Barbossa was on his way, he'd gotten past the creature, and after he'd answered the riddle correctly, he had slain her. Better let the secret die with him, he figured. Her howls were louder than any death cry, and the bite she'd given him only proceeded to egg him on. As her blood stained hands and gotten under his fingernails, he could feel the Helm's power run through his veins, his pulse roaring in his ears.
Standing over the beast and turning back to his crew, he spoke loudly and harshly, the anticipation of the Helm's power making him impatient.
"We step from this place new men! And as new men, we ride to rule the world! Now, let us get back to th'ship an' meet up wit' whatever band our King has cooked up fer us, eh?"
The elements had not been kind to the crew, not to mention the captain, so it was a less than excited cheer yet the manly call for blood rang through the empty space.
And yet, the creature lying, broken and violated, seemed to be smiling.
At first the stalactites were quite menacing, but soon they were so into the cave even with lanterns it was still darker than the night. Jack wasn't as nervous as he was before he met up with the two sisters, but the thought that he would have to face an enemy in the sheer darkness was beginning to catch up with him. It's one thing to know what you're fighting, it's another altogether to die against a practically invisible foe. Especially waving your sword about like an idiot, trying to find something that can't be found. He'd had this problem before, believe it or not, and since then dark places had always managed to get him on the edge. So, just to be sure, he fingered the hilt of the sword strapped to his side. Using a pistol in the dark would only manage to kill unnecessarily, even Jack knew that.
Jack kept whatever senses he had left on high alert, but it was hard with so many men around him, breathing and scuffling and making noise. He understood, they needed to make noise to ensure themselves that they were still alive, that something didn't already come and the blackness wasn't actually hell. It was only beginning to dawn on Jack himself that he himself would actually be in hell soon enough, and he was sure that he wasn't the only one disturbed at the prospect.
He wondered what would happen if they were caught by the devil himself, would his torment be like Davy Jones' locker, a never ending beach with no water in sight, slowly going mad under the blazing sun? Or would it be like Angelica herself, taunting, teasing, always an inch away when he'd taken one step forward? Would the exit always be one adventure away, his brand of heroics slowly expiring as the exertion it took to escape wore him down? 'That would be hell,' Jack thought to himself, his eyes narrowing, scanning what he knew to be the walls of the cave, even though he couldn't see them.
"Jack!" Will called from the ship behind, his perpetually young voice ringing and echoing, so even when Jack heard it, it continued to call him.
"Eh?" he grunted, attempting to make as little noise as possible. The less creatures that knew he was there, the better.
"Sensing land soon!" Will shouted, knowing that he too should be quick and quiet.
Jack paled, knowing that Will could not help him if the Helm was on land. His help had considerably lessened, and now he was allied with only Angelica. He was smart enough to know not to ever turn his back on her, because she was likely to stab it. Judging by the way he'd treated her in the past, he didn't blame her a bit. Still didn't prevent him from being wary around the Spanish beauty, and a dark cave gave her a perfect opportunity to come through with some creative form of revenge.
"Another boat's here! Can feel it!" Will called out again, his voice strained, his unnerving words reverberating.
"Barbossa," Jack muttered to himself. It was only a matter of time before the pirate caught up with them, but he'd relied on his good ol' pirate luck to get him out of an early confrontation. Unfortunately it was not to be.
"Sir, what's that glow? It's not comin' from up 'head, it's comin' from the… water," Gibbs stuttered nervously from somewhere off to Jack's right. The superstitious pirate was probably in a frenzy, going over in his head all of the bad luck they had brought on board.
He hadn't noticed it before, but there was definitely a soft glow coming from below. Jack had been so preoccupied with thoughts of Barbossa that he hadn't noticed the change, but without hesitation he slowly slid his way over to the edge of the ship.
Leaning his upper body over the rail, he peered down at the water, and a jolt ran through him when he saw that there seemed to be peaceful bodies floating both on top of the water and underneath. They were not solid, they were not liquid, they were not gas. They were of a new stage of matter, something that Jack had never seen before, yet they were obviously human. Or were.
