[A/N: Glad to see a lot of recognizable faces (well, LJ names, but you know). ;O Also sudden number of PMs for 'oi your link to the uncut Fathoms is broken!'. Sorry, has this seriously weird html filtering thing, and I'm real lazy to bypass it. Also, although I wanted to keep the 'Locker' segments of the story in present tense, I'm beginning to confuse myself, so I might turn to fully past after this.
String Theory
2
Guidance
The furred man drew back black lips into a grimace, as he pushed one long coffee-hued fingernail into the candle's flame. There was a scent, sharp, not unlike the thunder guns of Above, and he breathed deep, blinked amber eyes, as the flame turned a deep red, then black, outlined by a fierce white flicker that would have blinded mortal men. The Chamber was dark, shadows coiling about the single candle set over a tarnishing silver stand, but the blackbird shifted back a step, uneasy, cocking its head this way and that, its talons clicking on the cold flagstones.
"She returned."
The blackbird hopped back a step, clicking its beak, then shifted again, speaking in a tiny, piping voice, to the furred man's gravelly rumble. "As I have said, Master. And she has been sent to help a lost soul."
"Hn. Then she is in the Locker, now." The furred man withdrew his hand, and the flame was orange again, the shadows twisting about his bared feet. Paws, dusted the same tawny gold as his elongated face. His snout parted, long pink tongue lolling out in a silent laugh. "And she is loved?"
"Yes, Master. A certain…"
"I know who." He turned, with surprising grace, and sidled into the single stone chair, watching the candle flame. "He comes?"
"It is as you have predicted."
"Good. Give him some aid, but not enough that he would see it." The furred man settled down, pulling the heavy cloak more firmly over his shoulders. It was brown wool, shaded nearly black by the shadows, and was edged thickly with perfect eagle feathers. "What about the ferryman?"
"Still out of sorts, Master. He does not much understand the nature of his new occupation. But he has a guide."
"Human?"
"Human. His father."
"Hrr. Then that is no guide."
"Yes, Master."
"Then perhaps he would be more amenable to the offer I made his predecessor. And as I have observed, this one appears to enjoy bargains," the furred man murmured, as though to himself. "He is not marked, is he?"
"No. Calypso has returned to the oceans, and she is now both sides and one."
"She was never one to involve herself much in the matters of the land, on either side of the sunset," the furred man shook his head dismissively. "Hrr. But she has no fondness for us. Still, she may be distracted for years yet, with the return of what was hers. I must chance it. You may go, Blackbird."
"Yes, Master." With a flip of its wings, the blackbird landed safely on the single narrow window, which looked out into the starred night between the worlds. "Orders?"
"As I have said. Watch the one who follows. Make sure he reaches the Underside. And call in Anada'ti. I have work for he and his ilk."
The blackbird shuddered, every feather fluffing up in reaction. "Him?"
"Tell him he will be… hunting. That should quicken his step."
--
The ship had stopped shaking, at least, from the cannonfire, but James can hear gunshots and screams, more loudly as he runs down the corridor, looking around wildly. "Mother? Brother?"
The top deck. They are probably up on deck (the gallery, the scratchy voice whispers), or no, if they were being attacked, the women and children would likely be put down here, where he was, at the passengers' cabins, wouldn't they?
The corridor seems to go on forever, and the screams grow louder, as he approaches the cabin near the foot of the narrow stairs up to the gallery. It is with sickening clarity that he recognizes his mother's voice, and the scratchy voice in the back of his head begins its litany (wrong, WRONG), so loud now in his head that he feels it may burst-
All sound suddenly stops, and James hesitates just before he puts his hand on the cabin door. There is movement at edge of his vision, and he turns, with a gasp.
A pretty young girl of color looks at him solemnly, chocolate-hued hands crossed over a white buccaneer's coat, fit to her size. Under that she wears a red blouse that seems fit to her skin, whorled with patterns painful to follow, and a broad black strips from the waist seem to serve as a skirt, revealing a rather indecent amount of leg that disappears into high gray boots. Black lace at her cleavage, frothy at her wrists and knees. Dumbly, he notes her eyes are silver, as are the bells at every tiny, perfect braid in her hair.
