Death Whispers 27: The Gate

Aug 2, 1722. Aboard the Silk Duchess, when hell came to call…

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: Back aboard the Silk Duchess, Pedro gamble with an untried mix of medicines and mystical potions pays off. The young boy lives and Pedro unexpectedly discovers what may be what he’s been looking for… bait to lure out Captain Storm and Lucas Argall into a potential trap. But before that plan can be put into motion, the Duchess is ambushed by the last person they needed to face, the pirate Captain Dryden Storm and his ship, the Rising Eel…

Aug 2, 1722. Aboard the Silk Duchess, when hell came to call…

A short, faint whistle was the only warning I had that things had just turned ugly. I dove aside, careful of my sore left arm, and promptly knocked two of the Duchess’ crew to the deck.

The ship’s railing exploded behind me into a storm of charred splinters as a small cannonball tore through it like dry paper. Dust strangled the air, while charred bits of wood battered at us like a hellish hail.

Some skittered across the deck, others pelted the nearby crew, and the rest collided against my wool long coat. A litany of new bruises along my back complained at the abuse.

“Maldita sea,” I grumbled wearily under my breath, swallowing the pain.

Sadly, my coat gave its life for the three of us. The gray wool was ripped, and I could feel the heat from blackened holes. I yanked the ragged long coat off with a gasp as my shoulder flared hot with pain. Somehow, the sling around my left arm was still intact.

My coat wasn’t the only thing battered. Of the two sailors I’d knocked flat, one was pale and trembling with a bleeding welt across his tanned forehead from stray splinters. The other, a young thayan woman with copper-gold eyes and short black hair, scrambled upright and lunged for my shirt.

“Down, doctor!” she hissed. Her dragonfly-like wings snapped open in alarm while she yanked me to the deck. I didn’t argue.

We crashed onto the wet wood next to the still-stunned young human man with the curly brown hair. Another cannon shot split the air where my head had been a second before.

The iron ball smashed off part of a yardarm, cascading chunks of wood and shredded sailcloth onto the deck. A tangle of that wood and tarred line trapped a few of the unlucky crew on that side of the ship.

“Fucking hells!” the young man next to me wailed, hazel eyes round as saucers while he looked behind me.

I shook my head, ears ringing, pain from my shoulder dragging me down. But I still managed to look back in time to see stray bits of lightning. It danced off the shattered wood and metal bolts of the Silk Duchess in a race for open air.

“Mierda,” I swore, then punched the wooden deck.

Above us, Elara’s voice was like an avenging angel, cutting through the chaos as precise as a sharp razor.

“Hard to port!” she howled. “Gunners! Make ready! I want that ship sent to the nine hells! Where’s my Arcane Gate?”

Lysander hauled himself up the ladder from below decks. Quickly, he scrambled for the steps to the quarterdeck, and the bronze-colored metal platform bolted there.

“Coming, Captain!” he shouted as he ran. “Keep her on this course!”

“It’s the Rising Eel!” I called out to Elara. “Storm’s ship! She’s using a lightning cannon, Captain! Not standard shot!”

On the quarterdeck, Elara gave me a quick nod, her jade eyes flashing with concern.

“Do what you can!” she shouted back, her thayan dragonfly wings fanned out for balance near the helm. Setting her jaw, she fixed her eyes back to the Silk Duchess and her crew.

Sucking in a painful breath of air, I crawled over to the soot-stained young man. Quickly, I yanked out a handkerchief, then pressed it to the sailor’s bloody forehead.

“Press here,” I said, drinking down acrid air while I guided the young man’s trembling hand to the head wound.

He nodded, then promptly vomited onto the deck. I waved two of the nearest crew over.

“Get him below! I’ll see to him when I can,” I ordered.

Then I turned on the thayan sailor next to me. Dressed in plain, soot-covered clothes, the worst she’d suffered was a line of bruises along her right arm. Ari Fairhill, if I remembered her name right. She’d signed up only a month ago.

