And then he saw what his companions had seen before him.
A gaping hole yawned in the ground — a hole that led to a ghastly darkness. You could see, by the sand piled around it, that it had been dug very recently. There were heavy boot prints everywhere.
A paper lay half-buried in the sand. Lief picked it up. It was another copy of the pirates’ map.
His voice shaking, Lief read the message aloud.
“Doom guessed our goal. Betrayed us!” Jasmine cried.
Lief forced his stiff lips to move. “It may not be too late. Perhaps the pirates did not find the gem. Perhaps the Beast in the Maze killed them.”
“I fear that is too much to hope for.” Barda had picked up another object from the sand. It was a small box made of pearl shell. Its hinges had been broken as if rough, greedy hands had torn them apart.
“They have the gem,” Barda said. “They have the gem, and they have the Belt. We are too late. It is over.”
“No! We must give chase! We must find them!” Lief crumpled the paper in his hand.
“Do not deceive yourself,” said Barda heavily. “With such riches in their hands, the pirates would have no need to return to the river. By now they will be far out to sea, putting as much distance between Doom and themselves as possible, and looking for strangers with whom to trade. They are out of our reach.”
He put a gentle hand on Lief’s shoulder. “It is a bitter blow, but we must face it,” he said. “Our quest is over. We must return to Del.” He kicked at the tumbled sand. “Think of this, Lief. Now your parents can be freed. You can go to the palace and show yourself — pretend that you just ran away, as your father said.”
Our quest is over. Face it. Slowly, Lief nodded. Drearily, he thought of Dain, now beyond help.
Jasmine had been very silent. Lief glanced at her. She was standing on the other side of the cave, utterly still. Kree sat like a carved statue on her arm. Jasmine’s face was in shadow, but in her hand something gleamed. Lief went cold.
Jasmine had drawn her dagger. But why? And why was she standing so still? As though she was afraid to move. Afraid to startle …
He began to turn. And at once, like a snake striking, someone who had crept up behind him lunged forward. Barda flung up his arms with a bellow of agony as a great sword plunged home, spearing him through the chest.
Lief heard his own cry echoing around the cave. His ears ringing, his heart wrung, he spun around, dagger in hand, ready to leap at the attacker.
And then his jaw dropped. For standing there, panting and haggard, pulling his bloodstained sword from the falling body, was another Barda.
Wildly, Lief swung to look at the figure now collapsed on the ground. His stomach heaved as he saw the face dissolving, the body collapsing into a writhing mass. The long, crooked hands of the pink-haired lady’s dancing partner pushed out of the whiteness, to be quickly followed by the head of a white water bird and many other eyes and mouths that Lief did not recognize.
“Ol!” he hissed.
“Of course!” Barda’s voice rumbled behind him. “How could you have been deceived?”
Hearing that gloriously familiar, irritable growl, Lief dropped the dagger with a cry of joy and flung his arms around Barda’s shoulders.
“Steady,” said the big man uncomfortably. But he did not pull away.
“When I saw you at the cave entrance, I could not believe it!” Jasmine had bounced over to Barda and was embracing him in her turn. “How did this happen?”
Barda shrugged. “The Ol thought I was dead. But I am not killed so easily. I crawled ashore and took much time to regain strength enough to follow your tracks.”
He shook his head. “One set of tracks puzzled me. But when I reached here, I understood.” He grimaced with distaste at the remains of the Ol, now just a bubbling pool on the cave floor.
“I should have known!” said Lief. “You — I mean, it — spoke of how we had escaped from pirates and an Ol! Yet you had gone over the side, Barda, before the Ol that was the pink-haired woman revealed itself. How could you have known about it?”
“And no wonder it was so quiet and gentle!” Jasmine exclaimed. “It could copy your appearance and voice, and learn about us from what we said. But it did not know how to behave. It had not had time to learn what you were really like!”
Barda raised an eyebrow and Jasmine realized, too late, that her words had not been very flattering. She busied herself picking up the second dagger and tucking it into her boot.
“I may not be particularly quiet and gentle by nature, Jasmine,” said Barda dryly. “But on the other hand, I would not have been persuaded to give up our quest because of one small problem.”
“One small problem?!” Lief exclaimed. “The pirates have the sixth gem, and the Belt! And they are far away!”
“How do you know they are far away?” Barda demanded. “Because an Ol told you so? The pirates could be sheltering in a bay just around the headland at this very moment, for all you know.”
He waved a hand at the hole in the sand. “And if they have found the gem, so much the better. I would prefer to get it from them than face the Beast.”
The sickening vision the opal had given him rose in Lief’s mind. Suddenly he longed for fresh air. He turned and blundered out of the cave …
Straight into the arms of a grinning man whose hooked nose nearly met his chin, whose yellowed teeth were filed to sharp points, and whose savage eyes gleamed with triumph.
There were only two pirates in all, but with a sword pressed against Lief’s throat, Barda and Jasmine had no choice but to surrender. Bound cruelly together, the three were hauled back across the rocks and into a rowing boat, with Kree swooping helplessly above them.
“Did I not tell you I saw movement in the cave, Nak?” chattered the man with the filed teeth. “Was it not worth making a landing?”
“They will make fine sport,” agreed his companion, the huge red-haired woman who had seized Jasmine on the River Queen.
She twisted her fingers in Jasmine’s hair and spitefully wrenched the girl’s head back, so that she could stare down into her face. “You will learn not to kick your betters, fine lady!” she snarled. “We have a special fate reserved for trespassers on our shore. A little pet we want you to meet. Is that not so, Finn?”
The man sniggered agreement. As he took his place in the boat, he unbuttoned his coat. He was wearing the embroidered belt. He noticed Lief’s eyes upon it, and grinned evilly. “Do you miss it?” he jeered. “I am not surprised. It is heavier than it looks — fine quality indeed! But you will not need it where you are going.”
And, still laughing, he bent to the oars.
Once the boat had reached the calmer water beyond the waves, it turned and began to go back the way the companions had come. It reached the place where the Tor joined the sea and moved on, Kree battling the wind overhead, Finn and Nak straining against the current.
At last they drew opposite the blowhole, skirting the sheet of rock with care. And there was the pirate boat, rocking in shallow water, sheltering in an enormous cavern in the headland.
“Do not follow us, Kree!” shrieked Jasmine to the sky. “Wait!”
“If he does, he will wait forever,” sneered Nak.
As the rowing boat slid into the cavern, Lief saw the rest of the pirate crew eating and drinking on a huge ledge above the water. The polypan ran to and fro, carrying dishes, ordered about by everyone. There was something different about it, Lief thought. It looked harried and unhappy, but that was not all. He thought about it for a moment, then noticed something else.