Mutinous Miles and the Deathly Tunnels: Mutinous Miles, #1

By J. S. Lome

Hunting kraken from balloon ships is something Miles Darkling only dreams about. He's never traveled by floating castle, or plundered shipwrecks, or sought treasure with a giant buccaneer.

 

All he knows is school, books, and tests.

 

But when he is elected to compete in a pirate's trial South of Antarctica, his wildest dreams become reality. He is taken to a place of unbelievable wonder and danger where he finds not only friends, pirating sports, and baby krakens to raise, but a future as the greatest pirate alive, just as long as he can stay alive . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. S. Lome
• Release date: Feb 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223939221

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Text copyright © 2023 by J. S. Lome

Cover Illustration copyright © 2023 by J. S. Lome

MUTINOUS MILES AND THE DEATHLY TUNNELS PART ONE, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and copyright © of J. S. Lome.

Mutinous Miles and the Deathly Tunnels publishing rights copyright © J. S. Lome

All rights reserved. Published by J. S. Lome.

No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

First ebook edition 2023

Contents

1.ThE oLd MaN aND tHe MaP

2.tHe cHiEf oF sErPeNtS

3.ThE SaCReD TRiAL oF PiRaTeS

4.ThE EnTRAnCE oF JAcK

5.VeSSeLS oF BLigHT

6.SkULls Of VoLcAnOs PaSt

7.THe WiNd oF GlOrIA

8.bEyOnD tHe SuGArBeRGs

9.ThE ShOpS oF MuRKriA

10.GaLaLLaNtRa CiTy

11.BoOMiNg DaY

12.ThE sQuID AnD ThE TrUnK

13.DoDgEr'S DeToUR

14.cAp AnD PuDdINg DaY

15.ThE HaNGaBaLO

16.DrOoN aNd THe SuGArBErGs

17.BlUe YeAr'S EvE

18.THe DeAD ShIPWrEcKs

19.DeEp SEa rUmPuS

20.tHe DeAtHLy TunNeLS

21.ThE GriSlY KiNg

Chapter one

ThE oLd MaN aND tHe MaP

"In the day of Malroth’s sorcery,

Did seven tunnels Galallantra make,

To keep camaraderie with his brothers,

In tubes of metal below the waves,

To stave the evil from Malroth’s cunning,

When temptations sought to tear them away,

From their father’s wholesome laughter,

And into darkness they soon did fade."

Asugarberg drifted in murky, blue water.

Out of hazy mist, the prickly bowsprit of a balloon ship emerged.

The ship, suspended by red and magenta balloons, stabbed a series of wispy grey clouds. Circling seagulls whirled round. From somewhere inside, a bolt of lightning struck upward.

Several bolts responded from the sugarberg. And the voice of a very stern lady echoed within.

The Balloon Ship landed perfectly, and a very rigid lady emerged, manifesting the voice which had transferred through the lightning.

Well then, you old vagabond — come out! bellowed the lady, shushing penguins that were trumpeting good-naturedly nearby.

A wooden door pressed through the sugar-ice, and an old man in a blue suit with sparkling diamond cufflinks shuffled out.

He sniffed the air, holding a large picnic basket, before stumbling past the woman to hurl eel-crackers at the penguins, who were now honking belligerently at the lady.

Your manners haven’t changed, scolded the lady gruffly.

Her leather jacket displayed an embroidered DW, which were two letters of her last name — Dogwind — of which she was immensely proud.

Straightening a purple skirt, Miss Dogwind snorted moodily and twisted a black umbrella.

What is it you wish to tell me by those noises, Gloria? replied the old man.

Nothing, she snapped, goggling her companion’s blue suit and picnic basket. I just thought the death of the greatest pirate ever, the relinquishing of our hopes, and the spiraling of our world into disaster would demand an outfit that was a bit gloomier.

It matches my beard.

"And those diamonds — " said Gloria scowling.

— are something your brother would have liked, I hope. . . . said the old man with a compassionate smile.

For a moment, the stiff lady removed something from her eye. It was only a mosquito — so she told Linus, the old man.

Together, they climbed into the Balloon Ship — it had a cozy cottage and green shrubs, which were meticulously trimmed in a manner worthy of Gloria Dogwind — Dogwind with a DW!

After the ship had taken off, the man began stealing glances at his companion, whose eyes were misty, though the mosquitos were long gone.

Linus extended a compassionate hand.

Five years — sniffled Gloria. Five years of battles, wars, raids, plundering, and destruction. And a Death Storm that nearly ended our world. . . .

Not a good time for humans, commented Linus fairly.