"I haven't seen you about the ship," he says, then blushes when he realizes how inane that sounded. The situation recalls itself then, and he takes a step forward, his voice urgent. "You must hide. Hide somewhere! I think we are under attack, perhaps from pirates, and there are gunshots…" James' voice trails off, as his mind catches up with that statement. There are no gunshots; not even the background noise of a merchant marine ship packed with passengers, only an eerie, unnatural silence.
The girl inclines her head, and she seems sorrowful, as she half-lids her eyes, dusting cheeks with long lashes. James forgets the door, and what may lie behind it. "Are you lost?"
She smiles, then, shakes her head, and instead points at him. He blinks. "What do you mean? And you are mute?"
She shakes her head.
"But you do not speak."
She nods, and beckons. James takes a step forward, then quickly, a step back, as behind the girl, on the hardwood wall to her right, words began to print in silver, in a scrawl, splotched, as though written by someone who had dipped their fingers in paint to do so.
I can help you out of here James NorringtonBut it will get harder
This is your earliest fear
It is the least of your pain because
A child cannot remember much of pain
That is why your soul remains here
Repeating this
But you will lose yourself here
But it will end more quickly
If you leave
It will get harder
You cannot return here
If you do not want me to help you
Then say so and I will leave
"My… my earliest fear?"
Words began to print to her left.
You are losing yourself in the boy you wereAlready your voice is fading
How many times have you seen this room
"Thirteen," James says, and inhales sharply. It felt as though his lips had moved of their own volition. "I do not understand, I…"
But his body seems to step forward, jerkily, automatic, and try as he might to try and force his hand down, he reaches out, palm up. The girl's smile has neither humor nor sorrow, as she takes his wrist.
James Norrington blinks his eyes, and curls both palms into fists, experimentally, allowing nails to bite into flesh, and then he lets out a long, shuddering breath, looking down at himself, his clothes. When his chin comes back up, his smile is wry. "I never thought I would ever be shorter than a lady again."
The girl grins, and pointedly ruffles his hair, then pinches his cheek. James bats her hand away as politely as he can, though he laughs. "Who are you?"
She points at herself, and makes an odd gesture with her thumbs and her right forefinger, then points at James. He is just about to apologize for being unable to read sign language, when he hears a soft voice in his mind. It echoes, and it sounds faintly feminine, but not the least human, whispery velvet, like a sea breeze on the twelfth hour of night. Your guide.
James decides that it is quite rude after all for him to demand an introduction without the usual niceties. She lets go of his wrist, as he says, "Er… pleased to meet you. What is your name?"
The girl fishes out a necklace, more of a few beads at the end of a leather thong, and points at the pendant. A black pearl.
"Your name is Pearl?" The girl nods. James smiles, despite himself: it reminds him of his old life, playing at pirates and marines. "I knew a pirate ship called the Pearl, once."
The girl rolls her eyes. James is quick to apologize. "I am sorry if that gave offence. No? All right then. Firstly," and he dreads the answer to this, "Am I in hell?"
Pearl sighs, and looks impatient, but she shakes her head. Davy Jones' Locker. To escape this, you need to meet all your fears and…
"Master them?" James knows he sounds facetious, but this seems too trite for any of the concepts he had ever heard or entertained of the afterworld.
Survive them, Pearl corrects, looking irritable at the interruption. Search them. Hidden in one of them is your heart. When you have your heart, only then can return.
"Return?"
To the World Under the World, Pearl folds her arms, tapping at the fabric. I should have written all of this down on parchment after the first Lost One that I guided. It would save all this silly questioning. Do you know all of you always ask the same questions?
"You didn't answer my question," James counters, though he grins in turn.
And to think I liked you when we first were acquainted, Pearl sticks her tongue out in a decidedly unladylike fashion. You need your heart to exist in the World Under the World. Then you can choose to exist there and wander about until you are reborn, if that is what you wish, or try to find a way to go back to the World Above.
"Then what can you do to help me?"
I can help you move in between your fears. And I can end it for you when you wish, by destroying your soul utterly. Pearl grins then, showing perfect teeth, playful and girlish. Are you finished here, or do you want to go to the next one?
