The Dead Man's Chest

dead man's chest

He was just drunk enough to tell the story. The lightening crashed and he dumped the dregs onto the coals.

“You call that a story? I have a story for you, but it is not one for the faint of heart. And I do beg pardon, for there is some of it in verse, for so heavily did it weigh on me I did try to block it out, and often when I speak of it, it must come in rhyme.” He poured another glass and stared hard at the fire.

“Find yourselves a place to sit my brothers, and listen to my tale. A tale so dark I have told it less than fifty times in all my years. A story still so bound in magica that it can be blotted out with a word.

There are few things that shiver you to your soul, and fewer still that make you curse yourself and the brothers, Few of these things have I seen, and this be one. So be ye ware, for we be pirate men, and today the ghosts of the honored and dishonored dead do walk among us, and I do not know if these blighted, benighted, bedeviled and bedamned still walk the seas, but I made an oath that when asked on a bridging day I will tell of the men of that damend ship.

So pour out a drink for yourselves and one for your honored dead, and attend to this story.

#

Gather round, as the wind does howl,

As ghosts and damned men, this world do prowl. Give me a tale you belike howl,

Tell me today of murder most foul.

#

Jalen am I and one not prone,

to versed rhyme of stories known

But one such tale of sorrow sown,

Does bid me tell without my own.

#

This verse I will attempt to mend,

If you but give me at the end,

A strong aye, and then,

Lay you by and do attend.

#

But if the stories of the haze,

Of the mire

And the malaise

If of this story any man say,

“Ach belay,”

I’ll speak no more, this accursed day

Of this story I’ll only say,

I tell no more save bridging day.

Jalen am I, and captain true,

And honest man as bones ever knew,

And by the boards, and brothers too,

Attend now what I say to you,

You’ve heard this tale, sung in time,

Always ever, told in rhyme.

But attend this story now of mine,

For I alone did cross the line.

Day of bridging, white- to black,

Accursed day, the dead walk back,

To fill the sails and mind the tack,

Till the rising sun does call them back,

Damned men, cast off beside,

Upon a ship of ghosts did ride,

And up to her did I side,

And walk her deck stride-for stride.

Now if this accursed rhyme to mend,

If ye be, of lily men,

but speak nay and it end.

But if ye be men Methinks ye be, and here attend. Speak but aye and this verse to mend.

Aye captain, tell us a tale befitting bridging day. While the waves crash and do not belay.”

“Captain, friend I will not belay,

but one more verse there is to say.

If at the end, afore the day,

If you cannot bear my words today,

Beat the sun and cry belay.

“It was long ago on bridging day, when did this tale come true.

And by the boys, the braid and boards, I swear it all to you.

Suffer not the story in verse,

for that would only make it worse,

but at the end of this rhyme,

will double back and restart time.

#

The day was dark and we were away, or as the phrase now is, “away and away.” Far beyond the reef, a fortnight from the end. It was this good ship, the Dragon Wynd, these self- same boards, but not this crew, for I be an elder of eldest men, and this is a tale of the time before this crew.

Well-seasoned, and ready for adventure did we believe, though I was much younger than I am now, the ship still nearly new to me, so call it a dozen years into our cruise. As I said we were away and away, very far, and many did not know me then, not as Shenn, and certainly not as Phaeon. They simply knew I had stolen a ship and gone to bones.

Of this crew, none still serve, this having been a lifetime ago, but so, none were new- sworn, and by this you know all men had at least a year afore the mast on these boards, all had years afore the mast, all were good men.

He took a long sip and walked to the window to look out over the crashing sea, with lightening striking the waters. It was long ago, as I said, and we had fled a storm this bad, so we were wrung out, and somewhat farther off course than we meant to be. And it came to my ears that it was bridging Day.

“Bridging day,” what a word, when it is mostly night. There was no port of call, and we were trying to put hours behind the storm before we set anchor, but there was something that made me uneasy, and I did not then know why.

I was too young to know the truth of the danger, I was too young to understand the guardians of the Dead, and I certainly didn’t know about curses and devilry. The moon was full, and the sea was becalmed, though the wind was strong from the west. Had I known then what I now know, I would have looked for trouble, but a calm sea and heavy wind did not strike me wrong, at least not right away.”

The lightening struck the water outside throwing an eerie green-blue light over everyone and making Jalen look like a creature with glowing flame-red eyes, and coal-cinder hair, and a tiny line of gold at the edges of his nails that glowed like a smoldering paper. Every time the lightening struck the darkness showed the red-gold glow.

“many times accursed men with a “yo-ho-ho” will start the verse of the fifteen men and their fate below, when they were cast off by the brothers. This song, so long told is true, for I know it well, and if you hold hard just a while, I will share it with you, for you have called for a story of murder and betrayal.