A horrible time, said Gloria, turning to him. And where were you! Shut up in your old ship-hallow below the sugar-ice. I thought a wizar—— a person of your capabilities, would have done something.

Done something? Gloria! Why, I’ve been thinking. . .

"Thinking! For five years. . . HMPPH!"

Gloria glared. And Linus grinned, enjoying himself in the fresh open air for the first time in years.

The Death Storm is fading though . . . and as a matter of fact, I did take one trip into a dark, deep place. . . .

But Gloria wasn’t listening. She was sneezing into the crumpled end of a pink handkerchief.

"It’s just that — SNEEZE! — my brother —"

— Jack.

Jack —

— the greatest pirate ever —

Exactly, him, said Gloria with dignity, — he always trusted you. And I thought with all his thieving he might have found a secret weapon.

"A secret weapon . . ." murmured Linus, and Gloria surveyed him quickly.

You don’t mean to tell me. . . ?

Tell you what? — that it is a fine, brilliant day to be flying, is that what you mean?

Brainless, fool of a man! The five Warlords, the grimmest warriors of our time, overcame our world with darkness by conjuring a storm from a place we know nothing about — sending our world into hiding, into looting, into attacks, into killings — and you won’t tell me what my brother’s plan was!

Lars! shouted Linus suddenly.

He hadn’t reverted into momentary madness.

A young boy with golden hair bearing that name had swooped over the Balloon Ship on a hang glider.

LARS VARDEN. I DON’T BELIEVE MY EYES. YOU’VE GROWN! COME DOWN, YOUNG VARDEN.

No, tell him to go away! blurted Gloria, stabbing the air where Lars flew with her umbrella.

But Lars crashed. He folded the wings of his glider just in time to barrel roll over Gloria Dogwind’s bamboo garden.

The old man rushed up swiftly and hugged him.

"Is that a — not a Tomb-Stoled hang glider?" asked Linus, googling the white and grey hang glider that was outfitted with marauding weapons.

It is, said Lars, pulling bamboo tuffs from his back. The latest edition before the storm. This is the first time I’ve been able to take it out since I was given it.

The skies look great.

They’re perfect, replied Lars. Everyone with aerial means has been commissioned to send news — great and wonderful news. I’m passing word that —

— the Warlords are dead!

Lars’ jaw dropped and Gloria gasped indignantly.

How did you know?

A lucky guess. Gloria and I were just talking about them. Go on Lars.

The news only came this morning . . . the Warlords fled into a volcano within the storm. Somehow we’ve taken over their fleets. And they haven’t come back. There is a belief that they died in there. Or were killed, somehow, by the volcano. We can’t explain how. . . .

Killed by a fluke miracle, one might say, hinted Linus, smiling knowingly at Gloria. This is great news. I suggest you continue on your way.

Linus tossed a small sack of silver-colored coins. Put me down for five hundred Bluebloons on your tribe.

You mean . . . for the Gauntlet, sir?! Do you really think it will be coming back this year?

Of course, my dear Lars. The greatest treasure-hunting competition of all time will not be canceled now that the storm is gone.

Lars Verden seemed completely happy. He leapt off the ship. The wings of his glider extended. In a moment, he went sailing into the grey puffs, leaving Linus wistfully watching, and Gloria grinding her teeth.

Betting on the day of my brother’s funeral! she snorted disapprovingly.

Rather, I am betting in honor of your brother.

Gloria shook her head.

You knew! You knew the Warlords were going to die and you didn’t say a word!

I was waiting for the right moment . . .

"The right moment?! But how, how can you be sure they are dead?" said Gloria, her eyes bulging.

Because the storm is fading, and that was Jack’s plan — to go into the darkness and save Murkria at the same time.

Gloria wept tears of bitter triumph.

. . . then he meant to save us, she sniffled.

After a moment of silence, she lifted her head over the cockpit of her Balloon Ship.

Blue does seem a fitting color . . . she commented, her beady eyes widening. But that isn’t like Jack. He wouldn’t die without a plan — the darkness that brought the Warlords and the Death Storm will come back, surely.

Certainly, it will. But not for a long time.

Linus nudged the picnic basket at his feet.

What was the phrase you used earlier, he said with a yawn, something about a secret weapon?

He glanced pointedly at the basket and adjusted the steering wheel of the Balloon Ship, so it turned due North, away from a sparkling bay where many giant castles were floating on the water.

— No, I am not going directly to the funeral, admitted Linus, answering the questioning look of Gloria’s. I have a delivery to make. Jack’s final wishes.

"To where then. . . ? To the Northworld? Not to the Saltwaters! To Barbaria where the savages speed around in trucks and cars and motorcycles!"

