Passages

Chapter 7

by

Garnet

They were going back. Back the way they had just come, which could only bode no good. Most certainly, for the men they had left behind on that narrow strip of pure white sand.

He gazed at the faces of the other two pirates, wondering if they knew. Wondering if they had known all along. If Barbossa had put it to the vote, or had simply brought it to his crew's attention and then simply stood by as their own hunger for revenge overwhelmed any pretense of argument he might make against it.

Norrington and his men would be safe if they had gone inland, if they had already set off for Port Royal... but he feared that they had not. That James would not, even if he should, suspect the very perfidy they were about to exact upon them.

Aye, Barbossa had kept to the letter of their agreement... but the spirit...

He was sure the other man would justify it by claiming he could not help if he had been outvoted. If the Code dictated that he accede to the wishes of his crew. It was the very thing Jack had feared, and now he found himself wondering if he was about to find himself under lock and key again, perhaps even in irons, so that he could not stop them in what they clearly intended.

Unless, of course, this was a test. A test of his loyalty. In which case, he would find himself in the thick of it, no doubt. Being asked to turn upon the very men he had just bartered for the release of. Well, pirate or not, he was no murderer. Never had been. Even killing Barbossa had brought him no pleasure.

Short lived relief, perhaps...

Very short lived relief, come to think of it.

"What's all this in aid of, then?" Pintel asked all of a sudden, and Jack gave him a quick worried glance, before he realized that the other pirate was, in fact, talking about their cozy little gathering of the moment.

"Why gold, gentlemen," Jack said, mellowing his tone and lifting his bottle again, even though his thoughts were spinning fast and faster. He wouldn't watch them kill Norrington, he just couldn't... but, equally, he doubted now that his plans of inciting a goodly portion of the crew to mutiny would come in time to save them. Not while blood lust filled their hearts. "What else?"

The matching gleam in both their eyes told him he had these two anyway, at least for as long as the rum lasted. Mayhap, something could still be done with that.

"Gold?" Pintel repeated.

"Aye," Jack replied. He lowered his voice and leaned in, forcing the two of them to do the same, forming a conspirator's circle there in the gloom of the hold. "It pains me, as I know it must ye as well, to have left behind all that precious plunder. What ye worked so hard an for so many years to acquire. The Captain has his dreams, but I doubt not that ye have your own. An a fine retirement, with gold and wine and wenches enough for any ten men, must suit ye far better than this."

"I had given thought to a bit o' land an even a title," Pintel admitted to.

Ragetti nodded eagerly, then took another drink. "An a kitten," he said. "I always wanted me a wee little kitten. An a pony. An a..."

"Well, most like I weren't supposed to be telling ye," Jack went on, even as Pintel turned and idly smacked the other man into silence and back to sullen perusal of his own bottle of rum. "But I have heard the Captain's own ambitions, an I fear that I must be sharing them with ye. For they be not in accord with your own. Nor with what most men here may like."

Pintel frowned at him, then nodded. "Go on."

Jack leaned back against the hull, feeling how it sliced through the water. He did some quick calculations and realized, if the winds and tides kept up, that they would be back to the island within three hours at this rate, the dog's watch, and when most men would be the soundest asleep. Most especially men as exhausted as Norrington and his own were.

He took another drink, attempting to drown his fears. It did little good.

"Go on then," Pintel said again.

Jack forced a smile, but not a pleasing one. "Aye," he said, lowering his voice again. "Ye've heard tell the stories, no doubt. Of old Captain Morgan an how he begat the Brethren o' the Coast. A great man he was, but yet he claimed no title other than was given him. To be Admiral o' the buccaneers. Though, o' course, he became gov'nor of the very isle we just left, due to his own good services against the Spaniards. An to all that gold he acquired for King and country. If any man could claim the title, it would be he. But yet, he never did... and the way I see it, no man ever should."

"What ye be talkin' about?" Ragetti asked suspiciously.

"Barbossa's ambitions, gentlemen," Jack said. "To be held even greater than Morgan himself. Or Roberts. Or any o' the rest of us. Don't ye know, lads. He wants to be King, lads. King o' the buccaneers. King o' the pirates."

"He wants to be what?" The two men looked at each other, matching expressions of disbelief and disgust on their faces.

Instead of answering, Jack simply shook his head and rolled his eyes.

Ragetti hauled off and spat directly on the floor, while Pintel cursed a good round, a fierce scowl on his face.

"We don't be holding to no bloody Kings," he growled. "If'n I still wanted to bow and fuss o'er their likes, I would never have gone to sea in the first place. An sworn meself to the Brethren."

"No doubt," Jack said. "But then—not to be putting any aspersions on the character o' the good Captain—he hasn't been quite himself of late, has he? Not since we found him waiting for us upon that blessed isle. Honestly, mates, would the Captain Barbossa ye all know and love upon your life, have left behind all that lovely lovely swag?"

Pintel took in a deep breath, but Jack trundled onwards before the other man could speak.

"Think of it, mates," he said. "Are ye really so much to the good. Aye, twas his bargain which brought ye back from the dead, but do ye wish to be bound to that forever? To be ever under his thumb? 'Specially being that he be no longer interested in treasure o' the more lubricious sort. Be that what ye desire—to sail upon these seas an eternity, putting ever last Spaniard to the sword? An what of our own, then? Our good English folk? Will not this heathen God demand our own blood when all else be spent?"

Pintel and Ragetti exchanged uncomfortable glances.

Jack lowered his voice even more, forcing the two to lean in ever closes. "Tis a devil's bargain, and well ye know who may benefit from that. Clever the Captain may be, cleverer than most, but manys as thought themselves clever has come to a bad end for it."

"Aye," Pintel acknowledged. "Old Hob be a hard one to cheat at that."

"An we be pirates, mates," Jack lifted his head a little, giving them a small proud smile. "Do ye really wish to live out the rest o' your lives as lackeys to some bloodthirsty heathen God? With Barbossa lording it over ye all as self-proclaimed king?"

Pintel's eyes narrowed. "Ye know the answer to that well enough."

"Aye... tis truth, he be getting above hisself. Tellin us what to do," Ragetti scowled.

"Yeh, like sayin' we hadda kill all them women, even those as would welcome us. Ain't had me a woman in... in... well, longer than I can remember."

"Aye, some o' them were most fair, too. An had them such lovely dresses... " the other put in, nodding, his eyes going far away for a moment.

Pintel nodded, then the two exchanged glances. A look of perfect understand, of co-conspirators.

"An here then was this old woman," Pintel went on. "Just like me gran she was."

"Aye, n' me own," Ragetti mumbled. "Though she smelt a sight better."

"Spared her we did," Pintel said almost defiantly. "After all, we be pirates, but we got hearts we do."

"Hearts." Ragetti nodded, glancing down at his own chest, as if to make sure it was still there.

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Well, then?"

"What ye be wantin' from us?" Pintel asked suspiciously. "For I be thinking ye not be telling us this for yer own peace o' mind, Jack Sparrow."

"Naught but that ye have not done afore."

For a long moment, the other's face was blank, but then he nodded slowly and a dark and crafty enough look appeared in his eyes.

"An what do ye benefit?" he asked. "For as I said afore, we'll no be accepting ye as Cap'n."

"Am not asking ye to. All I'm asking is if ye've ever an ambition to be more than just two ordinary jack tars. If ye've ever wondered..."

It took a long moment, but finally a look of comprehension and wonder came over Pintel's face. To be replaced by a rather sly smile.

His companion looked blankly between him and Jack, knowing that something of import had passed between them. "What is it?" he asked. "What ye be talking about?"

Pintel gazed at him, the smile turning from shade to sun in an instant. "How would ye like to be First Mate o' this here ship?"

Ragetti frowned. "An how would I be doin' that?" he asked suspiciously.

Jack answered for him, his eyes still on the stout pirate. "Captain Pintel," he said with a smile. "It do rather have a nice ring to it, wouldn't ye say?"

The thin pirate's mouth opened in a surprised "o" as it finally sank in. He turned back to his matelot, more questions in his eyes. But Pintel just took a long drink of rum and shook his head. "Aye," he said, almost sadly. "It do sound good to me, but there be a wee problem or two... most 'specially since I be doubting that the Cap'n will be giving up this here new ship 'o his without a fight. An there be some who will support him most like, as there be some who would not."

Jack watched as the other pirate's eyes got wide as he finally realized what they were talking about.

Ragetti thumped Pintel on the arm. "Here now," he sputtered. "Ye know what the Cap'n be doin' to us if'n we turn agin him."

Pintel thumped him back. Hard. "Well, that be true. But the Cap'n... he'll be gone ashore soon enough an then..."

The pirate slowed and stopped, his eyes turning back to Jack, as if he'd suddenly realized what he was giving away to him.

"Go on, mate," Jack said, leaning back and cradling his bottle of rum as if it was all that mattered to him. "'S not as if I can't be telling which way the wind blows, an where we be heading. An, most like, the why of it."

Pintel gave him a long, appraising look. "Ye weren't to know," he admitted.

"Not even whose idea it was?"

The other man's eyes flickered. Ragetti stared raptly between them, a line stitched upon his forehead.

"They be the King's Navy, Jack Sparrow," Pintel said. "Naught else. An well I know ye've a certain... fondness for one o' their number, but don't be telling me ye've grown a soft spot for the rest, as well. They deserve to die for what they done to us. The Cap'n be right about that."

"He promised we could hang them if we like," Ragetti put in eagerly. "Take em alive and put em to a trial o' our own... an then hang em one by one. 'Cept for the Commodore. He said, we be leaving that one to his own good graces."

