Sacrifice
by Luvvycat
Epilogue
Later that day, Jack resumed his usual Chiefly duties, which consisted mainly of sitting on a throne comprised of human skulls and bones, alternating between receiving tributes from worshippers, making the occasional decision as tribal leader, when petitioned to do so by the tribe, and dozing. While "on duty" he wore an elaborate headdress adorned with various dried body parts and ossified human remains, and brandished a strange feathered sceptre.
Today, however, he could not afford to doze, for though he appeared to lounge languidly upon his macabre throne, his mind was still furiously working, trying to come up with a way to slip the collar and run. He knew that the Pelegostos' feast would take place the next day, at sunset, so he had a little over twenty-four hours to devise a means of escaping his fiery, pyre-y fate.
As the sun crept slowly toward the horizon on its way to setting for the night, he opened his eyes, and glanced up. Beyond the throng of Pelegostos gathering for the evening repast, his eye was drawn to a movement in front of one of the huts ...
Maleeka, flanked by the shaman and an older woman who bore a vague resemblance to her, stood at the door of the hut. Before going in, Maleeka turned, and her dark eyes met Jack's for a long moment. Smiling faintly, she glanced down, and lay a hand against her abdomen, before looking up again, nodding once, and giving Jack a quick wink -- an echo of his parting gesture to her that morning. To him, her meaning was clear.
Jack only had time for a quick wink back and a brief flash of his golden smile, before Maleeka turned and entered the hut, followed by the other two Pelegostos. The curtain fell back into place, and the three figures disappeared from view.
Jack accepted the silent news of his impending fatherhood with mixed feelings. Regardless of what happened now (assuming the shaman's divination was correct, of course, which wasn't at all a certainty in Jack's mind) -- whether he lived to escape this savage island, or perished tomorrow on the roasting spit -- he knew he wouldn't be there to see his son ... or daughter ... born. He was surprised to find that he harboured feelings of mild regret about that -- after all, when charting the course of his life, children had never factored into his calculations.
But, if he were to be brutally honest with himself -- something he generally avoided doing -- he considered it was likely better that his child be raised here, among Maleeka's people. A pirate ship was no place for a helpless infant, not when the possibility of danger and death hung constantly in the air like a malignant cloud. And, if he were to leave the child in the care of another, of all the women of his most intimate acquaintance, to whom could he reasonably entrust a child's upbringing? Anamaria? Giselle and Scarlett? Tia Dalma?
No. He simply couldn't separate a mother from her child, and Maleeka seemed to be a decent sort, if one overlooked the fact that she was a savage cannibal. And there was nothing he could give a child, after all ... no legacy except a dubious family pedigree and the notoriety of his name.
Here, among the Pelegostos, his child would be raised to be Chief and treated with honour and reverence, as befitted the progeny of a god. Out there, in the world beyond this little island, he or she would merely be looked on as a the by-blow of a nefarious pirate, and treated with the scorn, derision, and ignominy reserved by "polite society" for the pitiable offspring of such lowly criminals. There would be no feasting, no tributes, no respect for the scion of the notorious and quasi-legendary Captain Jack Sparrow.
Yes ... he supposed there were worse things that could happen to a child than being raised by cannibals.
Besides, how could he possibly be responsible for a child's life, when he had trouble enough looking after his own skin? Look what had happened to his crew, after all ... men who had trusted him to lead them to safety -- at least, as much as any pirate crew could trust their Captain, which wasn't saying much ...
As though to punctuate this unhappy thought, two Pelegostos, shouldering the long roasting spit between them, bore in yet another hapless crewmember fetched from the bony cages, bound and, this time, mercifully gagged.
As the natives arranged the spit above the stack of wood that would shortly become a cooking pyre, and prepared to light it, panic made all thoughts not relating to self-preservation fly from Jack's mind ...
Though not a particularly devout or religious man, Jack nevertheless found himself silently, fervently praying -- to God, to Calypso, to all the fabled and forgotten gods of every ancient culture that ever existed -- whoever up there would deign to hearken to the pleas of a disreputable and sinning pirate. He prayed for a solution, for inspiration, for salvation ... in short, for a miracle.
And time was quickly running out. If a miracle were to happen, if he and the rest of his crew were to be saved, it had to be soon ...
Twenty-four hours, more or less ...
That's all he had ...
And then it would be his turn on the spit ...
Jack closed his eyes, as he always did, when they set the torch to the pyre. The smells were bad enough; he really didn't need the visuals as well. As the acrid reek of scorched cloth and burning hair started to fill the air, he felt the bile rise to his throat, and, as he usually did when faced with the unbearably horrific without the familiar and comforting oblivion of rum, he sought to retreat to that little haven of detachment in his mind, where reality and fantasy blurred together into something resembling an opium-eater's delusion -- that internal refuge that allowed him to survive, to carry on, no matter what, with his sanity (arguably) intact.
Jack prayed ... prayed that the gag would hold long enough ... prayed that someone would have the mercy to deliver a killing blow before the screaming started.
He really didn't want to hear the screaming ...
Not again ...
BuggerBuggerBugger!
There was a cloth-muffled wail, cut short by a pulpy thud like a melon being split ...
If anyone's listening up there ... please ... Help me ... !
And then, the odour of roasting flesh, and the sound of knives being sharpened ...
SAVE ME ... !!
Author's note:
Sorry to leave this tale on such a dark and dismal note, but anyone who has seen DMC already knows how the story ends: Will arrives the next day, setting in motion a chain of events that results in the freeing of the Black Pearl's crew (at least, the half that DIDN'T plung to their deaths in the chasm) and Jack's successful escape from the island.
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Thanks for reading!
-- Cat