"Are they the dead, Cap't?" Gibbs asked him tentatively, peering over the edge too. The underside of his face was glowing from the bodies, but it was not enough light to show them where they needed to go.
Jack arched an eyebrow. "Can't see what ever else they might be. But hey, we'll never know till we're dead then, eh?"
"Let's make sure that day is not today." Gibbs shuddered as he stared at the lids of the dead, their pupils moving about rapidly as if they were in a dream, yet the rest of their bodies remained stationary. They merely floated along, seemingly without purpose or desire.
"They're harmless," Jack concluded, straightening and feeling his way along the side of the ship to the front, where he peered to try and see ahead. Looking over the side of the boat again, he saw that the people were being pushed faster. He gasped as he looked up and saw the curve of the ceiling drooping down, "Everybody hold on to something!" he screamed out, just before the front of the boat tipped down the hill.
Jack felt his entire body lurch forward, and he held onto the side as if it were the last glass of rum he'd ever drink. He cries of the other men were scarcely heard over the sound of the rushing water, and as they glowing bodies fell, they seemed to be screaming too. The waterfall made the world around them somehow absurdly brighter, and Jack whipped his head around to see a man fly off the portside of the ship and into the glowing water. The moment he touched it, his skin glowed and he dissolved into the river, becoming one of the floating bodies.
"Don't touch the water," Jack choked out, the wind rushing against his face so bad that his eyes began to tear up. It was a long fall, with no end in sight. The glowing people of the dead were flying above him, next to him, below him, their eyes still closed and their expressions without torment. Suddenly, silver threads were flying towards them, raveling themselves around each other and creating something that looked rather like a web. The closer the threads wound, the more Jack found his feet coming closer to the deck. Soon enough, there was a completely silver bubble around them, and a strange gravity jolted them back to normal. The glowing bodies that were trapped in the net fell as well, and the soldiers cried out in horror as they fell towards them.
They looked like ghosts falling towards Earth, but the moment they touched the deck, they became completely solidified. Standing up abruptly like they had just been shaken out of bed by the devil himself, they stared around them as if seeing for the first time. Some wore the clothes of the Romans and Greeks, while others' seemed more modern. Whichever, they were clearly human again. Jack didn't have the time to figure them out, and as they rushed for a hold, the ship completely rotated until horizontal again, stationary in mid air.
Some of the crew had the courage to let go of whatever they were grasping, while others got sick overboard, but Jack merely let go of his beam and peered over the edge of the ship. The depths below were black, and up above he saw the belly of Angelica's boat being given the same treatment. What happened to Will's ship, he didn't know, but he suspected that he'd managed to use whatever powers he gained to turn themselves around and stop Barbossa.
"Jack!" He heard a voice from above, and seeing as it was somewhat feminine he supposed it was Angelica. She sounded as if she were speaking through a pillow, and while faint, this proved that the threads had made them a covering.
"'m here, love!" he shouted back.
Turning around, he saw that the blue silver waterfall was getting farther and farther away, though the whole while it didn't feel like they were moving.
"It looks like someone wants to keep us alive, cap't?" Gibbs figured, rubbing at a sideburn.
"Yes Mr. Gibbs, it does."
Very soon, the waterfall entirely disappeared and their bubble floated along, the darkness nearly overwhelming after such a long time. There had been nervous chatter at first, but eventually even the whispers died as the cave took on a morose feel.
"It feels like death, cap't," Gibbs breathed from the very same spot he'd been, his eyes darting amongst the darkness.
Jack did not answer, but in reply lifted a hand to his temple and rubbed it. This was the very same feeling in Davy Jones' locker, how darkness compressed inside his mind for endless minutes until he felt as if he would go insane. He felt his eyes cross and the lightheadedness that he had often felt while in the midst of one of his fanatical insanities.
Soon after, he breathed out a small sigh of relief as a green light showed in the distance. The bubble floated to this light slowly, temptingly, and all they could do is wait. Jack looked up when the light got closer and saw that the stalactites were larger than ever, and if the bubble was only a few inches higher than they would have tumbled to an unfortunate death. The least of their problems, Jack decided to move back up so he could be in a prime position for action should any future event call for it.