"Did he now?" Jack commented. Well, he could imagine what Barbossa had in mind for James... and it made his blood run cold in his veins, even as a matching degree of pure heat pounded behind his eyes. Still, he smiled as he looked back and forth between his two drinking companions.

"Seems to me," he said. "That ye must be deciding then what ye desire more then, gentlemen. Revenge... or this fine ship for your very own. One of which I'd be helping ye to get, in return for naught but a boat to be taking me to shore. As for the other... well, I can't be thinking he'd be any too pleased that ye have told me as much as ye have. Nor that he'd be any too lenient if I went so far as to tell him that ye were planning mutiny against him."

Pintel put down his bottle of rum with a crash. "He'd never be believing ye," he protested.

Jack gave him a sly wink and a waggle of his eyebrows. "Would he not?"

And stared knowingly into the other man's eyes until Pintel looked away at the last, swallowing hard. Then took a long measure of his drink, as well, as if he could find a different answer in the depths of his bottle.

"Aye," he said, his voice low and gruff and ever so resigned. "What did ye have in mind then?"

***

The half-ripe fruit he had eaten sat heavy in his stomach, but his thoughts were heavier still. And hardly less palatable.

The moon was well risen now, and the wind coming off the sea was raw and almost cold. Especially to men who had lost both coats and caps to their pirate captors. Most of them were bare of foot, as well, all save Lieutenant Groves, who had somehow managed to retain his favorite pair of boots.

Norrington took a deep breath of salt air and closed his eyes. Jack's face immediately came to mind, that last look that he had given him on the deck of the Dauntless. His heart clenched in his chest and he hastily opened his eyes again. He did not want to think about that moment. In fact, he did not want to think about Jack at all. Nor about his feelings for the man.

Most especially about his feelings for the man.

Comfort, especially in light of their close quarters and the trials they had been undergoing, was one thing, illegal and immoral though it was. But what he had been feeling since they had parted had little of comfort about it, and everything of a connection that he would never have anticipated.

But one, it seemed, that Lieutenant Groves had noted.

He wondered if it was that baldly written upon his face, or if the other man was simply more observant than most.

He glanced across the fire at the man in question, watching as he diligently worked to sharpen the point of a stripped stick into the semblance of a fishing spear. He had it caught between his raised knees as he repeatedly took a sharp stone to the tip. Without his wig and with his hair loose around his shoulders, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he concentrated, Groves looked years younger and also quite at ease in their current surroundings.

As if he would be at ease anywhere, even serving aboard a pirate ship.

Norrington wasn't sure if he himself was as flexible as that. He had gone into the King's navy at the tender age of eleven, nigh on twelve, and had never looked back. Not that there had been all that much to look back to. What with being a second son of too many sons, with more yet on the way from his father's second and rather youthful wife, and with few other prospects than those granted him by his commission. And only that because of the good graces of his great uncle, who had been a well respected post captain in his day and with a few lingering ties to prominent members of Parliament.

Not that he expected any of that to save him once Reade returned to Port Royal, nor any lingering good favor the Governor felt towards him. Especially after the fiasco of the confrontation between Dauntless and Endeavor and his own capture. Doubtless, even his release might be seen as suspect under the circumstances.

No, Groves was quite right; it was becoming more and more likely that he would shortly face the noose, especially since Reade would undoubtedly try to do everything in his power to lay full blame upon his shoulders for the lost battle and not chance being tarred by the same brush.

He shivered a little and drew the remains of his shirt closer about him. Imagining the long walk up to the gallows, hearing his name and his crimes reading to the waiting crowd, seeing the eyes of his own men upon him. Those he had betrayed. Those he had failed.

It was not death he feared so much, but that...

Though he would face it if he must. After all, Jack had gone to the noose with dignity—his own sort of dignity, true, but there all the same—and he could do no less when his own time came.

Still, when Norrington gazed out at the sea again, seeing only darkness there despite the waxing moon, a small portion of him rebelled against both the dying and at the prospect of maintaining his dignity at all costs. And just longed to be gone, somewhere out there, flying across the waves into the great unknown. Into some new dawn.

***

A fog had rolled in, drifting across the dark waters like a veil, and the moon shone down through it in some ghostly echo of itself. A pale precious gem, distant and uncaring.

It was the dead of the night and the air was quiet, the ocean quieter still. As if both but held their breath.

Captain Barbossa was late to arrive, one of the last down into the boats, and for a moment Jack held his breath as well. Half expecting the other man to sense him lingering here, to suspect what was about to take place aboard his grand new ship. But the tall man only climbed down into the second of the waiting boats and took up station in the lead of it.

His head held high and one hand on that stolen Turner blade. That bedamned monkey on his shoulder, unnaturally silent as well for once. Looking back at the ship with those glittering dark eyes for a moment, causing Jack to wonder if, in truth, he was about to be found out, before turning back to clutch at its master's coat.

Something gold glimmering faintly in one tiny hand.

But then they were shoving off, the oars stirring faint white foam from the waters, and the distant sound of some bird suddenly echoed across the ocean from the nearby shore. As if in welcome.

He did a quick count, and estimated that with the men left aboard—granted that they could win most of them over to the cause of taking upon themselves a new Captain—they would have just barely enough to get the ship underway. The biggest difficulty, in several ways, would be Bo'sun, but as he was little liked, Jack doubted not that with just the right word or two his own crew could be turned against him.

And he well imagined he knew exactly the right word or two.

The kind that would end up with the big man bundled up and tied to the mast for most of the long thirsty trip to Tortuga, if he didn't end up joining Bootstrap Bill well before then. Once the ship was back out over deep waters.

Jack smiled, a satisfied little smile that faded as he too quickly recalled just where those little boats where going and what they aimed to do when they got there. He didn't have much time, but God and Lady Fortune willing, it would just prove enough to save the day.

Or, at the least, to save one particular Commodore of the Fleet.

Pintel had told him they planned to come in just past the cove where they had left the Navy men, and then creep back through the jungle to catch them unawares. Those they didn't kill outright, they intended to bring back to the Raven to stage a few mock trials, before hanging the lot of them. After which, he inferred, Captain Barbossa might decide to see if any of them could be raised from the dead, as well... to join their jolly little crew.

Death or the Articles was usually the question put to those a buccaneer ship captured and might desire for their own. But, in this case, it would be death and the Articles.

A most grand inducement for loyalty.

Under most circumstances.

But with his own good self about to make persuasion otherwise, he had little doubt that the remaining men would soon be voting in Pintel as their new captain. Especially when the first order of the day would be to send them back across the sea to Tortuga, to finally find some much needed respite in the welcoming arms of the women and grog houses there.

Bloodlust was one thing, but one must never underestimate the temptations induced by lusts of yet another kind, especially in men who had not had the comfort and pleasures of soft flesh in near on ten years now. And whose own ship had at long last been purged most entirely of rum.

Which had been a ruddy shame, but entirely necessary. Elizabeth would have been fair proud of him.

Jack watched the jollyboats slide away into the dark and the mist and stood up straight again, smoothing his hands down his breeches and then tugging at the ragged cuffs of his sleeves. Making himself as presentable as possible under the circumstances. Well and away, it was time to put the rest of his little plan into play.

High time to stage a mutiny of his own.

***

And a fog had crept in sometime after the moon had risen, the damp mists washing in from the sea like a wraith.

Norrington lifted his head to look out at the darkness surrounding their little fire, but could see nothing. He gingerly rolled onto his other side and pillowed his head back on his arm, facing the flames, but continued to feel that an odd itch inside him, as if he should be paying attention to something. As if he was missing something, something important. But everything seemed as it should be.

Most of his men were well asleep by now, curled up close to each other for warmth, and as he laid there, one of those who remained awake and on watch came over the put another couple of sticks of wood into the fire. He struggled with the man's name—he was one of the crew of the Endeavor—but it eluded him. However, the sailor looked nervous, as well. Looking about him with wide eyes and hunched shoulders, as if something might come leaping out of the fog at any moment.

Groves had bedded down opposite him and the fire, his freshly made spear close to hand. He looked to be deeply asleep and Norrington felt a twinge of envy. It felt as if he had but laid down an age ago and slept fitfully, if at all. And not all because of the discomfort of his injuries and the rough circumstances of his rather makeshift bed.

He couldn't stop thinking of the future, or the lack thereof. Normally, he could banish such useless speculations by throwing himself into his work—some days, he suspected they wanted a new clerk, more than a Commodore—but this night...

In just a few more hours the sun would rise and burn off the fog and they would start back to Port Royal. And his life would be over. At the very least, he would be facing public humiliation of a magnitude that made the thought of going to the gallows almost seem like a relief. Almost. At worst... well, this was all worse than he had ever expected.

He never would have imagined this fate for himself, certainly not after having worked his way up through the ranks to this pinnacle of his career. With an Admiralcy within sight, if not exactly within reach quite yet. But, long struggle up that it had been, it was quickly turning out to be a far longer fall. Far more dear and deadly, perhaps, than the one off the very side of the fort, especially considering that, with his luck of late, he would never in a thousand years miss those bloody rocks.

Norrington drew in a deep breath and then turned back out to face the night again, feeling the heat against his back as the one good thing at the moment. And he found himself remembering a dream he had had this evening, during that little time that he had fancied himself asleep. No real details remained, but just this sense of having flown free through the dark. Of the wind on his face and this great void opening up before him, as if he were about to sail off the edge of the world. For here there be monsters. And dragons.

Not to mention, walking dead men and ancient curses and Aztec gods that demanded blood and worse.

And pirates.

Impossible, unlikely, immoral, and downright dangerous to continued health and sanity alike.