Linus scanned the horizon of a tall sugarberg range as if he could see into the world North of Antarctica —

It is time a certain person received a special gift from Jack. . . .

Gloria stared piercingly at the basket.

What could you possibly be giving one of them?

Ah! Ah! Ah! You must be patient.

There’s a map, I can see that, said Gloria, nodding at a red and blue map sticking out of the basket’s opening. And an evil map too, if it leads to whom I think it does. . . Is it a kraken?

Linus was clearly enjoying himself. But he opened the basket and revealed, nestled within a fold of blanket, a two-year-old child, a baby boy with a heap of golden hair who was fast asleep.

BLESS THE SKIES, A BOY! blurted Gloria.

Linus smiled at a gold watch clenched tightly in the baby’s palm.

And greedy too! he laughed.

But, Linus . . . how did Jack find . . . ? How did you get this boy?

Jack gave him to me. And I am bringing the boy to an acquaintance of his in the Saltwaters.

And you mean to give him that map? Gloria said, scowling at the red and blue map. I know the person that will lead to. He is the darkest, gloomiest, most-unfit character to receive Jack’s secret weapon.

Oh the boy won’t touch the map until he is older. I’ve explained it all in a letter.

The baby’s dark eyes winked in blissful sleep as he sniffed the sweet air rising from the sugary seas South of Antarctica.

Linus leaned over the basket.

Yes, my dear Gloria, the darkness will come. What created the storm will come back . . . and the boy must be safe until then. We must honor Jack’s last dying hope and bring him to the Saltwaters to be protected for a while.

I am sorry Linus. But how can a boy be a weapon against the darkness we know so little about?

Because children have a most unusual power . . . they have not yet learned how to be disappointed or to despair when all hope is gone.

That is it?

. . . Jack left you an instruction too . . . You, my dear Gloria, are to take an interest in jewel harvesting . . . jewel harvesting and maps. . . .

The sky turned grey. There were pink and red bits of sugar ice traveling under them now, and a great expanse of white and beyond it, the grey seas of saltwater North of Antarctica.

Gloria and Linus had many long hours of flying ahead.

Finally, they landed in a dark wood outside some blueish grey mountains. They walked for half a mile to a house at the edge of a town, where many swift cars went rushing by in a way that was so offensive to Gloria.

And where is this house? she asked Grumpily. Where is this woman who knew my brother?

But they were both weary from their trip.

And once they had placed the basket and the map and Linus’ letter of explanation on the doorstep, and rang the doorbell, the old man leaned over the basket one last time.

Goodbye, my dear child. Don’t forget a moment of everything you’ve seen and heard.

Then he seemed to be singing something.

But the noise that came from his mouth was a dark, growly sound that disturbed the child who slept peacefully.

"Bare the words I give, lest you forget the Southworld and its sweetness and the darkness that awaits. So my boy —

"— Of Sunken Jack’s isles, the Dials, bewarrrrrrrrrre. . . .

"— Of Sunken Jack’s isles, the Dials, bewarrrrrrrrrre. . . .

"— Of Sunken Jack’s isles, the Dials, bewarrrrrrrrrre. . . .

"Goodbye again — until our next meeting in our world South of Antarctica. . . ."

The old man slipped away. The front door, which had received a knock, opened suddenly, and a short, pretty blonde woman emerged.

But Linus and Gloria were far in the woods when she read the letter and peered round curiously. Then her gaze fell on a patch of grey-green clouds where magenta balloons seemed to vanish. Then the boy was swept inside, and the lady who was to be his mother, brought him into her home, and cried.

Ten years later . . . I awoke to find the dream with the happy old man and the sugarbergs gone.

I felt I had been dreaming about them for a long while this time. A strange syrupy taste was in the air and the old man’s laughing voice sounded dully in my thoughts.

But now, looking at the bedside table, I found a rather larger boy than the one in the dream. I had no chubby cheeks and no wispy head of blond hair. Rather, a mop of yellow-brown tangles covered my flat face where a short, pointed nose stared from the bedside mirror.

There was no kind, old man or cranky lady. Just the plain worn walls of a bedroom. Outside, the wood where the Balloon Ship had landed was glowing in early morning light. But the travelers were gone . . . And I was a boy of twelve, soon to have his thirteenth birthday.

"Our world South of Antarctica!" I laughed, throwing off the covers.

If I hadn’t dreamt hundreds of times about the sugarbergs and about floating castles on the sea, I would have thought it odd.

I had asked my mom about them once at breakfast, causing her to spill orange juice all over herself.

Castles stay on shore. There is nothing in any part of this world that can make them float.

