Once it must have been an awesome place, one to intimidate and terrify even the bravest and most ungodly. The carved and fluted pillars must have towered to the sky, the quartz within the red stone glittering like hidden rubies in the sunlight.

Once.

Then the shadows around the sunken court would have been tricked out with a thousand lamps, their tiny flames showing diamond bright against the velvet blackness of the secret places beneath. Their light striking sparks from the eyes of the statues that must have stood on the massive plinths between the columns. Silks and fine gemstones might have clothed those statues, bright as the paint that once filled the outline of the frescos around the pillars.

Once.

The wide shallow bowls would have held water no doubt, they were to large to have contained anything else, scented perhaps and scattered with flower petals, maybe even flaked gold. Their calm surface echoing back the bright colours of the birds that had been painted on their gilded inner surface, and the robes of those who would have moved amongst them.

Once.

But that had been long ago and the glory that had dwelt here then was long gone.

Now the sunken court was an empty and barren arena, lined with needles of rock that bore only faint remnants of the fine chiselling of their heyday, the niches between them black shadows that were no doubt home to lizards and spiders, the squatting plinths like broken teeth in the mouth of an ancient whore. Here and there, in a sheltered spot where the blasting sand was less efficient, a pale ghost of colour still showed, and even a semi precious gem or two remained in those places where greedy or desperate hands had not been able to reach.

The splendour was long gone and with it any certainty of what this place had been, though Jack seemed to know and Elanor could guess.
"Xanadu," She whispered to herself, though she knew that it wasn't,
Jack looked back over his shoulder and shot her a surprised glance, then stared around him and nodded slowly,
"Maybe, maybe not," he whispered back, "Similar sort of thing I expect. Long ago now, and the people who built it well forgotten."
"Must have been something very special once, to someone."
"Not argue that with you luv, you can feel it can you not? Seeping out of the stones."
He seemed to shudder slightly then he squared his shoulders and flicked an expressive hand, "some powerful things were done here once."
Elanor stirred the sand in one of the few un-cracked stone bowls with a wary finger, then moved a shard of pottery on the floor with a careful boot,
"But not recently though. Nothing here now but lizards and memories."
The pirate just nodded again and took another step forward, raising his hand to brush the dust from the remnants of a carving before peering at it as if reading the ancient text.

Elanor watched him for a moment before asking the inescapable question.
"So why are we here Jack? What does this ruination of glory offer us?"
Slowly he turned away from the pillar and back towards her, with eyebrows raised,
"Other than an abject lesson on the futility of human vanity and power do you mean?" he asked her half seriously.
She gave him a hard look then smiled and nodded,
"Yes, other than that. Presumably you brought us here for a reason other than the good of our souls?"
" Aye, why are we here?" Ironnson spoke before Jack could respond to that, and for the first time since they had passed through the gate, "No treasure here, nothin' but sand an' stones. Don't look like anyone has been here in hundreds of years."
Raggetti nodded his agreement, his good eye wide and fearful as he looked around him. Elanor waited for Jack's reply but there wasn't one, so after a second or two she spoke into the silence,
"Someone has, maybe not recently, but within a man's lifetime."
Jack looked at her, his expression half shuttered, half wary, and she smiled slightly.
"You have been here, haven't you Jack?"

He met her eyes with a knowing look and there was silence for another second before he frowned and raised a wavering finger as if to protest, but just as quickly changed his mind and the frown melted as he smiled brightly,
"Yes."
There was reluctant admiration and some amusement in his voice but his shoulders were set and his other hand rested close to his pistol.
"By choice?"
That brought one of his wriggling shrugs, the one she had marked down as betraying mental discomfort of some form.
"Depends on your perspective, I'd say," he said eventually.
"Yours being....?" she invited.
"Was looking for something, so you might say it was my choice, then again as I was going where I was told I would find the .........something. you might say it was not."
'Only Jack would come up with an answer like that', she thought with an inward sigh.

"The something being..?" she prompted, not really expecting to get an answer.
Nor did she, at least not a spoken one,
"Just. something valuable. Treasure you might say."
He finished on a soft and bland note, and with an even brighter smile, but his eyes flickered for a moment to the compass that hung as always from his belt, before meeting hers again. She smiled just as blandly,
"And was it here, this treasure?"
"It was not."
"Ah, " she hitched her hip on the ledge of stone bowl and crossed her arms, "so why have you brought us here? There is a reason for that hike in the sun I suppose? Other than the fact you felt we needed exercise"
Jack looked away from her, staring in front of him with a set face and sombre eyes,
"There's a reason right enough."
He nodded to where the shape of the shadows ahead of them changed and the line of pillars became a circle,
"In there. What we have come for is in there."

