Taylor Davis and the Flame of Findul (Taylor Davis, 1) Read online

  He merely grunted and sat us down just beyond range of the sweet-smelling tree, though he stayed on his feet. “Reef your sails, me hearty. I have much to explain before you can ever hope to understand your mission.”

  “My what?” I squeaked. If they had opened any wider, my eyes would have popped out of my head and bounced off my sneakers.

  The man sighed impatiently. “You’re certain he’s the one?” he called out, looking somewhere over our heads. “Seems about as sharp as a belaying pin.”

  I jerked my eyes around the valley—a dangerous action considering the protruding state they were in—but it was empty. Apparently the man received some kind of answer, or perhaps the silence was his answer, for he slumped in resignation and started his story.

  “I was marooned here many long years ago—”

  “Ahem.” It was Elena.

  His face darkened. “What now, wench?”

  “What is wrong with you?” She blazed into a queen again. “This is the twenty-first century. Quit calling me that.”

  “Would you prefer peasant? Provincial? Vixen? Bumpkin?”

  “I prefer Elena,” she demanded, tossing her curls. “Look, do I need to stay and listen to this? It has nothing to do with me and I’d like to join my fourth hour class, if you don’t mind.”

  “This hadn’t anything to do with you,” he said with irritation. “But it might now.”

  “Because I got the burger first?”

  “Because you’re here,” he snapped. “Look, I’m just a lowly Jack Tar. I do what I’m told. As I was saying,” he began again with an impatient glance at Elena, “I was marooned here long ago. Me ship sank in a storm, the worst I’ve ever sailed in. The waves reached twenty feet if they reached an inch. When the vessel foundered, I entangled in the wreckage, but me blade was still about me person. I managed to cut away the lines and climb onto a spar. For three days I clung there like a sodden hen. Eventually the waves deposited me inside a chamber of pure rock. ‘Twas the last I ever saw of the outside world.

  “I dragged meself up the valley and found this here tree. I meant no harm. I was famished, and the smell tickled me senses. I took some, and I ate.”

  His face grew terrible then. He lashed out with his fists, fluttering the tatters of his uniform. His eyes burned within their mask of hair. “How was I to know? There was no sentry! That inept scallywag of a—”

  He cut off abruptly with a glance at the two of us. “‘Twas the worst blunder of me life.” He sank against the rock wall and stared at his boots so long I thought he was finished.

  Elena had an utterly bored look on her face, but I was thoroughly entranced. The man could have been an actor right off the set of Pirates of the Carribean. Was this some dramatic hoax? Were there hidden cameras set up somewhere? I had to know what was going on. “What happened when you ate the fruit?” I prompted.

  The man looked up in surprise, as if he had forgotten we were there. “Naught.” He jumped up and began pacing back and forth in front of us again. “And everything. It doomed me to this valley until the end of the world, till the great Sinking of the Ship. The fire that will one day destroy the earth is the only thing that can kill me.”

  “What?!” Elena and I said it together. She was listening now, doubtful, but intent.

  The man paused. Pointing so we wouldn’t miss it, he said slowly, “That tree is the one that was planted in the Garden of Eden millennia ago.”

  Elena did some rapid Sunday school calculations. “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?” she asked. “The one that got Adam and Eve in so much trouble?”

  “No.” He glared at us, one eyeball twitching spastically to the left. “The other one. The one mankind could no longer be permitted to eat from. ‘Twas the reason they were banished from the garden. ‘Tis the Tree of Life.”

  I gaped at him, completely astounded. “But how did it get here?”

  He sighed dramatically. “It could not be allowed to remain among the peasantry, could it? ‘Twas removed here until the Renewal of All Things.”

  Elena leveled him with a skeptical look. She was obviously doing a far better job of remembering than I was. “I thought God put an angel with a flaming sword in front of it.”

  “Aye,” he agreed. “The Flame of Findul.”

  “Well…” she drawled. “Where is it?”

  His face darkened again, and his rogue eye plunged about its socket like a wild stallion. “The flame was entrusted to a scoundrel!” he burst out. “A blackjack! A rogue!”

