Chapter 41 Rising Up
The impossibility of a levitating stone slab froze them where they stood.
The silence lasted just long enough for Elanor to realise that there was no sound accompanying their movement, no hiss of hydraulics or clunk of mechanical hoist, then to wish that she hadn't noticed that.
"Up, we are going up! Why are we going up?" Jack demanded, sounding both confused and outraged as they both broke free of the shock.
They dropped to their hands and knees, though the thing was moving smoothly enough, and he scuttled carefully toward the edge and peered over to see the floor disappearing,
"The floor's gone. Why is the floor gone?"
Wide eyed he leaned further out until she caught hold of his arm and hauled him back beside her.
"Jack, for god's sake! Do you want to end up like that pathetic heap of bones? He probably fell from something similar!"
He frowned at her as he shook off her restraining hand,
"I've been on many an edge, I'm safe enough. What did you do? This bloody thing seems to think it's a flyin' carpet!"
"I didn't do anything that I know of. But stay away from the edge if you don't want to end up like whoever is down there, heaven only knows what happens when it stops! Or before it stops come to that. Maybe our weight will tilt it!"
Jack paused for a moment, then he gulped and scrambled closer to the centre, laying himself flat on the stone as if that was the only way he could placate the rising rock as it continued silently into the shadows. After a momentary pause Elanor crawled across and sat beside him. He did not look at her, just went on staring upwards as if moving his head would bring some further catastrophe down upon him.
"Where are we going?" he hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
"Up."
"I'd noticed that! But flying rocks? Where does it stop?"
Elanor decided to take that remark literally, though she wasn't sure that was how he meant it,
"I've no more idea than you have," she said wearily as collapsed beside him, "It may go all the way to the top or it may not. It may stop and let us off before we get to the top or it might just toss us off when it gets there."
"Or splatter us against the ceiling?"
The anxiety and resignation in his voice betrayed that this was no a casual comment and Elanor squinted up into the darkness, but was not really surprised by what she saw. A roof of some form was taking shape above them. The slab was moving slowly but fast enough to do them fatal damage if they were to meet a solid surface on the way up. What was forming in the shadows had the look of a very solid surface.
"No way up and no way down. So it ends here after all." Jack sounded both sad and resigned. "Does this count as dry land do you think, or, given that we are surrounded by water and beneath the sea, will it be back to the locker for me after all?"
Elanor swallowed hard, her throat suddenly tight and dry,
"I wouldn't like to offer an opinion on that Jack." She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath as she thought about the world she had known, "But you saw the other side didn't you? I mean that you saw them didn't you? The ....souls passing on?"
"Aye, why?"
"Then whatever it is we know that it doesn't end here, at least not in this world. I wonder if that will apply to me too?"
"Why should it not? You're here aren't you?"
"I don't know, but then that might not matter. The rules of this place make no sense to me at all!"
"Ha!" his exclamation was half hearted, "Rules! Just like your officerly ancestor, got to know the rules!"
The stupidity of the conversation struck her, but it seemed better than a silent drift up to being crushed.
"I like to know them Jack, doesn't mean I play by them. At least not always, and we don't know that he's my ancestor."
"Bet you a bottle of rum that he is. " he flicked a finger but kept his hand firmly on the stone as if afraid of tipping himself off. "Assuming there are bottles of rum wherever we are about to go. Wish I hadn't thought of that."
"Rum?"
"No rum."
"Oh."
For some, unfathomable, reason that made her smile. Jack could be such a simple soul. Did he really think that she hadn't noticed that he drank far less of anything than he liked people to believe?
On impulse she reached out and put her hand over his, feeling the marks on his skin pulsating with each heart beat. His fingers stiffened for a moment and he turned his head slightly to look at where her hand lay on his,
"Shouldn't do that Elanor, if I'm for the locker then I might take you with me."
Her smile widened and she tightened her fingers around his,
"Well wherever I might be going I doubt if I'll know anyone, eternity with only strangers doesn't sound so appealing."