“On my ship we call it the “accursed verse of the fifteen.” Jalen said pausing to drink, “be there any who know its right name?”

“The dead Man’s chest?”

“Aye, those be the words, and never more true. Be there any man-jack to know those words?”

“I do, captain,” A young man of strong voice sang heartily, “Fifteen men on a dead-man’s chest”

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum,” Replied the rest, save Captain Shenn who spoke no word. Drink and the devil have done with the rest, “

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.” The men answered again,

As the last line of the song came to an end, he held up his hands, he wanted to stop, for he felt the magic gathering, the ghosts knew he was talking about them, so he had to start.

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“That is the verse, but the story is somewhat worse.” He wrapped his sash around his hand and yanked it tight as all men of the sea did when frightened, to remind themselves of Jangir’s mercy.

His voice was grim, strong, and very sad. “I see ye all know the words, but I was the one to stride those boards, so listen today to the tale of the ship that all men know and none have seen. None have seen save me.

She was a frigate, all gleaming bright when we saw her. Though she made good speed with her sails all dressed, there were no signals to us. And as we came to her I saw her pennant high above, was the black banner we all esteem, but ripped, and bloody beside, and hung inverted.

“We be not men of bones or boards we pass her by,” I told my crew, and we made ready to board her, with planks and pikes, my archers in the rigging. And I swear to you I saw the crew hale and hearty, and we ran colors, and signaled for them to heave to, but sails all dressed they still ran, so we came up abreast, and I and two others went aboard if only to slow her speed until we could see what had made her so silent.

That alone made me uneasy, but so did the day, or rather the night fast approaching, and the storm we had just out run. So I said I would take only the mate and the man at arms, for we went to parlay not to fight.

But the sight that met my eyes, was one I had no name for. For stuck to the mast with an iron dagger, was a decree from the ill wind that the ship should be scuttled on bridging day. And of the forty crew, fifteen I saw not in chains.

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My two men with me were stuck to the spot, whether by shock or magica I knew not, but it took much pulling and cursing to get them to move. And we moved slowly, that this sat so Ill with them weighed on me, though not so heavily as it might now, since I was so much younger.

But the thing that met my eyes next as I came to the forward hatch twixt the cabin and the mast, The mate stood against the self-same mast, pinned deep into the wood with pike in the hands of the Bosun, who in turn had his head caved in with a Sailspike. This weapon long, pointed and solid iron was heavy enough to kill him in a moment it had seemed. A few feet away, the man I took to be the cook, guarding a barrel of what had been fine wine, and still there were, plain to see, the marks of ten fingers. And I stepped with care not to disturb the dead, my pike I drove into the deck in a clear spot and prayed forgiveness, for I wanted no bloodshed and only to see how bad the carnage be. I left my two men stock still next to my pike, and I went alone to see what had become.

The captain lay just outside his cabin, his head cleaved by a boarding axe, a short- handled one for battering the door of a cabin. And the marks belied that the door gave in. The axe was in the hands of a servant-boy, he still bore a gold cuff on his arm, I never knew his name. He’d been stabbed four times in the back as he defended the door. He had turned to defend himself from one it seemed, only to be stabbed by another. Now, some of them said he was a scullery boy, least the rhyme that way implied. I think he was the Cabin mate, for hard work and dark skin had he, much bronzed with the sun and not prone to the lightness of those who came below decks forever. I walked around the cabin to main deck to find ten more, but these ten, had gone to blade and boards with one another.”

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He knocked on the table, as one did to scare away evil. His voice went low, ragged, all ten bedeviled and bedamned had shorn hair and even this far gone in days, the custom of the cabin was to wear Jangir’s braid, and so they stood with their sashes gone and their hair littering the boards, and I knew they had called against their captain to make their own crew.

But still some devilry was there for I still had a forboading sense that I did not then understand. I made way again to the cabin and this time, with pardon and sure steps I pushed open the door to the cabin and there I found the secret that had stilled my heart within me. For bedecked was the cabin for a bridal suite, and upon the bed was a figure dressed in lace, and laid away.

A knife still stuck from her brest, but at last I understood my unease, for her hair, no joke was like mine, copper and sunlight, even when there was no breath of life. She had been there with her husband of the day, the captain, I assumed, and the boy was to defend her. And she had been felled perhaps by the men I had seen at the last, but with hair of copper and sun, I knew what had come to pass.

In that moment I was shaken to the core, for I knew what had happened to these men and no worse curse could I think, save perhaps to be taken alive by Spira. A phaeon blood curse. So strong is the magica, even in all these years I have only run across it a few times, and it be old, very old, and so it was that her hot blood had cooled.

They had murdered a phaeon and she, with dying breath had cursed them with her ill intent to ruin them lest they hurt another. She meant no curse so strong as this I’m sure, but too hot did her anger burn. But far within was still the hot core, and I kindled her with blood and song of fire, her stone to take with me until the days of End.

