The Tale of Alistair Drewitt
There once lived a boy in London, as bright as he was inquisitive. His father was an expert clockmaker, whose craftsmanship was known all throughout England. The boy would often sit by his father’s side, watching as he worked; from dusk till dawn and then from dusk till dawn again. He would marvel at the network of wheels and gears, watching them click and spin and click and spin, ticking away the time. It was as if his father had brought something magically to life.
It wasn’t long before the boy was assisting his father, and not so long after that that the father was assisting his son. The boy, now a teen, was building every manner of time-keeping device, and the precision of his instruments had no equal. By the time he had become a man, there was no machine he had not mastered, and the quality of his work was known throughout the empire. Then one day, just like that, he vanished.
Some say he fell ill. Others that he had grown dissatisfied having built every machine it was possible to build. Some were even rumoured to have heard him say, that no matter how sophisticated or elegant his creations, none could ever match the wondrous complexity of the flesh; and that shortly after this confession he went abroad in search of ancient and arcane knowledge: the type of knowledge forbidden to mortal men.
Whether ’tis rumour or truth, it was soon after Alistair Drewitt disappeared that whispers of pirates, half-man and half-metal, could be heard among wary sailors in the Caribbean Sea. Whence they came no one knows. They are said to be without mercy, more machine than man. They plunder for sport, leaving no sailor alive. Some say they are looking for the treasure lost aboard the King’s Ransom. But it isn’t gold they seek. It is something ancient. Something evil. God help us should they find it.