“Señorita! Go to my cabin. The one with the gargoyle,” I told her. “There’s a small leather case there. Bring it to me. Don’t drop a single bottle!”

Ari nodded, racing off. I stood, ducked a flailing length of halyard, then turned for the port side cannons. I barely managed a few steps before I almost collided with Durner, who acted as the Master Gunner aboard the Duchess.

“Sling’s loose, Pedro,” he grunted, nodding at my healing shoulder. I reached over and tugged the knot tighter, using my free hand and teeth.

We flinched as another shot tore over us. The mizzen mast rattled from the near miss.

Ari raced back with my dark leather pouch. I flipped open the lid and three vials inside it glowed a gleeful orange-red, promising rich violence in my name.

Durner shot me a quizzical look with a raised eyebrow.

“Lysander needs time to drag open a Gate,” I growled through pain-clenched teeth. “We need to hit the Eel now. Give her something to think about!”

The grimling’s rust-red beard split into a toothy, savage grin that flashed into his copper eyes. He jerked his chin to the nearest cannon, and the head-sized iron balls stacked next to it like fruit.

“We owe them a punch in the nose for Westmere,“ he rumbled in his craggy voice. “Give them bastards something they’ll remember!”

I hurried to the cannon and its small crew. A young bunch, younger than me by a good six years, were scared, but determined to do their duty. They looked up, startled, as I hurried toward them.

“Wait!” I ordered as they reached for the first iron ball.

Healing shoulder numb from terror and abused by motion, I leaned against the cannon for support. Fortunately, they hadn’t fired it yet. I flipped open the leather pouch once more. Orange-red potions greeted me with their gleeful, malicious glow.

“I call it ‘Heartsfire’,” I explained quickly, pulling out the vials one at a time.

The glowing liquid hissed like angry fire snakes, eager to burn the world. I smeared the potion over the first four balls. As soon as liquid touched iron, the metal shivered in eager anticipation, then turned reddish-black, like Hell’s own fist.

I nodded to the gun crew.

“Now,” I said and pointed at the Eel. “Aim for that spot with the lightning. It’s a lightning cannon.”

The young crew worked with smooth precision. Durner’s relentless practice drills showing through in the crew’s clockwork-like motions.

“Mr. Terrason!” Elara yelled. “Get that ship out of my sea!”

“Aye!” Durner roared like an avalanche. “You heard the captain! Make ready!”

The Rising Eel was nimble, but she wasn’t a schooner. Neither was she rigged for tight, fast turns like the Duchess. We turned hard, port side cannons loaded briskly.

“Aim!”

Across the waves, crew scrambled over the Eel like angry ants on an anthill. They tried to turn, desperate to match us, bringing their guns to bear. But they just couldn’t catch enough wind. Two cannons on the Eel belched smoke, stabbing the air with fire.

Shots blasted across our quarterdeck. Railing blew out in all directions and the ship’s pilot, Angus MacFerson, was thrown from the helm. Bleeding and battered, he struggled to rise. The ship’s wheel was still intact.

Elara lunged for the helm, gripping the wheel in both hands like she might strangle Hell itself.

“For Westmere! Fire!” she yelled in a war cry, her jade eyes blazing.

The orders echoed along the line, and cannons tore the sky. I kept my eye on one in particular. That cannon’s shot roared out, red and eager for blood. Exhausted, bloody, I drew in a deep breath, then quietly sang my shanty as I extended my good, shaking, right hand toward that cannon shot.

“I’m a privateer of the sea, of the waves and wind…”

Instantly, the power of the Etherwave Arcana rushed through me, then out to the potion-covered cannonball. What once was red, turned searing white with a comet’s tail.

The now charged shot streaked over, slamming into the Rising Eel like a hammer of heaven. Storm’s ship listed sideways, rearing up like a wild horse, desperate to buck her crew into the sea. White flames belched skyward on impact, eliminating the lightning cannon and two others, along with their gunners.

