Disclaimer, n. (dis-KLAYM-er) A plea to copyright holders not to sue poor fanfic writers.

Chapter 19: Glory or Sanctuary

Gwen bit her lip as she hesitantly complied with the Roman's and AnaMaria's demands. She avoided Jack's eyes as she passed him, knowing what she would see in them. 'Don't let him take ye,' Jack had said. The way he said it brought her back in a flash to the night before. She recognized the exact tone and inflection in his voice. He had tried to tell her then, but she hadn't listened: he didn't want her to be taken from him the same way that other things had been taken from him in his past.

She was scarcely aware of it when she was set down aboard the Gilder or when Gaius swept her off into the map room. The accusations she'd made to Jack, that he didn't care at all about what happened to her… he had tried to tell her… He had tried. And she hadn't listened.

The Gilder moved slowly away from the Black Pearl during the span of time that Gwen and Gaius were out of sight in the privacy of AnaMaria's map room. Jack was seething, but he accepted AnaMaria's betrayal with gloomy resignation. She'd betrayed him before; even his own first mate Gibbs had willingly left him to die at the hands of Norrington's executioner at one point. The fact that she had changed her mind in that particular instance and hadcome back for him with the rest of the crewdidn't mean she would never betray his trust again. And of course, it would be foolish of him to just blindly hope that AnaMaria would change her mind in a few moments and releaseGwen back into his custody.

Still, though, not dulled by his anger or frustration, Jack's quick mind had already set about finding a solution to the predicament. As he was thinking, the recollection drifted back into his mind of an accusation Gwen had laid to him the previous night: that he had been the one to tell Gaius and Rufus about her peculiar heritage. The words stung him now. Why had he told them, anyway? He supposed that he had secretly wanted to find out more about his companion's odd gift and thought that the Romans would end up telling him more than they did.

No time for such thoughts now, though. Back to the matter at hand--

Jack began flirting with ideas of how to attack the Gilder without risking Gwen's safety and long-shot schemes of how to secretly board the Gilder. But Jack didn't have enough time or luck to further develop any of his designs of rescue. It was only a matter of a couple or three minutes before another complication presented itself.

Jack's time and luck had just run out, for the Lux Fortunaque Mundi had just begun to fire on the Pearl. It was difficult to tell whether Murphy was firing in warning or whether the shots were only hitting the water short of the ship due to the distance and range of his weapons.

Gwen was frozen in shock at what Gaius expected her to do. The weary and careworn man seemed to look suddenly very old indeed as he watched her reaction.

"You are more worthy than any of your line I have seen. I could not hope to trust a better soul than you to carry it out. The time has come, and you cannot disappoint us now."

Gwen shook her head slowly, more out of amazement than disagreement with anything he said. "That still doesn't explain," she said slowly, "why now, after all this time, does the whole fleet wake from their graves to…." She trailed off, watching him expectantly and waiting for the answer.

Gaius had been pacing the floor before her. Rather than answer her immediately, on his next pass by the door, he opened it and leaned out. He stood in this pose for a moment, and though he didn't appear to speak to anyone outside, he got the information he wanted. When he shut the door and turned back to Gwen, he began by saying absently, "They have not been sighted yet."

Since he felt that this gave him enough time to explain more to her, Gaius nodded, mostly to himself, and went on, "Your… great-grandfather, I think he was, very many years ago and his companion sought a medium outside Rome one day. I do not know how or why. I spoke only with the medium and never met either man.

"When I woke in my tomb, I felt drawn to the location from which I was called. The very first thing I did was travel to the medium's hut. She was a very old woman, and didn't seem surprised at all when I told her honestly who I was. She told me that a dark-eyed, dark-haired man and a large red-haired man had been the last visitors she had received, several days earlier. She served them by calling to spirits of the dead linked to them. As the commander of the Lux's fleet, I was summoned. The woman sent me on my way without explaining anything more. I--"

Gaius was interrupted by the sound of semi-distant cannon-fire. He stopped abruptly and went back to the door. He cracked it open and had a brief conversation with someone outside. Then he continued his tale, speaking more quickly than before:

"I understood why I had been awakened then, but I did not understand why the Lux would awaken me and then not wait for me. Then it occurred to me that he must not have known who he was."

