There was no denying that memory was sometimes a burden he could have done without carrying, and this was certainly one of those times. The voices were still hovering on the wind and not even the harsh rasp of his breathing seemed to drown them out. Ever since the sun had flashed green for his soul he had fought to leave the memories of the revelations of the locker behind him; day and night, through wind and rain and blood he had struggled to pull the pieces of his fractured self together. Yet he had only half succeeded, even before Barbossa had abandoned him at Tortuga. In the face of that abandonment, and the arrival into his lifeof this strange woman and her ship, he had redoubled his efforts to leave his doubts behind him, just as he had left his two separated selves behind in the brig of the Dutchman, but it worked less often than was to his taste. Here, with the blank whiteness calling to those memories, and with little to distract him but the discomforts, it was harder than usual.

It was a long walk and he feared that he'd be plagued by introspection all the way there.

Jack did not often spend time thinking about his own nature, at least he hadn't in the past; in fact he was aware that he did it less than perhaps he should. But he had learned several hard lessons years ago, not least that men were what they were and that there was no going back; and that having right and truth on your side did not of itself assure justice, or even the protection of the law, not when power and wealth were involved. Unlike many others he had known he had not forgotten the things he had learned, even those that were uncomfortable; he never allowed himself to lose sight of the fact that sorry did not make it all better, nor was the world well lost for love, and those who thought it did, or was, were deluded fools. He knew himself to be many things, after the locker there was no getting away from most of them, even if he wanted to, but he was not a fool of any kind. He had his rules and he stuck to them, but he was aware that they were not the rules of god fearing society and he did not blame those who used their own rules against him. But now, as he struggled up the towering dunes in the searing heat of the sun and recollection, he wondered which of his rules he was obeying.

'Why am I doing this again?' he asked himself.

Barbossa had stolen his ship twice, had left him to die twice, and yet he could not raise his hand against the man. More than that he was back in hell trying to find a way for his old enemy to find a way out of his own hell. Why? Why was he doing this?

As he struggled across the top of the dune and began the undignified slither down the other side, he cursed himself for being a fool after all. Would Barbossa do the same for him? Not bloody likely! The old reprobate would have laughed at his plight and tossed him over the side had their roles been reversed. So why, then, was he doing this?

Because this time Barbossa had left him safe ashore rather than dying of thirst? Lunacy! The man had stolen his ship whatever else he had done. So why couldn't he just find him a safe berth and leave him for nature to take its remorseless and unforgiving course?
'To prove you are the better man.' Came the answer from some small part of him.
' I'm Captain Jack Sparrow! I've no need to prove anything! Done that already, and a thousand times over,' he told himself sternly. 'Done it so bloody often it's getting tedious!'
The shrunken head on his belt swung against his thigh as if to mock him,
'Do you not?' the little voice taunted again, tipping a metaphorical wink in the direction of the gruesome trophy.
Jack scowled down at the sands slipping away beneath his boots but, somehow, could find no further answer to the charge.

For a moment he stopped to drawn breath and mop his face with the tails of his scarf. Behind him he heard Raggetti draw a heaving sigh, while Ironnson on his left bent forward, hands on knees, head hanging trying to seek the shade of his own body for a moment to ease his scorched and sand encrusted eyes. Jack watched him without expression but he felt a slight surge of contempt, now the stupid bugger would know why his captain wore kohl!

On his right Elanor was standing upright drawing deep gasps of the hot air, her own eyes narrowed against the glare. She had left her darkened lenses on her ship but she too had lined her eyes with something dark and glistening, and for a moment he wondered if she had picked up the trick the same place as he had, or whether everyone in her strange world knew of it. They certainly knew something of the sun and its power for her fair skin showed no sign of scorching, unlike Murtogg whose nose looked close to blistering. Ironnson too appeared a little over cooked in places and Raggetti's cheekbones had the tint of raw meat. He saw the three men looking at the lady with something close to awe, for not only was she wearing the heat with more ease than they, but she had kept pace with them with no apparent effort, at least with no more effort than anyone else.

Jack was not surprised, having seen her negotiate the forests and sands surrounding the water of life, and having felt the strength in those elegant hands. If it came to a physical tussle between her and any of these men she might well be more than a match for them, assuming she was ruthless enough, and he rather thought that she might be. He cast her a surreptitious look as they stood and stared into the white horizon, there was steel in her to be sure, real steel, not the hubris of youth, and the desolation of grief, that had fired Elizabeth to fight.

