The Scroll of Kesmehet
Chapter One: Yet Another Treasure Hunt
Jack just stared at his friend in shock.
"So let me get this straight," he started as though certain he'll regret it. "After all this time of not hearing a single word from you—letters, mementoes, souvenirs, the odd Christmas present—you come sailing back into the Caribbean on your fine ole African ship, waltz up to my Pearl, and demand I take you aboard as a sailor."
"Yes, that does sound more or less accurate," the first William Turner agreed.
More staring.
"Are you out of your bloody mind?"
"Not really, no."
"Huh." The captain leaned back, attempting to contemplate the situation fully. Suddenly righting himself upon his chair, he leaned across the desk and, with a sheathed dagger, poked his companion.
Hard.
The sudden bellow and various threats of castration that followed echoed loudly across the deck of the Black Pearl.
"Just checking you're actually here, is all," Jack explained nonchalantly.
"By bearing a hole right through and into my back!"
"Well, I had to make certain you were real, for obvious reasons; this isn't the first time supposedly dead men from my past loom threateningly out of the shadows one fine stormy night and make ridiculous demands of me."
Bill raised a dark eyebrow. "If you're talking about the one time you and I were impersonating prostitutes—"
A hand suddenly clamped down on the man's mouth as a fearful voice hissed, "Did we not take an oath to not mention that ever again?"
"Ah, yes; that. One of many, if my memory serves…"
"Which it doesn't," the pirate reminded.
"No, it really doesn't," Bill agreed, having pried the younger man's bejewelled fingers off of his chin. They merely sat staring at each other for many awkward moments.
"Jack, my joining… Your response?"
The dread-locked pirate gave him a disbelieving look. "Oh, it's all very well and good, as far as you're concerned…"
Bootstrap Turner sighed. "And here comes the prerequisites," he grumbled.
"However, you've forgotten to mention one very important thing: What's in it for me?"
Of course; the gain. He should have known that Sparrow wasn't one to let sentiments such as friendship and loyalty stand in his way, nor qualify as sufficient as far as the running of his ship was concerned.
Luckily, Mr Turner had been prepared for this turn of events. Smiling, he reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a small little wooden box with gilded edges and tossed it onto the table.
Jack merely stared. "Either that's meant to sing and dance for my amusement or it somehow leads to a treasure hoard, which, considering my past experiences with such caches, will undoubtedly be of the cursed variety," he stated.
Bill nodded solemnly. "There's a young lad on the ship I've been serving on, the Chimera, that found it somewhere in an African slave market…"
"You expect me to sail to Africa?"
"I'm expecting you to shut up and listen to me tell you of a legend linked to this box," his friend corrected. "Thank you." The man cleared his throat before continuing.
"Apparently, hundreds of thousands of years ago, before we even invented the wheel, there was once a civilisation—a people known as the Kesmehet," he added, the foreign name sounding deep and guttural. "And from there sprouted the rest of humanity."
"Like that whole Atlantis parable."
"Jack…"
"…Fine…"
"Anyway," the not-so-dead-as-once-was-believed pirate continued, "these people, they were divided in two, and at constant war with each other—something to do with opposing gods, I'm really not sure on the details—and so weren't on the friendliest of terms, right? And life continued like this for a few thousand years, until two people, one from each side, tried to put a stop to it."
"Let me guess," Jack yawned, already predicting the next turn of events with a less than enthusiastic approach, "forbidden love?"
"Actually, I think they were both the leaders of their respective nations," the man corrected, "important, anyway. But you can only imagine neither god was too happy about that."
"They never are, are they? It's always the gods that get infuriated and do something stupid, like curse a perfectly good treasure hoard…"
"Jack…"
"I said I'm sorry, didn't I?"
Bill ignored the urge to point out that the answer to this particular question was undoubtedly a negative. "So they cursed these poor luckless bastards to an eternity of torment—"
"What kind of torment?"
"—I'm not so sure, will you stop?—And split the Kesmehet into different racial groups and spat them out across the globe."
"Yes, this all would make a remarkable bedtime story, to be sure," Jack cut in, his voice tinged with impatience, "but where's the mention of the treasure?"
"I'm getting there. Really, no patience whatsoever…" The brunet placed a hand to his temple as a gesture of recollection. "Where was I? 'Course…" He opened his dark eyes and looked at Jack. "Where do you find gold and silver nowadays?" he asked randomly.
"What the—um… the earth?"
"And diamonds?"
"I believe they share the same home as gold."
"And pearls?"
"The sea," Jack answered uninterestedly whilst wondering if there were any half-decent mental institutions around this area of Honduras.
"According to this legend, pearls grew on trees."
The silence that followed was caused by the delayed reaction of…
"What!"
"You heard me."
Now Jack was debating which of the many mental asylums his father had attempted to lock him up in would be appropriate for this strange old friend. "Aren't pearls made from a type of oyster?"
"Very probably," Bill admitted, "but they once grew on trees."
Jack just gaped. "Pa was right; my insanity really is quite contagious…"
"Well, treasure was meant to be just lying about in abundance during the time of the Kesmehet on this great green earth whilst the gods were happy with humanity," Bootstrap amended slightly. But only so very, very slightly; he stood firm by his belief that pearls once sprouted upon branches, and nothing was going to take that away from him. "And then when they cursed their two traitors, they apparently took all of the wealth and buried it deep within the earth—"
"Which part?" he enquired. "Where?" he expanded at his companion's puzzled frown.
"I don't know—the centre? Anyway, here's one little aspect of the curse…" And with this short, gripping introduction, the elder of the two men leaned forward dramatically.