  At our curious glances, he calmed himself enough to elaborate. “After four thousand years, Findul requested a holiday. It gets irksome in this scurvy sinkhole. His sword was given to a dunderhead who allowed the flame to go out. This new angel was away from his post when I blundered onto the tree and ate. As punishment, I’ve been appointed sentry duty in his stead.”

  “What about the guy who slacked off?” I protested. “What happened to him?”

  The man’s mouth twisted until crooked, yellow teeth showed through his hair. He looked like a shaggy wolf with a really bad tobacco addiction.

  “He was pink-slipped,” he muttered with disgust.

  I felt my eyebrows hurtle up my face. “Really? An angel?”

  He ignored me and began working himself back into a rage. “He should have been keelhauled! Or kissed by the cat-o-nine! Heaven help the one he’s been reassigned to.”

  “Okay, Captain Sparrow,” Elena put in, “this whole playacting thing has gone on long enough. I have to admit, you make a pretty convincing pirate. Maybe not as good as Johnny Depp, but you’ll do. So joke’s over. What’s going on? Who are you, really?”

  The man’s glance strayed across the valley and rested on the chasm leading to the ocean as if it had rested there many times before. His face was fierce and proud. “In life, I was known as the Scourge of the Seven Seas. Davy Jones is me name.”

  For three seconds, the valley was so still that I could hear the far off waves. Then Elena’s laughter gave the impression that this was stupidest thing she had ever heard in her life. “Right. I want to go back to school now. Do you hear me?” she asked, raising her voice and addressing the stone walls and whatever pranksters might be hidden there. “I have an algebra test at 1:55 and I need to be there for it or I can’t be responsible for my report card.”

  The silence surrounding us lingered on and on. Davy shrugged at her as if to say, “Hey, what’d I tell you?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Let me get this straight. You want us to believe that you’re Davy Jones. You were shipwrecked on this—this wherever we are, and you ate of the Tree of Life. So now you can’t die and you’re doomed to guard the tree until the end of time. Did I miss anything?”

  “Nay, that’ll do.”

  “Oh, please. What happens if you mess up?” Her words dripped with sarcasm.

  He raised his head and set his shoulders proudly. “I wield the sword of Findul. Great sight has been given me, a knowledge of the things of this age. I cannot fail.” I suspected he might have rehearsed that speech in the mirror once or twice.

  Elena wasn’t impressed. “You barely stopped us in time. If we had eaten that fruit, would we be stuck here forever, too?”

  His shoulders drooped and he nodded. “It would have been disastrous. Part of me job is to prevent such a thing. But foremost, I must make sure the tree never comes to ruin. Its destruction would bring about the end of life on Earth.”

  I chuckled nervously. I wanted to blow him off as Elena had done. With all my heart I wanted to disbelieve. But if he was lying, Davy was the best actor I had ever seen. And the utter lack of reaction in the clearing was sending warning prickles up and down my arms. There was also the matter of the cafeteria floor.

  “That’s impossible, right?” I asked. “The destruction, I mean. No one out in the real world even knows about the tree.”

  A crazed light touched the man’s eyes. His voice grew soft, menacing. “There is one who knows, on
e who would destroy it. It’s been foretold that when danger grows most dire, one will be sent to counteract him. The One of Two Names.”

  “Everyone has two names,” Elena scoffed.

  “You have four,” I pointed out.

  She glared down at the top of my head.

  “The One would not have just any two names,” Davy went on. “He would come at the joining of my two names.”

  Elena and I glanced at each other then back at Davy. Elena addressed him pointedly. “Uh, that would rule out everyone here except you.”

  “Would it?” Davy asked, looking hard at me. “Are not Davis and Davy variations of each other?”

  I chuckled again, a desperate attempt at lightness that jangled to the earth like a steel chain. “I suppose they could be,” I consented. “But that doesn’t explain your other—”

  I had a sudden, terrible thought. “Sarah Gail Jones,” I whispered.

  “Who’s that?” Elena asked.

