Death Whispers 30: A Quiet Place Between Heaven and Hell

Aug 8, 1722. Off the coast of Port Royal, Jamaica. Sailing through the gates of hell…

Author’s Note: Death Whispers of the Etherwave is a serialized fiction story that is a part of Legends of the Privateers. Each chapter will appear weekly.

Missed a chapter? (or ‘Episode’ if you like!) Well, never you worry, as we’re only just getting started! The full list of chapters will appears here!

Transformed by the cataclysm of 1712, Doctor Pedro Sangre and his four courageous privateer companions confront mysterious and evil forces that plague innocent people. Together, they grapple with uncanny forces and myths come to life, risking everything to preserve peace and set right what has gone wrong.

Previously: After brewing up the bait, Pedro, Lysander, and the others set the trap for Lucas Argall and his pirate allies. Pirates who eventually take the bait. But a dropped word or two hints at greater problems, and the eventual mad plan of the wood wraith… destroy an Arcane Gate no matter the devastation that might cause. Quick to stop them, Pedro and the crew of the Silk Duchess hurry off into unknown waters to stop a disaster…

Aug 8, 1722. Off the coast of Port Royal, Jamaica. Sailing through the gates of hell…

In a flash of power, we snapped through the Arcane Gate, expecting a fight. What we got was a private little war.

The world dropped out from underneath us before the Silk Duchess slammed down onto whitecaps and storm-tossed waves. Saltwater roared over the deck as we turned hard, cannons creaking ferally against their breech ropes.

“Fire!”

Elara’s shout cut the air like a hot saber. The deck lurched, cannon thundering out a broadside. Smoke belched over the sea like an angry dragon’s breath. Cannon shot tore over the waves, iron fists racing for the pirates.

Our broadside hammered the sloop’s foredeck and bashed into her bowsprit. Wood splinters erupted like a furious geyser. Men screamed as waves broke over the railing. Next to the sloop, the Rising Eel lurched hard, timbers shrieking, while she took her own black eye.

“Reload! Those pirates won’t sink themselves!”

Durner’s craggy voice was a peal of thunder across the deck. Gun crews raced to comply. The Silk Duchess crested another wave, then plowed ahead.

Behind us, Lysander’s Arcane Gate collapsed with a furious roar, winking out of existence. It gave the air a sudden sharp smell of spent magic.

Across the waves, the Rising Eel’s crew came alive, stung from the hit. Sails dropped, catching the strong wind. Beside her, the smaller black-sailed sloop lurched forward, still in the fight. Past them both, a mottled, battered wooden cargo barge floated next to Port Royal’s natural Arcane Gate.

Lysander’s timing with the gate had been perfect. The pirates weren’t ready for a fight, but had unloaded the bait. I saw the boxes sitting on that barge.

Sea spray from shattered whitecaps jumped over the deck, spattering everyone like a sideways storm. The tang of burnt powder mixed with scents of mild terror and eager excitement, sprinkled with brine.

I clutched the gunwale until my knuckles turned dead white. The tattoos on my right hand pulsed and glimmered, eager for a fight like everyone else. I wasn’t much different.

Dryden Storm had a lot to answer for, but I was focused on the greater of the two evils. The one I knew was the real problem.

“Where the hell are you, Lucas?” I murmured angrily, wiping the sea spray from my face.

A silent tug pulled at me, seductive and insistent. It was like dark silken spider webs picked at my heart, drawing my eyes to that barge. Then a devious siren’s song of death magic quietly reached my ears over the battle.

“The barge.” I nodded. “That’s where you are.”

I squinted at it while the pirate ships got underway. The barge rode low in the water, too low for the open sea. Its type was better suited for shoreline work. Battered and old, it’d seen better days. It was a miracle that thing had survived sailing to the Arcane Gate.

Finally, I spotted Lucas. He was the sole occupant on the barge, vomiting his stomach out. The shadow of a familiar overturned box of green potions lay beside him. Elixirs with enough graveyard syrup to quiet a city-sized necropolis, with a little spiced rum and hot peppers to give it that little kick.

Too bad he couldn’t hold down his rum or the graveyard syrup.

“Durner!” I yelled. “The wraith! He’s aboard the barge!”

The grimling Master Gunner’s rust-red beard split into a bright grin of violence.

“Oh really? More for the fish!”

Then he was off, shouting orders to the cannon crews.

I glanced from the barge to the Gate.