Oddly enough, an idea drifted into my head.

Perhaps there was a certain kind of material from another part of the world that might make castles float. . . .

One morning, while finishing geography homework, I learned something else.

How far is China?

Terribly far.

And what about Australia?

Just as far.

What about Antarctica?

My mom glanced at me from over her phone.

It’s supposed to be full of sugar, right? I added quickly.

Her phone plummeted into her cereal. She shouted so loudly, the neighbors stared through the window —

WHY WOULD YOU SAY SUCH A THING!? ANTARCTICA IS A FREEZING PLACE WHERE NO ONE WANTS TO GO — AND THERE’S NO SUGAR SOUTH OF IT!

South of it! That was the answer, I thought. It was the water South of Antarctica that turned sweet . . . I couldn’t figure this out geographically, looking at the maps in my textbook, but I believed it nonetheless.

But on this day, as I woke a week before my thirteenth birthday, I didn’t dare talk about the dream.

You’ll be coming straight home after school, said my mom sternly.

Yes.

I could tell she was worrying about something. Last week, I had come home with a new bike. Not one from the store, one I had taken out of the neighbor’s yard, very stealthily and skillfully.

Finding other people’s things and taking them happened to be something I was good at.

I had had secret hopes of making a career of it. But very rudely, at the age of eight, I had been told there were no colleges for ‘finding’ people’s things.

Jail! laughed my mom. That’s the school for thieves. Stealing is worse than lying, worse than cheating, worse than looking for treasure.

Treasure — that was another subject I always dreamed about. . . Safes filled with stacks of bills. Bank trucks filled with gold bricks, planes shipping dollars across the sea. . . .

I never thought it was very evil to want to take these things, because after all, wasn’t earning money just another way of taking from someone else?

James. . . James, are you listening to me? My mom’s voice broke into my thoughts. What did I just say? . . . be at the front door. . . .

. . . be at the front door at three-fifty when the bus drops me off.

Exactly, and not a minute later.

I finished my cereal thoughtfully.

Ever since I had been getting closer to my birthday, the dreams and my mom’s nervousness had been becoming more regular.

I had noticed it a few weeks back when my mom had asked suddenly:

James, how old are you going to be this year?

She had been glancing over an old map in her closet, which caught my eye.

Thirteen!

Are you sure it’s not twelve. . . ?

"You kidding? I’m going to be thirteen."

Sadness pricked her eyes.

If something happens, she added suddenly. "If you’re taken from me, you have to always remember me, okay?"

Mom? What’s that matter?

She was looking over a curious letter with foreign symbols.

Then she glanced at the window.

There will be a test, she whispered.

A test?

"A dark and dangerous test . . . so just be careful, okay?"

Ever since that day, I had been frightened of math, reading, science, and especially history, because we were going to be driven off school property for a field trip. But it turned out we just wandered round a smelly farm with an old monument.

I was thinking very little of the test today . . .

I had no math tests, no study quizzes. There was a substitute in science, and reading had just one small quiz.

Then, I trod off the bus.

Two silhouettes shown through the kitchen window next to my mom.

I halted. Something in the strained look on my mom’s face told me something was the matter. As I peered closer, I noticed, her face was stained with tears.

She was talking very quietly to the two men who wore suits. As I paused, their voices grew louder.

" . . . It’s like I said, Mrs. Darkling, there is nothing we can do. The mortgage is due on the thirty-first, and if you don’t have the money, your house will be foreclosed . . . . The bank will take possession of your home."

A tightness began to build in my chest.

"Do you understand. . . ? Mrs. Darkling . . .?"

For a moment, my heart pounded thunderously. Some vague idea of my mom and I living out of our car filled my head.

Next I knew, the door had slammed —my mom and the men were gone.

I tiptoed through the back door.

At the center of the table was a colorful map, which seemed to breathe stormy air at me.

Then, something horrible happened.

I touched the map.

Wonderful, stinging sweetness of pure sugar pricked my tongue, and next a fountain of chocolate seemed to rush my mouth.

For a moment, I saw nothing, I heard nothing. I tasted only syrup and cotton candy and something sweet and crab flavored.

My tongue hurt.

In a daze, I scanned our two-bedroom house. I realized we were poor. That we had always been poor, and I had never done anything about it. . . .

On the map, a series of strange figures formed a message.

SevEn HuNDrEd StOnE Of PuRe WhiTE SilVeR LaY BuRiED iN tHE cOLlAPsE aT tHe lOwEr GaLlErY.

It can all be yours, a voice said in my thoughts. If you find the mine . . .

I saw a diagram on the map leading to a mine. My thoughts grew dim.