  I felt the blood drain from my face. “My mother.”

  Lesson #3

  Cobras Are Not Lapdogs

  “I really, really need a sandwich,” I managed.

  “I know where to find a cheeseburger,” Elena offered.

  “You’re not helping.”

  Davy led us to a low opening in the rock face not far from the tree. It broadened into a spacious living area. The floor was covered with plush carpeting and scattered with overstuffed chairs. A tousled pullout couch took up one corner; another held a table and two chairs. The apartment also had a refrigerator, a stove, a sink, and electric lighting. Best of all, a widescreen plasma television stretched across most of one wall.

  “Dude! This is where you live?” I blurted. Not bad for a four-hundred-year-old bachelor.

  “Help yourself to whatever you find in the galley,” Davy grunted.

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. I dug through several plastic tubs of leftovers—a leafy salad, fried potatoes, and some really bad-smelling fish—before deciding on a container of Kung Pao chicken. I didn’t know where he had found Chinese take-out, and I didn’t care. It was a delicacy I hadn’t tasted since leaving Jersey. And it would wash down really nicely with one of those bottles of Sierra Mist.

  Elena wrapped half the salad in a tortilla. “So, Davy, what do you do here all day?” she asked with bored resignation.

  “I guard the tree.” He indicated a wall of surveillance screens picturing live images of the giant from all angles.

  “That’s all?”

  “Oh, I do a little gardening, some crocheting, a bit of scrapbooking.” He grinned. “I also get 538 channels.”

  “Impressive,” she replied with an exaggerated yawn.

  During their brief exchange, I managed to polish off the entire box of chicken, another of fried rice, and three shrimp eggrolls. Feeling much better, I settled into a leather recliner and broached the subject at hand. “So, Mr. Jones, you were saying something about a heinous enemy who’s seeking to end all life on Earth in a hail of fire and destruction.”

  The old pirate’s face grew grave. “Aye. There is one who would scuttle the ship and take every last human down with it. He must be stopped. And you are the one who must do it.”

  “Why me?” I asked, more curious now than frightened. I had eaten some food, regained some perspective, and figured Elena’s skepticism was well founded.

  “You are the One of Two Names.”

  “I’m nobody,” I argued.

  “You’ve been chosen.”

  “I can’t even walk through the school cafeteria without falling through the floor.”

  “You were meant to fall through the floor.”

  “I get C’s in school, I suck at sports, and I knocked my own tooth out on a water fountain when I was eight.” I wasn’t trying to be annoying; I was merely pointing out the facts that could win me a “least likely to succeed” nomination. But patience wasn’t one of Davy’s virtues.

  “Listen here, you lubber!” he growled, brandishing his sword. “This wasn’t me idea. You were born with a purpose. Your parents were meant to meet and marry. Your father was meant to take this new job. And you were meant to parlay with me today.”

  I sighed. There was no arguing with this guy. “All right. What if I fail?”

  “That is not your concern. What is meant to be will be regardless of your success or failure. You can bet your fortune on it. But there’s comfort in knowing you’re part of Plan A.”

  “Very inspirational,” Elena broke in with biting sarcasm. “Have you ever considered a career as a motivational speaker?”

  The glare Davy shot her could have started a fire.

  Since I wasn’t going anywhere, I figured I’d hear him out. “Okay, tell me about my enemy.”

  Davy settled himself in a chair across from me. “In life, he was me shipmate. Me second-in-command, Bartholomew Swain.”

  “You want me to fight another pirate?”

  “Once he was a pirate. He has become something far worse.”

  “Super,” I drawled.

  “Bart was a ruthless fighter, a merciless killer. That’s why I took him aboard. He helped me win many prizes on the open sea. I shudder to think I could have become what he is. I would have, but for a trick of fate.”

  “A trick of fate?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I got to this island ahead of him. I came ashore first.”

  “So he’s been here, too.”

  “Aye. During the storm, he was entangled in the same debris. I thought he was food for the sharks, but there was still life in him. Unbeknownst to me, he followed me up the valley where he overheard me argument with the guardian of the tree. He learned what happened. He heard the consequences, and he desired eternal life for himself.”