"Wait," Gwen interjected. "I'm confused... you, and you alone, were accidentally resurrected by some fortuneteller? And just because my great-grandfather or whoever he was felt like getting his palm read, or hearing a 'message' from a dead uncle?"

"That, essentially, is exactly what I am telling you," Gaius answered simply.

"What about this great 'battle' and defeating this great enemy that your lieutenant Rufus has been spewing on about for so long? How does that fitwith an accidental resurrection?" Gwen asked smugly, hoping she'd just asked the "right question" to get the rest of the story in a neat bundle.

Gaius only frowned slightly, but did not respond in as many details as she would have wished. "I warned you not to listen to everything he told you. He does not know the entire truth."

Gwen scowled. "Well," she tried from another tack, "if you've been wandering around for a hundred years or so, ever since that fortuneteller called to you, shouldn't you be dead by now?"

"Do you honestly think I am alive? I spent centuries resting uneasily in my grave, Gwendolyn," he said bluntly, catching her full attention. "I have spent the last century seeking death. I was not really dead when I was buried. And I am notreally alive even now."

Gwen could only stare at him. Fair enough. She floundered for a long moment. Finally, she cleared her throat and tried rerouting him back to the topic she interrupted him from, "So you immediately went searching for the Lux descendant, some ancestor of mine, who unknowingly had you... awakened."

"I did," Gaius said.

"Why?"

"It is to the Lux bloodline that I must owe my allegiance, for it was a Lux who first claimed me. He selected several of the ships in my fleet to add to his stolen armada; he drew usin simply by putting a strong wind behind our sails to carry us to him. Hesoon aftergave me command over all of his own fleet. He put a spell on all who swore allegiance to him (and who wouldn't, he being what he was?). The spell, he said, would protect us from real death. We all even thought it a good idea at the time. If we were cut down during battle, then, the Lux could simply ask us to stand again and putour weapons back into our hands to fight for him."

Enlightenment began to dawn over Gwen. Enlightenment, and a sudden sinking feeling as she tried to fathom how this was going to link back to her.

"That Lux, though, was assassinated," Gaius continued. "It was discovered that despite his sacred gifts, he had an evil heart. I do now know even of the details of what happened. I know only that he failed and he died. The spell he cast over his entire fleet did not fail. My heart stopped one day centuries ago. But I did not die. I watched my wife and sons bury me. I spent centuries waiting for a Lux to tell my heart to begin again. But, over the centuries, all the secrets of your family had failed to be passed on from one generation to the next. When that day I had been awaiting so long finally came, and I was called as the commander of the Lux's fleet... I found that it was only by accident that I had been summoned, and that the man I owed all my loyalty could not know or care of my existence."

Gwen was beginning to feel the beginnings of fatigue. This was too much to take in at once. And she didn't like where this was heading. She absently rubbed her temples as she asked, "What have you done all this time? Obviously, you've learned English. And when did all the rest of your fleet get... awakened?"

"I eventually found a berth on a merchant ship and began searching for the Lux with the little knowledge I had of him. I had little luck. For many long years, my search was fruitless. Then one day, I ran across a man that seemed too young to be the man who had gone to see the medium-- by this time, it had been too many years for him to still be young-- but who made my very soul tremble in his presence. I knew it was one of the Lux bloodline. I was able to talk to him, briefly, and everything he told me of himself confirmed my suspicionthat he was the son of the Lux who had awakened me. Finally, I told him about his heritage and his gifts, thinking I was doing the right thing. Butthe circumstances of our meeting did not allow me to talk to him much longer. After I told him of his bloodline, I asked him to meet me at a later date at a very particular place at a set time. I was too excited then to realize from the way he dismissed me that he had no intentions of honoring the rendezvous. He never came. I heard legends some years later of his demise on the high seas. This was, as I have been told, your grandfather. I took the stories as truth, never hoping that he might have had offspring. I despaired of ever finding a Lux to cure me of the Lux-spell. I could not die again; I have been half-alive these long years without hope of ever finding the glory of a purpose or the sanctuary of a hallowed grave."