And, as he laid there, feeling hot on one side and cold on the other and his back itching and aching something dreadful, he recalled that Jack had been in the dream, as well. The most impossible, unlikely, immoral and dangerous pirate of all. At least to the equilibrium of his own heart. Even if, in the dream, he had been rather unlike himself. Quiet and subdued and looking at him with dark eyes gone sad and forlorn.

Opening his mouth to speak, but saying not a word, just before they sailed off the edge of the world together and into... nothingness.

But then that was not surprising, since if he was facing his own humiliation and death, he well know that Jack was facing a fate even darker. To be bound to obedience to Captain Barbossa, even unto the end of his own very self. Truly, their freedom had not been worth the sealing of that bargain. Not that he had had much to say about the matter.

Jack had done as Jack would do, as always, and no one could gainsay him. He couldn't say he knew the man as well as he might—maybe, even as well as he should, all things considered—but yet he knew that to a certainty.

Still, it hurt to know what Jack had given up for him. The one thing that mattered to him more than the Pearl herself. His freedom.

It hurt to know he could never pay that back.

As it worried him just how badly he was missing the man already.

Norrington closed his eyes again and wished himself back to sleep. But it eluded him. His head began to ache a little, and he was too hot and too cold and damp all through and thoroughly discomfited... and now that he had conjured up the spirit of Jack Sparrow in his thoughts it would not be easily laid to rest again. If only he were here to put his arms around him. To help keep him warm. To ease his fears and doubts and...

Damn the man, anyway.

He had never needed anyone before, let alone anyone to hold his hand when things took a decided turn for the worse.

Norrington clenched his teeth and sat up, putting his arms around his knees and gazing up at the faint halo of the moon. A moment or two later, Groves lifted his own head from across the fire and blinked at him. Proving that he had either been shamming sleep, or was very well attuned to his surroundings. And to the needs of his commanding officer.

"Sir?" he asked quietly, considerate of the still slumbering men around them.

Norrington shook his head at him, silencing him further. Gazing around at the moon and the mist and...

Definitely, something was not as it should be. Even if he could see nothing amiss. The icy feeling gathering itself up in the pit of his stomach urged him to his feet, and he stood there, blinking out at the night. Groves stood up as well, balancing his new spear in the crook of his arm.

Norrington gave him a warning glance, then took a few paces down towards the water, only to pause on the cooling sand as he thought he heard something. A whisper of a voice perhaps. Quickly hushed. The shuffle of movement sending the fog swirling, forming incomprehensible patterns.

A man came out of the shadows and he frowned at him, then felt shock run through him as he realized it was not the sailor from the Endeavor, but a man in a tattered great coat and with a stained yellow scarf tied around his hair.

"Attack!" he shouted. "Up, men... to arms."

He moved to pick up one of the remaining pieces of wood by the fire and then turning to face the oncoming pirate. Groves joined him a moment later, his spear at ready, his eyes flashing and his jaw set. His own voice raised to cry the alarm, even as more forms shuffled out of the dark and mist.

The pirate with the yellow scarf shouted and brought his blade down towards his head and Norrington parried with his stick of wood, after which Groves thrust his spear into the man's entrails. He fell, but there were others coming toward them from the dark. His men had roused themselves now, picking up sticks to defend themselves, instinctively moving to form a protective circle, but the pirates they were facing were well armed and wood really wasn't any real protection against steel and shot.

All the same, Norrington parried another down swept cutlass with his stalwart stick, and shoved the man back and away with his own shoulder. A blade flashed at his vulnerable side the next instant, but Groves stepped forward again and his fishing spear took the man directly in the throat.

The pirate made a strangling sound and fell back, but a shorter man with blond braids and an ax was immediately there to take his place. Yellowed teeth bared as he smashed the piece of wood clean out of his hands as if it was of no matter.

Norrington stumbled backwards, trying to avoid the next blow, when an explosion went off nearly on top of him. The man attacking him flinched back, before glancing down at a smoking black hole in his vest. One of his own men must have wrested a pistol from their attackers, much good as it would do them.

Norrington spared a quick prayer of thanks all the same, then moved to snatch up the ax from the other man's hand while he was distracted by staring at the wound in his chest, a wound that should have proved mortal, but wouldn't.

He sliced at the man's neck the next instant, but the pirate instinctively ducked back, tumbling over a body in the sand.

Another man jumped over the both of them then and barreled right into Groves, knocking them both through the fire and to the ground beyond. The new made spear went flying and of a sudden Norrington found himself left alone to face a tall man striding straight at him out of the dark and fog.

Captain Barbossa. A half-smile on his face and his own good blade in his hand.

"Commodore," the pirate captain said agreeably, then plunged the tip of the sword directly at his heart.

He parried it with the ax, but only just. And then Barbossa was moving, circling around, that length of sharp steel slicing at his side this time. He spun around and knocked it away with the haft of his own weapon, almost losing a finger in the process.

But another series of quick thrusts and slices made him quickly realize, despite his own desperate skills, that he was fighting a losing battle; truly, an ax was no match for a goodly length of forge-tempered steel, even though he had the oddest feeling that Barbossa was yet toying with him.

Two more closely parried strikes, and then Norrington stumbled and almost lost his balance as he overreached. Icy metal instantly tore along his forearm, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Somehow, he managed to deflect the next thrust, but only barely, and was still swinging the ax back around when Barbossa lunged and the point of the blade took him high in the shoulder.

The pain was sharp, sudden, and deeply shocking. The ax slipped loose from his fingers and he found himself falling backwards from his opponent, only just managing to remain standing. He thought he heard someone shout his name, but a wave of sick heat was spreading through him now and all he could see was the pirate captain looming over him, seemingly taller than any man should be. His teeth bared and a triumphant cast to his face. Fire gleaming on the flat of the sword as he raised it to the distant eye of the moon.

"Yield, sir," Barbossa said. "Ye be fairly beaten."

He shook his head, knowing it meant his death. Not caring.

"No," he ground out. "That I shall not do."

Barbossa shrugged, as if he had well expected that answer. As if he had counted upon it.

"Then die," he said, and pulled his arm back for the final thrust.

Only to have the blade knocked aside at the last moment as a form stumbled out of the fog and right into him, spilling them both backwards into shadow.

Norrington felt his strength going out of him at the last and slowly sank to his knees, one hand instinctively coming up to his shoulder. The sick feeling grew as his fingers came away thick with blood and he felt dizzy as he looked back up. Only to see something which sickened him even further.

As he watched Jack and Barbossa stumble back again towards the fire, still fighting for possession of that lovely Turner blade.

"Jack..." he breathed, struggling to get up again.

Jack somehow managed to elbow the bigger man in a vital area at the last and the weapon fell from both their hands, but Barbossa just shrugged off the loss and snaked an arm around Jack's neck instead, pulling the smaller man to him and half off his feet.

Black eyes caught and held his own, even as Jack continued to struggle, fingers prying at the grip around his neck.

"There now, Jack," Barbossa said, tightening his arm until Jack was wincing and gasping for breath. Until he ever so slowly subsided. "Be that any way to be treating your old mate, the one to whom ye pledged yourself to in good faith?"

"Let him go," Norrington said, straightening up as best he could. The world swirled and swayed around him, but he somehow managed to get and keep to his feet.

Pale eyes angled towards him, as if daring him to do his worst. Norrington returned the look with one of his own, despite how Jack's eyes were clearly begging him not to do anything stupid.

"My pardon," Barbossa replied. "But blood is owed, an blood must be given."

"Blood," Norrington said, and as if the word had conjured reality, he suddenly realized that something was lying on the sand about half way between them, gleaming faint with firelight. Something that looked oddly familiar.

Jack's gaze flicked down as well, then back up and his eyes widened. He shook his head ever so slightly.

Norrington looked back at the pirate captain and shook his own head. "No," he said. "This is between you and me now, Captain. For murder is what you intended this night, is it not? And so, despite all your assurances of good faith and good will, I see the cause and result of trusting in your honor."

A rough hand took hold of his injured shoulder just then—causing the pain to spark intensely for a moment—but Norrington shook it off and took a half-step forward all the same, keeping his gaze fixed to the taller man.

"So I say again... release him," he snapped.

Barbossa laughed and, if anything, his grip on Jack tightened even further, the smaller man's chest hitching as he fought for air which would not come. "Ye be in no position to be giving orders, Commodore. Your men are all taken... or already dead. Not that I've of a mind that so little a thing would be keeping them from me, if I so wished it."

Despite seeming near to passing out from lack of air, Jack's eyes were still flashing in mute warning, but Norrington turned away from him as he realized the truth of the matter, as he realized that the world had grown abruptly silent. He saw that he was now completely surrounded by pirates and that his own sailors and marines lay still or moaning softly on the sand. He drew in a sharp breath as he realized there was no hope left for them. For, from the looks in the eyes of their victors, they were all dead men now—no chance for freedom or parole remained.

Though, from what Barbossa had just said, perhaps not even the sanctity of the grave remained for them either.

As he turned back to Barbossa, he saw Jack rouse himself once more, fighting to speak, to pry the arm from about his neck, but it was to no avail. Yet, as his hands came up in a mute dance of appeasement and appeal, black eyes caught on his own as if to say that he should not give up all hope.

That this day could still be turned to their advantage.

Norrington wanted to believe that, but as hands took hold of him once more, wrenching his arms abruptly behind his back, he bit back a cry of pain and shook his head.

"Come now, Commodore," Barbossa said, seemingly ignorant of the fact that he was cheerily strangling the man in his arms. "Will ye not surrender willingly to me, after all? There may yet be a place for ye here, now that ye have lost your own."

"There is little chance of that," Norrington replied sharply. "Even if I wished to turn pirate—which I most certainly do not—yours would be the last hand I would serve under."