***

"So you lost sight of her?" Admiral Norrington sounded unsurprised.
"Yes sir. If one were a fanciful man it would seem that the sea itself conspired to make it so."
Hathaway's voice was expressionless but the Admiral gave him a wary look anyway.
"Bringing us back to my nephew's journal again," he said eventually, "Davy Jones might well intervene for the Black Pearl, certainly if Sparrow does have some hold over him. He will know better than any one what that ship means to Sparrow, if the stories are true."
"If they are and if he does," Hathaway agreed. He paused for a moment recalling how bizarre that story was, then he shrugged, "but little else makes sense. The Dutchman certainly joined with the Black Pearl to destroy Beckett, all the reports agree on that, and I cannot see Jones doing so without some form of coercion. But there has been no sight of the Dutchman since that day, and certainly we saw nothing of her. If Jones is aiding Sparrow then it is covertly and not in the open manner that he helped Beckett."

Admiral Norrington thought about that for a moment. Outside the sounds of life told of the normal day to day struggles for existence, hawkers shouted in the market place, animals lowed, children shouted, and all that against the backdrop of the sound of wood being sawn and goods being moved. The familiar hum of life, its reassuring presence reminding the pair that, for most people, such a conversation as they were having would appear nothing short of lunacy. Yet the dead of Beckett's madness still lay in the mass graves, the undeniable marker of a carnage created for no other reason than to cause a song to be sung, or so James journal had suggested. What had his nephew made of that? The law set aside so that a rag tag fleet of pirates would be gathered, hundreds dead so that one man could remove the last barriers to Beckett's control of the sea and the untold wealth that might have brought him.

The admiral pushed that thought aside, James was dead and that could not be changed.
"My nephew implied that Jones had no love for Sparrow, less even than he had for most people, though he seemed to be unclear as to why that might be. If he was right about that then it seems unlikely that Jones would render Jack Sparrow any aid by choice. Except to spite Beckett perhaps, but he is dead."
Hathaway nodded,
"Maybe so, and I do not claim that Jones aided the Black Pearl to escape us, only that the luck of wind and sea seemed more than usually on their side."
Norrington sipped his tea as he considered that, then he shrugged,
"Sparrow has the reputation of being a lucky man, though my reading of him is that he is as clever as he is lucky. Do you think that he is at the helm of the Black Pearl after all?"
"No sir, it would make me less uneasy if I did. But I wouldn't have expected her to behave so strangely if he had been in command, unless some of the wilder stories about him are true and he is indeed mad."

The admiral shrugged again and set down his tea cup with a scrape,
"There are stories aplenty about him of course, and many of them would give a prudent man cause for thought. Most have been embellished no doubt, but maybe not as much as might be imagined in some cases."
He sat back and laced his fingers, frowning at the tea cup as if it had offended him,
" But I take it that you are referring to the stories of his death. You might indeed expect a man returning from death to be a little mad, but surely those stories at least cannot be true? My nephew made no mention of them."
The Admiral' brow contracted for a moment remembering some of the things his nephew had said in his most private journal. He shook his head,
"No, those at least must be falsehoods. Jones I will believe in because James says he existed and Groves claims to have seen him, and so I have to; but the idea of men returning from the dead cannot be true. If that were so then everything we believe in would be so much sand and there would be no truth to steer by at all!"

Hathaway shifted uneasily in his chair,
"With respect sir I am not sure that is not the case now. Aztec curses and undead sailors! What your nephew speaks of is enough to call much of what we hold dear into question, and that is only what he writes, what he implies is even more uncomfortable."
The Admiral nodded wearily,
"I know, and I wonder how much that experience explains James strange attitude to Sparrow and the loss of the Dauntless. My nephew was a conventional man, a good man but blinkered in some ways. He never doubted God or duty and his experiences with Sparrow and then Beckett must have tested those assumptions sorely. He set so much store by the beliefs of society, and his position within it, that seeing it challenged in that way must have been a grave shock. One from which a man such as James would not easily recover. "
"Unlike yourself sir?" Hathaway asked curiously, knowing that he was pushing beyond the bounds of naval etiquette and somehow unconcerned by the fact.

