Pirate Wars Read Online Free PDF Page A

missing the sea star city.
    But except for the gulls, the glittering brightness, and the black monstrosity beneath him, he couldn’t make out anything. No fog, nothing. Maybe he was still too close to the surface. That was the reason for the lookout being on thehighest mast of a ship. Yes, if he could have flown like the gulls, then maybe—
    A hellish noise startled him. About ten paces away, a towering column of water shot up from an opening in Jasconius’s back, with a rushing and rattling that hurt his ears. Seconds later Griffin’s clothes, which had just dried in the sun, were soaked through again. The masses of water had nearly rinsed him off the whale’s back.
    He lay on his stomach, cursing, and tried to hold on while the last fountains from the monster’s interior poured down on him. He closed his eyes to protect them from the salt water and pressed his cheek firmly against the whale’s skin.
    “Griffin?” said Ebenezer from below. “Everything all right?”
    Griffin struggled to his feet with a groan. “Why didn’t you tell me he does that?”
    “I thought you knew about whales.”
    Sighing, Griffin shook his head, rubbed the water off his face, and looked over to the opening in Jasconius’s back. The fountain of water had been at least ten fathoms high. The pressure to expel such masses must be enormous.
    “Griffin?”
    “Wait. Just a minute.” A crazy idea was taking shape in his head. Really quite crazy.
    “Ebenezer,” he called finally, “how often does Jasconius do that?”
    “Oh, I can ask him to wait a while to do it.”
    “No, no…the other way around!”
    “Is it too hot for you?” Ebenezer sounded concerned. Perhaps he thought Griffin had gotten sunstroke on the shadeless back of the whale.
    “I only want to try something out.”
    “Try what out?”
    “Can you tell him to do that once more? Blow out all that water, I mean.”
    “Certainly.”
    “On demand?”
    Down in the mouth, Ebenezer was silent for a moment. Griffin was very happy not to have to see his face at this moment.
    “Yes, very likely,” replied the monk after a while. He sounded skeptical.
    Griffin shooed away a gull that was taking him for an overgrown hermit crab and made his way over to the opening. From up close he could see that the edges had closed.
    He took a deep breath. If he wanted to get up higher to search for Aelenium, he had to try it.
    And if the water pressure was too strong and broke all his bones?
    He hesitated again, then he climbed onto the opening. It looked like a gigantic, pursed-up mouth that could open beneath him at any moment. Griffin took a moment trying to find the best position, and finally he knelt, legs and knees pressed together and hands crossed in his lap.
    “Ebenezer? Now!”
    “What the devil are you doing up there?”
    “Just tell him.”
    The monk hesitated. “Be glad I can’t come up there to knock the nonsense out of you, boy.”
    Griffin grinned. “Just try it, old man.”
    “The hand of the blessed is led by God’s will, don’t forget that. Even when it takes the hide off the backside of a braggart.”
    “Who says so?”
    “One of the blessed.”
    “Go on, Ebenezer! We have to hurry.”
    Griffin expected new arguments, but instead he felt movement in the whale muscles under his knees and feet.
    He braced himself, tensed his whole body, and feared at any moment to be hit by a hammer of water so fast that he might not even feel his crash landing on the sea at all.
    “Easy does—” he was beginning when suddenly he was raised as if by a giant hand, as gently as if Jasconius were trying to balance a breakable piece of china.
    In his surprise, Griffin let out a jubilant sound, which Ebenezer, down in the mouth, misinterpreted.
    “Are you dying?” came through the rushing of water.
    “After you, Ebenezer.”
    Now Griffin concentrated on controlling his balance on the growing column of water. He stretched his arms out to the sides and relaxed himself a bit to