Those same white flames then chewed on the pirate’s sails and rigging. I watched while her crew worked like mad to put out the enchanted flames.

I turned away, stumbling for the quarterdeck to see after Angus while wiping blood from my nose.

“There’s your time, Lysander,” I murmured, running at my best exhausted, fast limp. “Open the Gate.” The last came out like a prayer.

Once I hauled myself up the ladder, I ran through sheer willpower, then dropped next to Angus. The black-haired Scotsman was bleeding out a dozen cuts from shattered wood, but luck and heaven had saved him from worse.

Meanwhile, to my right, on the brass-bronze platform covered in nautical arcane symbols, Lysander had started his work.

Etherwave energy rippled up from the round metal dais, surrounding him in a golden wire globe of magical light. Yellow clouds shaped like landmasses and more drifted over its surface.

Inside the globe, Lysander reached for the nearest golden cloud and stretched it out. The surrounding view changed to show the Silk Duchess, the Rising Eel, and the island of Jamaica.

Lysander then thrust both hands into the glowing clouds, pulling out a man-sized arch. A mystical Arcane Gate. Outside the ship, just a little off port, storm clouds boiled to life as the real thing suddenly appeared.

A ribbed arch of thunder and livid light appeared in a crackling haze. It was as if a finger from heaven reached down to scribble an arch made of storm light and enchanted marble pulled out of the water. It rose 400 feet or more, taller than any terror of the sea, higher than St. Paul’s Cathedral. The arch towered over everything like an enchanted mountain.

The surrounding air seethed, resentful at the intrusion. It was a slice of sky, both vivid and wrong. The thing looked impossible, but was still so very real, dripping with power. Rain fell upward, distorting the Gate’s boundary.

On the dais, inside that golden globe of light, Lysander’s face was sweat-slick. He shoved a hand against the magical image of the gate, tapping strange runes and compass markings along its face. After that, he leaned in to grab a pair of glowing doors, pulling them open with his very being, arms shaking.

I could almost hear the creak of wood as the magic resisted. But Lysander bent it to his will, muscles tight.

“Hold the heading,” he shouted. “If we even shear the mast, we’re all dead!”

Elara clutched the wheel so hard, her knuckles turned white, staring down the Gate like facing a demon.

“I have it!” she yelled back. “Get it open! We need to Gate-jump!”

The Eel fired again, wild with fury to catch its prey. One shot hit us, two missed. The Duchess lurched from the blow, but still tore forward, battered but not beaten. Determined to be free.

I focused on Angus, ripping strips of cloth from my shirt as makeshift bandages. Then I pulled out an emergency healing potion from my leather bag. He drank, and a healthy color painfully returned as the enchantment did its work.

Then, I felt a charge brush over me like a heavy veil. A pulse in the air like a celestial heartbeat. I looked up in time to see the peaceful, storm-free waters off Kingston ahead of us. It was a sharp contrast to the gray thunderstorm and boiling sea.

Our bow touched the shimmering, watery image of Kingston at the center of the Arcane Gate. The world suddenly stretched into a blur of light and sound.

Then we were through.

On the dais, Lysander shoved the glowing doors closed. Magic fought back, crackling with resistance. The navigator pushed harder, jaw set. Slowly, the magic gave way to muscle and will.

Behind us, the view of the Rising Eel and storm-tossed waters squeezed shut. Then the watery portrait vanished in a blast of pure, white light when the Arcane Gate closed behind us.

I never saw what came next. Exhausted beyond my limit, I collapsed onto the deck. Crew shouted and ran around me, but I just lay still and breathed in the warm, salty air. Somewhere in the distance, I heard sea birds complain irritably at our intrusion.

We made it through.

By God’s grace and a navigator’s skill, we had made it through.

Slowly, a light drizzle of rain fell while I heard the rumble of the Arcane Gate returning to the sea. The tiny drops were a tranquil kiss of Nature herself, promising us peace. At least, peace, for now.

As for me? I just closed my eyes and laughed out loud in relief.

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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.