Arcane Gates are basically a force of nature. Something like a contained hurricane that hated everything. Ones, like what Lysander or other navigators created, were temporary, lasting minutes. Navigators could, and did, close them. If not, they collapsed on their own as the world expelled the magical invasion.

A natural Arcane Gate was something else entirely.

They were the first thing to appear in 1712. Deep, primal power given shape and function, but condemned to live in specific locations across the world’s oceans and seas. All of them anchored in place with each side of their arch rooted in a tiny rocky granite island.

Navigators alone could unlock them, but natural Gates never collapsed. Instead, they just hid from view until they sensed nearby ships. At which time, they would appear, even if they still needed to be opened.

I lost sight of both wood wraith and barge when the Rising Eel blocked it from view. The Eel dropped her gunports, stabbing the air with rage and iron. I ducked, pulling my tricorn hat low, shielding my eyes.

Pirate iron slammed into our deck, exploding wood in a storm of dying timbers. Splinters lanced out, eager for blood. Two cannons shattered while a snapped yardarm sailed out to sea. Shouts and screams of the crew filled the air thicker than old blood.

I bandaged who I could, then raced up the short steps to the helm. Anywhere to get a better look at Lucas and his barge. I nearly jumped out of my skin when Lysander materialized out of the powder smoke beside me.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Lucas.”

I said the name like a curse coated in rotten meat. At that moment, the Duchess turned hard to port, rigging aching for release, as we returned fire.

Our shots slammed against the Eel, knocking her askew. Shattered wood and nails were a sudden storm of death aboard the brigantine, breaking rigging and crew alike. A smoldering cannon broke loose, slipping out a new hole for the sea as an afterthought.

While the Duchess and Eel circled each other in a dance of death, the barge edged into view. Past the smoke, the old hauler was intact, still moored to the Gate. I slammed a fist on the railing.

“One good broadside into that barge could end this, or most of it,” I said, waving a hand in frustration in that direction.

Lysander scowled through the smoke. Two shots from the half-shattered, black-sailed sloop whistled overhead, missing our rigging by a foot. The navigator glanced between our cannons and the barge.

“We’ve turned too much. Nothing has a clear shot.” He shook his head bitterly. “If I judge Elara’s course, we’ll cut straight, then turn hard-a-starboard. That’ll put the barge to our port, just below our cannons.”

The Duchess spit iron again, this time at the black-sailed sloop. Broken, wet timber belched up and out as the small ship’s waterline vanished. The sloop almost collapsed in on itself while the sea slowly claimed her.

“That’s one!” Durner roared and our crew cheered.

I didn’t feel like celebrating.

“Clear and reload!” he called out. The order echoed down the line with crisp precision.

Then an idea hit me.

Ship battles weren’t constant blood and thunder. They were duels. Deadly dances of timing, distance, and misdirection.

Right then? Neither the Duchess nor the Rising Eel were ready, since the angles were all wrong. That would change in minutes as both ships rushed to be the first to fire.

“Cannons aren’t the only way to solve this,” I said, eyeing the bow of the Duchess, her rigging, then the barge.

Lysander followed my gaze, reading me far better than I liked, then swore under his breath, slapping the railing.

“A boarding action? On that barge? Now? Compass and coin, Pedro, do you just enjoy dancing on a grave’s edge? You’ll die before you get there.”

I scowled as repair crews scrambled around us, securing tattered rigging, knocked loose from the previous volley.

“No, I won’t. Listen.”

I pointed between the Silk Duchess and the barge.

“Our cannons won’t be able to hit the barge, but I could swing aboard. The Duchess will shield me from anyone aboard the Eel with a long rifle. Once on the barge, I ruin the ritual, Codex, maybe even Lucas. All of it. End the nightmare.”

Lysander’s mouth pulled into a thin line. I could tell he hated this idea, but he also saw the meat of it.

“This is insane,” he said in a brittle voice, rubbing his eyes. “I’m also insane, because it makes a kind of desperate sense.”

He glared at the Rising Eel while her crew frantically made what repairs they could. The brigantine turned, trying to catch the wind. On the barge, Lucas pushed to his knees, trying to get to his feet.

“Lysander, we’ll only get one chance at this,” I said firmly. “Lucas shook off a shot to the throat, so he’ll shake off those potions. I doubt he’ll fall for this twice.”

“Elara’s going to hate this,” Lysander groaned.