There was a split second's hesitation then his hand closed on hers,
"So it might," he said softly, "and they might all like to play by the rules. Can't let you be spending an eternity in boredom." He remembered the white expanse of the locker and frowned slightly, "at least not on your own. Nor trapped with a crowd of brass and braid. Related or otherwise." He thought for a moment then sighed,
"Might not like the company of course, but better than that anyways."
The shadow had become a ceiling now, solid and substantial, and still the slab they lay on showed no sign of stopping or even of slowing down. It continued the gentle upward drift as if the way was unimpeded. But it wasn't, the roof looked to be rock or maybe the same resin as the tower walls, for it had no more texture than that. Less now she came to think of it, for the metallic glitter was gone replaced instead by a matt blue sheen. Heavy looking though, and unyielding. As Jack's finger's tightened around hers she found herself wondering how long it would take for the meeting of the two surfaces to crush them.
***
"She worries you sir, nearly as much as Sparrow does. Why is that?" Groves asked as they stood at the rail and watched the island slide by, quiet and peaceful in the darkness.
Hathaway went on staring at the shore.
"I had expected Sparrow to be hard to find but I had not factored in supernatural help. Will anyone believe us if we try to say that the man who controls Davy Jones cannot be found because of an angel or a she devil?"
Groves stared out at the coastline with its huddle of buildings and thought about the implications of that. Once he would have said that he did not fear war, nor dying with his men for his king and country, but having seen the effects of the Flying Dutchman at close quarters he knew that he could no longer say that with such certainty. Having seen Beckett's war at close quarters, and having learned the dishonour of it, he was no longer certain of anything at all. His one consolation was that Hathaway did not appear to expect anything different. As he watched the moon bathe the land in silver he wondered if Hathaway believed in anything at all, or if he too had faced his own illusions.
The Intrepid had plucked them from the sea when the night was younger and the moon obscured by clouds. On Hathaway's order they had hauled down the colours, doused most of the lamps and followed the coast back to the bay where the white ship had been seen.
"It would not be easy to anchor here at night, and yet they must have come by night. How did they get passed the rocks and into safety, just the two of them, if they had no supernatural help? How could they sail a ship of that size at all, just one man and a woman?"
Groves had shrugged,
"Sparrow got the Interceptor here with just the help of the lad Turner and he was no sailor."
"Which only goes to prove that he should not be underestimated. But a woman Mr Groves? A lady at that, at least if the stories have any truth to them. How many ladies do you know who could take to crewing a ship?"
"None sir. But we do not know that they came alone, they might have a full crew aboard."
"They might indeed, but if that is the case where did that crew come from, and why did the lady herself go in search of Sparrow?"
Groves thought that over for a moment,
"True sir. But it is not impossible and what other possibilities are there?"
Hathaway was silent for a moment then he turned away from the rail,
"But does that make it better Mr Groves? Does that mean that a whole ship full of such beings awaits us?"
He started across the decks towards the helm, not staying to see the other man's reaction, knowing that there was nothing more to be learned for the moment. As he went he heard Groves put into words the thought that had haunted him since first hearing of Sparrow's strange companion, a thought he would not speak.
"Dear Lord! How will we fight them if there are?"
***
Death had not claimed them this time, though neither of them could say why.
The slab had risen to meet the roof with no pause and they had tensed ready for the first pressure, both knowing that the imminent dying might not be quick or painless.
But there had been no pressure, no crushing of bone or splattering of blood. One minute the roof had been before them and then it was not. There was a moment of chill, a feeling as if they were on the edge of a powerful storm and then there was only shadows above them again.
Jack edged to the side of the slab and peered carefully over the edge, then he edged back to sit beside her, a very thoughtful look on his face.
"Stone, we just went through stone. And we're not dead. You want to explain this?" he said slowly, frowning into the darkness.
Elanor gave a laugh that sounded hysterical to her own ears.
"I'd love to be able to!"
"Not something of your world then?"
"No, though.. "
"Though what?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" he snapped, "Something occurred to you, I know it. Is it so terrible that you can't name it, or is it that you just don't want to tell me?"
