Death Whispers 13: Dead, From a Certain Point of View

July 26, 1722. The small, weather-beaten, two story home of Morowen Waxbend, the sea hag of Port Royal. Where we’re learned more than we bargained for.

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 helping cleanup from the ambush by three Death Whispers, Dr. Pedro Sangre and Captain Elara Blackwater have a quiet moment to speak with Morowen Waxbend. The sea hag explains what a Death Whisper actually is, and why they’re dangerous. But then they learn there is more to the story of Morowen and the Codex than they first knew…

July 26, 1722. The small, weather-beaten, two story home of Morowen Waxbend, the sea hag of Port Royal. Where we’re learned more than we bargained for.

It took two refills of tea and four cookies later, before Morowen finished her story. It wasn’t pleasant. Especially once she explained Tristam’s original idea, and what it turned into.

“Morowen,” I said, as I sat back in my chair, eyebrows raised in surprise. “You’re saying Tristam wanted to ‘cure death’? Do you mean he was trying to raise the dead?”

She clenched her jaw before she replied.

“Yes, and no. Like I told you, Tristam’s sister was murdered by a necromancer. So, he tried to raise her from the dead. It didn’t work, and he nearly died trying. After that, he wanted to find a way to counter any necromancy so no one else had to suffer. Tristam was like that.” The hag blew out a sigh, heavy with memories. “He got me all excited about the idea.”

I scowled a little, not sure what to say. My thoughts wandered while I studied the small kitchen and dining room. The plain rustic decor, from checkered curtains and dried herbs to her pickled squirrel and shark skull collection, was an interesting distraction. It helped me think. Sea hags were notorious for their hatred of necromancy. A chance to stomp it out would be an attractive offer.

One of the floating squirrels glanced at me out of its jar, then blinked. Suddenly, the curtains were very fascinating.

Elara’s wooden chair complained faintly as she shifted position, then breached the silence.

“What went wrong?” she asked with a curious expression. “You left that part out.”

Morowen pursed her lips. It looked like she’d licked a rotten lemon.

“He got obsessed,” she explained with a ragged sigh and gripped the teacup like she might choke it. “Tristam thought he saw patterns to it all. There weren’t any. It got worse the more necromancy he studied. I kept telling him it was just the darker side of the Etherwave whispering, but he didn’t believe me.”

She brushed at the air a little, as if to push aside memories. “Then he was stealing bodies from graveyards for ‘practice’. By then, Tristam was convinced he could create life from the Etherwave, magic itself, and unlock immortality.”

“That’s when he tried to kill you and steal your power,” I replied with a brief nod. “Pay magic’s price.”

Morowen smirked, but there wasn’t any humor to it.

“Magic always comes with a price. Always.”

The smirk melted away. “He came at me one night with a pair of knives. There was a wild, sunken look in his eyes. Tristam didn’t know me. I was just a thing. When he cut me, I lost my temper.” Her voice was a growl. “I called down a typhoon right there. Wrecked his workshop, his assistant, just everything, as I cursed him.”

Her shoulders sagged a little.

“Not my best moment with a curse,” she admitted. “I should’ve just stuck to the classics and frogged him.”

“Sun’s breath,” Elara sighed, wide-eyed.

“Tristam’s not just trapped, he’s haunting the book, isn’t he?” I asked while I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “A book packed with necromantic rituals and enchantments primed to use?”

“Basically,” Morowen replied with a small, half-shrug. “He really would’ve been a great frog.”

Regret flowed over her expression. Tristam must have meant more than she wanted to let on. I felt a small sting of sympathy for her, and what she lost.

“I believed in his idea, you know?” She said mournfully. “Write the rituals down, then find a way to counter ‘em. Not bury ‘em, and hope they go away, like my sisters do.”

Morowen poured herself more tea, then glanced at the two of us.

“The Tristam I knew? He’s long gone. Necromancy took him.” The regret in her expression turned sour. “Age doesn’t always mean wise, I suppose.”

Elara gave her a quiet, sympathetic look. “No, not always.”

My thoughts tumbled over while I sipped my tea. There were a lot of pieces and they’d just started to fit into place.

“Now, if the Codex is so dangerous, why leave it in a library?” I asked after a moment.

Morowen’s eyebrows knit at that.

“So, that’s where you found it? A library?”

I nodded. “It’s more a ruin now. The Library of Lësarilis on San Andrés Island.”

The sea hag scoffed while she snatched up another hardtack-like cookie.

“It figures someone would stick it in a university library for just anyone to grab,” she grumbled. “Idiots.”

I gave Elara a confused look. She shook her head.

“The Library of Lësarilis was part of Fallohide University on Otherworld,” she explained with a pensive expression. “At least, before our worlds collided during Crossing’s Fall.”

She idly tapped her teacup and raised her eyebrows at Morowen.

“It means someone found it,” she added. “Which may be how the story made it to Earth. How the person who now has it, learned about it. Could it be another sea hag?”

Morowen soaked the cookie in her tea, then chomped down like a shark eating a fish.

“My sisters would’ve buried the book, then sealed me away if they knew,” the hag snorted. “No, it’s not them. The only other person I can think of is Casin Fairmont, Tristam’s weasel assistant. But he was inside the workshop when it collapsed.” She sipped her tea. “Good riddance, really.”

I imagined an entire typhon focused on just one building and anyone inside. A shudder tapped a tune along my spine.

“Pedro,” Elara said thoughtfully, “I keep thinking about what you were told in the Kingston market about the Codex and that torn page. We should show that to Morowen.”

“What page?” Morowen asked with a curious frown while I grabbed my shoulder bag.