Given the brief lull in the battle, Elara had swept down from the helm in a mad blur of dragonfly-like wings to the deck. Her captain’s coat was now unbuttoned, singed, with two new smoking holes along the hemline. The cream-cotton shirt she wore was stained with a little blood. None of it hers.

She had rushed over to help pull a trapped crewman to safety, or safe enough to get him bandaged.

I locked eyes with her, and she froze. The wind caught loose strands of hair from her chestnut braid, tossing them about in a wild flurry. A hard flicker touched her jade-gold eyes before she side-eyed that battered barge, then me.

If Lysander could sometimes read me like a book, Elara had me memorized.

She took one last check on the two bruised crewmen, then turned on her heel, storming over to us. Mouth pulled into a complicated line, she planted her boots, snatching me close by my collar. I nearly stumbled off my feet.

“Asa mvur,” she said in a low, hard voice, barely audible over the chaos. “If you die, I’ll find a way to bring you back, then murder you proper. We clear?”

A lopsided grin tugged at my face.

“For you, querida?” My grin widened. “Crystal.”

There was more, but it was said with a look. Memories of a bloody battlefield, mud-stained bandages, and too many spells from the Etherwave rolled between us. She glanced at Lysander from the corner of her eye.

“That goes double for anyone with him.”

Never a fool, Lysander touched a hand to his forehead.

“Understood, Captain.”

With a last silent look to me, along with words we didn’t say out loud, she let go. It was completing a ritual we’d performed a dozen times before.

In the end, she was the captain of the Silk Duchess. I was just an alchemist. We both knew what we had to do.

Elara barked orders in rapid succession like a series of rifle shots on an icy day. Like always, her confidence alone painted a fresh coat of polished resolve on the crew.

At the same time, I ran to the port side with Lysander, ducking errant bits of cord and sail. Physical pain in my left shoulder gave way to a bright burn of worry. There wasn’t time to think, only to just keep moving.

Minutes passed like seconds. A half attempt at a broadside from the Rising Eel bounced off our hull. Our reply was better, cracking timber above her waterline.

Off to port, the old weathered barge was still moored to the Gate. Sure enough, at the center, sat the Codex resting on a cobbled together pedestal of former crates. But it wasn’t just sitting quietly.

That book breathed with a dark power.

Soot-stained symbols traced around those crates writhed in the sun. A light haze, like an angry shadow, paced around the book. It reminded me of a wild animal caged too long. Finally, whispering black smoke curled off the Codex pages, rich with dark promise.

Next to the barge, the Arcane Gate loomed impossibly large. Each glowing rune, compass mark, and other symbols that lined the massive arch looked carved by a crazed titan with a ragged chisel.

I felt it staring down at me expectantly, primal magic churning along its length. But mostly the Gate waited. Watching. Wary.

Lucas, having heaved even the faintest memory of a meal to the deck, stared hate at me. I gave back double. He was five yards, if that, from the Codex.

Elara’s sudden shout snapped the tension, shooting ice through my soul.

“They’re coming in!” she bellowed, yanking her glowing ghost blade free of its scabbard. “Prepare for boarders!”

Somehow, the Rising Eel was right there on us. Ropes with grappling hooks flooded the sky. Some missed, others hooked the Duchess, and a dire few hooked crewmates.

Captain Storm was the first across. Elara met him as soon as the pirate’s boots touched our deck, swords crossing in an ugly clash of steel. Lysander grabbed me on the shoulder, while Ari and Skaldi raced over to join my mad gambit.

“Now or never!” Lysander yelled.

The tattoos on my hand burst to life the instant I grabbed the rope to swing over to the barge.

“Yes, Doctor,” the mysterious voice whispered out of those flames. “It’s now or never…”

Over on the barge, Lucas shoved himself to his feet, stumbling for the Codex. Dark mist swirled around his hands.

I looked back at the Duchess, my friends, the crew, and finally Elara. Below me, the waves churned, boiling like a watery abyss of whitecap and salt spray.

With a resigned sigh, I stepped off the side into that quiet, empty space between heaven and hell.

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Hoist the Colors is a work of pure, unabashed fiction. Actually, when it's not swinging off the rigging, or shivering some timbers, it's rather shy and retiring. Did I mention it enjoys baking? Names of characters, places, events, organizations and locations are all creations of the author’s imagination for this fictitious setting. So he really is all to blame here.

Any resemblance to persons living, dead, shoved overboard, or reanimated is coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author's, since the characters and the author tend to disagree a lot.