"Not terrible, just unlikely, and don't start taking it out on me, it's not my fault that the world has gone mad. We both knew that it had well before we arrived here."
There was a moment of quiet then he sighed heavily,
"Can't argue with that I suppose. Does it matter, this thing that's unlikely?"
"Doesn't change things if that's what you mean?"
"It is." He sounded very tired, "Bugger."
Neither of them felt the need to comment on the matter further.
Elanor turned her head, out to her left she could see the curving wall of the inner tower, the look and shape of it unchanged. She wondered idly what it was and why it was here, and if she would live long enough to find out. Then wondered if she even cared any longer. At that moment, with the lake water brand tracing spider's webs of heat on her skin and with flames starting behind her eyeballs, she longed to be back on her ship. 'If I have to die here in this world then so be it, but please let it be on my ship.' It occurred to her briefly to wonder with whom, exactly, she was pleading. If she had ever doubted that she understood Jack's pining for his ship she did not do so any longer, to die with the wind at her back and the horizon spread out before her seemed a very different matter to an ending here, encased in rock and sand.
To be free just one more time.
"Elanor, we've stopped. Well I think we've stopped, I'm nearly sure." Jack's voice was a laboured rasp. He sat up slowly and looked around, "Nowhere, we are in the middle of nowhere? Why?"
She pulled herself to her knees and peered towards the edge of the slab, sure enough it appeared to be stopped, hovering in mid air with just shadows above and below them. They exchanged a look and both crawled to the edge, peering up then down before looking at each other in confusion.
"Why here?" Jack asked the question for both of them.
"No idea. So what do we do now?"
"Well either we jump or we wait here and die of thirst."
Looking across at him she wasn't sure that would be such a long wait. His skin now seemed to be one raw, red scar, only the brand on his wrist showing white, and she could feel the heat coming off him, hot as she was. His eyes seemed darker than before, almost black against the reddened eyeball, and he appeared to have problems in opening them for he was looking at her through narrowed slits. That, and the dark growth of his beard, made him look like some fantasy painting of the devil. All he needed were the horns.
"There is no way down Jack, even if we tied all our clothing and belts together it wouldn't be long enough."
For a moment he seemed to think about a salacious reply, but then recollection of the situation, or weariness, put the thought from his mind. They both knew there was no need for playacting anymore, for the situation had long since passed such a point.
"True enough, so it's the slow way, is that it?" he looked across at her with a sad and sombre expression, "Fortunately luv, this time I have shot enough for two. He frowned, "it's probably better I despatch you first, you might not manage the pistol."
For a moment she looked at him in silence wondering about the time when he didn't have enough shot for two, then she nodded.
"But not immediately."
He smiled and shook his head,
"Never say die eh? Agreed, not immediately. Would be a sad thing to die when a little thought would save us. Would it not?"
She gave a short laugh,
"Yes it would!"
Not that it seemed likely that there would be any other way, a pistol shot or a slow death. Instead of being crushed, or falling to their deaths like the poor wretch on the ground they either died by a bullet or stayed here and faded away, their bones falling with the slab when it finally surrendered to gravity. Elanor looked over the edge again. How far down was it? Was that the only chance? How far could they get before they had to take a chance on that same gravity.
Gravity! A ceiling that wasn't there!
Slowly she put out her hand, reaching out into space, while Jack watched her with weary confusion. There was the edge, there was the beginning of the drop, and there was... a floor! Or at least something solid. Carefully she spread her finger out and felt around, the solidity extended in towards the edge of the slab then out beyond it. As if the stone had risen into a hole, a pre-programmed resting place that they couldn't see. But it seemed to be there.
Jack, realising that something was not as it looked came closer, gingerly extending his own hand, fingers dancing in the air for a moment before spreading out and mapping what was there but not there.
"More weirdness," he said softly, "Seems to follow me about these days." He sat up suddenly, looked at his hand then got to his feet, "Still this looks to be a good weirdness, gets us off this bloody rock at least. Spares us the pistol for a little while longer."
With that he stepped to the edge of the slab.