Unlike the governor's daughter the lady was disciplined too. There were times when he could almost see her maybe-ancestor the Commodore standing at her shoulder and nodding his approval. No, Barbossa would not have found her the easy clay to meld that he had found in Elizabeth. But that did not mean that she was soft, she was not, and like the Commodore she would probably be a ruthless and efficient enemy in the right circumstances. Personally he had no ambition at all to put that assumption to the test.

In fact she was rather like himself, at least sometimes he rather fancied that she was. And he had no ambition to test that either. Well not a lot., or rather not to test all of it,.. bits of it he wouldn't mind the chance of testing at all now he came to think about it. Which he didn't ..think about.. or rather didn't let himself think about at all.. or at least not very often.

He shot her a sideways glance, her face was inscrutable in the hard light and her pose was all of confidence, though she could be no more comfortable in the presence of his crew than they were in hers. Yes, he was sure that she was like him in many ways. More than was comfortable at times if he were honest about it All in all he was glad she was here, and very determined that she would not discover that fact. If she didn't already know it, which given her far sightedness in other matters she might well be.

"Is it much further captain?" Raggetti asked, sending a rather nervous look in Jack's direction as if aware he was breaking into his captain's private thoughts.
Jack seemed to take a moment to come back from wherever his mind had been, and then he shrugged,
"Mile or two."
"Long way in this heat." Ironnson grunted.
"Aye it is." Mutrogg agreed.
"Get no shorter standin' here and contemplating it." Jack replied and strode forward.
The three men cast him wary glances for his tone was abrupt and, in some indefinable way, threatening.

Murtogg looked at him nervously for a moment longer, he still hadn't fully reconciled the man he had met on the docks at Port Royale with the pirate captain of these last weeks and the more he saw of him the less he could work it out. Sometimes they seemed to be two different people, for the man that he and Mullroy had driven off the Interceptor, the one whose stories had whiled away a hot and tedious morning, had not seemed particularly dangerous. Nor had the dripping man they had put in chains only a short time later; in fact that man had seemed a cringing fool, almost servile in the face of the Commodores taunts, just as the man they had taken off the island with Miss Swann had seemed. Yet there was nothing of the fool and no servility about the man standing on these blistering sands, nor had there been in the one who had commanded the Pearl on its journey here. It was a paradox that confused him and made him uncertain of how to react to his new captain, made him wary when around him, after all he was used to officers who behaved as such all the time.

But, Mullroy had reminded him, Mr Sparrow had been clever too, and sure of himself and his plan even then, which was true enough.

Only when he recalled the man who had held the chain to Miss Swann's neck, the one with the steely look in his eye and the command in his voice as he stared down the Commodore, did the memories come together. Then he understood that, unlike his own commanders, Jack Sparrow was as pliant as a willow wand and he would be what ever it took to survive, but that at the core he was as determined and dogged as Mr Norrington had ever been. Dangerous most certainly, but clever and adaptable too, and perhaps, given the circumstances, no more capricious than his erstwhile commander.

But it was the dangerous bit that was the fore for the moment Murtogg realised as he watched Jack swagger away, despite the difficulties of walking on the deep, hot, sand. He recognised the same harmonics in the now familiar voice as he had heard that far away day on the dockside at Port Royale. Jack Sparrow was not happy in the situation he found himself in but he was going to follow it through, and they were going to follow him while he did it, for his captain was not in the mood to be questioned or reasoned with. They would go where he wanted them to go. Some instinct that he couldn't put a name to said that only the lady could turn the captain away from his goal, and it seemed that she was not inclined to.

Wearily he trailed in the pirate's wake without further protest.

***

The sun had grown hotter as they walked, yet Jack knew that they could not afford to stop for long if they were to make it to shelter before noon when the high mists would be gone and the sun would be at its most fierce and relentless. He was aware as well that the men were tired and restless and uneasy, so the sooner the business was begun the better. They would not turn against him but much longer in this heat and they would be useless for any thing, unfortunate if the need for something should arise. Better to push on and get under cover as soon as it could be managed.

He was right about the unease, each of them feeling an oppression that went beyond the heat and the glare, as if some other force lay heavy on their shoulders despite the desolation of the place. Raggetti in particular was finding the place worryingly familiar and he had no doubt that his captain was too, which made the whole business even more eerie. The sands had flattened out beyond the dunes and Jack halted for half a stride and checked his direction with compass, and then he strode out into the flat strip of desert behind them. On the horizon they could see the shadows of mountains, blue grey in the shimmering heat, and each man felt a sinking of the heart as they thought he might expect them to walk that far in the full glare of the sun.

