Rising In The East (4 page)

“S
ao Feng, Sao Feng,” Jack repeated, turning over the name. He shook his head. “Nope, never heard of ’im.”

Now the captain frowned, the kind of frown that would make most men quake in their boots. “Never heard of me!” he barked. “I’m only the fiercest captain to ever sail the South China Sea! The Seven Seas, in fact!”

“The fiercest, eh? Then shouldn’t you be the Pirate Lord of Singapore and the South China Sea?” Jack asked, deliberately needling him. “Last I heard, it was a fellow by the name of Liang Dao.”

Sao Feng’s face darkened even further. His hand gripped the hilt of his sword. “Liang Dao is my older brother,” he snarled. “He inherited the title of Pirate Lord from our father.” From his emphasis on the word “inherited,” it was fairly clear what Sao Feng thought of Liang Dao’s fitness for the role.

“Ah. That’s sort of how
you
became a Pirate Lord, isn’t it, Jack?” Barbossa said snidely.

“Not exactly,” Jack said, shooting his first mate a stern look. “Well, it’s complicated.”

Sao Feng blinked, eyeing Jack closely. “You?” he said. “You—a Pirate Lord? Ha!”

Jack swept his hat into a flamboyant bow. “Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirate Lord of the Caribbean,” he announced. “Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Sticks in your head. Sounds rakish and majestic all at once, like a proper pirate captain. Not at all silly-sounding like, say, hypothetically, off the top of my head, Smarbossa.”

Barbossa scowled.

The captain of the
Empress
looked meaningfully at the Pacific Ocean, sparkling brightly all around them. “Rather far from home, aren’t you, Captain Sparrow?”

“Are we? I hadn’t noticed,” Jack answered. He too looked around at the blue-green water, making a puzzled face as if it had snuck up on him.

Sao Feng snorted impatiently. “What are you doing here?” He touched the hilt of his sword warningly. “And do not even think about telling me anything other than the absolute truth.”

“Seeing the world, mate,” Jack said, flinging his arms open. “Enjoying the freedom of the open sea. Any laws against that?”

“We are also looking for the Pirate Lords who hold the vials of Shadow Gold,” said a monotone voice behind Jack, “so that we can defeat the Shadow Lord.”

Jack whirled around, outraged. Zombie Alex stared blankly at him. Jack’s eyes widened and his nose arched into a vicious, disgusted scowl.

“Well, fine,” Jack said. “Why don’t you just tell the strange man all our secrets, then?” Alex obeyed, opening his mouth. Jack added hurriedly, “No, don’t say anything! Don’t speak again until he’s gone!”

Alex obediently shut up, but it was too late.

“Shadow Gold?” Sao Feng echoed. “That sounds…valuable.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Jack said, waving the topic aside. “You wouldn’t like it, trust me. Nasty stuff. Although—I don’t suppose you’ve seen any, have you?”

Sao Feng narrowed his eyes and didn’t reply.

“No?” Jack tried. “Your brother hasn’t recently come into possession of a lovely little vial of really very unimportant, hardly worth mentioning, liquidy shiny stuff?”

“Ah,” Sao Feng said, his face a perfect mask. “Perhaps I know of what you speak.”

“Really?” Jack perked up. “Then maybe we do have something to discuss.”

“As I said before”—Sao Feng bowed slightly and lifted one elegant hand toward his quarters at the rear of the junk—“I insist.”

“This doesn’t seem like a wise idea,” Billy said in a low voice to Jack. “I don’t think we can trust him.”

“Well, of course we can’t,” Jack retorted. “I mean, he is a
pirate
, after all. I rather think he can’t trust us, either.” Shaking his head as if he thought Billy was quite daft, Jack vaulted to the top of the wooden railing, seized a trailing rope, and swung himself across to the
Empress
.

On board the other ship, a skinny man with a sparse moustache, wearing a long leather cloak, stepped forward as if to stand between Jack and Sao Feng. Sao Feng waved him off.

“Do not fear, Tai Huang,” the
Empress’
s captain said. “I am sure our new friend will not do anything…foolish.”

“Foolish? Me?” Jack said. “Never!” He grinned so his gold tooth sparkled in the bright sun.

Carolina leaped to the rail of the
Pearl
and swung across after Jack. She landed lightly on the deck of the
Empress
and immediately found herself surrounded by a bristling thicket of swords.

“I’m not leaving my
capitán
alone over here!” she said bravely, reaching for her own sword.

“Stand down, stand down,” Sao Feng said to his crew. “I admire a woman with courage, especially one with such grace,” he said to her gallantly.

Sao Feng took Carolina’s hand and bowed to kiss it. Carolina tossed back her ebony hair, looking every inch the princess she was, despite her disheveled pirate garb and bare feet.