Elanor caught at his ankle,
"Jack we don't know what it is, or if it will bear our weight. We most certainly don't know how far it stretches."
He looked down at her with a smile,
"I know that. A floor that isn't there, certainly counts as stupid to go walking on it. But..." he looked at his hand for a moment and then pointed a steady finger at her, "seems to me we've been doing a lot of unwise things for some time, and according to my reckoning its my turn to do something stupid this time. So."
With a flourish he stepped out into the void.
***
Intrepid was heading for Port Royal again with the wind full astern and making good time. But not a half day's sail away from Tortuga they met Admiral Norrington coming the other way, and, responding to the other ships signals, they hauled in canvas and dropped anchor. Taking a long boat Hathaway and Groves crossed the water to the other ship in silence, both wondering what it could be that brought the Admiral here, so obviously seeking them out.
Silence was maintained until they were in the Admiral's cabin.
"The Spanish have despatched half a dozen war ships to the Caribbean." The Admiral said as soon as the door closed behind them. "Our spies are not sure why, but it seems likely they are increasing their efforts to find Sparrow. We believe that they have ordered three more towards the South China Sea, apparently in search of the junk previously captained by Sao Feng."
He sank into his chair and rubbed a hand over his eyes,
" Why they should think the occupants would know of Sparrow I cannot say, and there may be some other reason for it, but our spies have told us that they captured a pirate vessel some weeks back and that they have been holding one member of it's crew in Havana. It may be someone who claims to have been at Shipwreck at the time of the battle. It is not clear how much they have learned from him, if they have learnt anything, but there is no doubting the move does not bode well. The king has ordered six ships out to watch them and try and intercept any vessel they show interest in, but there is no denying that the matter is entering a grave stage, gentlemen. I had hoped you might have good news for me but it would seem not."
Hathaway shook his head,
"Sparrow hasn't been seen in Tortuga for more than a month. But his last visit was not without interest sir. It would seem that he has found some unusual help."
Groves thought he heard the Admiral groan before he dropped his hand to the desk and looked at them,
"Then you had better tell me all about it."
***
Elanor didn't think that she would ever get rid of that image, of Jack stepping out into nothingness. She held her lantern out to light his feet, as if it might stop him falling, until he waived it away impatiently,
"Bad enough to walk on thin air, worse still to see me feet while they do it!"
In the light his face looked as if he had paled, but it was not possible to be sure given the devil like flush.
She pulled the lantern back and scrambled up, he was several feet away from her now and whatever it the surface was it seemed able to support him. In the quiet she could hear him mumbling to himself, words about ropes and yardarms and beasties, at least she thought he said beasties, filtered back to her. Though she couldn't make out all of them she got the feeling that he was chastising himself for being so timorous.
Hearing him she took herself to task, she could not stay here so she might as well get it over with, as long as she didn't get too close to Jack the thing should take her weight. With a deep breath she stepped out too.
It was not as terrifying as it might have been, for the shadows hid much of the drop. She could see no further than the distance from the topsail to the deck, why then should it look so far? In silence they circled the slab but it looked no different from outside than it had from within; then they both moved carefully towards the outer wall exploring it by sight and fingertip as they slowly circled the space. But space was all it seemed to be.
"Why here? Why did the thing stop here?" Jack demanded of thin air.
"I've no idea." She raised the lantern high shining it around her as she edged closer to the walls.
There were more of those strange markings, the clusters of crystals making a different pattern here. Carefully she reached out and ran her fingers over them, these were smoother than those below and felt cold beneath the heat of her skin. She was lost in thought when Jack's hand grasped her wrist,
"Careful there, we don't know if you set that flying carpet off last time in your exploring."
Elanor shook her head,
"Whatever this place is it's too old for me to do anything that matters."
Jack huffed a little at that but said nothing more, wandering away towards the inner wall instead,
"Temple do you think then? Designed to placate some long forgotten deity?" he turned and smiled at her, "Saw an old temple once, not unlike this it was, all great stone pillars, empty rooms and strange carvings." His smile became suggestive, but not as much as the images his hand sketched in the air, "interesting habits the priests must have had."Elanor hid a smile,
"Where was it?"
