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Xue lifted a palm. “I’m not entirely sure we have an answer, but let’s finish Stoepker’s story first.”
Gray nodded and continued. “Those tentacles didn’t have any suckers, but they did—to quote Stoepker—flail with stinging threads that flamed through cloth and skin, as if reaching for my very bones.”
“Which must have created those welts,” Heng said. “Whatever chemical was in those stings, they likely acted as a counteragent to the coral’s poison.”
“That is what both Stoepker, and later Crawfurd, believed. Sadly, the Rainbow Serpents hadn’t arrived in time to save the boy, and their intervention only delayed the inevitable in Stoepker, as he was already too far gone by then. And so ended their tragic tale.”
“But it was picked up by Raffles and Crawfurd after that,” Xue said.“Wanting to know more about those Rainbow Serpents, Raffles sought out Matthew’s people.”
Gray lifted his chin to stare over at Kadir. “Matthew hailed from an island in the Torres Strait.”
“He must have been a member of the Kaurareg People.” Kadir stepped closer, drawn by this aspect of the story. “It makes sense that the boy was from there. The nautical expertise of the Torres Strait Islanders was well known at the time. Many of them ended up serving aboard British and Dutch ships. But what did Raffles learn from Matthew’s people?”
“While seeking them out, Raffles heard about a great gathering of Aboriginal folk. They had come from across Indonesia and traveled in a large flotilla to the seas near the island of Sumbawa. This was weeks prior, when Tambora was still erupting. There, they performed a ceremony to appease the angry gods. They used bullroarers during the ceremony. Hundreds of them. According to Raffles, after that ritual, the mountain finally quieted down.”
“And whatever fouled and poisoned the waters vanished, too,” Xue added.
Seichan scowled. “But no one actuallywitnessedthis. Right? No one but the Aboriginal people who told this story afterward. For all anyone knows, it could have been fabricated, a tale to boost their mystical esteem.”
“Maybe, but Raffles and Crawfurd did speak to their elders. From them, the pair learned the legends of the Rainbow Serpent. It was a tale that goes back to what the Aboriginal elders called theDark Dreaming, the dawn of humanity—or at least to the arrival of the Aboriginal people to Australia and the neighboring islands.”
Kadir rubbed his chin, looking like he wanted to comment, but he remained quiet.
Xue picked up the story for the others. “Up until then, this ancient story and how it bore on the present world was a closely guarded secret among the Aboriginal people. But Crawfurd convinced the elders to share it with him. According to their legends, the world’s crust isthinin several places, so thin that it allows access to the underworld of the Rainbow Serpent, a god who could travel the globe along deep rivers beneath the world.”
Kadir nodded at this description.
“The Java Sea around the island of Sumbawa was one of those thin places. When the gods were angry, they could burst through there to exact punishment.”
“But that wasn’t the only spot.” Gray reached to the set of drawings found with the papers from the safe. “There was another. One far more significant.What the Aboriginal elders claimed was the true home of the Rainbow Serpents.”
“Where was that?” Seichan asked.
“As Crawfurd writes,it lies well beyond all islands,in seas rarely seen. Still, he kept a record of his journey there, even commissioning sketches.”
Seichan squinted. “You’re talking about those drawings of an island with some indigenous people.”
Gray nodded. “Which we now know was the Aboriginal party who took Crawfurd to that otherthinspot of the world, the home of their gods. When he was there, he had shipboard artists draw renditions of the island. I think the ones secured in the safe were hidden there because, unlike the first set, the coastlines were drawn with enough detail that the island could be identified.”
Gray slid a sketch that showed one such coastline with a prominent cratered mountain.
“I wager this is the silhouette of a volcano on that island. The equivalent of Tambora out in thoserarely seen seas.” Gray drew forth a second sketch. “And here you can see another view of the island, on its otherside. There’s also either a map of the island’s edges or maybe the reefs around it.”
“Does this place have a name?” Kadir asked, plainly intrigued by this secret tied to his great-grandfather. “Or do you have any idea where it might be?”
“Not yet,” Gray answered. “But I have some thoughts.”
Xue looked at him, but Gray waved for him to continue with the story.
Xue cleared his throat. “Crawfurd spent three months on that island, learning all he could. He witnessed for himself how the Aboriginal elders could summon Rainbow Serpents with their bullroarers. He learned more about the strange coral and how the two were connected. He even examined specimens of both in secret. Those efforts were later discovered and considered deeply sacrilegious by the elders. He barely escaped with his life. Still, he did manage to secure one of their sacred bullroarers, along with the pages he had drawn.”
Before continuing, Gray studied the spread of sketches that encompassed Crawfurd’s investigation on the island. He shifted their order, trying to piece them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Xue helped him, offering some suggestions and even sharper insights.
Once they were ready to present Crawfurd’s work in the best light, Gray faced the group. “Our intrepid doctor began his investigation with thecoral. So let’s follow his example. Here is his detailed drawingof the specimen in all its glory, what Crawfurd dubbedPerfidia lithiasis, meaningtreacherous stone.”
Gray slid over a handsome sketch of a tree of black coral. In the upper corner was a close-up of its eight-limbed polyp.
Xue stared at the page. “From the level of detail that follows, Crawfurd’s ship must have been well equipped with microscopes, dissecting instruments, anything that the Batavian Society could provide to assist his efforts.”