Barbossa smiled, entirely as if he had expected and, indeed, counted upon that answer. He looked around, at his own waiting men, and the smile turned feral and curiously pleasant at the same time.

"Ah, well," he said. "It looks as if ye shall have your turn of amusement then, gents."

There was a general shout of agreement, yellowed teeth flashing, and one or two pistols were let off. When the noise finally settled down, Barbossa had lost his amiable look. As he stared at Norrington for the longest time, and then looked down at the captive he still held.

"An as for ye, Jack Sparrow," Barbossa said softly. "Though it pain me most dreadful, it seems I cannot be trusting ye, yah see. A ship cannot have two captains, and ye being here has proven to me well an all, who be the true captain o' your heart."

And, with that, he pressed the palm of his hand hard to Jack's chest.

Jack immediately stiffened, his back arching painfully, his eyes going painfully wide. He shuddered heavily, his whole body twisting in the other man's grip. Even as his mouth opened in a silent gasp, followed by a terribly small sound that escaped even the stranglehold yet upon his neck.

"No," Norrington protested, but the smaller man was shuddering again and, even as he watched in mute horror, those dark eyes caught in his in a moment of mute appeal, in desperate hurt... before they slowly, dreadfully, turned blank and cold and empty. As if all light and life had been snuffed out of them.

And Jack went impossibly limp in the other man's arms, a broken doll, a sundered poppet.

Barbossa let him drop entire to the sand the next moment, smiling still, but this sudden slant to his own eyes as if they had been rudely stripped of all life as well, illicitly gained or otherwise.

"Jack? Jack?" Norrington was uncaring in that moment of who was watching, who was listening, of what his voice and face might be revealing.

He wrenched his way free of his captors somehow, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, and fell again to his knees in the damp sand, reaching out for the fallen man. He touched the bare edge of Jack's hand and found it icy cold. Cold unto death. And a matching coldness seemed to take up residence deep inside him.

He curled his fingers about the other man's, held them tight.

"No," he said again, hardly a whisper this time.

"It were his choice," Barbossa said, his voice curiously hollow. "To betray me."

Norrington glared up at him. "Damn you," he snapped. "You didn't have to do this."

Barbossa cocked his head at him. "Did I not?"

But then Jack was suddenly stirring, and Norrington looked back at him in surprise. Only to feel that surprise turn to shock and fear as the other man slowly lifted his head and gazed up at him through the fallen tide of his own hair, his mouth hanging slightly slack.

"Jack?" he asked quietly.

There was no response to that, no recognition nor spark to those dark eyes. Eyes which looked flat and dull and worse.

"Jack?" he asked again, softly this time. Squeezing that cold hand. But those eyes had nothing of the man he knew about them, even as they stared back at him, as if what had made Jack Jack was simply... not there. Not anymore.

No, this was more hated than death... and far far worse than anything he had ever done to the man.

Norrington shook his head, feeling his world turn on its head. Feeling himself growing dull and lifeless inside as well, feeling this terrible pang of... impossible loss. As if something precious had been stolen from him. Leaving him far more damned and dead to his dreams then when he had realized that Elizabeth was not his, that she would never be his.

As he stared into empty eyes and realized what exactly had been stolen from them, from him.

Quick as a wink, he scooped up the familiar gold coin from where it lay in the sand. Where no one else had seemed to see it, not even the man it had been given to. Almost as if it had been waiting for him and him alone to lay claim to it.

"Blood," Norrington said hoarsely, as the empty feeling gave rise to a frantic pain, to a desperate rage. "If your god wants blood, then why not take mine?"

And, with that, he pressed the coin hard to the seeping wound on his shoulder, the pain of the injury nothing now compared to the one in his heart.

"No," Barbossa said, lurching forward.

But it was done.

As the coin beneath his hand suddenly turned cold, so very cold it seemed almost to burn, and then his blood was burning, too. His heart was pounding and there was a rushing sound in his ears. His vision going dim, even as he watched—as if from a growing distance—Barbossa wavering on his feet and then falling abruptly to the ground in a boneless heap. And other bodies were falling around him as well, pirates going down like broken puppets, as if someone or something had abruptly cut the strings which animated them.

A small monkey suddenly come running at him from out the dark, as if to steal the coin back from his grasp. Too late, too late.

For his own vision was dimming to scarlet, to grey, to black, and he found himself falling as well, the gold coin spilling out of his hand. The skull winking at him as it tumbled end over end to the sand, its eyes full of broken shadows. And the whole earth and sky was abruptly swirling and yawing around him, above him, fast and faster.

He had one last clear sight—Groves suddenly there, leaning over him, reaching out desperately, but the ground was already opening up beneath him like a hungry grave and he was slipping down into it. Down and down into impossible blackness. The taste of blood and feathers cloying in his mouth and the scent of ripe flowers all but smothering him in the smell of decay, the rough confines of desiccated earth.

Norrington had time for one last startled thought—was this what Jack had suffered—and then he was falling and falling, thick blackness wrapping itself around him, pulling him down with it, and his head was spinning and his heart was pounding, and then...

He opened his eyes, but could see nothing. There was absolute darkness around him, a darkness made all the more heavy by the strong scent of damp and rot. Feeling dizzy and weak, he slowly levered himself to his feet all the same. Reaching out blindly around him. The trunk of what felt like a tree met his fingers first, the bark slick with moss and damp. Or what he sincerely hoped was moss and damp.

The coin was gone from his hand... but when he put his fingers to his shoulder, he realized that he was no longer bleeding either. So, wherever he was, it was not where he had been. It was not the world he knew. Though it certainly seemed and felt real enough.

He started to speak, to call out Jack's name, but the darkness seemed to thicken around him, to swirl and whirl, and he closed his mouth again as he got the distinct impression that it might be not a good thing to call attention to himself. At least, for the time being.

Instead, he began walking as best he could and found the terrain rough, but not impossible to traverse. He kept his hands out, his fingers trailing across the gnarled trunks of hidden trees, carefully sliding his feet forward across rock and damp earth and obvious tangles of old tree roots.

Unfortunately, his foot finally hooked in one that wasn't so obvious and he fell full length, landing on one hand and the crook of his elbow. Something sharp tore at his upper leg and sludgy water splashed up around him, water that smelled as if something had died in it. Still, he remained there for a long moment, breathing hard, trying to gather sense and dignity again.

No matter how you sliced it, this was a damnable turn of events. He could only imagine whatever power controlled this place—and his fall into it—was most likely finding amusement right now at his own expense. Even the fact that he had all but put himself in this position did not make it any more bearable. Though, most certainly, he would persevere, he would find his way through this, since he had never been the sort to just lie down and give over.

But that didn't mean he had to like it.

Besides, if one could believe the likes of Jack Sparrow, this was where he had almost been sent before. And this may very well be where he was now. At least, he could have hope of it. A small hope, but it was something to cling to.

Norrington finally pulled himself to his knees and, from there, to his feet. To his disgust, the smell of the water seemed to come with him, no matter how he brushed at his clothing. Finally, he sighed and began to walk again, even more cautiously than before. The way his luck was turning, he could see himself treading off the edge of some cliff before he even knew it was there.

However, a good ten minutes or more later, he realized that he was making out his surroundings now, just a little. There was a sickly greenish-yellow light on some of the rocks and trees, even spread out across the ground, and he finally figured out that the glow was coming from a profuse growth of moss. He paused to touch some of it and the glow came off on his fingers. He stared at it a moment, then scrubbed it off on the remains of one shirtsleeve and was relieved to see it start to fade at the last.

It was then that he noticed that the glow was coming from between the trees, as well. Slightly more yellowish in color, the lights seemingly dipped and danced in the air and he thought them insects of some sort at first, but that they made no sound. And that they faded away even as he began to move towards them, as if they were deliberately choosing to remain just at the farthest edge of his vision.

Or as if urging him onwards.

Onwards and ever downwards—or, at least, that's how it felt—as the trees grew even older and larger and covered by more and more of the glowing moss. The ground grew wetter, as well, until he found himself trudging through several inches of standing water. Dank stinking water, filled with mud and weed and decaying layers of fallen leaves and broken branches, lined by gnarled roots.

Then he saw something odd through the trees. Something that looked like stairs, great wide stairs overrun with branches and vines. Stairs made of heavy blocks of rough hewn stone, worn down in the middle as if thousands and thousands of feet had once walked upon it. He moved towards it, and paused at the bottom to look up. The structure, whatever it was, appeared ancient and long abandoned. It rose against a black sky, but he thought he saw more of the tiny yellow lights dancing far above him.

It was then that he saw that base of the first step had faces carved into it, faces that looked like skulls, that looked like the cursed Aztec coin. Dead moss clung to them, and their eyes and open mouths were full of what looked like long rotted fruit and flowers.

He girded himself to step over them all the same and slowly began to climb.

***

To his shock, he found that he was aboard the Black Pearl. Her sails were still the ruins he had last seem them in, and they hung lax over his head. He frowned up at them and then around him. But the darkness around him was further obscured by thick fog and he could see no farther than the foremast and hardly that.

Still, wherever they were, the waters looked black and seemed perfectly flat, for the ship wasn't moving at all, not even the gentlest of rocking motions.

As if they weren't really on the sea at all.

He took several steps, right up to the base of the mainmast, then paused as a cry sounded somewhere overhead, familiar and harsh and echoing all around him, echoing through the darkness. Jack glanced upwards, but could see nothing but those same tattered sails.

The cry of a raven did not normally fill him with fear, but in this moment it seemed an omen of something he was not prepared to acknowledge.

They had hung him and if he had not been buried then they would have had his eyes... they would have eaten his eyes...

He put his hand on the mast and the solidity of it seemed both reassuring and disturbing in one. It did feel like the Pearl, his Pearl, and yet...

