Chapter 1 - Arrival in Marseille
As Edmond Dantes was mummified alive in the
darkness beneath Monte Cristo, he reflected on the events which had brought him
there.
The look-out at the
Marseille docks spotted the Michaeleon pulling in from sea on the 24th of
February, 1815. The big three-mast ship came from Tunisia with untold exotic
goods nestled in the hold. Spectators gathered to watch the Michaeleon sail
into the harbour, past the rocky islands in the bay and the imposing walls of
the prison of the Chateau d’If. The locals took a sense of pride in seeing the
Marseille-built Michaeleon return to port.
A massive grey appendage emerged
from the water just outside of the harbour and interrupted the spectacle. The
slithering tentacle covered in razor-sharp ringed cups rose twenty feet
straight up into the air before slamming down onto the deck of the Michaeleon.
The ship’s pilot sounded the warning bell; the bell of the old fort on shore
answered it. The sailors sprang into action with pistols and swords to dislodge
the tentacle before it could pull them under.
Another incoming ship, the
Pharaon, increased their sails to pick up more speed. A young man next to the
pilot directed the deckhands to man the ship’s harpoon guns. They fired the
large metal hooks into the blubbery sides of the kraken surfacing next to the
imperiled Michaeleon. The beast’s ivory beak breached the surface, surrounded
by smaller tendrils. One of them wrapped around the leg of an unfortunate
seaman, dragging him closer to the beak to be torn in half.
The Pharaon drew closer.
As a defensive measure against just this sort of creature, it had an extendable
steel spike beneath the water line. The young man ordered it deployed, and
their course allowed them to ram the kraken at full speed. The wounded creature
screeched and flailed, withdrawing from its attack on the Michaeleon to focus
on removing itself from the spike as the crew brought four-pounder cannons to
the deck. With the tentacle clear of the Michaeleon’s deck, the sailors on that
vessel brought their own cannons to bear as well. Fired upon on both flanks, the
kraken decided to submerge and flee in search of an easier meal.
Monsieur Pierre Morrel,
owner of the shipping company Morrel & Son and of the Pharaon, stood on the
dock with great agitation. The Michaeleon was not one of his ships, but a
kraken attack was never an easy thing to witness, especially when lives were
lost. He made a mental note to check in with the ship’s owner later and see if the
dead man had any family.
Another concern for him stood
aboard the Pharaon itself; or rather, not aboard it. The young man giving
orders was certainly not Captain LeClere. Furthermore, the ship was several
days late in returning to Marseille.
Whoever the acting captain
was, he had handled the kraken and now threw tow lines to the injured vessel.
Morrel’s wooden leg beat an uneven rhythm against the dock as he rushed to a
small skiff and paid the oarsman to bring him out to the Pharaon.
“Did you see that,
monsieur?” the oarsman asked. “I’ve never seen a kraken so big in the harbour
in all my days! Isn’t the coast guard supposed to keep them at bay?”
“Some ambassadors are
returning from abroad and requested an escort, from what I hear,” Morrel said.
“It seems that kept them busy.”
When Morrel came
alongside, a rope ladder waited for him, and the young man stood at the top of
it. A tall and slim young fellow of about eighteen or twenty, with hazel eyes
and hair as black as a raven, and as pale as a hardy life under the
Mediterranean sun allowed. His demeanour, even in the wake of battle, radiated
a sort of calm peculiar to men who are equipped to deal with danger.
Nevertheless, he looked worried.
“Edmond Dantes? Is that
you, then?” Morrel asked as he climbed. “Where is Captain LeClere? Why did he
leave you in command?”
“M. Morrel, I regret to
tell you that Captain LeClere has died,” Edmond said as he helped to pull
Morrel up onto the deck. “We lost him when we made port at Naples.”
“Lost him?” Morrel asked,
devastated to hear such news about his best captain. Morrel’s wife and LeClere’s
were bridge partners, and their children played together. “Was it pirates?”
“Just a moment, sir,”
Edmond said. He gave new orders for a course correction to bring themselves and
the Michaeleon into the docks. The pilot and eight other seamen sprang into
action to respond. It impressed Morrel despite the terrible news.
“Ah, M. Morrel!” called
another voice behind him. Morrel recognized the accent at once and was not
surprised to see M. Danglars approaching.
