Echoes of the Fourth Magic Read Online Free PDF Page A

Settled on a rocky reef less than twenty yards ahead loomed the spectacle of an old frigate, the lettering on its side naming it as the USS
Wasp
.
    “Explain that,” Mitchell challenged Reinheiser.
    “We should get Del—I mean Mr. DelGiudice, sir,” Billy offered. “He’s always reading books about naval history.”
    “Go,” Mitchell said, and Billy was off. He returned moments later with Del and Doc Brady.
    “Well, mister, what do you make of it?” Mitchell asked.
    It took Del a minute to find his voice. “The
Wasp?”
he said aloud, trying to jar his memory. “The name sounds familiar.”
    “Late 1700s, by the looks of it,” Reinheiser said.
    “Early 1800s, I think,” Del corrected. “I could tell you more if I could get to my quarters. I’ve got some books about old ships and—”
    A bang sounded above them.
    “The outer hatch,” Corbin observed. “Thompson?”
    The men surrounded the ladder leading to the sub’s squat conning tower and Mitchell called over the intercomto the air lock. “Thompson, is that you?” he asked into heavy static.
    The handle of the inner hatch began to turn.
    “It better be Thompson,” Billy muttered grimly, casting a wary eye at the old ship and clutching a heavy wrench.
    Water gushed in as the inner hatch opened and a pair of black leather boots dangled through the hole.
    “I knew it!” Billy cried, and he whacked up at the legs.
    “Hey!” came a startled cry from above.
    Mitchell recognized the voice and grabbed Billy as the legs were pulled back up into the air lock. After some shuffling, Thompson stuck his head through the hatchway.
    “Have you all gone crazy or something?” he asked of the startled faces below. Eyeing Doc Brady, he added, “Have I got something for you! You aren’t gonna believe this!” And he disappeared back through the hole.
    After more shuffling, the dangling legs came through again. “Give me a hand with this guy, he’s waterlogged,” Thompson said. Stunned, Mitchell and Brady mechanically helped lower the body, that of a man in his thirties, dressed in a gray suit, complete with tails and a gold pocket watch.
    “All he’s missing is the top hat and cane.” Corbin laughed, too overwhelmed by the unreality of it all, and too relieved to see Thompson to be apprehensive.
    “Got that, too,” Thompson said. He slid down the ladder, a cane in one hand and a gray top hat on his head. “Well? What do you think?”
    “It looks like he just died,” Corbin said.
    “Very little decomposition,” Doc Brady agreed, but his attention was on Thompson and the seaman’s frenzied actions.
    “Like that hull,” Reinheiser remarked.
    “They’re all like that,” Thompson teased.
    “What are all like that?” Mitchell demanded, having no patience for Thompson’s antics. “And what the hell took you so long?”
    “All the ships outside are like that, sir,” Thompson replied. “You’ve got to understand, I had to look around.”
    “Of course,” a calming Doc Brady said.
    “I closed my eyes when I left the ship,” Thompson explained. “I really expected to die. But the gauges are right and the pressure wasn’t bad at all. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was an old schooner lying just off our tail. This guy was all tangled up in a rope on the capstan. I couldn’t believe it. I started swimming toward him and noticed that all around were these other ships!”
    “How was the visibility?” Reinheiser interrupted.
    “Not bad. A couple of hundred feet at least,” Thompson replied. “And at first I couldn’t understand that, either. By my figuring it’s nighttime up top, and even if it was bright daylight up above, how much would filter down a hundred feet? So where’s the light coming from?”
    “Where indeed?” Reinheiser asked.
    Thompson had the answer. “I saw these weird flashes up above us and I headed for the surface. But when I got closer I realized that there’s solid rock above us.”
    “What?”