"How do I know what my heart looks like?"
The girl lets out a long-suffering sigh. How am I to know? It is your heart, not mine. Now, do you wish to leave, or…
"I'll look behind that door," James says, quietly.
Pearl abruptly sobers, her eyes narrowed and serious. Are you certain? You already know what happens.
"I know. But as you say, I must survive my fears," James squares ten-year-old shoulders. "Take me to the next when I am done."
The girl watches as the boy enters the door and closes it. She whispers a word to the air, and waits for the screaming to begin again.
--
This time, when he kills Barbossa, he was going to make sure the traitorous swine didn't come back. Jack contented himself with dark thoughts as he fingered the compass at his belt, sauntering down towards the taverns from the docks. Barbossa would be in one of them, no doubt, and he owed Jack a long explanation, starting with exactly why the black ship was docked in Tortuga harbor without the presence that was indefinably the Pearl.
He was therefore a little surprised when what he had taken to be a drunken sot sprawled over a few crates to be loaded to an adjacent pirate ship straightened into his mutinous ex-First Mate. Barbossa yawned, leaning back, and readjusted his hat, leaning back against the crate behind him as though seated on some sort of throne. "Jack. Yer growin' slow in yer old age."
Jack had already drawn and cocked his pistol, only to look down Barbossa's own. The other damned pirate was laughing, in his slightly mad, harsh barks, his eyes narrowed, lips drawn into a bared snarl.
"What did ye do to me ship?"
"She's right there, Jack," Barbossa jerked his head to the side. "Shipshape an' repaired, if I say so meself. More than what I can say t'what ye did to me charts."
"She's not there," Jack snapped. He could not remember when he had last been this consistently furious. "She's not anywhere."
Barbossa frowned. "Ye been out in the sun too long, Jack?"
Jack took a deep breath. Shooting Barbossa was very tempting right now, despite the equal chance of being shot in return. However, there was no real point, not when his lady-love might be needing his aid. "Hector. Did she… talk t'ye, at all? Recently?"
"No," Barbossa shrugged fluidly. "But I rather thought t'was that she was mad at me again fer leavin' without ye. Why?"
"Because me compass don't show her anywhere about, as o' half a week back," Jack narrowed his eyes. "And I be wantin' t'know exactly what ye did t'her."
"Would ye believe me when I say I did nothin', Jack?" Barbossa asked dryly. "What could I possibly have done t'yer ship, aye, that could've driven out her spirit? An' why would I want to? She was probably called."
"Ain't nobody she owe debt to who could call her," Jack began, then added, "At least, none now, seein' as the whelp decided to do a little housekeepin' on his predecessor's debt books."
"An' ye be so sure now that yer Pearl thinks just because he be cancellin' her debt that she be acceptin' 'tis so?" Barbossa uncocked his pistol, and stuck it back in his belt. "Didn't think ye fer the stupid sort, Jack. Much. If 'tis much comfort to ye, though, the whelp probably did it by accident."
"I'm going t'fuckin' shoot Will," Jack muttered, though he lowered his pistol.
"So we be needin' t'do a bit o' parley," Barbossa drawled. "I want that chart, an' ye need me help t'get back down Below."
"I refuse t'go the way ye like to," Jack bared his teeth in a feral smile. "That way will wreck me girl as she is now."
"But ye could never find Shipwreck Cove by yer ownsies, an' ye need t'get there as fast as ye can without squabblin' over the ship," Barbossa pointed out with his annoyingly inexorable logic. "'Course, ye could always wait an' hang about the estimable Mrs Turner, an' hope ye don't suffocate under ten years worth o' repressed lovey-fuckin'-dovey when Mister Turner returns."
"An' what makes ye think I be wantin' t'go to Shipwreck Cove?"
"Don't play dumb with me, Jack," Barbossa ambled down from the crates. "Yer da's ship Octavius, and the Flying Dutchman, be the only ships wot can pass Below and back again easy as ye please. Sure ye be wantin' his help, since ye got no way o' callin' the whelp over, on this side o' the world. 'Sides, I get along wi' Cap'n Teague better than ye."