But it seemed that he did not, instead he turned right and skirted the dunes heading up the coast away from the place they had landed.

As they walked the dunes grew taller still, their slopes becoming steep and insurmountable, like small mountains made of sand. Looking around her Elanor couldn't help but wonder if they were natural or manmade, and if the latter then who had built them? Was that who Jack had come in search of? Might as well be for all he had told them of their goal. All they could see was sand, and in the distance the blue shadows of the mountains, smudged and secretive, for there was no sign that anyone lived here at all.

Then, after twenty minutes or so of wearying and leg-wrenching walking came the first sign of occupation as the interminable sand was broken by something more solid.
Ahead of them an outcrop of rock appeared, a hard angled slab wedged between sentinels of towering sand. Jack took a few more paces then paused for a moment and they all stared in silence as more outcrops appeared from within the glare; a row of markers it seemed, hard stone blasted into strange shapes by that same sand that stood between them and the sea, standing like bulwarks between shore and desert, pointing the way to the far off mountains.

After a moment of looking the captain pushed on towards them, halting at the base of the first one and running his right hand carefully over the rough, sand pitted surface with a look of concentration. He stood fro a moment , hands on hips considering the stone he had just touched, then he checked his bearing again and moved forward once more, making his way into the avenue of leafless stone trees, wending his way between two of the taller ones. More tall stones were appearing from the haze, a double line of them stretching out along the sands, going nowhere it seemed. Yet Jack had his head down as he walked forward, watching the ground, as if he knew exactly where he was going but needed to mind his footing. Elanor followed him without hesitation but the other men paused for a moment longer, looking in despair at the desolation around them, before they did the same. Feeling a hint of something they could quite catch as they moved into the orbit of the stone, a feeling that grew stronger as they made their way further in.

***

"What's he up to? That's what I wants to know? Why be we here?"
Pintel was not a happy man and it showed in both his face and voice. When that demand brought no answer he tried again, using another tack,
"Got no love for Barbossa we all knows that, so what's he doin'?"

Beside him Mr Gibbs wondered much the same, and, like Pintel, wished they were somewhere else; not that he planned on saying so to present company.

The two men were stood at the rail of the Pearl staring across choppy waters to the small inlet where the longboat sat abandoned. Gibbs wished he could have gone too, but the man at his side was a constant reminder of why that couldn't be. He looked towards the other man for a moment, noting the worry lines around the glaring eyes and the tension in the balled fists with understanding, knowing that Raggetti was this unlovely man's only friend, and so he answered the question rather than just curse the man back to his work.
"Aye. Jack got no love for Barbossa 'tis true, but its not that what brings him here to my view."

Pintel hissed a sigh,
"Then what be it? No plunder to be had here, no profit at all, so why he drag us to this pile of sand!"
He cast Gibbs an uncertain look,
"Captain Jack's different in some way, always was strange but now he's.. stranger. Looks different too. Well, looked different when he came back from the locker but now he's different again. You must have noticed it. " He narrowed his eyes in sudden thought, "looks more like I remember him from way back, not the same.. but more like."
Gibbs held his breath and hoped that Pintel of all people hadn't noticed more than that, for he had noted the subtle changes himself, and understood what it meant too. Not something he was inclined to discuss with this mutinous rotter though.
"That's your conscience speaking," he scoffed, "having committed mutiny against him twice."
"'Aint so I says. Weren't mutiny anyways, left him alive didn't we? But that not what I mean, and you know it, he looks... " Pintel, an inarticulate man most of the time, struggled for the right words for what were little more than vague impressions and uneasiness, "less.. resigned, less weary."

It wasn't the right word and he knew it, but it was the best that he could do. Certainly while Gibbs was looking at him in this bulge eyed way, Mr Gibbs tended to get a bit touchy when captain Jack's state of health were mentioned, and it had been mentioned amongst the crew many times. He and Raggetti had remarked to each other on the change in captain Jack but neither had been able to explain quite what it was that seemed changed. Not given to staring their captain in the face were they, and so it was hard to explain quite what was different, but something certainly was. Only Raggetti had come close to an observation they could all agree on when he said that it looked as if Captain Jack had had his first good night of sleep in a long, long time. As if all the weariness that had come back from the locker with him had been slept away and with it the scars of past times.