"Here's the thing: the gods locked these two mere mortals together in some kind of hell, with a legion of demons to guard them. But," he stressed, "the two deities were somehow sympathetic towards these men—or women, I forget—and so, after every few hundred years or so of unrelenting, unstopping torture, they let these two poor bastards out—give them a chance to redeem themselves, buy back their freedom, you know?"
"…I see," Jack replied, processing all of this information. Leaning back upon his chair, he propped his feet arrogantly upon his desk and settled comfortably into the slothful position. "So I'm guessing now's one of those times," he said, already knowing that this would have been the only reason Bootstrap would have even mentioned it to him.
Bootstrap merely nodded. "That would be correct."
A silence descended upon the cabin, broken by the soft creaking of the hull and the faint splashing of the waves. "Well," the captain said at last, "you've got my interest, Bill, I'll give you that."
A crooked grin curled at the pirate's lips. "Of course, there is one slight catch…"
"Does it involve monkeys?" Sparrow asked sharply.
Bootstrap blinked, caught off guard at the completely random enquiry. "What?"
"Monkeys," Jack enunciated. "Primates, apes, chimps… The whole category in general, really…"
"…Not that I'm aware of," he rejoined, uncertain as to whether this was the correct answer.
Apparently, it was.
The younger man breathed out a sigh of relief. "That's what I wanted to hear," he said approvingly. "So, what is it?"
"We need these two kings—or were they priests?—in order to locate the treasure," he said simply and shamelessly. "Something about the two of them together sparks off a chain of events that leads to one of the many doorways into the treasure vault opening… When coupled with this box, of course," he added, waving his hands towards the random object lying half-forgotten on the desk.
"So it becomes a matter of finding them."
"No," Bill corrected softly, "it's a matter of finding out who they are."
The captain cracked a gold-toothed grin. "Now that's what I call a challenge." Leaning forward, he opened a drawer and pulled out two glass bottles of rum, sliding one over to his latest crewmember. "Here's to future ill-gotten gain," he smirked, raising the inebriation-inducing substance in a high toast.
Bootstrap merely fidgeted with the cork stopper. "Um… There's one slight condition," he mumbled, bowing his head in supposed humility when he was, in fact, attempting to disguise his curled grin.
Sparrow paused, the bottle halfway to his lips. He stayed in this position for quite a few moments, creating a very amusing freeze-frame. "Oh?"
"Aye. That box," he gestured, "came with a scroll…"
"And you don't know where it is?" Jack filled in for the man.
He shook his head. "On the contrary; I know exactly where it is… But we're faced with the slight dilemma of the owner's obstinate reluctance to hand the thing over, you see."
Jack let out a groan. "I'm gonna have to send Anamaria to seduce him, aren't I?"
"Or alternatively, you can do it yourself," Bill offered, evidently inferring to the event that shall not be mentioned. A frown creased his tanned forehead. "Who's Anamaria, anyway?"
"Oh, no one of significant importance," he waved away airily, reluctantly setting his beloved alcohol down once again. "We're not going to have a good, old-fashioned, proper toast until we've decided how to get around this slight impediment, are we?" he complained.
Using his many years of dealing with whining young piratical men, Bill was able to effectively ignore the younger pirate in favour of vocalising his cunning plan: "We let him join us," he stated confidently. "Let him have an equal share."
The rum was swiftly raised yet again. "Obstruction obliterated," the captain crowed, leaning back yet again.
More fidgeting with the stopper. Rolling his eyes, Jack dropped his elevated arm. "What's wrong with him?" he asked suspiciously.
Another curl of the lip. "Oh, nothing, nothing at all wrong with him, as such: perfectly decent sailor, adheres to the Code without fail, unless instructed otherwise by his captain, unwavering loyalty to the leader…
"He's just the type of man I wouldn't… turn my back to, is all." He paused for dramatic effect. "Ever," he added meaningfully with a raised eyebrow, a knowing glint of amusement in his eye, as though it was a joke that only he could comprehend.
Jack's black eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Thanks for the warning," he uttered, searching his companion's face for any clues as to the private jest at his expense. Finding no obvious allusions as to the meaning of the maliciously laughing eyes, the captain of the revered Black Pearl let out a barely audible sigh of frustration, deciding to let the taunt go.
For now, at any rate.
"Well in that case, here's to the lad joining us upon our latest grand enterprise," Jack brushed off. The clinking of glass soon followed as Bill finally allowed the much-belated toast without voicing another drawback.
"Here's to the treasure, the map—"
"Scroll."
"—the scroll, our future prosperity, and to the enterprising young lad's undying allegiance," Jack continued unfazed, his bottle held high and proud. "May our alliance be lifelong and ever constant."
The smirk that had the audacity to grace Bootstrap's features was maddening in its arrogance. "Indeed," he said, a roguish insinuation that Jack failed to grasp tainting his tone. "Here's to your… partnership."
Jack very nearly pummelled his friend for his denigration, but thought better of the tempting act of violence. He still, after all needed the man for the treasure. And he'll discover as to what was so iniquitous about the lad with the scroll that appeared to repel Bill so intensely tomorrow morning. The night, after all, was still young…
AN: Just thought I'll tell you now that it usually takes me about a week to write and upload a chapter, give or take a few days, and that this fast upload was a one-off…
Next chapter is where the fun really begins… For me, anyway…
Yesido: it's amazing how many people don't pay attention to this one tiny little detail that the entire plot of the movie HAPPENS to be centred around, isn't it? Personally I think my wit was lacking in this chapter, but I can almost guarantee it'll return when I write the next. Anyway, I'm glad you like my writing style; the miracles of a thesaurus truly knows no bounds…
zareen: Thank you very much; is this update fast enough for you? I only just got your review, and seeing how fast I normally am, to me, this is pretty speedy… Glad you liked it! And the camp drag queen that gives Jack a severe case of paranoia hasn't even made his (or should it be hers?) appearance yet…