“This one.” I rummaged a bit before I produced the Codex page, then slid it across the table along with my notebook. “I was going to ask you about it.”

Morowen reached for the Codex page, but hesitated, fingers not quite touching the yellowed, ancient paper. After a long breath to steady herself, she pulled it over. Slowly, her eyes drifted over the faded words and designs. The more she read, the deeper her sea-blue, freckled brow furrowed and storm clouds rolled in her eyes.

“Señora, you helped write the book. Do you recognize this?” I asked with a frown. “Elara and I translated a little, but the rest is beyond us. I was told the current owner of the Codex desperately wants, even needs, this page.”

“Tristam, you mad idiot,” she spat under her breath, “and I’m an even bigger one.”

My eyebrows shot up at that. I glanced at Elara, who shook her head a little, then shrugged with a confused expression.

“That’s not promising,” I said and leaned forward to look at the page. “What is it?”

Morowen fixed me with a stern glare while she jabbed a finger at the page.

“This? It’s new. Tristam wrote this after I bound him in the book.” She ran her fingers lightly along a set of words and numbers on the far left margin. “But I know what it says.”

“New? What?” Elara stammered, wide-eyed. “How even…?”

The hag shook her head. “Don’t ask. It’s necromantic. If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you, and I sort of like you two.”

I swapped an uneasy look with Elara.

Morowen shot a sideways glance across the kitchen at unsuspecting pots and pans hung on steel wall hooks. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers.

“You said ‘haunting’. Haunting works.” Morowen gave us a dark look. “You know how ghosts tend to move things around, harass librarians and all, just to be a right proper pain in the ass? It’s like that. Tristam’s still doing his necromantic studies, but now he’s trying to get free.”

I nodded with a deep breath, understanding. But silently, I wished I really didn’t.

“That makes a sort of unpleasant sense,” I said. “But why is this page so important?”

Morowen’s mouth curled into a sharp-toothed grin. It felt like a shark was about to invite me to be dinner.

“Most of this here on the page? It’s called a ‘soul anchor’,” she shrugged. “That’s what I call it, anyway. It anchors a person to the spot where a ritual gets acted out.”

“Like anchoring a ship in a storm?” Elara offered.

“Just like,” Morowen replied. “Only here? The storm is the dark powers trying to drag a person into the afterlife.”

“Tristam,” I replied, and she nodded.

The hag traced a finger over a series of numbers, then tapped the mysterious pump and gear design.

“Tristam so liked his toys. See this? If I’m reading it right, those are for an arcane engine meant to siphon him out of the Codex, bringing him back to life.” She glanced up, eyebrows knit in thought. “Sort of summoning himself, in a way.“

With that, more pieces slid into place in my mind. I didn’t like the picture it made.

“Summon himself out of the book, like a Death Whisper?” I asked slowly, with a worried expression.

The sea hag chuckled dryly.

“A bit,” she replied, then glanced over the page. “He’ll need someone to do the summoning, though. Still, it might work, it’s just real risky. I bound him, anchored really, into that book. First, whoever performs this has to live through breaking my magic. Second, if this nonsense works, he’ll appear outside the Codex in a golem body. If it doesn’t?” Morowen snapped her fingers. “He’ll get dragged into the afterlife. Either way, this stunt will rip a hole between here and the afterlife.”

Elara and I didn’t move, but I could tell we thought the same thing. Morowen raised her eyebrows at us.

“Exactly. All manner of specters and worse, come crawling out.” Her voice took on a deadly tone. “Want to see a real fiend from the dark side of the Etherwave?” She tapped the Codex page. “There you go.”

Elara shoulder’s tensed as she jerked a hand at the yellowed page.

“Fine. If whoever it is needs this, let’s change it. Better yet, burn it!”

Morowen’s dark look in reply made me uneasy. Enchanted items are notoriously durable. It’s part of how so many remained intact over centuries. But there were ways to disrupt or even break them, which meant they sometimes exploded.

The sea hag glanced at her stove, then reached for the page.

“This is why.”

“No!” I snapped. Sebastian leaped to his feet and barked.

Elara leaped out of her chair while I lunged forward. Morowen pulled the page out of my reach, then thrust it inside the cast-iron stove, right into the flames.

Nothing happened.

There wasn’t even smoke. It was like the flames moved around the paper. Elara rubbed her eyes in frustration and sat down. I sat back in my chair with a long breath. Morowen recovered the page, dropping it on the table. It wasn’t even warm.

“Some warning next time, Señora?” I asked. Morowen simply grinned at me.

“So,” Elara snapped, frustrated. “We started out trying to deal with a theft, but now we’re what? Stopping some lunatic from turning all manner of ghosts loose on Jamaica? Not to mention raising a bigger monster from the dead?”

Morowen smiled as she patted the captain’s hand.

“This is why I like keeping you and Pedro around,” she grinned. “I’m too old to go running off like that. Bad for my knees.”

Elara simply rolled her eyes.

Morowen held up the Codex page for a moment.

“Now, I don’t have some magic compass that’ll point out the Codex for you. A damn fool pirate stole my last one two months back. But,” she tapped a finger against her blue lips, “this type of ritual needs space, and a plenty big source of power to pay the Etherwave’s price.”

“How big?” I asked uneasily.

“A typhoon would do it,” Morowen replied thoughtfully. “You could also murder about a hundred people. That’d do it, too.”

I bit back several sharp replies that tasted like bile. After I rubbed my eyes, I found Morowen staring holes into me.

“As for you,” her voice brittle. “Your hand. That’s ghostfire, and it’ll kill you. Why is it bound to a corrupted curse? Why is it trying to protect you? Start talking!”

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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.