The Silver Casket Read Online Free Page B

enemies are ours also. Give me your hands.”

    Stanley held them out to her and she clutched them in her own. They were dry and creased, but smooth to touch and much warmer than his. Then she took the velvet cloth away and revealed a glass ball in the middle of the table.
    â€œLay them on the crystal. It will help,” she said, staring hard into the sphere. “Do you see them, Stanley? Do you see what awaits you?”
    It meant nothing to Stanley. He could not see anything except for the glass ball with his hands on the top and the old woman gazing into it with her face lighting up in surprise.
    â€œWhat … what is it?” asked Stanley.
    â€œThey come from all corners of the earth. And they come in their thousands. From the depths of the ground they stir, like swarms of poisonous insects. Of all the enemies that
come, one ship sails alone. When she arrives she will settle in the north bay. She wears the Yellow Jack and none will come near her.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” Daisy piped up.
    â€œThe Yellow Jack is the flag flown in warning of the fever,” Greta explained.
    â€œYou mean that one of the ships is filled with pirates who are ill?”
    â€œYes, dreadfully ill. They have the buccaneer’s bones, a disease to punish the worst of any pirate spirits. But they will try and get here all the same. The Ibis draws them near.”
    â€œWe must be extra careful to avoid the sickness then,” said Stanley.
    â€œIt cannot harm you, Stanley. It is an illness of those who wander the earth in their skeletal form. The spirit is willing, but the body turns putrid and poisonous and burns itself out through a ghastly fever. Foul and stinking
is the stench of buccaneer’s bones. You will surely know it if you come across it.”
    â€œAnd what about the Ibis? How did you know of it, and that it’s here?” asked Stanley.
    â€œThe legend is older than all of us. The sacred bird has been to more places than all the travelers here put together, and lived a million lifetimes. Most people know nothing of it and of the ones that do, some are good, some bad. Many think they own it, but very few deserve it.
    â€œYour image came to me in my crystal ball when you defeated the wolf. I watched you out there on the moor, brave and alone. From then on your shape showed itself many times in the crystal and I saw you through the spiraling fog of the glass when you discovered the Ibis.
    â€œRight now what matters is that those villains
know the Ibis is here, and they want it. There are many traveling men here, Stanley, tough, hard men who will fight to protect you. But they are up against a tough enemy. Strong is he who fights by the side of his own brother. But unbeatable is the man who walks in the shadow of his own death.”
    Greta looked into the ball again, her face near the glass.
    â€œWho is this who walks along the ocean floor, dressed in red with a shock of white hair and a cutting blade held at his side? With eyes of green, and stumps upon his back?”
    Stanley and Daisy froze. So, Angel Cuzco was more than just a legend.
    Greta watched carefully. She described murky, darkened depths where weary pirate bones were reassembling themselves out of their old sea chest. A pair of skeletal companions
were dressing their ragged selves, and rusted weapons hung from their hands. A broken padlock lay at their feet and the chest was scattered in splinters upon the murky sand.
    But two green eyes shone in the bubbling blue of her ball, and with blinding speed the Angel appeared to be marching toward them. He cut through the pirates without pausing and sent their limbs floating like dead fish until they settled in the sand.
    Stanley and Daisy sat silently, their faces pale.
    â€œEnough,” Greta said. She knew that what she had seen disturbed Stanley and Daisy, and that if she told them any more she would only frighten them further.

8
    The Black Swarm
    In the days that