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And far below in hold, I knew, at last what had become of the rest of the men. Forty or more should have been the crew, and holds and food laid in, and when we broke in the main hatch we found each man at bench.

And each cask of water dry from within, so hot was the curse, the water boiled away. It left them stranded, the alcohol was there, the food was there, the gold was there, but not a single drop of water had survived.

Row by row they sat, oars locked full in, to trap them in their bay, and those who could had cut net and strapped themselves in. All swords and axes, all bows had been gathered, and tied in bunches, and there they sat, and waited for the madness to pass. But being bound below not a man could raise the latch, and none survived up above to break them out again.

Exiled to the hold by the ten above, these were the men who were not part of it, locked in by those who mutinied as prisoners, they waited to hear what would become of them, Join or die, they knew would be the choice, but then the ship went silent, and casks dry of water.

I found them all to the man, sitting hands-to-oars, slumped forward as if they had died in the traces. And one man among them, new-braided and tied it seemed had with him a parchment. And on it these men recounted what they had done.

“My name is CJ Winters, Acting captain of the ship “Kirjin Mutum,” they called her, from a dialect I didn’t know.” The captain paused to pull out a scrap of parchment worn and bloody, and looking like it had been through battle. “And as men surviving a mutiny, we have made our own crew, and sworn ourselves to the man. But with the blight aboard this vessel we cannot salvage her, but so bound below we cannot give the worst order, so we have agreed, to the man that we will swear ourselves and seek our fate with the brothers, lest we sit and starve here,

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for we dare not go above, and though the ale, and wine and rum be fine, and the food look hale and hearty, there be no water save the salt and we know that way leads to more madness. With the ill wind seeking us to bring us low, or worse yet betray our free-given vow, we have decided from man to man will pass the cup of bitter herb and wine, and when there is no more, we pray that whoever finds this will tell them of our tale.”

The captain leaned closer to the fire. The lightening stil brought back the red-lit specter and the fire brought a ghostly image so it was that Jalen seemed transformed into a creature. “Twenty-five men sat at oars, the captain sat at his customary place at the head, his hand bandaged and his chest as well, for blooded and bound were they all. And strong wine and good ale was brought and along with that was bitter herb, the kind used to make men sleep like the dead to saw or sew, and knowing their deed, they drank their cups, two measures for each man, that no one might wake again.

Now we had what amounted to two crews to give honors to, the men on the deck who had died, and the crew below. And with their sacrifice, for they knew what all who know of phaeon know, that there are things that gold can carry, and angry curse of Magica be one. And so the gold and gems be tainted and unfit for taking being a horde and twice-damned beside. So I came topside and my men and I made preparation. I had to shake and pull them from their stupor, and never yet had they seen me like this for both the song of fire, had kindled me, and the rage within me over the death of one of my own kind made me angry, and it may be that alone that blinded me to what was going on.

We reefed her sails to slow her speed until we had her head again. And we brought her to stall on a night such as this, and perchance on bridging day. Being of my mother’s kin, I know

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how to bind or unbind the dead, but then, I was much younger, and there were many things I didn’t know about it.

We hung streamers and lanterns, sent boats for the dead, but they simply bobbed in the wake, and nothing would make them sail. So at last we knew what had to be done. We took down a mainsail and made provision for the dead above. Wrapped in with the axe and pike, and the accursed sailspike, and to be assured they went down, we wrapped a hawser’s bight twice ten turns around them all and using the boom did send them over the edge and into the water.

But then, what to do with the rest of the men, for I had no dragons to purify the boards, and little there was that could scuttle the boards without disturbing the dead.

And so it was, that we agreed, that myself and two others would dive below, and using what tricks we know, knock her seams and boards to send her low. But my anger was kindled and I did not know the danger of the waters below, I did not know, nor believe in the Spira then.

But being not more than a child I didn’t know my mistake, and I went under the water to break her seams that she break deep and take water and thereby go down with her newly-minted crew aboard, and it was that I had gotten about half-through after many trips of above and below when it was that a specter grabbed me by the wrist. One of the bodies tried to drag me below, and with my air he threatened to take me low.

His hand grabbed me by the arm, and it was cold enough it burned, like ice on a sun burn, like fire weed on sensitive skin, it sent pain and shivers up my body. And the hand would not let me loose, it pulled and kicked trying to return to the ship, and I fought to stay above.

But I screamed and prayed and called on the children of the sea, and soon, I thought I had died for I saw a light of green and grey, and a figure swam up from the deep, he touched me and

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my bones went slack, but he held me up so I could get air. “Child of the fires, this place is too cold, and you are not lawful prey.” He carried me up to the water line. “Go back to your boards, and come not again to these waters with your body. For we will honor these men that they sleep peacefully.”