The admiral shot him a wry glance. How could he explain that he had been brought up to trust little while James had been fed on stories of honour and chivalry? He couldn't, though Captain Hathaway of all men might understand the distinction. But he had another answer that would meet the need, so he used it.
"I've served in most corners of the world, unlike James, and I've seen too much in my time to have trust in anything Captain Hathaway." He gave the other man a measuring look then smiled faintly, "in that I am much like yourself I suspect. Seen service in the East have you not? Sailed out of the African stations too?"
Hathaway nodded briefly, and the admiral continued with a half smile,
"We will both have encountered things that are not easily reconciled with the assumptions of the Church and polite society then."
"Yes sir, for myself I have."
Norrington nodded,
"Thought so, but James had sailed in more conventional waters. Europe mainly before he was posted here. Most of his command was spent chasing pirates or attending functions with the Governor, neither of which would broaden his mind noticeably, at least until Sparrow crossed his path. I doubt that he had ever met anyone of that ilk before, for James was not a man to fraternise with locals or seek cheap liaisons on the waterfronts. Might have been easier for him if he had."
Hathaway thought of that for a moment, recalling some of the things he had done and seen in name of king and country and wondered if that was the case. Perhaps, but then again when faced with Beckett and Jones, how much better would he have been prepared?
"That may well be true sir, " he said eventually.

Outside there was the sound of a canon being discharged and both men half rose, turning anxiously to the window, but the sound of an officers voice raised in anger reassured them and they resumed their seats. As they did so the admiral shot him a considering look and then reached for his teacup again, speaking over its rim,
"You knew Sparrow."
It was a statement, though he could not be sure, but Hathaway had spoken of the man in terms that implied such knowledge.

The captain was silent for a moment, occupying the time with sipping his rapidly cooling tea; finally he put the cup down with a snap as if making a painful decision,
"Not recently sir, but you are right in thinking that I had met him; I did and in the same way that I had met Beckett. At the same place and time in fact." His mouth twisted and he sighed, "Seems a lifetime ago now, but it is not something I am proud of and it changed the course of my career and by chance it set me on my current path."
"In the Indies then?"
"Yes. In the Indies."
He drew a deep breath, as if armouring himself against some expected pain,
"I was there when Jack Sparrow became a pirate."

***

'This must have been some form of inner sanctum', Elanor thought as she followed Jack between the pillars. Another space, a part of the wider avenue and yet separated from it. In its' heyday there might have been drapes of bright silks and filmy linen to complete the separation but now there were only piles of sand and deeper shadows. Beneath the dust there were traces of the elaborate floor that once would have echoed the glory of the pillars, but, like their carving, most of it was long gone. What remained had a skeletal look, as if the blasting wind and sand had stripped of its plumage and flesh leaving only bones behind.

Behind her the three crewmen were dragging their feet, unwilling to cross into the deeper shadows. But Jack was moving with confidence and seemingly without fear of ambush as he stepped through them and into the centre of the circle. Elanor followed, keeping her hands close to her weapons; Jack might not be concerned about attack but he was far from being unafraid, his swagger and the stiffness in his back told her that. But he would have to be a fool to be unafraid here, even now, and he was not that.

This was not an easy place she decided, the darkness cast by the ring of pillars had a red edge to it and the air seemed to weigh more than it should, making her lungs unwilling to swallow too much of it. Somewhere above her there was the hum of insects and the glittering of birds wings, and off to the side she saw a lizard scuttle away in outrage at their intrusion. But once it had been a human place, for there was a raised stone dais in the centre holding two stone blocks that might have been ceremonial chairs, thrones even. Human certainly, though probably not one meant for comfort. Even now it was clear that this was a place of power and ceremony, not a place for friend or family. A sacred place maybe, a home of priestesses and priests. Or a place of law, of judgement perhaps, or one of learning, or even healing. It was impossible to tell now, but whatever force and power it had represented had fallen to dust long ago.

So why were they here?

Jack had cast just one glance at the stone thrones as he passed them, and he seemed to know what they were, but the look had been deeply distrustful and more than a little sad. Then he had squatted and pulled at another raised stone on the floor, a square of several feet across and that looked to be too heavy for a single man to move. Elanor flexed a beckoning finger at the reluctant Raggetti and they both moved across to help him, but by the time they got there the stone was sliding smoothly away leaving a shallow depression open at her feet. 'Jack and holes in the ground!' she thought, 'what the hell can we expect from this one?'

Raggeti looked terrified, and that itself was a disturbing sight.

Jack struck a flint and lit the candle he had pulled from the depths of a coat pocket, shining it around then leaning back with a look of outraged disgust as a snake and couple of scorpion like insects scuttled away, their pincers raised in threat. He swept the candle round one last time then. Apparently satisfied no other threats lurked in the hole, and with an expression of distaste, he reached inside.