Jack took in a deep breath, dredging his memory for the vilest of names and invectives with which to pepper the older pirate, but Barbossa was already swaggering back towards the black ship and shouting orders. "To yer stations, ye scumdogs! Pintel, move yer scurvy arse t'the taverns an' whorehouses, round up the rest o' the sorry bastards an' tell them we be leavin' on the next tide. Sail-ho!"
His ship! Jack wished all manner of dire and humiliating fates on impostors and mutineers and infuriating ex-First Mates, and scrambled after Barbossa, hands flailing in his agitation. "What the hell d'ye think yer doin', ye thievin'…"
--
James stands on the deck of the Nemean, near the helm, watching the seabirds swoop down to feast on the bodies. He is long inured to the ruin that war on the seas could wreak on a man, and his gaze is dispassionate. Not even the stench, of death, rot and gunsmoke, bothers him now, despite still being trapped in a ten-year-old's body. Beside him, Pearl sits on the stair, elbows over her knees. She's waiting for his decision to move on.
"Doesn't allowing me to remember who I was make this less frightening for me?" James asks Pearl, when she seems content to be uncommunicative indefinitely.
Perhaps, Pearl replies enigmatically. There was no need for you to go back to the room.
"No, but I needed to remember," James looks away. Sprawled just out of the captain's cabin was the body of Lieutenant Taylor, whom he had admired so much, distinctive in his white and blue coat. The names come easily to him now, and the faces. He does not want to think how, just a moment ago, or however time went in this world, he could not even remember what his mother's name was, or how she and his brother had died, victim to pirate savagery. Losing himself. He has been losing himself. The thought chilled him.
When he glances back at Pearl, he realizes she is laughing, her shoulders shaking silently. You are a strange one, James.
"Thank you for coming here for me," James says then, honestly and earnestly.
Pearl inclines her head. You have powerful friends.
"None of the supernatural sort that I recall," James' eyes are drawn to a pair of larger gulls, pecking at each other for the eyes of the helmsman.
You will see, at the end of this, Pearl folds her arms now, tight across her chest. Her braids shift in the wind, but James does not hear the bells. Do you wish to move forward, James?
He ignores that. "How many have you helped before me?"
Many. But only one succeeded by his own means. Pearl smiles softly, as though remembering someone close to her, then she stretches, and leans back against the rail, boneless, careful to avoid splashes of blood.
"That isn't very reassuring," James murmurs. White feathers fleck red as the birds continue to squabble over the choicest parts. "Why did you ask me to come up to the deck? Nothing about this frightened me even then. I was too much in shock, up until rescue by a passing ship."
Pearl's smile turns enigmatic, again. Perhaps I was a little mistaken. But we did have to look for your heart.
"I don't feel it, if I'm supposed to feel anything," James turns his gaze to the sea. "I'm ready to move, now."
--
Too long passes before Anada'ti manages to rouse his pack from their bloodlust. They had wasted far too much time, driven mad by the strong scent of their prey and the flesh-blood-death about them. He bares a gaping maw and hisses, crouching on the last spot where their prey had been. His pack cowers, scratching long black nails over their skulls, their arms. They break skin, at times, and their blood is a grayish blue, viscous and translucent.
"Tricked! Shame! Shame!" Anada'ti snarls. "Shame! Shame!"
The prey is far smarter than he has thought, tracking their scent all about the dream-human flesh-blood-death. Anada'ti drags his knuckles over the splintering wood, growls in a rumbling crescendo of frustration, whirls, and aims a punch at the rail. It splinters under a deceptively wiry fist, and Anada'ti settles back into a crouch, hissing. He is the largest of his pack, all of them with the appearance of tall men with spindly limbs, who walked in a stooping crouch and ran on fours with their knuckles. Their faces were hairless, eyes set far apart, near their pointed ears, their mouths wide grins lined with sharpened teeth. The Anada'dvtaski were men, once, before the Killing that had freed them.
When he feels the pack has been properly chastised, Anada'ti sniffs at the air with his flattened nose. There is a scent, though steeped in the blood-scent, but not enough to distract entirely, crossing and crossing back over itself. But Anada'ti can be patient.
Their quarry was smart. Good. Anada'ti would have taken no pleasure in hunting them, were it too easy.
-tbc-