Gaius paused again to go to the door and check on the status of things outside. Apparently the fleet had not yet been spotted, for he turned back and went on, "Only a few years ago, I ran across this again, whether by chance or not, I'll never know." He produced his compass, identical to the one Jack carried. "Your ancestor, the Lux who commanded me, enchanted them, and we each had one. Whether I found it, or whether it finally found me, I cannot say. I purchased it immediately fromthe peddler who had it. And it showed me there was still a Lux alive.

"I found a descendant of the medium who so long ago aroused me from my half-death and had my second, Rufus, revived. I left him to the mystic duty of bringing back the entire fleet of soldiers while I set out with my Dux to find our phantom ships; they still sailed the Mare Nostrum, unmanned and unseen. Rufus and the legions still believe what I told them; that is why they fell back under my command so easily. They believed my motives."

"What did you tell them?"

"Is it not obvious? They believe you are going to lead them to the glory they were promised by the Lux of long ago. They believe there are still enemies to be defeated. I do not know if they would follow if I told them that I had had a century sailing alone in this time seeking a way to die.But you must--"

Gaius stopped short when the door burst open without even the courtesy of a knock. It was AnaMaria.

"The fleet," she explained briskly, her eyes moving between the two occupants of the room.

Gwen turned to Gaius. "Idon't know if I can--"

"You can, because you must," he said simply, offering her a hand to help her to her feet.

Gwen bit her lip. She looked anxiously between AnaMaria and Gaius Acerbus for a moment. Then, with a grim determination, she said, "We'll meet them in a boat, Gaius. As far from here as possible. Hurry."

Murphy picked up a chair and threw it down. Jack watched silently. "Blast yeh, Jack. I trested ye."

"I didn't trust you," Jack answered calmly. He was glad that Murphy had at least agreed to talk things over aboard the Pearl before they blasted each other's ships to pieces. But there was no sense in beating around the bush; the faster Jack could soothe Murphy, the faster he could get back to the matter of Gwen being in AnaMaria's custody. He might even be able to convince Murphy to help him get her back.

Murphy glared, picked up a heavy candelabra and hurled it to the floor at the far end of the room. Then, his red face glowing under his red hair and beard, he suddenly thumped down in a chair across the table from Jack. "I s'pose tha's fair," he said at length.

Jack raised an eyebrow.

"Ye thought I wanted t' use yer li'l wench's pow'rso' killin' people to take o'er a city sumwhar? I've already done tha', Jack. An' th' people follor me willingly. Tha's nah why I need 'er 'elp."

Jack stared back in surprise. "Ye swear the truth? Ye swear that ye don't want her for... loot or land or--"

"On me da's grave and me own, tha's the truth," Murphy interrupted. "I need 'er t'--"

"We'll negotiate it later," Jack said, jumping up and heading toward the door of his map room. "We have to get her back first."

Jack nearly ran into Gibbs and Wills as he charged out of the map room and onto the deck of the Pearl. They had been coming to tell him about something, but now rather than speak, they wordlessly pointed.

On the horizon was a familiar but unwelcome sight: the vast Roman fleet. Halfway between the distant ships and the Gilder, a boat was visible with two occupants. A spyglass was thrust into Jack's hands by Will, but Jack didn't need it to identify the boat's passengers.

"Mebbee they'll just give 'er back if we ask nice," Murphy suggested doubtfully from behind him.