***

Hathaway seemed to hesitate but the Admiral held his tongue and waited, the suddenly heavy silence broken only by the familiar noises of the fort outside. But it seemed the other man was lost in the memory and needed some prompting and Norrington stirred uneasily in his chair,
"Hmmp." He buried his nose deeper into his cup, "The business with the slaves I assume."
That sent a jolt through Hathaway,
"You know of it?" he asked in surprise.
"I know, was told of it before I came here. Nasty business all around it seems. Slavery is legal enough so Beckett was within his rights but......"
"As you say sir, but."
Norrington nodded his understanding and settled deeper in his chair, preparing to listen.
"So what do you know of it?"

Hathaway stirred uneasily as if a cold chill had moved across him and his eyes slipped passed the admiral to the window behind him, their focus shifting as if looking a long way away. It was clear that he rarely spoke of the events and was not happy doing so npw. Norrington, a humane and compassionate man, and knowing what he did, was not surprised when the other man's words came with some effort,
"I was a young marine, it was early in the companies ventures in that part of the world and they frequently called for military support. The populace did not like them, and it's fair to say that the arrival of Cutler Beckett a year or so before had not improved matters, though he was a very junior man at the time."
He paused for a moment as if steeling himself for something unpleasant,
" I was sent to the cells one day to assist with a prisoner. I don't know what I had expected, if anything, but it wasn't what I found."

He fiddled with his saucer, aligning the pattern with the one on his cup as if trying not to think about the picture his own words conjured.
" The man being held there was no usual felon or drunken lout but a young sea captain, a merchant man who had transported our troop around the coast. He'd seemed a fair man, and talented, very young to hold such a captaincy, but he did and by his own right. Unusual even then I'll grant you, though less unusual perhaps amongst the merchant fleet. But he was an odd man, certainly singular for one of his years. Not much given to drinking or whoring when ashore, but cheerful enough and always calm and well mannered, polite, even to the native populace. When we had sailed with him he had spent his evenings aboard reading theology and philosophy, in the Latin no less, and I had been told that he had something of a flair for languages and a taste for poetry."
Hathaway smiled slightly, memory heavy in his eyes,
"Not a man I would ever have expected to find the cells. But there he was, unkempt and shackled and apparently destined for the gallows."

The captain swallowed hard, his mind travelling back across the years trying to find the man he had been then.
"I didn't know his crime, not then. Nor what was in store for him. But when they brought the brazier to the cell.. Well then I knew, though I found it hard to believe. The room was hot as hell and we were all sweating even before we saw the iron."
Hathaway took another swallow of his tea,
"We all knew it was done of course but I doubt many of us gave much thought to what was involved, I certainly hadn't. But to see it there and know what they were going to do to someone you had known, however briefly, and had thought an honest man, well I'd be lying to say it wasn't a shock. Yet I wouldn't have thought so much of it if Beckett hadn't been lounging in the corner. But he was and the look in his eyes made my bile rise even before the iron was lifted from the embers."
Admiral Norrington cleared his throat,
"There had been stories." was all he said.

Hathaway realised then that his commander knew than he might be expected to, but he was too lost in memory to think that strange. His mouth twisted in disgust,
"Oh yes, there had been stories. Yet Beckett and Sparrow had been friends of a sort, certainly on more than nodding acquaintance. Though not perhaps such good friends as Beckett would have liked. It was common gossip that Jack Sparrow had become something of an obsession with him almost as soon as they first met. Beckett was not liked by the ranks, he was an arrogant upstart even then, and there was a lot of ribald comment about it in the barracks. In such a closed community his tastes were hard to hide, and you know how the navy views such matters. Of course Beckett was only a junior company man at the time, though he was rising fast, and there was little to quell the gossip. "
He took another sip of tea, memory flooding back, the hard, dry air, the flies and the red heat of the coals seeming to come alive in the room,
"Yes, there were some unpleasant rumours about him and his appetites even then, and this is fifteen or more years ago, stories that he had been sent away by his respectable family to escape unspecified embarrassing incidents. Not unlike stories of Sparrow's own past in fact, or rather his father's. But most men had some respect for Jack and little interest in where he had come from. It was generally felt that Captain Sparrow would do well not to turn his back when Beckett was around. Slander maybe, just barrack room gossip, I certainly thought so at first, but later.. then .. it made some sort of horrible sense. Seeing him there, well suddenly I had no doubt that it was true."