Danglars was the ship’s
supercargo, responsible for buying and selling as Morrel’s representative in
foreign ports. His curly brown hair, receding already at twenty-five, resisted
any attempt to tame it. It framed a round and rubbery face, with a large gap
between the front teeth. Danglars pushed his way past the deckhands to reach
Morrel without bothering to excuse himself, and his beady eyes kept tabs on
Edmond as he did so.
“All of our transactions
have been processed as directed, sir,” Danglars said when he reached Morrel.
His voice was somehow both deep and nasal at the same time, a combination that
Morrel found both unique and unpleasant. “I have a summary of the ledger here
if you’d care to review it.”
“I’ll look at it shortly,
Danglars,” Morrel said. Danglars was adept with figures, but his logs had a
history of irregularities that worried Morrel. Every inconsistency had an
explanation, and there had never been any trouble, but Morrel would not be
surprised to learn Danglars was embezzling. Still, he had never been able to
find any proof of it. “Tell me, what happened to Captain LeClere?”
“Ah, I see young Edmond
has told you about our entirely avoidable misfortune,” Danglars said with a
sniff. “We were ashore in Naples having supper, and LeClere heard a commotion
in the street. A loup-garou was
running loose in the street, and the captain put himself in harm’s way to draw
the beast’s attention from some young women. It was elaborate suicide, really.”
“Werewolves! Foul
creatures, the lot of them,” Morrel said. “Was the captain at least suitably
equipped?”
“Not in the least,”
Danglars said. “A jeweler arrived with silver bullets and put the wolf down,
but it had already mauled the captain beyond hope of rescue. All we could do
was bring him back to his cabin; he wanted to breathe his last aboard the
Pharaon.”
“Mon dieu,” Morrel said, making the sign of the cross. “It will be a
small comfort to his widow that he died a hero, but small comfort is better
than none. Did he have any last words?”
“Ask Edmond; he was alone
with the captain when he died and took it upon himself to give the crew new
orders immediately,” Danglars said, staring at Morrel with intent. He pressed his
thin lips together and stretched his cheeks, an expression which Morrel had
learned served as a smile on Danglars’ face. “While you’re at it, I would
suggest asking him about the unscheduled stop which not only delayed us but
also brings us into port under the Hunger Moon. It’s a bad omen, sir.”
“I doubt very much that
the moon cares about your date of arrival, M. Danglars, and Edmond was, after
all, the first mate,” Morrel said, frowning. Danglars’ superstitions could be
tiresome, but if Edmond had ordered the delay he would need to learn why. “See
to it that everything is ready for customs to come aboard. I will check in with
you before I leave the ship.”
Morrel hobbled across the
deck on his wooden leg, grateful that the harbour was calm. He had lost the leg
twelve years earlier, during the darkest period of Europe’s history: the Dead
Plague.
Beginning in late 1787 in
Eastern Europe, a mysterious event set in motion a terrible perversion of
nature. The source of it was a tightly-guarded secret, but something spread
across the continent which turned men, women, and children into walking corpses,
hungry for human flesh. People called the creatures many names: undead,
revenants, ghouls, zombies. Whatever the label, the Plague spread like fire and
raged for seventeen years. One bite from an undead transmitted the infection;
if the victim could avoid being devoured completely, they were doomed to become
a zombie themselves.
Morrel had just avoided
that fate in 1803, when a zombie concealed itself in the shadows beneath his
front porch. Cold hands had clamped onto his ankle, and the zombie’s teeth
passed through his boot to tear off a chunk of the flesh and tendons beneath.
Morrel had only just been able to put a bullet through the zombie’s head when
he fell. The quick action of his neighbour, a doctor, resulted in his losing
the leg beneath the knee soon enough to prevent total infection.
He found Edmond
supervising the crew from the upper deck. The crew responded as well to him as
they ever had to Captain LeClere, and he handled the responsibility well.
Morrel had seen many young men in their first command position turn to
arrogance, but Edmond gave his orders respectfully. LeClere seemed to have
taught him well. Morrel beckoned for Edmond to follow him to the captain’s office
and waited for Edmond to close the door.
“M. Danglars tells me that
there was an unscheduled stop,” Morrel said. “Can you explain it, please?”
“Of course, but it is a
delicate matter,” Edmond said, standing at attention. “I wasn’t certain whether
to log it before talking to you first. It has to do with Captain LeClere.”
“LeClere ordered the
detour?” Morrel asked.