"Southern America's. Got chased there by the Spanish a time or two. Got chased out too."
He reached out to touch the surface and sprang back as the room was flooded with the same silver blue light they had seen outside.
"Now who is setting things off?" Elanor crossed to join him as she spoke.
"Didn't touch it!"
"You must have done."
"Did not I say!"
"Well something is happening."
The return of the blue light was not the only change, behind them the slab they had arrived on was moving again, rising up from the floor like a feather wafted by a breeze. Jack took one more look around the empty room and then caught her arm, pulling her with him, only letting go when he took a leap onto the rising slab.
"Come on!" he insisted, "there is nothing here, but there might be where this is going."
Elanor frowned in annoyance but flung herself upwards, catching at the edge of the slab as it passed, cursing as Jack dragged her unceremoniously up beside him.
"I'm not sure this is a good idea," she hissed as she rubbed at her scraped legs.
"Nothing to stay here for luv. Can't be any more dangerous where this is going."
"Want to bet on that?" she asked blandly as yet another slab emerged from the shadows and passed them travelling in the opposite direction.
"Ah." Was Jack's only comment as he drew his sword and eased his pistol in his sash.
The passing slab's surface was decorated with three small piles of bones.
***
Report completed Hathaway and Groves had returned to the Intrepid and resumed their journey to Port Royale.
Groves had stood his watch then sought his bed, sighing gratefully at the familiar sight of clean bedding. It would take some time ashore to rid himself of the passengers he had acquired in the stews they had left behind, and, as he shook out his uniform, he wondered again how Jack Sparrow had managed to retain his flamboyance in such a place when he could hardly have carried a change of clothes. Navy broadcloth was hot and heavy but at least he got a clean shirt when he needed it and there was usually water enough to swill the Caribbean sweat from his skin. How had James Norrington managed all those weeks on a pirate ship with no clean linen and no one to brush the flies and lice from his coat? He thought that it would take a lot of water to wash the stink of his own sweat from his nostrils.
The thought of the Commodore was followed by the thought of Ms Swann, painful though it was. The girls in Tortuga had reminded him most painfully of her fate, or rather her likely fate he corrected himself for they had not seen her again after she was seen to board Sao Feng's ship. He wondered what had happened to Turner that he had let her go. Until he turned up on the Endeavour Groves had assumed Turner to be dead and beyond protecting her, but he had been alive it seemed, so what devil's pact had brought him to allow her to be traded in that manner? Sparrow could not have been the cause of it for he had still been in Beckett's hands when the pirate's junk had taken her aboard and departed.
As he pulled the bedclothes up to his chest his mind flitted away from the governor's lost daughter and back to the pirate they were seeking. The Admiral had offered them one ray of hope in the darkness of their failure; the Black Pearl had been spotted and behaving very strangely, more so than even Jack Sparrow might be expected to behave.
He was still wondering about that when he fell asleep.
***
The stone rose up without sound or vibration just as it had before. Jack looked wary but this time he remained standing while Elanor sat, crossing her ankles and winding her arms around her knees hoping that this one could pass through ceilings too, and that it knew where to stop. That or whatever had set it moving would stop it in time. The blue light was getting stronger now, flickering around them like lightening, sparking flashes of silver from the crystals in the wall. The inner tunnel seemed transparent, showing curls of something that looked to be smoke within it, in which diamond bright drops rose and danced. They could not see what the dancing motes were, nor where the light was coming from. She looked down at her hand at the pulsing marks, the redness seemed to be seeping even into her fingernails, they looked blacker in the light than they had in the shadows.
Jack saw her examine her hands out of the corner of his eye and swallowed down on the surge of guilt knowing that it would neither of them any good. The habit of years was slow to take over and for a moment his courage failed, for he could not imagine how this creeping evil that devoured them could ever be stopped. 'Time to think of that when there is nothing else to be thought of' he reprimanded himself, by which time it would it not be worth thinking of. It would not hurt to distract her a little while this strange bird took them where it was going, and himself too if he were more honest with himself than he knew it might be good to be. Perhaps she might feel in need of a little comforting now, for he knew that he did! A man could only do what he could do after all.