The silence stretched again but this time Norrington waited patiently until Hathaway spoke again.
"To Beckett Sparrow must have seemed unbearably romantic of course, particularly with the whispered stories of his origins. Educated, competent, aloof and yet well liked. Popular in fact, and always welcomed wherever he went, not tolerated as Beckett was. He must have seemed the embodiment of all a stolid merchant son wished to be, and he looked the part too, even then. Jack Sparrow was a fine looking young man, almost beautiful in some ways, and it was true that he had many admirers, and not all of them ladies. But he was manly enough and none of the men doubted where his interests lay, nor his ambitions; he was betrothed to the second daughter of a rich merchant and seemed set fair for a successful and profitable life, whatever the truth of his background."
Norrington shifted slightly in his chair,
"Hmm, and then came the slave business."
Hathaway retained his far away look but he nodded,
"As you say sir, then came the slave business."

He drew a deep breath,
"I didn't know of it at the time, only that he had been accused of theft on the high seas and that made him a pirate. But seeing Beckett with the magistrate, the foppish merchant lounging in that cell with his pet bureaucrat, a man obviously ill at ease and wanting to be somewhere else, I suddenly wondered what the matter was really all about. Later, when I heard the full story, I was appalled. Whatever the legalities of it the business was a matter of conscience too. To use the brand in such circumstances! To throw him outside of the law, to make him a pirate, an outlaw with no hope of return to lawful society! That spoke of something more than lost profit, it reeked of spite and disappointment. For Beckett must have known what he was doing."
Norrington frowned,
"Beckett claimed that Sparrow was in league with pirates even then didn't he?"
"Yes he did, which put together with the stories of Sparrow's past and Beckett's position, made the outcome inescapable. But Beckett had a magistrate in his pocket anyway and the whole business was a farce. Sparrow was guilty in the eyes of the law and the company of theft but I doubt that anyone would have done much more than throw him in jail for a week or so if Beckett hadn't pursued the matter. It was Beckett who demanded the branding, even though he must have known what he was doing to a man he had called a friend. There could be no future for Sparrow after that and Beckett knew it. If he had been born of a pirate and put the life behind him then it was a more than usually cruel punishment."

"And what was your involvement in the matter?"
Hathaway squirmed, there was no other word for it, and the Admiral had to guard his face to hide the surprise, for he had never seen this man look anything other than blandly self possessed, but there was no denying the self disgust in that calm face at this moment.
"I had never held a man while they used the iron before, I was unprepared for the sound or for the terrible smell. Sparrow said nothing even as they did it, how he held back the screams I cannot say but he did, just looked at his once friend and didn't utter a sound. But me." He shot the admiral an apologetic look. "I vomited over Cutler Beckett."

***

"A horn." Elanor said flatly as she looked at the dirty yet graceful object held carefully in Jack's dusty hands. "You have brought us here for a musical instrument? Why?"

Jack stroked the dust and sand from the surface of the object revealing something golden beneath the dirt. The sight of it brought the three crewmen clustering closer and Jack twitched it away and into the shelter of his arms as if he expected one or other of them to make a grab for it. Maybe he did for Raggtti in particular followed the movement with a covetous eye, all his earlier anxiety apparently forgotten.

"Not for the instrument Captain Cavendish," he said with careful politeness, "for the sound of it. Or more exactly the people that the sound of it will summon."
"People?" she queried with raised brows.
"Aye, people. The ones who might have the answer to the vexatious question of ails Barbossa. Amongst other things."
That rider sent Elanor's back hair on end for she doubted it was a meaningless comment. She caught his eye and knew that it was very meaningful. But she got no chance to challenge him about it for his words had got through to the three men.
"Tis beyond man's ken is that, so these people.... they would be very powerful would they?" Raggetti asked, looking nervous again.
Jack gave him a grim smile and spoke softly,
"They are that true enough," he hesitated for a moment as if struck by a contradictory thought, then he shrugged, " leastways some of them are."
"And it's those that this will call is it?" Elanor said without expression, making a note to ask him about his earlier remark at her first opportunity, "assuming they can hear it."
"They'll hear it right enough, trust me on that."
He was wiping the mouthpiece on his coat tails as he spoke and none of them could see his expression.

Finally satisfied that it was clean as he needed it to be, or that he had his face under full control, he crossed to the stone dais and positioned himself carefully before one of the stone thrones, apparently placing his feet with great care and exactitude. Then he placed the horn to his lips, drew a deep breath in, closed his eyes as if in a prayer, and blew.