His last memories were muzzy, but he seemed to recall Norrington's face. That he had been trying to warn the other man, and that he had been thoroughly ignored by the Naval officer. Clearly, a usual turn of events; that much seemed familiar.

Other than that, he remembered leaving the Dauntless to her new Captain and crew and rowing to shore. He remembered stumbling through the dark and the brush towards that distant misty fire. Hoping sincerely that he wasn't already too late. Knowing he would seek revenge if he was, if he could.

Costly, though it may be.

Jack glanced about him again, not sure how he had gotten from there to here, wherever here really was, and then spun around and started towards the quarterdeck, intending on taking hand to the wheel at the very least.

He had only just reached the ladder, when a man suddenly stepped out of the fog, the mists seeming to part and refill themselves around him. A tall man in a grand set of togs, all lace and silk and silver. With a great ivory handled pistol in his belt and a hanger on his hip, one set with stones that glowed burnished red even in the gloom.

It was Barbossa, but a Barbossa he hadn't seen in many years. Younger and more dashing and with eyes of purest black.

Eyes that turned to fix on him as if he were the last guest come to the table. Or the only feast to be found.

A scarlet and silver earring caught fire as well as the other man stepped up to him and took him hard by the arm, as he bent his head down to look at him. Those dark eyes looking ever so bemused, friendly even, but a friendliness that chilled to the very bone.

"Why, Jack Sparrow," the Barbossa who wasn't Barbossa said. "I've been waiting for thee."

And, with that, he took him hard by both arms and half lifted him up off his feet to kiss him. His lips cold as death and his tongue hot as Hellfire itself.

***

She seemed both more lovely than he had ever seen her before and even more untouchable.

"Elizabeth?"

She shook her head slowly, denying the name. Even though it could be no one else.

Her hands rose before her, one cupping a small carved stone bowl from which sweet smoke rose, the other holding a knife of yellowed bone of all things.

"Through mists and fog you have come, stranger," she said, her voice the voice he well knew, but the tone chilled and remote. "What do you seek in the dark lands? Do you seek the things of the dead, for if so, I must warn you that there are eaters of souls here and they are always hungry."

"Who are you?" he asked, taking another half step forward.

She smiled, but there was little pleasing about it. "Naught but a whisper, a shadow, a voice in the mists. A dream, if you will, James Norrington. I am the form of what you know, but beneath it all I am but the flower of night. To breathe my smoke is to step through the door, to enter the even greater flower, that of darkness itself. The darkness of Talocan."

"Talocan?"

A slight nod. "The world below. The world of gods and monsters and living ancestors. The world of the dead. Where those who go must offer up their heart and soul, for the lords of darkness will accept no less than that. Especially if one seeks their justice. Do you seek justice, stranger?"

"Yes," Norrington replied, sure of that if nothing else. "Above all, I seek justice."

The smile became more like the one he knew then and she seemed to thaw a little, to become the Elizabeth he had left behind in Port Royal. She stepped closer to him and raised both the bowl and the knife, offering them to him. Up close like this, the smoke was even sweeter and it made his lungs clench and his head spin.

"Then, good sir, breathe deep my smoke and take my blade and seek out Talocan Melaw, the center of the great flower, for there you may beg your justice. For the one you seek lies very close to Miquitalan, the land of the dead, and the lord there is most desirous of his soul. Of any soul offered to him. For He is the hungriest one of them all."

He hesitated, but her smile grew and she finally pressed the bone knife into the palm of his hand. He looked down at it and realized that it was razor sharp, and jagged along one side. He closed his fingers around the hilt, and it ever so slowly warmed to his hand.

"Breathe," she said, lifting the bowl now. Clearly pleased that he had taken the knife.

The smoke rose almost as if to her command, thick and bluish-grey and syrup sweet, with an underlying scent of something green and bitter. He fought against turning away from it, holding his breath, and turned his head down instead. Sucking in long, choking breaths of the stuff.

He felt himself sway, or perhaps the ground did. For a several moments, he swore he could feel his blood slowing in his veins, feel his very bones grow hollow and brittle. He could see himself being born, dying, being buried. Decaying. A skeleton in the ground, broken teeth grinning. Hands intertwined with tree roots. Eyes full of dirt and worms.

And then the world snapped back into place, and he gasped, shuddering with the intensity of his sudden release.

The bowl and the smoke were gone, and he realized that a wall had risen up before him, a wall that hadn't been there a moment later. More rough-dressed stone, with a great arched entranceway in the middle. The door set within it was rough as well, hinged with rusting iron, with a large iron flower design set in the very middle of it. It bore four petals, each of them large and almost square, and two circles in the middle, one small and one large. A circle within a circle.

He frowned for a moment, before he realized why it looked so familiar. The same type of flowers had been woven into Elizabeth's hair.

A hand moved to rest on his arm, and he turned towards her almost without thought.

"James," she said, looking more lovely than a dream. Her lips pale as roses, her breath gentle and sweet. "Before you go, I fear I must ask a token of your affection. A kiss, sir. Just one kiss. The kiss we never shared."

He hesitated a moment, staring into those familiar eyes. Seeing something looking out of them that wasn't familiar at all. Knowing in that moment, that he had only fooled himself into the thoughts that he had loved her. Because he had wanted to believe in the life he had thought to set before himself. That his heart had never truly been hers, and that though he would have done his best for her—and, undoubtedly, she for him—that they would most like never have gone past that.

To the fire she had found with young Will Turner. To the fire he himself desired...

All the same, he steeled himself and bent to do as she had bidden him.

Her lips were cool and tasted faintly sweet as well, though it was not a flavor he could precisely place. He kept the pressure chaste enough, but instead of her mouth warming to his, it only seemed to grow more cold the longer he kissed her and, when he withdrew at the last, his lips had gone numb.

And her eyes had changed completely to black.

She backed away, even as the door swung slowly open, revealing another set of stairs, these going down.

He gazed at her one last time, then straightened and stepped through the door and started down the narrow stone steps. They turned as he descended, spiraling downward, and he began to count. At one hundred, he finally found himself back in a place much like the one he had just left, though with a path laid out before him. A path of crushed shell, glowing almost white in the dim light

It led into a forest of huge old trees and trailing ivy and moss. Where tendrils of mist rose up from the ground and the air and earth was wet and smelled of the same damp and rot. As he glanced up though, looking for the structure he had just left, he could just make out the palest moon, if moon it was. A thin sickle against a starless sky. And he swore he could hear the sea as well, the sound of wave meeting rock and shore. Though, as he turned his head, he could not quite fathom in which direction it might lie.

He clutched the bone knife tightly and pushed his way through the undergrowth where it threatened to choke off the pathway before him. Needle-sharp thorns caught on his skin and his clothing, as if trying to keep him from proceeding, and things rustled in the branches high overhead. He kept glancing up, but could see nothing, not even the lights of their eyes.

Still, the rustling seemed to follow him.

After he had been walking for a goodly time, the path finally forked and he paused there, not sure which way he should take. Movement caught his eye then and he glanced upwards. A long red and black striped snake was making its way along a branch hanging exactly over the right hand path. It paused just as he became aware of it—as if it had become aware of him, as well—and it's triangular head rose, a thin tongue flicking out to taste the air.

"Beautiful, but deadly," a voice said behind him. "I wouldn't go that way if I were you."

Norrington turned and found a blade at his throat. A very familiar looking blade.

Will Turner's face was calm, his eyes cool, as he regarded him over the point of his own sword.

Pale lace spilled from his cuffs, stark against the black of his coat and breeches and boots. His fine brown hair had been tied back with an equally black ribbon and the feather in his hat was as scarlet as if it had been dipped in blood. It was the only color about him, except for the gold rings on his fingers, rings whose jewels gleamed red and blue and cats' eye yellow even in this half-light.

If anything, despite the unremitting somber color of his clothing, the younger man looked even more dashing than he had the day he'd tried to circumvent Jack Sparrow's hanging. As if he had, in fact, been born to the sword and had never had occasion to handle a simple hammer in his life.

One of Turner's eyebrows rose, giving him a slightly amused, slightly mocking expression.

"You seem surprised, Commodore. Surely, you did not expect me to appear before you in bare feet and rags? What sort of welcome would that be?"

"Are you also not what you seem?" he asked the other baldly. Well aware that the blade not an inch from his throat had not faltered in the least.

"I am exactly as I should be, and no less than that," Will replied.

Then, with a curt nod of his head, he lowered the sword. Only to abruptly flip it into the air and catch it again, lightly and gracefully, as it came back down. He offered it to him with a half-bow and a wide smile that seemed more like the man he knew.

"Your sword, good sir," he said. "Try not to lose it, this time."

***

Sweet, ever so sweet, but musty for all that.

Jack felt himself held down and breathless beneath the weight of the other man, the light of the candles lit in the great room all but wavering, as if they too were on the verge of winking out. The bed he had been cast upon shifted beneath him, and one arm closed tight about him and rolled him over until those uncanny eyes could gaze more closely down at him.

Jack struggled, but only for a moment. No mere man was as strong as this, as if he could crush him as easily as he drew breath. He swore he could hear his bones creaking already, unless that was just the Pearl protesting her imprisonment upon these dark waters. Protesting the treatment of her true captain.

Except that this wasn't really his Pearl.

A long finger trailed down his face and across his lips.

"Why," the other man said softly. "My little cock o' the walk, what lovely eyes ye have. It would have been such a shame to have given em over for the gulls an ravens to taste. But, no matter... for ye be here now. Ye be mine now."

Jack shook his head, protesting mutely. But the other only smiled, displaying teeth far whiter and sharper than the real Barbossa's had ever been.