“I believe the Pirate Code allows the captain to bring a few members of his crew to Parlay, doesn’t it?” she said, arching her eyebrows.

“Someone has been studying their
Pirata Codex
,” Sao Feng said smoothly. “You are correct. Does anyone else wish to join his…or her…captain on my ship?”

Most of the pirates on the
Pearl
shuffled their feet and gazed at the sky.

“Barbossa will join us,” Jack said, flicking his fingers easily to beckon Barbossa across. “Come along, Hector.”

Glowering balefully, Jack’s first mate joined Jack and Carolina on board the Empress. With a regal nod, Sao Feng escorted the three of them over to his quarters.

Jack managed not to gasp in astonishment as he stepped down the elegantly carved wooden staircase into Sao Feng’s cabin, but it was difficult. His own cabin did not begin to compare to Sao Feng’s quarters. This struck Jack as very unfair.

The room was opulent and richly decorated with swaths of fine silks, priceless jade carvings, bronze incense burners, antique vases, and elaborately woven tapestries. Soft pillows and layers of Oriental rugs covered part of the floor and candlelight glowed from the lanterns, mingling with incense smoke to create a warm, luxurious den, untouched by the bright sunlight outside. Sao Feng was obviously a man who liked his luxuries—and also dark, underground spaces.

Two figures rose from the pillows as they entered.

“Speaking of luxuries…” Jack muttered to himself, his eyes widening.

Standing before them were two strikingly beautiful Asian women; Jack guessed they might be twins. Each wore long, dark red silk robes with a bright red sash at the waist. Golden dragons wound sensuously around the curves of the robes, embroidered in fine silk thread. A glint of steel in their dark hair revealed the chopsticks holding their elaborate coiffures in place.

Jack winked at the one closest to him. She immediately whipped out a silk fan to hide her face, but not before Jack caught a glimmer of a smile.

“These are my attendants,” Sao Feng said. He was busy at a low table, so he missed the flirtatious glances Jack was exchanging with the two women. “Lian and Park.”

“Attendants?” Carolina asked. “Are they pirates? Female pirates?” She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice.

“Everyone on this ship is a pirate,” Sao Feng said gravely. “And my fair companions are two of the most deadly.”

Carolina looked doubtfully at Lian, who closed her fan with a snap and then flipped it open with a sharp motion that made Carolina realize that the edge of the fan was razor sharp—and that the woman wielding it could easily slice someone’s throat open with it.

“I wouldn’t mind being killed by one of those,” Jack whispered to Barbossa, who rolled his eyes in disgust. Jack wiggled his fingers at Park and then hid his grin quickly as Sao Feng turned around with a pale porcelain teapot in his hand.

“Please join me,” Sao Feng said, indicating the pillows around the table. “We have business to discuss.”

Jack, Barbossa, and Carolina knelt around the table. Jack made sure to position himself so he was facing Lian and Park, who had moved over to the far wall and were now studying him with half their faces hidden behind their fans. He was sure he heard one of them giggle quietly.

Sao Feng poured tea from the pot into delicate china cups, handing one to each of his visitors. Carolina leaned over to let the strong herbal-smelling steam waft across her face. Jack sniffed it suspiciously.

“Hmm. Tea. Don’t suppose you have any rum, do you?” he asked Sao Feng.

“Certainly not. Believe me, you will not want to be under its influence for the rest of our conversation,” the captain said.

“Oh, I rather think I will,” Jack said dolefully.

“Let’s get on with it,” Barbossa interrupted. “I take it there’s something you want from us, isn’t there?” He gave Sao Feng a challenging look.

Sao Feng held his cup between his long fingers and sipped his tea. Finally his intelligent, calculating gaze settled on the
Black Pearl’s
first mate.

“I believe what we have here is an opportunity,” he said. “An opportunity to make a bargain for mutual benefit.” He blinked, and Carolina got the feeling that “mutual” was always a bit of an exaggeration when it came to Sao Feng.

“Right,” Jack said. “You tell us where the Shadow Gold is, and we go on our merry way and leave you alone. Sounds mutually beneficial to me.”

“I am looking for something,” Sao Feng continued as if Jack hadn’t spoken. “My brother Liang Dao, the current Pirate Lord of Singapore, has sent me on this voyage so far south to find an object of great value…the Deep Sea Opal.”

“I like the sound of that,” Jack said, a smile spreading across his face.

“It is a legendary black opal,” Sao Feng said softly, “as big as a man’s fist and shimmering with hidden fire. Legend says that any man who possesses it will earn great fortune, power, and fame.”

“Come again?” Now Jack was even more interested. “Did you say ‘fortune’?”

“However,” Sao Feng went on, “there is one small problem. The opal’s power will not go to anyone who steals it. Only those who receive the opal as a gift will benefit from its glorious effects; the man who is foolhardy enough to steal the opal will be cursed forever.”

