Captain William Sark - Chapter 2: Port Plunder

Ar, what a load of rubbish this was. What a dirty great waste of good gold coins. Now I didn’t even have enough left for a few drinks down at the tavern. I took out my hipflask and took a few swigs of rum from it, enjoying the fresh sea air and warm sunlight on my face. It felt like I would be smelling fish for a week, but at least I was out of there now. The drink of rum steadied my mind like it always did, taking away the haziness and pounding headache I gained while apparently seeing my future.

I remembered something about my hipflask from my spirit swim, but I didn’t know exactly what. The details were already becoming hazy, fading like the memory after a night of too much booze. I absentmindedly scratched my arm and somewhere in the back of my mind was surprised that I had a limb there to scratch. That sage had messed with my mind pretty badly, I wondered if I would ever completely recover from the experience.

I was hungry, thirsty, and I still felt 20 or 30 years older than I was, and my leg was stiff like it was still wooden. Stumbling like a blind drunk, I walked away from the hut and down the golden sand towards the sea. These fish folk always made their little huts down near the sea so they were never far from the water. This particular one had got a spot of prime retail, because as far as I could see he was the only one on this stretch of coast, which I thought was a bit risky. Humans had mostly accepted these folks since they crawled out of the ocean because of their knowledge and their strange powers with nature, and sometimes the unnatural.

It was testament to their docile and thoughtful nature that they never tried to take over, and it was testament to man’s violent and not-so-thoughtful nature that they never even got a chance too. They were basically second class citizens, but a few ones like Sage Sabahda got away with a lot more because their powers were stronger than the others. But still, a crowd of drunken fishermen might decide to take it on themselves to do a little lynching if they got sick of the stench and the cryptic words, and town and port weren’t very far away from here. A brave fish indeed, I suppose I did quite like him. He knew how to dish out and take a good insult, an important thing in a man (or fish man).

I walked into the water up to my waist, I was soaking anyway so it didn’t really matter, and I bent over and splashed some water onto my face. It made me feel a bit better, it always seems too. As the water stilled I caught my reflection and was relieved, and again distantly surprised to see myself young (well, younger). My hair was still a dark black, my eyes were a dark deep blue, and my small excuse for a beard was also the same as my hair, a deep black that could never be mistaken for brown, even in the sunlight. I had none of the scars crisscrossing my face that I did in the vision, and I of course still had both eyes.

It was bizarre to feel like a stranger in this body, but I was sure the feeling would pass eventually. I was also sure that the damn fish man should have warned me about all this nonsense before I sat down with him and ate those strange pills, but it’s not like it would have changed anything. I was determined to see my future, even if the side effects included an identity crisis and aches and pains. Hell I would have even if the side effects made my balls drop off.

Fully ready to ignore the fish man’s warning and rush head long towards the Lost Ocean and possibly my death in order to prove that I was the master of my own destiny, I had neglected one thing, that damn map. There was a whole great world covered in water out there for me to sail across trying to find it, and since the flood there was a heck of a lot more water and a lot less land out there. I could spend my entire life blinding searching and never find it. I needed that map, and I would have it. Whether he gave it willingly or I pried it from his cold dead stinky fishy hands was down to him.

I turned and walked out of the water, grimacing slightly at the discomfort of having the sea water and stifling heat stick my clothes to my stinking body. Before I went after that map I would have to clean up and get some booze and grub in me. Then it would be time to act a bit more like a pirate and less like some sissy standing in the water contemplating his life and future.

***
The town wasn’t that far away, which was weird because it was on the opposite side of the island. It was a small island, basically having the town on one side, a bit of a jungle in the middle and then ol’ Sage Sabadha all by himself on the far beach. From what I’d heard he was quite helpful to the town’s people, what with his powers to see the future, his mindreading, and his knowledge of potions and medicines. So they probably let him live relatively peacefully and have his own fair chunk of the island himself.

This wasn’t argued by most people that came to the island, because most people that came here were pirates, because this was a pirate settlement, full of pirates. Did I mention pirates? Pirates pirates pirates. Anyone who complained of their ways was likely to end up floating face down in the ocean. As it stood, the town was so small, along with the island, that they were basically named as one, and named unimaginatively. It was called Port Plunder, I am not telling ye a fib. I assumed that no one would trifle with pirates, and therefore no one would trifle with the Sage, except for me, and I would do it quietly and then raise anchor and haul my booty before anyone caught on, but I was wrong. As it transpired, it was funny how constantly wrong a man who has seen the future can be.