"Ye think it a bad bargain?" he asked. "Aye, perhaps it were... but if ye had not been eager to live, then no spell in the world could have raised ye from the earth. Think ye not that I did not know he would not have asked immortality for such as thee, Jack Sparrow?"

"Why?" Jack asked. "Ye knew me naught. Why raise me?"

The other frowned at him, as if he should already have known the answer to that. "I knew ye," he said. "It were me own desires which stole ye back from the bone yard, for I saw ye in his own black heart, an knew that I must have a taste o' ye for me very own. That it would be no bargain to let ye lie there still, to let the worms have ye."

That finger touched his lips again, as if to beg his silence, his acquiescence.

"Be ye not grateful?" he asked, though it was more demand than question. "For ye love life more than any other I have had occasion to know, an here am I... having rendered it back to ye. Will ye not cross this horizon, Jack Sparrow? Will ye not... love the lord of death. Who has been waiting long years for ye."

Jack swallowed. "I would have him wait a while longer," he said.

Candlelight flickered in dark eyes, then seemed to spend itself there.

"Ah," the other man said. "The one who sent ye here, the one whose likeness I bear, he sent ye tumbling down from heaven. To me own fond embrace, as it were. But yet, he thought I would have little use for ye, but that which he imagined. An, aye, tis true me own hunger is vast, an little appeased of late. But there be hungers an there be hungers."

"One kiss ye have had of me," Jack said. "But I..."

"Shhh...." The bed creaked beneath them as the other man leaned closer still. As if he would feign steal a second. "Know ye not when to be silent? When to tender yourself over to the tides, an know yourself lost to things greater than your self. This be my place. What life ye have but mine to give... or to take. Or must I teach ye that lesson, mate, ere ye shall surrender what has been rightly judged mine all along."

And suddenly that hand was around his neck, long fingers squeezing tight, only to grow rough and rougher still until Jack realized that it was not flesh, but rope which bound him. Which choked him.

A noose.

He opened his eyes and more than half expected to find himself back on the scaffolding at Fort Charles, a crowd gathered below to watch him die, but only the empty expanse of the sea and sand was there to greet him. The moon drifting in a dark and cloudless sky, her light pouring across tarnished waves.

But he recognized where he was all the same. Gallow's Point.

Where all good pirates went to rot.

His hands were bound behind his back and the rope around his neck was tight enough that each breath hurt. He closed his eyes for a long moment, but when he opened them again, he was still there. The smell of salt and decay filling his head and the moon pouring down as if to blind him.

He struggled, but that only made the noose tighten further and he left off with a broken gasp. For a long moment, the moon and the sky spun, dark to light and back to dark again. Somehow, he managed to swallow and thankfully get some air again.

A hand caught his foot all of a sudden then, stroked it, and then gave an insistent tug which tightened the noose another notch. He winced, then cast his eyes down as best he could. His first mad thought that it was Will Turner, come back to rescue him at the last, even though it looked to be a bit too late for that... but the face gazing up at him was Will's and not Will's. Years older, with Will's eyes yet, but a far more amiable face, at least to first glance.

Bootstrap Bill...

And looking no older than when he had last seen him, though a shade more damp around the edges. His hair was loose, the long brown strands tangled here and there with seaweed, and his clothes seemed a little worse for wear and tide, as well. But the smile was as he remembered it, sardonic and friendly and wryly amused all at once, with easily enough charm in it to diffuse a fight on deck or the stockings right off a lady barely two minutes after they'd made port.

"Well met, Jack Sparrow," he said. "Come to a bad end at the last, have ye? But no matter, for here be one to stand and mourn ye."

And Bootstrap turned and gestured back at a figure standing at the edge of the sea now, just standing there with his feet almost in the waves, and staring up at him with a wounded, horrified look on his face.

Norrington.

"An odd business, wouldn't ye say? Taking up so with a King's man," Bootstrap commented quietly even as Jack stared past him at the Commodore. "Taking up with the very man who saw ye hung, an a man come round to findin' yer kisses most fair one presumes. Or do he simply like the touch o' dead flesh then, eh Jack?"

Jack lifted his head a little, ignoring Bootstraps' words, as he tried to catch the eye of the other man. To let him know that he was yet alive, or not dead at any least.

He struggled to speak, but only a soft half-strangled name came out. Still, it was the best he could manage.

"James..."

But Norrington must have heard him all the same, because his face grew, if anything, even more horrified and he began to back away.

"No... no..."

Jack winced, more at the look on the other man's face then at the ever-tightening rope. He sucked in one more breath, and then suddenly couldn't take another. His vision began to turn grey and black around the edges and Norrington faded away the next instant, as if he had never been.

"Ah, Jack," Bootstrap said even as he fought for air, the words soft yet ringing clear in his head all the same. "Pay him no more mind, for what living man does not fear the pleasures of the grave, even those as ye would grant. Stay with me and I shall teach ye such that I know, an I shall show ye what ye have never known. For there be more here than darkness, if ye would but promise to remain."

Jack managed to suck in the shallow dregs of one breath, then the bare edges of another. He gazed down into Bootstrap's mild brown ones, recalling the easy companionship and the kindnesses of his long lost mate, recalling the eager look in matching young eyes, son to the father. He shook his head ever so slightly.

No...

Bootstrap shrugged. "Ah, well... so be it. If not willingly..."

And, with that, he ran a dirty finger around his own neck, and his eyebrows gave a knowing waggle.

"Welcome to the darkness, Jack Sparrow," he said. "Welcome to my world."

Once again, he reached forward, taking hold of Jack's legs and giving them a sharp tug. Jack fought the ropes that bound him, but now there was no air, none at all, as sharp pain seared his throat and his lungs closed in on themselves.

Distantly, he heard the rush of the sea and the sound of birds, before the moon arched high over his head and then almost seemed to go dark. To become a great black hole in the heavens. Blackness pouring down out of it and straight into his head.

Even as faint words passed through his mind, a faint, taunting, familiar voice, a familiar rasp.

The moonlight reveals us for what we are...

And then the rope broke and he fell. Not onto the earth, but into deep water. Water that tasted of rotting fish and old seaweed and lost ships. Water that tasted of cold metal and curses.

He struggled back to the surface, gasping for breath, kicking hard to stay afloat. He sank down for a moment, swallowing brackish sea water, and then forced himself back up, coughing it out again, though rather worse for wear. Only to find arms closing tight around him, cool, slick arms. Arms with a strength that was more than human.

"I've missed ye, Jack," a voice purred. And suddenly something even cooler wound itself around his legs, binding them tight together until he could no longer move, let alone swim. Something with fins and scales, rough as the skin of a shark.

Arms closing around him and a face pressed close to his, a fond embrace.

"Oh aye... I've missed ye," Bootstrap said again. "Something terrible, mate."

And then they were sinking down, spiraling into the depths, his old mate still holding him close, his eyes black now instead of warm brown, black as that emptied moon. Down into darkness and terrible cold, drowning him in salt and sea and weed.

***

And it did make him feel suddenly more secure, more in command of the situation, even if that was only an illusion for his own comfort of mind. Still, he took tight hold of that blade and that surety and looked Will Turner in the eye.

Or whatever it was that looked like Will Turner.

Who was watching him with this air of amusement, clearly taking in his appearance from tattered shirt to stained breeches.

"You've changed," Turner commented.

"So have you," Norrington replied pointedly.

The younger man glanced down at own clothing, then shrugged.

"Perhaps this was who I was all along," he said. "But you just could not see it."

"And Elizabeth could?" He asked the question before he could stop himself.

"Love sees things truly," Will replied, and then let out a sudden breath. "Or not at all."

"What about this place?" Norrington asked. "What am I seeing here really?"

Will glanced around them, as if noticing where they were for the very first time. "This place? This is the heart of darkness, from which the sun rises every morning. It's naught but a dream really. But... all the same, a dream may well make reality. So I would take care, Commodore. Cut a man here and he could but bleed in the world above."

Norrington nodded, knowing it for a warning. He looked down at the bare blade in his hand, then back at the other man.

"I saw..." he said, then caught himself. "Or imagined I saw... Elizabeth."

The bright gleam in Turner's eyes could not be denied. Nor the sudden, almost shy smile that reminded Norrington almost painfully of the boy he'd watched grow to manhood back in Port Royal. A man who had been willing to risk all for love, and who had even defied both him and the law in pursuit of what he believed was the proper course all the same.

"Elizabeth has the soul of a pirate," Will said. "She always did. Remember that, Commodore. And remember that a pirate's soul cannot be bound, cannot be owned nor kept nor denied, even if one's intentions are entirely honorable."

Which was even more a warning...

"He is here, then?" Norrington asked.

Will shrugged, as if the answer should have been obvious. "Jack is a hard man to misplace."

Norrington frowned. "You admire him."

"And you do not?"

"He is a pirate and a scoundrel."

Will raised a rather less than polite eyebrow. "Yes, he is. A pirate... and a good man. You would do well to remember that, too."

"So you have said before. Or someone who looks like you, anyway."

"I know my place," was the reply. Then, even before that sank in, Turner had backed out of the way and he gestured expansively at the path now revealed before them. "But yours lies onward, good sir. Press on then if you will and you shall soon see for yourself."

And Will Turner bowed then, courtly enough and yet faintly impudent at the last, and when he lifted his eyes again from beneath that rakish hat to confront him, those brown eyes had gone almost pure black.

Norrington repressed a shudder and forced himself to stare back into them, before he stepped forward past the younger man and onto that path once more. Keeping his back straight and his stride firm, and just pausing to look back but the once. Only to find the way behind him empty once more, save for the mists and the innumerable trees.