  “He ate from the tree, too? I have an adversary who can’t die?”

  “Aye. Though I tried to stop him, he managed to snatch a wilted, wormy fruit that had fallen to the valley floor. He ate it. It had not the potency of one freshly picked, but it gave to him a diminished life, a half-life. He became a shadow, neither dead nor alive.”

  “An undead adversary,” I nodded. “Even better.”

  I heard Elena blow out her breath in exasperation. “Sounds like a jolly sort. I can’t wait to meet him. You’ll get me a date, won’t you, Davis?”

  Davy kept his eyes locked on me. “You don’t yet know the full extent of your enemy. He’s been to Hades where he met one older and darker than himself. Great authority has been given him to recruit among the living and the dead. And an unquenchable thirst for power has been implanted within him. He seeks control, death, domination. He will stop at nothing.”

  “So what exactly am I supposed to do with a guy like that?” I asked. “Give him a phone call? Invite him snorkeling? Maybe stop up the snorkel with a bit of bubble gum?” I wasn’t usually so caustic. Perhaps Elena was rubbing off on me.

  Davy frowned. “I don’t think either of you grasp the gravity of your situation.”

  Elena finally had enough. “Let me tell you what I don’t grasp, Mr. Jones.” She counted off on her fingers. “One, how did we end up in the cafeteria basement with a very creative drama department and an extremely talented special effects team? Two, where is the elevator back upstairs? And three, if Taylor’s opponent cannot die, how on earth could you expect him to defeat him?”

  Davy regarded us gravely. “Perhaps you need stronger proof that what I tell you is true.” Without any ceremony, he tossed the broadsword at our feet. It lengthened, thickened, and began to writhe. Stiff, shiny metal dulled into the undulating scales of an eight foot serpent.

  Elena screamed and leaped over the back of her chair, but I was frozen where I sat. The creature had five heads. One was a fierce-eyed bird of prey. Another resembled a jackal. A third took on the features of an alley cat you’d never want to meet in an alley. The fourth held the beautiful face of a woman. And the fifth, the one that came sliding up my knee, had the flattened
hood and unblinking eye of a cobra.

  My first instinct was to run, but the snake’s eyes held me in place, piercing me with some powerful spell that I was completely incapable of breaking. The walls of my chest clung together like socks dried without fabric softener. I couldn’t draw breath. I was suffocating.

  I was about to die.

  Lesson #4

  Angel Choir Dropouts Have Serious Identity Issues

  Davy reached down and snatched the creature’s tail. With a flick of his wrist, the tail was a sword hilt again.

  I slumped in my chair, panting heavily. “You certainly know how to convince a guy.”

  Davy went on as though diabolical monsters erupted from antique weapons everyday. “Your opponent is invincible save for the sword of Findul the firesmith. The only way to kill him is to rekindle the flame. That is your mission.”

  The pirate gave over the two-handed broadsword.

  I stood to accept it—and promptly dropped it on my toe. “This is the sword of Findul?” I managed to gasp. It was forged of an odd red-tinged metal, as if Findul’s fire had permanently stained it.

  “That ought to be a cinch to sneak through airport security.” Even Elena’s bravado seemed a little shaky, but she was recovering fast. “So where exactly do you go to rekindle heavenly weapons anyway?”

  “On this matter, I only know what’s been given me to know,” Davy told us.

  “That means you have no idea, doesn’t it?” I asked, gingerly picking up the sword. It was surprisingly heavy. I rested it on its point.

  Davy shrugged. “You, too, will be given all you need to know,” he said, indicating his widescreen TV.

  I paused. “Wait a second. Your ‘knowledge of all things’ comes from watching television?”

  “Most of it.”

  I glanced at Elena. “We are in so much trouble.”

  “Speak for yourself,” she snapped. “I’ve got nothing to do with this.”

  “It’s too late,” Davy disagreed. “There can no longer be any question of your involvement. Far fouler creatures than serpents will seek you if you abandon the quest now.”