Peter and the Shadow Thieves Read Free Page A

has the grog clouded your ability to smel , eh?” Nerezza smiled at his wordplay. Not a pretty smile.
    Palmer, shaking, tried to answer; words formed on his lips, but they were too soft, and the wind carried them away.

    “What’s that you say?” Nerezza bel owed.
    “They ain’t moving because…because they’re over an island, sir.”
    “And what exactly has we been out here searching for these past eight weeks, you pitiful excuse for a sailor?”
    “An island, sir.”
    “Yes, Mister Palmer. An island. That island, I’m wil ing to wager. The island that you missed because you was sleeping on your watch. Now wasn’t you, Mister Palmer?”
    “I was, yes, sir,” Palmer said, shaking harder now.
    “Cold, are you, Mister Palmer?” Nerezza said. It was hot enough to melt the pitch between the planks on the deck. Nerezza leaned close, to where his breath played against Palmer’s ear. “You want to experience cold, Mister Palmer, perhaps I could arrange a visit with our esteemed guest, the one who travels in the cabin next to mine. The one who don’t come out except at night. Would you like to meet him, Mister Palmer? Want to spend a few minutes alone with him?”
    “NO!” said Palmer, a new level of terror in his eyes. “I mean, no, sir, Captain. No. Thank you, no.” His teeth were clattering now. He put a hand over his mouth to shut himself up.
    “You sure, Mister Palmer?” Nerezza said. “I could arrange it.”
    Palmer shook his head violently.
    “I didn’t think so,” said Nerezza softly. “Not that I blame you.”
    Nerezza stepped away from Palmer and looked down. The crow’s nest towered a hundred feet above the waterline. The ship, on its current tack, was heeled over, so the sea was directly beneath Nerezza. The deck, to the side, looked impossibly smal in the vast expanse of blue ocean. Nerezza saw the upturned faces of the crew, al intently watching the drama taking place aloft. That pleased Nerezza. He wanted their ful attention.
    He turned back toward Palmer and held his knife up for al to see. Raising his voice—the powerful voice of a captain used to making himself heard throughout his ship—he addressed Palmer’s cowering form.
    “I offers you a choice, Mister Palmer,” he bel owed. “ Three choices, in fact, as I am a fair and evenhanded captain. One, you can pay a visit tonight to our esteemed guest in the cabin next to mine.”
    This brought gasps from the men below. Palmer whimpered, and again shook his head violently.
    “Two,” continued Nerezza, “I can carve a set of gil s into you and toss you into the sea for the sharks to play with.” He turned his knife so it glinted in the sunlight. Palmer was sobbing now.
    “Three,” bel owed Nerezza, “you can jump. Right now. Without another word from your worthless trap. If you can reach that island—the island you should have spotted—I’l welcome you back aboard, Mister Palmer, as I am a forgiving man.”
    Nerezza drew in a deep breath, the air whistling past his wooden nosepiece.
    “Now, which is it to be? The swim? The sharks? Or a visit with—”
    Palmer was gone. Nerezza leaned over the side and calmly watched as the receding body grew smal er, then disappeared in a splash of white foam that quickly dropped behind the fast-moving ship.
    Whether Palmer surfaced or not, Nerezza neither knew nor cared. He never looked back as he gave the orders—orders that the crew executed even more quickly than usual—
    to start the ship tacking toward the two smal clouds in the distance.

CHAPTER 3
THE WRONG SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN
    “ C AP’N,” BAWLED THE LOOKOUT perched atop a tal palm. “It’s the boy!”
    “Where away?” bel owed a rasping voice from inside the fort. A moment later the owner of the voice appeared in the doorway: a tal , rangy man with long, greasy black hair, a hatchet face, close-set dark eyes, and a hooked nose protruding over the extravagant foot-wide flourish of facial hair that had given him his