He lifted the sword once more, in a quick salute of his own, reflecting on the cool quality of the steel—on the fiery nature of the man who had made it—before lowering it once more and continuing onwards.

***

Jack glanced at the table in the middle of the room and found it set for a feast. Bread and rounds of cheese and all sorts of fruit, all of it surrounding the central figure of a suckling pig laid out on wilted blossoms of red and orange and ruddy purple. An apple was pressed into his mouth, caught between yellowed teeth, and it was glossy red and almost too perfect looking.

In truth, it was all too perfect looking.

A wave of desperate hunger swept over him, making him sway for a moment.

"And what does the Code say," a voice made comment behind him. "Regarding a buccaneer treating with a sworn naval officer?"

Jack spun around and stared at the man leaning against the far wall. Sharp clear eyes regarded him in turn, even as he slouched there in that ever so splendid blue and gold uniform. Which made Jack even more suspicious, since he could not imagine that the real Commodore Norrington would ever, under any circumstance, slouch.

"Commodore?" he said all the same, making it rather a question.

"Come now, Jack," the other man replied. "You were not so reticent to use my Christian name but a little while ago."

Jack frowned. "Ye be not James," he said, roughly but firmly.

The man levered himself away from the wall and stepped towards him. "Oh, no?" he said mildly. "But can you honestly say you know him as well as all that, Jack Sparrow? Enough to say, definitively, that I am not he?"

Jack gave a half-shrug, half-smile. "Oh, aye... ye be not him, any more than those I have met so far, be who they truly are."

Norrington smiled, and to Jack's surprise and dismay, it was the boyish and kind look he had seen but a few times before.

"Oh, but I could be him," the other man said. "In fact, I could be anyone you desire me to be. And well I know you have desired a few in your time."

"An if I refuse?"

Now it was the other's turn to shrug. "Your choice, of course. But I would consider that choice most carefully. For this may be a world of pleasure and pleasantries granted readily enough for an honored guest, and yet... it may equally be a realm of despair and pain for those who choose to be my enemies. Who deny my power."

Norrington moved closer, taking him by the arm and gazing down into his face. His mouth slightly parted and his eyes rapt, almost too rapt. Suddenly, the smell of flowers and roast meat seemed to intensify, to mingle, one into the other, until Jack could barely tell them apart. He swayed, dizzy to the core.

"But come," the other man said, steering him around and leaning in to breathe the words directly into his ear. "Where are my manners, my dear man... you must be famished. Please, sit. Eat. Make yourself welcome to my table."

And, somehow, Jack found himself sitting before that feast, a plate full of food before him and a cup of wine to one hand. With Commodore Norrington's unswerving green eyes watching him from across the table, another glass held up to make a first toast.

"Let us drink then," he was saying. "To the past and to the future. To what is and what may yet be."

Jack glanced down at the cup in his own hand, the wine in it dark red and clearly expensive. He could smell the grape, but yet it looked entirely too much like blood for his tastes. He carefully set the cup down on the table, and then pushed it away with the tips of his fingers.

The other man watched him refuse the toast, and set his own glass down, untouched.

"You refuse even to drink?" he asked, his voice deceptively mild.

"I do," Jack replied. "For well I know the stories. To eat or drink with the dead, is to never be able to leave their realm. I'll not be caught so easy as that."

"You expect such a trick of me?"

Jack gazed into those green eyes, wishing in that moment that they would take up the black color he knew they really bore. That, of every face this... god, or whatever he was, had worn so far, this one he misliked the most. This one hurt the most to look upon. For though it was a lie, it was a very tempting lie all the same. For if he had to be dead, if he was indeed trapped in this place... then to spend all of eternity with even a faint shade of the real James Norrington might just make it tolerable.

Except that he had no intentions of giving in, of giving up his freedom... not to the real Commodore, nor to this pretty pasteboard copy in blue and gold.

"I expect nothing less," Jack answered. "From that which cast the curse upon me old mates. Who turned their own lust an greed back upon them for ten years or more. Were ye not satisfied with that then? That ye had to make a bargain once more... an this time for innocent blood."

That familiar mouth tightened, then evened out again. Those green eyes turned mild once more.

"Ah, but you are one of the dead already," he said. "So it matters not in that regard if you do indeed drink with me. Though it does matter to me a good deal, I must say, if you do not."

"Did ye offer him drink, as well," Jack asked, instead of answering. "When he came to ye, fresh from his own death."

"The one you tendered him, you mean?" Norrington picked up his glass again, looking down into the depths of it. "If you must know, yes... he shared a cup with me, and ate such fruit as I would offer from my table. He bears a striking fondness for apples, and consumed a good half-dozen before our bargain was set."

He glanced up then, the faintest of smiles playing upon his lips. "Did you not wonder that you had done him a wrong, as much as he you? He was never so much your enemy, until you denied him true friendship."

"Was not friendship he wished from me," Jack replied darkly.

"Yes," came the reply, softly. "There is that. But well now I know that his desires did not lie to me, for you are all I saw within his eyes and heart, and more even than that."

Jack stared into the other man's own eyes, and saw they had turned black at last. And then the rest of him was shimmering, transforming as he watched, until it was himself he looked upon. A perfect mirror, from tattered scarf and braid, to dangling trinkets of wood and bone and bead. Even to the gold flashing by candlelight as the other man smiled at him, and then laughed.

"An do ye not love yourself, Jack Sparrow?" he asked. "Have ye never wondered what others might see in ye, that ye wake within them such grand passions. To love, to hate, to want, to be spurned."

Abruptly, the other man rose and strolled around the edge of the table to lean over him, dark eyes peering close into his own.

Jack gazed back, then smiled himself. "Ye may have indeed raised me," he said. "But ye do not own me. No matter that ye keep me here for an eternity, that shall not change. For ye be forgetting one important thing, mate..."

"An what's that exactly?"

"I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, an I belong to no man. Nor to any god either."

His own dark eyes stared back mockingly. "Then this shall indeed be a hell for ye, Jack Sparrow. For I'll not be letting thee go."

And, with that, he stroked a hand up his arm... and Jack stared down in dismay as it turned to bone and rags at his touch. Before the other man caught up his face and put his lips to his own, and sucked the life out of him entire.

***

Just a hint of eyes and faces and hands, long fingered and beseeching.

He began to see bones. First fragments, and then whole leg and arm bones. A skull tucked into a broken place in the wall. He stepped over them at first, but soon they spilled out across the path and he had to pick his way more carefully. Small bones and large ones, full sized and child-sized skulls, mixed in with bits of rotting cloth and the occasional glint of gold or gems.

The path turned upwards and he was forced to climb, unable to avoid treading on bones now. The smell of dust and wet thick around him, and other smells he couldn't quite place. Eventually, he realized that he was walking up a veritable mountain of bones. Some so old and yellow and brittle that they looked ready to fall to dust at the slightest touch. Others seemingly so very fresh that they still had vestiges of pale pink marrow inside.

He didn't pause to look more closely as he climbed, his breath coming hard now, but he would have sworn that many of them bore the marks of teeth, and broken skulls stared back at him in the dim light. Their eyes full of shadows, empty of all hope.

Watchful all the same. As if waiting for him to join them.

Suddenly, his foot slipped and he fell. He landed hard, sharp edges of bone cutting into his hands and legs.

Norrington cursed softly, under his breath. He closed his eyes for a long moment, then steeled himself and rose again. There was fresh blood on his shirt, on his tattered breeches, and he felt the sting of a dozen cuts. And, as he stood there, he suddenly felt something unseen brush by him.

He gazed around him, lifting his sword, but whatever it was seemed to be gone again.

Just empty sockets stared back at him, ancient walls and decaying bone.

He swallowed, then squared his shoulders and took another step.

Only to have the ground give way beneath him. He reached out with his free hand, but his finger slipped off wet stone, and he slid down into darkness, bits of bone and loose dirt and moss tumbling with him.

Somehow, he managed to retain hold of his sword, to slow his descent with his spare hand, grasping at what felt like tree roots, but unable to stop his fall. When he finally came to a halt, one foot jammed into something hard and the sharp edge of something damp cutting into his side, he laid there for a while, breathing hard. He glanced up and saw a distant circle of dim light, the hole he had fallen through, and realized that there was no way he could crawl up there again.

He looked around him, but could only make out dim shapes. Still, it looked as if he had found the bottom at least. He pried his foot free and wrenched himself away from the tangle of roots, finding himself on carved stone once more.

Then there was a rustling noise and the brush of something light across his face, like a bird, or more likely a bat, had flown by barely a hands breath away. Followed by a shivering sound beneath his feet, all around him. Like water over bare rock, scales over stone. This cave, or whatever it was, smelled of serpents.

Norrington reached out a hand, but could feel nothing. Though the air seemed to stir again at his movement and he heard that same rustling again.

"Is there someone there?" he called, but the darkness seemed to swallow up his words.

"Commodore?" a voice abruptly called back. A strangely familiar voice.

Light flared to life in the blackness and then a shape stepped towards him through a narrow breach in the walls, a lantern held high in his hand.

To his surprise, it was Lieutenant Groves, but not a Groves as he had ever known him. This man was not dressed in his usual uniform, but in the ragged breeches and stained linen shirt of a regular sailing man. Of a pirate. For there was no pure powdered wig upon his head now, but that a silver-plated pistol was thrust through the sash around his waist and his hair was done up into half a dozen braids, while a brilliant blue scarf bound back the rest.

"John?" he asked, even more confused by this vision than the last.

The man raised his free hand to his mouth, laying one tar-stained finger across his lips and glancing upwards. "Shhh..." he breathed. "The raven flies tonight and his ears are sharp, indeed."

Norrington lowered his voice, even as the other man looked furtively around them, as if expecting something or someone to come springing at them out the darkness at any moment.

