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The Road to Hell

by Honorat
November 1, 2005

The front legs of Bill’s chair dropped to the floor with a crash, and rum sloshed over the top of his flagon. His captain laughed delightedly at this reaction to his announcement.

“I know where the Island is, and I’m taking the Pearl there.”

“Jack, tell me this is another one of your tall tales,” Bill begged. “You know better than me the stories about that treasure.”

“Cursed by heathen gods, and buried on an Island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is. Yeah, I’ve heard them all.” Jack shrugged dismissively. He frowned into his drink and fished at something floating there with one finger. “Blasted cheap rum,” he groused. “I’m sure they water it with horse piss.”

Refusing to be diverted, Bill leaned forward. “It’s an impossible passage, you damn fool. If you’re looking for a way to commit suicide, I can take you outside and shoot you in the head myself.”

Giving his angelic smile, Jack refused to rise to the bait.

Bill felt the familiar surge of futile anger that always accompanied his attempts to realign Jack Sparrow to prudence. “No ship has ever returned from an attempt to navigate to Isla de Muerta. What makes you think you’ll succeed where everyone else has failed?” he demanded.

Jack raised an eyebrow at the question. “Because I’ve got three things they didn’t have,” he answered.

“And what are they?”

Contemplating his fingernails for a long moment, Jack let Bill simmer. Finally he looked up and ticked off his assets on the scarred tabletop. “I’ve got the fastest ship in the Caribbean, the only chart of the passages to that island, and this.”

Bill caught the odd object Jack tossed to him. He turned the box in his hands until he figured out the latch on the domed lid. With a perplexed frown, he looked up.

“A compass that doesn’t point north?” he asked incredulously. “Jack, I know you’re daft. And somehow that’s always worked for you. But this is beyond your usual level of insanity.”

“Then it’ll be useless to argue with me, eh mate?” Jack grinned. The candle flames laughed like madness in his dark eyes.

Bill felt a chill. For once, he wasn’t sure if he’d been joking. It had always been useless to argue with Jack Sparrow once he’d set his corkscrew mind. However, that had never yet stopped Bill from trying.

“You’ll lose most of the crew, you know,” he persisted, the mountainous problems with Jack’s proposition looming in his brain.

“And why is that?”

“There’s the curse, you bloody idiot. There ain’t a more superstitious lot than sailors. They’ll never agree to this venture.”

Acknowledging the truth of this, Jack shrugged. “Then I’ll just have to pick up another crew, won’t I?”

“The only men who will sail with you will be the ones who are too desperate to care about the curse or too canny to believe it,” Bill snapped.

“And which are you, Bill Turner?” Jack asked, deliberately not looking at Bill. He took a swig of rum and grimaced. This swill was really almost not worth drinking.

Bill waited until he had his captain’s attention again. “Oh, I believe in a curse all right,” he informed Jack bitterly. “I believe that the Treasure of Cortez is cursed to lure stupid, greedy pirates into disastrous attempts to sail to a location that no ship will ever survive.”

The silence only possible in a noisy taproom stretched out.

Finally, Jack spoke. “This isn’t about greed, Bill.”

“Oh, really? Then why don’t you enlighten me, Jack Sparrow? What is it about?”

“You said it yourself. I intend to succeed where everyone else has failed.” And now the look in Jack’s eyes was even more disturbing than the madness.

Bill buried his head in his hands, knotting his fingers in his hair.

Then the Black Pearl and all who sailed her were surely doomed. Captain Jack Sparrow was enchanted by the lure of an Epic Adventure, and he, Bootstrap Bill Turner, was cursed to follow him to hell.

~.~

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