I remember taking freshly baked carrot cake off the table, and snatching my mom’s phone to scroll through travel apps.

The edge of the page showed the name of a strange city.

Wellington.

I couldn’t help myself.

Twenty minutes later, I toted a bulky piece of luggage into a taxi I had ordered with my mom’s phone.

Soon I was wandering airport lines, holding a ticket for Wellington, and not feeling an ounce of guilt at having forged my mother’s signature and a travel note which I showed security officers —

My poor son James is visiting his father halfway across the globe. Take care of him.

I remember being distracted by movies while travelers roamed the aisles.

Many hours later, the plane landed on a strange windy island.

I booked another taxi into a windy, rocky hillside, where I followed the trail on my map.

The taxi rumbled to a halt outside an overgrown, mysterious cave, just like the one I had been dreaming of for the last seventeen hours.

The hours passed. The minutes ticked by as I searched the cold walls of the old mine.

Then, out of blackness, two jewels sparkled.

I reached for the jewels, my heart leapt!

But in an instant they were gone.

And I was hurrying down the hillside to find a bus back to the city. I found a bus that took me to a traveler’s hotel that had been advertised on a flier on my luggage.

My feet trembled as I climbed the front stairs. I had spent a thousand dollars to get to that strange, windy island, and I had no chance of getting home.

Unbearable fear stole over me.

I took the map and hid it under my bed.

How could I have flown so far? How could I have left my mom and everything I had ever known for treasure?

I thought frightfully of the cave, and the sparkling jewels that had disappeared.

Then, as I lay shuddering while outside cracks of thunder and a furious wind harassed the hotel, I realized something and leapt to my feet.

The orbs that had shined so suddenly in the cave. They hadn’t been jewels.

A giant bolt of lightning shot over the bay like the signals in my dreams . . .

I was horribly sure the jewels I had been led to —

Were eyes.

Chapter two

tHe cHiEf oF sErPeNtS

Ihad never been frightened so much as that night.

Even the starlight seemed to glare evilly from the window.

When morning came, I glanced at the map’s message.

SevEn HuNDrEd StOnE Of PuRe WhiTE SilVeR LaY BuRiED iN tHE cOLlAPsE aT tHe lOwEr GaLlErY.

And the final part of the message read —

LeFT By ThE DeViL AnD AlL hIs RuFfIaNS.

Who was the Devil? And who were his ruffians? I wondered.

Dread came swarming back as I remembered . . . A person had been in the cave. He had looked right at me while I had panicked; and he had blinked!

I ate rather ravenously at the carrot cake I had snatched from home. A message on the shrink-wrap caught my eye.

From Melissa, your Honey Bee. Melissa — my mother — loved telling everyone the meaning of her name. This batch of carrot cake had probably been meant as an after-school surprise, I realized.

Before the guilt could sink in, I glimpsed a curious figure on the map. . . a ship that looked like a castle. Below it, was a keyword. This was the word that had decoded the message about the silver.

sLiNkWoRtH, it read.

"Slinkworth?"

Fresh tingles rushed down my spine. It seemed like an evil word. As I read it again, a strange desire to return to the mine flooded me.

James? Is that you? asked a voice outside my door.

Yes — who is it? I asked, hiding the map.

Lindsey, the building manager. Remember we talked about a job last night . . . you agreed to work for your room. . . .

A dim memory of wandering into the hotel and having a conversation with the building manager came to mind. But had I really agreed to work . . . ?

"I just wanted to remind you that the job is beginning in twenty minutes . . . .

I folded up the map, slipped it into my back pocket, and received an envelope that was slid under the door.

It’s a delivery job, said the building manager, trudging down the hall. So you’ll need the pushcart in the garage. Just deliver the goods to wherever the customer tells you. . . .

I ground my teeth.

Delivery job? I didn’t have time for any deliveries.

Inside the envelope was a message that looked oddly familiar.

SCrAp-MeTal PiCk-uP NeEDeD aT 1850 CoPPerFiEld LaNe. The writer, like the one from the map, had used a series of small pictures to create words.

sLiNkWoRtH had also been written with small pictures of swords, revolvers, even dismembered body parts. . . .

My eyes glimpsed a hand-drawn map next to the delivery request. Then, fighting a burning desire to rush back to the caves, I threw on a pair of old clothes, and scrambled down the stairs to the hotel’s garage. Inside, was a small delivery cart which I began pushing into the city, following the hand-drawn map.

A half hour later, I was sweating at the driveway of 1850 Copperfield Lane, which led to a dilapidated building.

Is this it? I wondered.

Through humid jungle,