Gibbs was still glaring at him so he hurried back into speech,
"Not sayin' that he's any crazier than he's ever been just. different. But if he not be crazy then why has he brought us here?"
Gibbs thought for a moment then shrugged,
"Same as them other changes you claim to see. Bein' dead, that's at the bottom of it to my way of thinking. That and words."
Gibbs ire seemed to have melted away and now Pintel risked a glare of his own,
"Words? Words! Pox on them words then!"
That bought him a grim smile,
"Might well be, given who said 'em." He looked out towards the shore again and spoke almost to himself, "Jack has no more love for his sire as he has for Barbossa, but he is inclined to heed the words of a man who lived so long and survived as much as Teague has. Given that he has ambitions to do the same."

Pintel turned a disbelieving look on him,
"Teague, what it got to do with the keeper? Weren't the keeper's biddin' what brought him here to this wasteland."
Gibbs seemed to think about how to answer that for a moment, and then he sighed,
"Were and it weren't you might say. A bit o' Teague and bit of Miss Elizabeth is at the bottom of this I'm thinkin'"
"Mrs Turner? Her! What's she got to say to it?"
Gibbs shot Pintel a serious look,
"Condemned him to hell she did and he alone knows what that meant. Havin' been there though. well.he'll not go that road hisself if he can avoid it. Captain Cavendish now, she told him that to leave Barbossa like this is as good as doin' so. Put that with the fact that Teague told him that it's a man living with himself that counts, and you ends up here is my reckoning. Whatever he thinks of Barbossa I'm guessing that Jack's doin' this as much for his own sanity as anything."

"Barbossa will not thank him for it, whatever the reason." Pintel growled before Gibbs words really sunk in.
Then he stared across at the white ship anchored not far away before rounding on Gibbs once again, this time in outrage
"Her, you says her! Captain o' that ship be a her do it?"
Gibbs cursed himself silently but nodded,
"Aye." He said reluctantly
Pintel almost danced in his rage,
"Another one! Another hussy a'leadin him by the balls and draggin' us all to our doom! Wasn't poppet bad enough, she and her stiff bummed lad. Look where havin' her aboard got us! The locker is where it got us. Now he brings another one down on us! What's this one after?"

Gibbs thought about that for a moment,
"I don't know that she wants anything at all, at least I've never heard her ask for anything, from Jack or anyone else. Which is enough to intrigue Jack Sparrow o'course."
'Better not to mention her ghost for the moment', he decided as he shot Pintel a warning look,
"But she be a proper captain this one, a lady too, as ever there was one,"
The same warning was in his voice for he'd not have Pintel cross the lady and bring the wrath of that ghost and her tame lightning down upon them,
"But an officer and a captain through and through, and as proper a sailor as the Commodore were before the rum got him. You'll be remembering that if you should meet her. She might not take it amiss if you don't but you can be sure that Jack will be doing so."
Pintel glowered,
"She!" he said in open disgust.

Gibbs gave a rueful smile at his tone,
" Aye, but not like Miss Elizabeth at all, except in one matter, if she were to take anything amiss I would not want to be in the shoes she were takin' amiss to. Though she might well not need steel to make her displeasure felt, if you take my meanin'"
"Just a lass all said and done," Pintel grunted.
Gibbs shook his head,
"Aye well, you'd not say that if you'd felt the strength of her arm. Not even Barbossa would have complaint in that."
He nodded towards the Dawn Chaser,
"Fine ship that be and good to have beside us in a tight spot, the lady captain too. I've seen her hold her own in a fight and a sight it was indeed. Has some very powerful ways does the lady captain and you'd best be remembering it."

Pintel rolled his eyes,
"So where did he find this one then?" He didn't sound reconciled to the situation.
"Who knows?" Gibbs shrugged, "Jack be Jack and if there is a little craziness floatin' around them it's sure to land on his shoulders; particularly if the craziness happens to be of the female persuasion too. Has always been the way of it. You know that."
"Aye, I knows it, but I don't likes it. Makes me wish for Barbossa back it do."
Gibbs frowned and turned a threatening look on the sailor, his hand going to the pistol in his belt,
"Would you now?"
The menace was clear in his voice and Pintel back tracked quickly,
"Not really. Anyways he's as weird as Captain Jack now and I can't see him a getting much better. Lied to us about that there fountain too."
Gibbs cast him a measuring look but there was no sign that the man knew anything about Jack's foray to that place, 'better it stays that was too, ' he thought, 'at least for a while.'
"You remember that if ye be tempted to mutiny again, Jack is easy enough most times but try that again and I wouldn't be so sure it won't be the plank he rolls out for ye. Now back to your duties, we need to be ready to quit at a moments notice so I want this ship ready for anything that comes a'lookin'"

He watched Pintel hurry away for a moment before looking back towards the dunes; for the hundredth time since they had left the shoreline he wondered where they were and how they were faring. He let his eyes drift up to the milky sky, a sky that was nigh on impossible to read even for a man with as many years experience of weather as he had, and hoped they wouldn't be too long.