A dozen dozen men and women of the undersea I counted, and still my head swam, for this figure that carried me carefully in cloth-wrapped hands that he not touch me skin to skin, was Trion himself, the Lord of Spira Men. They shifted water and threw the Wynd onto the sandy stretch to keep us from the water while they dealt with the ship. But my skin would not warm, and my soul felt wrong and heavy within me.

Wrapped in blankets and weak enough I could hardly breathe with my hand unmoving beside me, I was brought to the deck, and given spiced wine and elixir to warm me, give me strength, but still I complained of the cold on a warm night like this. And all around me I could see the shades of honored and dishonored dead, among them my own kin and blood.”

I tried to fight to get away, but I could not for no one else could see them. And My men shrank back when the figure came over the rail from the water without first touching the rails. She stopped and touched the trident with a smile and then she came to me.

And then I saw this beautiful maid, she came above and laid a hand on me. Her skin was still pale and human she couldn’t be more than a score, But I counted it more a fortnight worth of years, she laid her hand to my chest and smiled.

She was small, slender, and of a fair face, like the water-stories of old with the pretty maid that calls to the sea. A story I came to find was started by the ill wind to keep us afraid of

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the Spira, but that is the story for another day.” He took a deep drink and his manner stilled and smile graced his features though the bright red lines still reflected.

Her voice was sea birds and midnight rain, it was beauty itself, and this, near as I remember is what she spoke. “Mirana maid, they call me now, and you, child, must hear my vow, forever always on bridging day, this verse again must you say, for touched of men and damned of more, you will speak forevermore. But this story to attend, you must always seek to mend. And on the day as is now, I tell you now forever my vow, with voice when hear they and speak aye, this story again, with honor cry, but if at end of cursed rhyme, they belay and say thee nay, that same night you must away, for on that night water children play and you my child are not suited prey. Bridging day once long away, until then no deep water may, without rebuke and break of day, be your lodging for the day. For if in deep waters come you to stay, upon the bridging day, all ghosts have been and will remain, and shall then touch and life to gain.

But if these men of honor be, and they hear the story see, and if the end be much too sad relief from memory may be had. For at the end, ‘ere break of day, they beat the sun and call belay.”

I didn’t know then that I had been marked, that a ghost had grabbed me to drag me down, to keep me here away from the far remembered lands. And only her magic and her father’s good will kept me from being dragged down.”

At this he unbound his sleeve and pushed it up to above his elbow, and there about half way between wrist and elbow was a mark of four fingers, and he turned to reveal the thumb, the marks were white against his dark skin. “There was nothing she nor her father could do about

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that, he had grabbed me to pull me down, but fortunately I am Phaeon and hard to drag, slow moving enough the Spira could get me before I hit the black deep.”

“The blighted ship with all left aboard was dragged to the bottom. Shortly after was raised a warn. If on bridging day, you find the warn of a mail barrel of the ship, stil Bobbing in the bay, turn back. And this also I found, for I broke the rule only once. They told me belay and I did not leave, I wanted to sleep and drink and be a man of the black flag. And that night such a fever as I have never known before and pray I do not see again, was unleashed on those who had cried to me belay, that I saw them taken one-by-one by the sea, both those who climbed in and those whom the sea took on its own.

He pointed to the lightening sky. Finally the storm had stilled, the lightening silent, and only his glowing eyes in the dark to prove him Phaeon. “My story is all but done. And still the Spira wait, and they guard that wreck, for if any man try to take that gold, or raise the bones of that old wreck, all curses upon it will come back upon them So when next they sing that accursed song, think about this tale, and if there be any who do not have room for the memory, or who fear the gold left there is too tempting, but speak belay afore the sun crosses the horizon line and all that was said will be as if it were a dream and just as easily forgotten.

#

Jalen paused, waiting to hear if any man should cry belay, his crew sat ready to set sail if the call should come. For never again did he hope to see the fire of that curse, the madness that had overtaken the ship.

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One of the other captains stood and pledged the captain. “You have honored us Captain Jalen, for never have I heard such a sorry tale, nor one so befitting this day, Is there more to say?”

“Nothing more, save fog of non-memory for those who need it. The sun has not yet risen, any who wish to forget, simply speak nay, and it will be as if the story had never been told.” There was silence for a moment before the others began to pound on the tables, stomp their feet and laugh aloud, for the wind and rain had moved strangely on them, but now that the story was over, they were not willing to forget it, and so they applauded the story that had frightened them.

“Captain, take your accolade, for you have won the story of the day,”

And it seemed that the fit that had taken him passed as the sun rose, leaving him pensive and wrung out, and the fire in his eyes cooled to its normal glitter. “Let us stay one more day, for I am spent.”