He sheathed his sword, raised his lantern and looked her over critically,
"Do I look as bad as yourself does?" he said after a moment.
She looked up at him with a considering expression, eventually she smiled slightly,
"You look like the devil with a bad case of sunburn if that's what you want to know."
"Ah. Do I now?" he bowed to her, flourishing the lantern like a handkerchief, his smile glinting in the odd light. "Well you look like a particularly fetching demon if I may be so bold."
Elanor crossed her arms and stared back at him,
"Why not? You usually are."
He straightened and wagged an eyebrow at her, shaking his head in mock reproof,
"Now, now Captain Cavendish, admit it, I have been a model of decorum when in the presence of your good self. Have I not?"
"Bullshit Captain Sparrow, when given the inch you have never failed to take the warned of mile."
Jack struck a pose, looking playfully affronted
"Have I now! And when exactly did you give the inch necessary to enable said mile taking then?"
She just smiled with false brightness.
He edged a little closer hand fluttering, tracing what looked to be close to her shape in the air, before he sank down at her side with a surprising grace
"But here . in the jaw of death itself, that mile looks very much worth the walk," his voice dropped lower, "and I find myself wondering what a captain demon might taste of."
Carefully he put his hand on her shoulder, his fingers sliding up towards her neck, brushing the soaking strands of her hair away from her skin before sliding around the curve of her neck, looking into her eyes with an intensity that was unusually straightforward.
"The sands are running out on us, and we've nothing to do for the moment but wait, so can you not find it in yourself to wonder the same about a captain devil? Hmm?"
Her smile dimmed, then faded as he raised his other hand, his fingers brushing against her skin, the heat of him was a solid wall even before his hot skinned touch added to the fire that was already flaming her nerve endings. 'What could it matter now?' she thought to herself, their strength was fading fast, and they both knew it for all the bravado. 'We're likely to be dead within a few hours. Keeping him at arms length can hardly matter now, and if he feels half as bad as I do he isn't going to be pushing his luck very far.'
"Perhaps," she said softly, "but I make no promises. I might not be in the mood, death's door or not," she held his gaze with her own for a moment, "but then again I might."
He smiled slightly and moved closer still,
"Then I'll risk all shall I?"
That brought the smile to her lips again,
"I thought you already had."
He tilted his head slightly at that and a thoughtful, sombre, look replaced the devil glint in his eyes,
"Not quite all," he said reflectively, "Never that. But who is to say..." the words tailed off and he turned his head towards her, the brush of his mouth against her cheek so soft she might have thought that she imagined it.
Elanor put her hand up to catch at his hair, winding her fingers through it, turning his head slightly. She felt a knock against her hip as he hooked his lantern back in his belt and eased his pistol to one side, then his other hand was on her waist, finger spayed upwards towards her ribs. For a moment she wondered if she felt as hot to him as he did to her. How could they burn so hot and still be alive? His skin felt softer than she had expected, so too did those carefully clipped whiskers. Not that she got much more than a fleeting of an impression of them, for a soon as his mouth brushed hers he pulled away from her,
"What was that?" he hissed into her ear.
She swallowed a laugh,
"Well it wasn't the earth moving that's for sure."
Jack leaned back a little, staring at her with a puzzled frown,
"You do say the oddest things," he complained then moved closer again.
Only to have his hand freeze mid caress as the noise came again,
"What is it?" he demanded into her ear.
"I don't know," she said equally softly
The sound had been faint but she had heard it too.
They stayed silent and still, ear to ear, chest to chest, head leant against the others. It was still faint but growing, a sound like waves washing against the shore. Suddenly Elanor knew what those dancing motes had looked like, they had looked like sea spray.
They broke apart without a word and stared at the source of the blue light, then Jack turned and looked at her,
"Water!" he thought for a moment, then grinned, "rising up!"