"The raven?" he asked.

"Aye, sir," Groves replied. "The lord of the dead. He who first set the curse, and who would claim Jack Sparrow if he could."

"You've seen Jack?" he couldn't help but ask. "Where is he? Is he all right?"

Groves lowered the lantern, shadows springing up around them again, his eyes glittering all the same. He looked wild and carefree in that moment, as wild and carefree as if he had always been a pirate and the Navy officer only pretense. "Captain Sparrow is dead. You know that, sir. You watched him die. But if you speak of his soul... then that may yet be saved."

"How?" Norrington asked, stepping closer. "Tell me how."

The other man shrugged, the movement sending spangles of light around the cave.

"For that, you'll have to speak to the man himself. But, for now, it is my duty and my courtesy to be at your service, sir. For it appears you've gotten yourself into a bit of a predicament."

"I've fallen down a hole, you mean," Norrington said dryly.

Groves smiled. "Not everything is as it seems. But if you would follow me, Commodore?"

"Gladly," he replied.

"Then, this way, sir," Groves said, gesturing with the lantern back in the direction he had just come. "If you please."

Norrington stepped after him, turning sideways to follow the other man between the crack in the wall. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised by what he found beyond, but he couldn't help but pause anyway as he found himself in some kind of great hall. He stared upwards at towering pillars, their lengths painted with bright colors and decorated with what looked like pure gold. Thousands upon thousands of bones and skulls lay in piles around their feet, a few of them painted with gold, as well. Rotting flowers were tucked into some of their eye sockets.

"Sir?" Groves had turned back to look at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Not everything is as it seems," he repeated.

But the other man only nodded, and raised his lantern higher, illuminating the path before them. A path that led to another set of stone stairs at the far end, these leading downwards.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

Norrington couldn't stop the words from imprinting themselves onto his mind as he followed the man who looked like Groves, passing between the pillars and mounds of bones, but neither did he find much comfort in them. For though his rod and staff here bore the flesh and frame of a good man, a good officer, a friend even, he had little doubt that what truly guided him had aught of goodness about it.

Perhaps, he was even now being led astray.

Perhaps, he had been being led astray from the very beginning, since clearly whatever had worn the face and form of Elizabeth had not been at woman at all. Anymore than Turner had been the man he knew.

But still here he was, following in the footsteps of a man who could not be a man, as if he actually had expectations of being led safely through the darkness that surrounded them, to be shown refuge from whatever hunted within it.

Again, he heard the distant rustle of wings and he saw that Groves had paused and was staring back at him. A pure and honest concern on his face, even as his eyes flashed dark for a moment.

As Will's had also turned dark and Elizabeth's black as melted pitch.

"Come along, sir," Groves said then. His voice was low and urgent. "Quickly now. We haven't much time left."

"Time for what?" he asked, moving up to the man. He kept his own voice down as well, not quite whispering.

Still, something seemed to shift in the dark at his words and several long bones and a skull came sliding down the mound to his left, as if something up above had jarred them loose. Norrington glanced up, but the black beyond the tops of the pillars was absolute and, indeed, he wasn't sure if that was more a curse or a blessing.

He wasn't sure he wanted to see what might be there.

Then, they were at the top of the stone stairs, gazing downward into an even more profound darkness and he realized he really didn't want to see what might lie down there either.

Except that Groves was already proffering him the lantern and nodding encouragement at him.

"Go on, sir," he said. "It's just down there."

"What is just down there?" he asked, but took the lantern all the same.

"What you've been looking for," Groves responded. "Or, should I say... who. But you should hurry, sir... for they are a sly and deceitful lot here, and even a man like Jack Sparrow can't hold out against them forever, when there is the hope of nothing else to guide him."

Norrington glanced down the stairs. The light from the lantern barely penetrated beyond the first half dozen steps.

"Is there a way out of here?" he asked, looking back at the other man.

Groves shrugged. "Not back, but forward perhaps. If one is daring enough, even the gods take notice."

"I must wonder if that is necessarily a good thing," Norrington commented dryly.

That garnered him a slight smile, and a small bow. "As you say, sir. I shall wish you Godspeed, and good luck."

Norrington nodded. "Little doubt I shall be in need of it," he said, then turned to the stairs before him. He lifted the lantern higher and then started down, his sword held ready in his other hand. After several dozen steps, he realized that the stone stairs were gently spiraling down, and that it was growing colder the further he descended.

Distantly, he heard the trickle of water and as he put the lantern towards the nearer wall, the light glistened on damp and greenish mold. He glanced upwards as well, and saw the ceiling was pockmarked and stained, with an occasional piece of what looked like bone poking out of it.

He swallowed and lowered the lantern, continuing downward.

The sound of water continued to grow louder, the cold more encompassing. Until a faint mist began to rise up around him, making it even harder for the lantern to penetrate the darkness. Then, he heard a sound he knew well—the slap of waves upon a ship's hull—and smelled salt and tar, familiar things all.

Then a shape rose up before him, huge in the dark and mist. Dark sails and black wood, with a few lanterns creating faint halos of light against the fog.

He knew that ship.

There could, of course, be no other like her.

The Black Pearl.

Norrington set his own lantern down and took hold of one of the waiting manropes. He climbed as quickly and quietly as he could, careful of the bare steel in one hand, and slipped over the rail to stand on the deck. The mainmast rose over him, those distinctive black dark sails hanging silent and lax. Still, they were whole now, instead of in ruins, and the ship had an air to her of recent care and occupation.

He could smell fresh tar and even the deck looked as if it had been freshly holystoned.

He began to make his way towards the quarterdeck, moving silently himself, sword at ready. Whether any of this was truly real or no, this was still a pirate ship and where there was a pirate ship there were bound to be pirates.

Or, in this case, perhaps something even worse.

"Aye," a voice said, realizing his suspicions. "There ye be, Commodore. Most glad I am to be seeing ye."

Norrington turned, and watched as a figure came striding out of the dark and the mist. A tall man, familiar himself, though dressed rather more grandly than last he had seen him.

Barbossa.

A great feathered hat clapped upon his head and a black velvet coat swirling about him as he stopped but a pace or two away and lifted his head to gaze speculatively at him. His shirt was pristine white, the buckles on his belt gleaming with heavily worked silver, and gold rings glittered on his long fingers. A king's treasure in gold, or more likely, perhaps, a god's.

"Are you, indeed," Norrington said.

One eyebrow went up. A small half-smile. "Oh, aye. I've been expecting ye. For well I know what ye've come for, an I canna say as I blame ye for the wanting of it. Stubborn and foolish though he be, none as I know would like give up one such as Jack without a fight. An seein' the blade in your hand, I believe ye more than ready to render me one, is that not so."

"I will do what I must," he said.

"Will ye now?" came the reply. The other man's eyes glittered, and he looked him up and down, then gave a slight shake of his head. "An who's to say what that may come to, or whether ye truly be of a mind to offer it. Ye either be a very brave man, Commodore, or a rather foolish one yourself. To beard a lion in his den, or a god in his shrine."

"I lay claim to no other gods than the one Almighty," Norrington said. "Let alone bend knee to a ruffian who demands the blood of children as his due."

Barbossa gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "An what of it? Tis not coin I have not known before, nor what men such as yourself have not done in the name o' your own God, or so I have seen. But, be that as it may, I believe this be what ye come for..."

And, with that, he gestured grandly to his right and a figure walked out of the shadows of the doorway to the great cabin. There was the familiar tatty red scarf tied around a tangle of hair and braids. The usual jangle of beads and tarnished metalwork. The seaworthy sway of step and awkward grace of movement that so suited him.

But that was where familiarity stopped. For Jack Sparrow was naught but rags and bones, the same as the men he had once fought against aboard Dauntless that fateful night.

"Jack?"

The head came up slowly, ever so slowly, and for a moment Norrington found himself balking at the thought of seeing that face laid bare. But though the man's face was a skull, indeed, the eyes were yet the same. Black and fathomless as ever they could be, they stared directly at him with something that could only be accounted as fear. As if a man like Jack would ever be afraid.

"James," he said softly, pausing still a good pace or more away. Also, not like his normal self. "You should not have come. I'm one o' the dead already, but you..." and something desperate flashed in his eyes. "Oh, no... please, James, tell me that you're not..."

"Dead?" he inquired. "No. Not so far as I know, anyway."

Jack shot a startled glance at Barbossa, who was staring at the both of them with this unreadable look on his face now. What he saw there must have disquieted him the more, because he took another step forward.

"Then ye must leave," he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "For ye don't belong here."

"Neither do you," Norrington retorted.

Jack swayed back a little at the vehemence of his response, but then recovered himself.

"Ah," he said. "I fear ye are not trusting the truth o' your own eyes then, Commodore. For here I am, as I am." And he raised a hand to him, those long fingers seeming even longer now that they had lost the last of their flesh. "Bones, James. Do ye not see? I have naught to offer thee. Naught but... death."

"A fair enough gift," Barbossa commented.

Jack turned to look at the pirate captain once more, then shook his head ever so slowly. "No, ye canna keep him. I will not let ye."

One of the other man's eyebrows rose, and he took a step forward himself. Somehow looming even taller than Norrington had remembered him to be. Shadows rising up behind him taller still.

"Will ye not, now," Barbossa said, his voice still sounding jovial enough, but with an edge that could have honed steel. His eyes suddenly spinning dark, cold as death itself. "And where do ye think ye are then, Jack Sparrow? If not in me own land. I could grind thy bones to dust with me own hands. Or rip the heart from your chest and feed it to them that are always hungry. As well ye should know. But that I would not give it them, when I may yet keep it for myself."

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