed another of the old wooden beams. The wood creaked, and then Deveroux fell to the sand as his muscles began to cramp with just one swing of the heavy sword. Deveroux cried out in pain as he went to his knees, trying to get the cramp to cease its hold, and then he suddenly stopped and looked around as if he were being watched. With his right arm throbbing, he swung the torch in his left hand to and fro, searching for the set of eyes that he knew to be there. He saw nothing but the darkness. He was the only witness to his transgression.

He switched the torch to his right hand, and with tears of pain he swung the sword once more, severing another rope, and then he yelled out in fear when the crossbeam fell from the gate and almost crushed him. He saw one beam fall, and then another, until a small avalanche fell free, the remaining ropes not able to withstand the weight. They fell, crushing the remains of the two lost souls trapped years before. When the dust cleared and Deveroux stopped shaking from fright, he saw the gate had succumbed to his minuscule efforts, thanks in most part to the rotted rope holding it together.

He rose from the damp earth, and on shaking legs stepped through the opening and easily swung the torch forward. He couldn't make anything out at first, but then he saw the stacked items along the wall. Three hundred large and small chests. Some made of wood, others of iron. Some were locked while others had come apart with age and water damage.

He approached one that had broken open and held the flame close to the spilled items. There, twinkling in the bright flame, were what he assumed were diamonds. A thousand pigeon-egg-sized pieces of glittering and sparkling stone that had been torn from the earth, possibly centuries before.

Deveroux swung the torch back and looked at the two skeletons. He examined their clothing again and thought, pirates!Buccaneers, free seamen. He had found what these men had hidden, and had obviously been murdered for.

He turned and examined more of the chests. Gold from Syria, Babylon, and Arabia, and diamonds from Africa. Arabic coins stamped with artisans' renderings of faces that were hundreds of years old. He held the torch against a lock that still sealed one of the large chests and saw the seal of England–the head of the lion and the three crowns of Richard I.

Deveroux fell to his knees, lowered the torch, and crossed himself. The rumors were true. He had found what was lost more than six hundred years before: the legendary lost treasure of the Crusades. Gold, diamonds, and other riches ripped and stolen from the Holy Land. King Richard was rumored to have invaded Jerusalem for the sole reason of pillaging, not its liberation. The king died soon after his return home and his treasure was lost, or hidden away from his own countrymen, later to be discovered by this marauding band of cutthroats.

Deveroux saw in the treasure the route and means to his revenge against Napoleon. By his quick estimation, and not figuring in monetary terms of pound, shekel, or carat, he calculated that he had found over fifteen tons of riches. Billions upon billions of francs' worth of diamonds and emeralds alone. The gold was incalculable.

He cried at seeing the redemption that lay before him. He would exact the revenge he had coming to his soul for the death of a wife and the murder of his father.

He would then use this wealth to continue the work he had started. He would make the world a better place and in the end he would challenge humankind not to need the very avarice that lay before him.

As he turned to look back toward the cave's opening, knowing the sun had set, he began planning. His brilliant mind was regaining its edge and complex thought was becoming easy once more. His thoughts were cutting through the detritus of a world that wanted what he had–command of the sea.

In the fading light of the dying torch, there was movement in the water. With wild and insane eyes Deveroux believed his horrid memories of the past years were returning in the form of men to reclaim his soul. As he slowly slid to the softened sand, he saw for the first time the true magic, the real treasures of the sea–and they were beautiful.

Deveroux stared at the magical creatures as they in turn watched him from below the crystal-clear waters of the cave. Gold, diamonds, and emeralds–they all paled in comparison to the miracle his eyes now beheld. Fantasy mixed with reality–biblical stories with that of fairy tales. It was there before him in the waters, legend, myth, and sea-tales. Reality and clarity of mind beckoned him. Then suddenly the clear-skinned, glowing, angellike mermaids were gone as if they had never been. The darkness, the sea breeze, and the sound of life slowly returned to his ears as a plan began to form for revenge and a reason to live once more.

Now he would claim the sea as his own.