***

Between the pillars of rock the light and the dark stood side by side, white hot glare folded in with knife sharp shadows of something more than black. Anything or anyone could hide in these tears in the daylight and each man reached for a weapon without thought, their steps slowing as they scanned the spaces around them for any hint of movement or other threat. Elanor put her hands to her belt to check the tasar then eased a pistol butt higher in her belt to give a faster draw; she hoped that she didn't have to use it, given that she had modified it a little. Raggtti, staring suspiciously at a particularly threatening looking rock, he thought he could make out the shape of letters or pictures on its surface and he felt a shiver of dread pass down his back. For reasons he couldn't explain he was sure that something or someone was watching them.

Jack seemed unconcerned, or rather grimly determined, for his mouth was set in a straight line and there was a deep fold between his brows. Without a word he strode on ahead, weaving around the rocky outcrops as if he knew his way. He hoped that he did.

As he rounded a corner he got his answer, for he saw a wider avenue of similar, but larger, stones stretching away from him, running parallel with the sea. These were more obviously shaped and carved and topped in places by ornate caps that might once have carried statues, though those seemed long gone, all trace of them lost beneath the sands. Relief swept through him realising that he was near his destination, for he had seen these columns once before. Elanor looked around her, the stones original height was masked by the sand deposited by time, and the wind, around the base of them and between them, but it was clear even now that they would have been so impressive as to be terrifying when they were first placed here. Which was what they must had been intended to be, for this avenue was no natural occurrence but the painstaking work of men.

A work with a purpose, though that had been lost long ago, at least for most people.

Without a so much as a glance behind him Jack set off down between the towering pillars,
"Keep to the centre ground, away from the shadows," he threw over his shoulder as he strode away.
Elanor watched him with grimly narrowed eyes for a moment, then she followed his lead; the men fell in behind her, each looking around fearfully as they progressed between the stones.

Perhaps a quarter of a mile further on the avenue turned inland in a graceful sweep and Jack followed it with the others strung out behind him. Ahead of them the knife edged shadows cut black swathes across the white glare of the sand, and as they stared into that hard light they thought they saw the outline of a different shadow on the ground before them. As they got closer it became clear that this shadow was not shade cast by the towering rocks, instead it marked a dip in the sand, a deep depression from the look of it. Jack seemed to be heading for it, a hint of weary relief in the set of his shoulders as if this was where he had been going and was glad to arrive. Closer still and it could be seen that the shadow laid on the sand was the lip of a steep stone slab that inclined down below the level of the sands. Elanor suppressed a groan at the sight, what was it about Jack and holes in the sand! At least this time he didn't expect them to have to dig, or if he did it would be with their hands for they had not brought spades.

But as they approached the dark edge it became clear why this was, there would be no need for digging this time, for this was a pathway, and it had been kept open by someone for some purpose. But someone who didn't welcome visitors, not to judge by the intricate, and very closed, gate of carved black rock, a gate complete with an elaborate, square barrelled, lock.

Raggetti edged forward and put a hesitant hand upon the bars either side of the lock then shook them gently and with a wary look on his face, the gate didn't move.
"Locked," he said with some relief, "So what now captain?"
His hopeful tone suggested he was wishing that they could leave it locked but Jack's silence told him otherwise and he sighed,
" Try a knife blade? " He pulled his knife from his belt, "or do we put a pistol ball through it and hope that does the trick?"

Jack shot him a slightly shocked look,
"No need," he said, "not when you have the key."
With that he reached up and pulled the whalebone needle from its place beside his temple, then he unthreaded one of the intricately carved trinkets from his hair and inserted the needle into the hole it had been threaded on, pushing it half way in and twisting. They locked together as if they were made to, the two becoming one slender square ended key. He moved closer to the gate and gingerly put the trinket end into the gate lock and pushed it home, drawing a deep breath he slowly turned the needle key until he heard the tumblers of a lock click. Then, with a slight smile and a flourish he pulled the key from the lock, pausing to break it down into its components, securing them back in their usual place, before pushing the gate open with one hand. It swung away silently as if newly oiled.
He looked back at them with a devilish smile,
"Shall we?"
Then he strode through the gate.

Elanor watched him for a moment with raised brows, wondering what other strange artefacts he might have scattered about his person, and then, with a slight shake of her head, she set off after him.