The cave was shaped as if it were a mouth, curved perfectly at the bottom and curving into a point at the top. There were stalactites and stalagmites in this green cave as well, looking ominously like teeth. The bubble fit perfectly through the opening, and slid slowly in.
Jack found it somewhat of a surprise that they hadn't managed to come face-to face with some demon by now, much less the Devil himself, or at least some sharp rock punctured their bubble.
Just as soon as the thought skimmed across his mind, a terrible voice ripped through the cave, and they were so far in at this point that even after it had finished, the sentence would reverberate several more times. The voice seemed to be coming from within their heads, but it couldn't because of the echo. It was unlike anything Jack had ever experienced before and wished it would end. Just as that thought passed through his mind, the wailing stopped. The soft light from the glimmering ghost bodies was growing softer, their numbers decreasing, and the cave grew darker once more. Their bubble slid on, their only companion being Angelica's ship, also incased.
"Where'd you think Will's gone to, Cap't?"
Suddenly, the sound of cannon fire could be heard in the distance. Screams of war rang through, and Jack smiled.
"I think Hector may have run into our dear William. We may be having less competition after all."
"I don't think we're that lucky, Cap't."
"I think we are," Jack thought to himself, as the bodies disappeared entirely. The bottom of the boat scraped along the bottom of whatever was beneath them. "Land!" he shouted.
The boat, with much difficulty, slid onto a sort of island. Angelica's boat slipped in next to his, and both their bubbles popped, absorbing into the ground.
"Find some torches," Captain Porter commanded to his crew. They fumbled about in the dark, but soon the crew was able to congregate on land with their new light sources. There was wind inside the cave, coming from the direction Jack guessed they needed to go.
Soft moans disturbingly interrupted the otherwise dead quiet, and the ground was not made of sand, but of volcanic rock. It was smooth and slippery, but glinted in the firelight. Jack pocketed a stone. It wasn't often you took a trip to the Underworld, after all. Jack wondered how Will was getting on with Hector, and whether or not they would be interrupted soon.
"What do you propose, pirate?" Porter asked quietly to Jack. Porter looked frightened, the dried crimson blood on his face making him even more pale.
"Follow the wind, I say. There's got to be a place it's coming from."
"He is right," Angelica supplied, climbing down from her own ship, torch in hand.
Porter, not having a better suggestion, merely began walking towards the wind, which seemed to be coming from a large cavern up ahead.
"Isn't there a dog of the dead?" Gibbs asked Jack quietly.
Jack thought for a moment, adjusting his torch. "I ain't one for children's stories, Gibbs, but I do recall young Turner mentioning something. He done told me he never has to travel past them beautiful sea twins, that there's a soul port of sorts. The God of the Underworld has some workers, I should think."
"Barbossa must've gone a different way, mustn't he, Cap't? We've not seen him til' this point. Matter of fact, still ain't seen him."
"The world's a big place. Must be many different, er, death ports, as it were. Strictly speaking, Will Turner himself might not know all them yet, he is new at the job yet."
The large cavern soon opened up to an even larger cavern, and Jack wondered what sort of undersea mountain they were under, and how deep they were. Even better, how they would get back. "I'll never touch a drop of rum again if I get out of this mess," Jack thought to himself.
"That is a very difficult promise for you to make, Mr. Sparrow." A silky voice rang through the cavern, not speaking loudly, but nevertheless demanding attention.
"Who's there?" Porter asked, shaking.
Soft glowing blue lights erupted all along the cavern. Jack noticed that it was blue and purple fire. The fire illuminated a throne, made from the same volcanic substance as the beach. It did not seem comfortable, but then; neither did the rest of the island. The throne was ten feet high, made for a much larger humanoid.
"It's always the same with you landfolk. Who else would live in the Underworld?" Behind the throne, Hades himself appeared, taking off a helmet from his head as he did.