I entered the town through the large wooden gates on the jungle side, where a few pirates stood guard in towers. A wonky sign hung stating ‘Port Plunder - “Ar”!’ which was basically the motto of the town. The guards were pirates who lived on the island and they worked in shifts to protect the settlement. On the jungle side they were watching for anyone boarding the island away from the port, but also watching out for any beasts that may lurk in the jungle waiting to steal out and try and slaughter the town.

Land creatures were strange since the flood, they had changed, and became very vicious, and you didn’t mess with any of them. There were beetles the size of dolphins with jaws that could rip you in half before ye could blink, and that was about the safest of it.

But never mind that, I’m rambling, I walked into town, uncontested by the guards because I am of course a pirate. There’s worse pirates than me out there, but there’s also better, I like to try and stay somewhere in the middle. I would kill a man, but never a woman. I have a good moral compass. Everything in the town was pretty much built from wood from the jungle, so there were a lot of unstable looking buildings around, most of them only one floor tall, because two floors was risky business. The ground was dirt and sand, hard packed from years of pirates and civvies travelling across it to and from the port.

I made my way down the main street towards the port, and towards my beautiful ship, The Swordfish. Before I owned it, it was called Red Rose, which I thought was not a pirate name at all, and in fact very girly. It was for this very reason that me and my crew at the time snuck on board it one night it was in port on an island very far from here, slaughtered the crew, tossed them into the sea, and then made off with the ship.

I came up with the name Swordfish, because the vessel can reach incredible speeds, and the mermaid maidenhead on the front of it has a massive pointy hooter on her. It warmed my heart considerably to know that however long it was in the future, I would still have her with me. It didn’t really matter to me at the moment that I would have a wife and kids. I was still young, and such things seemed an eternity away, especially for a pirate.

I was passing a tavern called The Lusty Anchor, which was a ridiculous name and had an even more ridiculous sign. There was a carving of an anchor with eyes and luscious lips, winking seductively. There was a commotion inside and my first mate Joseph Pearl came busting out, obviously anxious about something. Joseph was usually quite a calm man but when he was worried he got seriously worried, and he was nigh on impossible settle down. I was standing there with my undergarments soaked and sticking up my butt crack and I didn’t want to hear this, but I was suddenly on edge.

“Captain! I’ve got news.” He said breathlessly.
“What nature of news?” I responded.
“Good and Bad.”
“Let me hear the good first.”
“Why do you always do that, surely you want to hear the bad first, and then the good afterwards to soften the blow?” He asked, always puzzled by this despite his anxiety.
“Why do ye always need to pry? What’s the good news?”
“Well, the rum is dirt cheap in here and the barmaid has been giving me the eye all day.” He said, grinning broadly.
“That’s just bloody fantastic.” I wasn’t being sarcastic. “What’s the bad news?”

“Well…” He started. Joe was the opposite of me in a lot of ways, dark blonde hair, brown eyes, a lot scrawnier, but he was quick on his feet, strong, and brave. Despite his ease at getting anxious, he knows when he needs to stay calm, and he has the fighting spirit of a sea lion (as land lions are long extinct so that’s not really a good comparison).

“Uh…” He muttered
“Out with it Joe,” I was getting impatient. The saltwater drying was giving me a rash.
“Captain, the mayor says that we have to leave by nightfall, he says that we are inviting danger to the island and he can’t risk sheltering us any longer.”
I had heard this before, it wasn’t really a surprise. Danger seemed to follow me, and since I gained a crew and a ship, it followed them too. Always looming over the horizon like a spectre, if my vision of my future was anything to go by it would continue to-

“Captain?” He said, interrupting my train of thought. He should know by now this is a bad idea. I would pick up my deciphering of my ridiculous and impossible future when I had some damn peace and quiet, without having someone read my mind or try to pick it apart with questions.
“What? What is it dammit?”
“What are we going to do? We have to leave tonight.” Irritable, that’s another thing he was. Irritating and irritable.

“Ah well.” I sighed.
“Ah well, Captain? That’s it?” Trying to disguise his surprise.
“Aye, ah well. Are the rest of the crew inside?”
“Aye aye.”
“Good, let’s get some rum.”
His jaw hung open for a minute, and then he burst into a laugh and followed me inside as I pushed through the swinging doors.