“In a way, sir. When he
was dying on his bed, he sent everyone else away. His last request was that we deliver
a letter to Marshal Bertrand at the island of Elba,” Edmond said. “The crew
were allowed to come ashore as far as the beach, and I was taken to see the
marshal alone.”
Morrel stroked his chin,
surprised by the young man’s words. Omitting the visit from the logbook was
prudent; Elba was the prison of Napoleon Bonaparte.
When the Dead Plague
reached France in the summer of 1788, King Louis XVI and his court showed
little concern for the commoners and instead focused on protecting themselves. The
people revolted against this indifference in 1789 and overthrew the monarchy in
a grand Revolution. Napoleon, a Corsican commander in the French army,
organized his troops to subdue the worst of the undead uprising within France and
earned the country’s adoration. The revolutionary government made him first a
general and later their highest rank of First Consul.
Seeing an opportunity to
increase French power, Napoleon led the army across Europe. Wherever he went,
he wiped out the undead and demanded that the countries he liberated become
vassals of France. Weakened by the Plague, they submitted to French rule. Finally,
in 1804, he found something in a region of Eastern Europe which would one day
become Ukraine. Napoleon never publicized his actions there, but because of
what he did, every zombie in the world was destroyed in the same instant. He
returned to Paris and gave himself a new title: Emperor.
All was not well for
Napoleon, however. Royalist aristocrats who had survived the Revolution
remained in exile, working among the new vassal states to stir up resentment
against Napoleon and reclaim their former positions. The end of the Dead Plague
did not end Napoleon’s ambitions, and he continued to expand his empire; in
1812, he overextended himself with a disastrous attempt to invade Russia and gave
the Royalists their opportunity. Humiliated by his Russian defeat, Napoleon
returned to Paris to find a coalition of Royalist-backed rebel forces waiting
for him. He was forced to abdicate his throne, and the monarchy was restored
with King Louis XVIII. Napoleon was exiled to Elba with his marshal and six-hundred
men in his personal guard, and allowed to rule the native population there as a
king.
“Sir?” Edmond said,
bringing Morrel’s thoughts back to the present. Morrel realized he hadn’t
spoken for several minutes.
“You should be alright,”
Morrel said carefully. “As you said, the landing was made at LeClere’s request;
no judge in the country would convict you for a dying man’s last wishes. As for
the letter, I would not expect trouble. The postal service already carries news
to and from the island, and what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
“Thank goodness, sir,”
Edmond said, relaxing his shoulders. “I had half-convinced myself of the same
thing, but it’s good to hear you say it.”
“Yes yes, that’s often the
way of things,” Morrel said with a smile. He checked for eavesdroppers at the
cabin door, then returned to Edmond. "Did you see the emperor? How is he
doing?"
“He entered the marshal’s
apartment while I was there and seemed quite well. In fact, he spoke to me,
sir,” Edmond said.
“And what did he say to
you?” Morrel asked.
“He asked me questions
about the Pharaon, our trip from Marseille, and what was our cargo. He seemed
pleased to have someone new to talk to, if only for a few minutes,” Edmond
said. “I told him that she belonged to you; he told me he knew the firm and
that a Morrel had served in his regiment many years ago.”
“Imagine that, the emperor
remembers the name Morrel! That was my uncle, Policar. He would love to hear
that, but...” Morrel stopped his joyful exclamations and laid a hand on Edmond’s
shoulder. “Edmond, you did well to follow Captain LeClere’s last wishes.
Regardless, I think it would be best if you tell nobody else about your visit
to Elba.”
Edmond nodded, and then
they heard a clamour outside signaling that they had reached the docks. Men
shouted to each other as they lowered the gangway for the customs officers and
health inspectors to come aboard.
“Excuse me sir, but as
acting captain I should be out there,” Edmond said.
“True enough, true enough.
Go!” Morrel said, watching Edmond leave before following him out onto the deck.
The health inspectors came
aboard first, wearing thick leather overcoats and masks of fine mesh to avoid
any possible contagion. The uniforms made Morrel imagine Hell’s own fencing
team. They verified the ship’s logbook and compared the entries to a list of recent
known outbreaks. With everything in order, they presented their bill to Edmond
and left to admit the customs officers.
The customs officers wore
ordinary suits and cravats and were accompanied by several pairs of uniformed
gendarmes. Each pair brought with them a drake on a leash, a four-legged reptilian
creature the size of a wolf. The gendarmes and their drakes inspected the cargo
hold for any smuggled contraband. Meanwhile, the customs officers went to the
supercargo’s office with Danglars’ assistant to inspect the books and determine
what taxes would be excised from Morrel’s profits.
“I take it that young
Edmond has given a satisfactory explanation for the landing at Elba?” Danglars
asked, unhappy to see Morrel smiling after meeting with Edmond.
“He did,” Morrel said.
“Ah, very good,” Danglars said
with a frown. “Speaking of the late Captain LeClere, did Edmond give you his
letter? I think the captain entrusted him with one.”
“You’re awfully
knowledgeable about a private meeting between Edmond and the dying captain, M.
Danglars,” Morrel said, his eyes narrowing.
“I may have passed the
door of the captain’s cabin as they were talking,” Danglars said, blushing. “It
must have slipped my mind.”
Edmond soon returned and Danglars
took the opportunity to retreat, though he remained close enough to keep an ear
on their conversation.
“The customs details are
taken care of, sir,” Edmond reported, “and the Michaeleon is safely at dock as
well. The voyage is over!”
“Expertly handled,
Edmond,” Morrel said. “When you’re done, I insist you join me for lunch. We should
talk about the late captain, the journey at large, and perhaps your career as
well.”
“It would be my honour, M.
Morrel,” Edmond said, not bothering to hide his brilliant grin. “But I’ve been
away for three months and need to see my father. How has his health been? Have
you seen him lately?”
Morrel chuckled and rapped
his knuckles against his wooden leg. “Us old cripples need to stick together!
Your father has been fine, although you know how he likes to keep to himself. I
expect a certain someone else will be receiving a visit soon after? A certain
girl in the Catalan village?”
“Well, sir, that reminds
me of something,” Edmond said, a flush creeping up to his high cheekbones.
“Mercedes, that is the Catalan girl, agreed to marry me once I returned; I’d
like to request a few days leave, sir.”
“For your wedding? Of
course, dear boy! Consider it done,” Morrel said.
“The wedding, yes, but
also an important errand I need to conduct in Paris. I’ll be back as soon as
possible,” Edmond said.
“Not to worry,” Morrel
said. “Take the time you need. It will take six weeks to unload the cargo, and
three months to prepare for the next voyage. Just be back by then; after all,
the Pharaon cannot sail without her captain!”
“Sir? I told you, Captain
LeClere has…” Edmond trailed off, his eyes growing wide as he realized what
Morrel had said. “If this is a joke, it’s a cruel one. I’ve dreamt of being
captain of this ship since I first saw her and learned every inch of every job
on her to prepare for it.”
“No joke, Edmond,” Morrel
said. “Mind you, I still need to confer with my business partner before it can
be official. But it’s a formality; he leaves the staffing decisions largely in
my hands.”
“M. Morrel, I swear that I
won’t let you down,” Edmond said with tears in his eyes as he shook Morrel’s
hand.
“You can thank me once it’s
official. Now go see your father! Go see your blushing bride!” Morrel said.
Edmond saluted Morrel and
sprinted down the gangway, dashing towards the famous street of La Canebiere.
From dawn to midnight, people swarmed La Canebiere’s many markets and
restaurants and social clubs; the saying went that if Paris had La Canebiere,
Paris would be a second Marseille. Morrel felt a large measure of paternal
pride. He had a son of his own, only eight years old, but he couldn’t help seeing
Edmond as a de facto godson.
Lurking by a mast,
Danglars held a distinctly different attitude.
“Captain? At only
nineteen?” he muttered with a scowl, too low for anyone to hear.
12 Comments
I love horror books and this sounds great.
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DeleteI like the cover
ReplyDeleteMe too, the cover artist Megan King did a great job!
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ReplyDeleteIf you liked the excerpt, just wait until you see the rest!
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DeleteI love the cover. The colors and artwork are great!
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DeleteI loved this book! Will you make it into a series??
ReplyDeleteI plan to! I've got a sequel outlined, just trying to iron out some plot holes and make sure it holds up.
DeletePlease try not to spam posts with the same comments over and over again. Authors like seeing thoughtful comments about their books, not the same old, "I like the cover" or "sounds good" comments. While that is nice, putting some real thought and effort in is appreciated. Thank you.