Jack glanced at Lian and Park uneasily. He didn’t like where this was going.

“Hsst,” Park hissed suddenly, flicking her fan closed and then open again. “Liang Dao is a coward!”

“He wouldn’t dare come for the opal himself,” Lian agreed, her dark eyes flashing. “He wants brave Sao Feng to steal it for him, so Liang Dao can have all of the power and none of the curse!”

“I see,” Jack said thoughtfully.

“He fears you,” Park said to Sao Feng. “He knows you would be the greatest Pirate Lord the world had ever seen.”

“You might not know this, love,” Jack said, “but I’m actually a Pirate Lord, too.” She tilted her head at him, and he added, “So, you know, second greatest, maybe.”

“My brother is a fool in many ways,” Sao Feng said, “but for once he has arrived at a clever plan. I am not the kind of man who is afraid of hobgoblins and fairy tales. I do not entirely believe there is any power in this opal beyond the value it will hold as a precious gem. But the pirates who serve under us would never follow a man who had stolen the Deep Sea Opal. So despite the fact that I do not fear any sort of curse, I cannot steal it.”

“The men would believe he was cursed with bad luck for the rest of his days,” Lian said in a hushed whisper.

“He is trying to crush your ambition,” Park said, making a fist with one hand. “But it won’t work! We won’t let it!”

“We don’t have to,” Sao Feng said with a sly smile. He stared straight at Jack. “We have a perfect solution right in front of us.”

Jack twisted around to look behind him, then searched theatrically all around him, peering under the low table and lifting his hands in bewilderment. “No solution here, mate.”

“Captain Jack Sparrow,” Sao Feng said in a voice of steel. “
You
will steal the Deep Sea Opal for me.”

“O
h, you’ve got the wrong fellow,” Jack said. “Jack Sparrow doesn’t
steal
things. I
liberate
them. Mostly they just appear in my hands. Quite mysterious, really.”

“Like the jade dragon you slipped up your sleeve earlier?” Sao Feng said darkly.

Jack tried to look innocent for a moment, but now Barbossa was glaring at him, too. Finally Jack shook his arm and a small jade carving bounced out of the end of his sleeve. He feigned astonishment. “See what I mean? How did that get there?”

“Oh,
Jack
,” Carolina said in a disappointed voice.

“Oh,
Captain
Jack,” Jack reminded her.

“You will steal the opal and give it to me,” Sao Feng said. “And then I shall have its power instead of Liang Dao.”

“And what do we get out of it?” Jack demanded.

“We don’t want to sail with a cursed
capitán
either!” Carolina exclaimed.

“Who would?” Barbossa agreed. “Really, it’s a sign of a poor captain if he can’t avoid curses.”

“You want the Shadow Gold,” Sao Feng said. “I want the Deep Sea Opal.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against green silk pillows. “You decide.”

Jack wound his fingers in his beard, thinking hard. Was there a way around this? Surely there had to be. Wouldn’t it be lovely if he could get that opal for himself? But more important, he needed the Shadow Gold. After the nightmares, he needed it more urgently than ever. He couldn’t afford to sink into any more four-day slumbers. And he never wanted to smell that smoky breath in his face again. Perhaps the legends of the opal were only that—legends. Maybe it was all a hoax and nothing terrible would happen. Of course, given Jack’s prior experience with horrible supernatural thingies, he had a feeling it was all too real. But he had no choice.

“All right.” Jack sighed. “Where’s this opal, then?”

Sao Feng pointed down at the floorboards. Identical smiles crossed the faces of his attendants.

“Er—south?” Jack guessed. “Right…New Zealand, maybe?”

Barbossa rolled his eyes.

“Where would you expect the Deep Sea Opal to be, Jack Sparrow?” Sao Feng asked drily.

“Sitting on a nice island somewhere?” Jack guessed desperately. “Out in the open, like, where anyone can stroll up and take it?”

“Deep, deep under the sea,” Sao Feng said deliberately. “Down in the watery depths.”

“Oh, no,” said Jack. “No, no, no. I don’t deal with mermaids anymore, mate. No stealing from them, no making deals with them, none of that. I learned my lesson a long time ago. Actually, it’s a funny story, if you want to hear it—”

“I know of no mermaids,” Sao Feng interrupted him. “The spirits are different here. The one who guards the Deep Sea Opal is known as the Rainbow Serpent.”

That didn’t sound much better than mermaids to Jack, quite frankly.

“But whether you speak of merfolk or rainbow serpents it should be no matter,” Sao Feng continued. “These are just things of folklore meant to scare away those who might steal the gem. You will encounter neither beast nor finned woman, I assure you. Lian will accompany you. To ensure there are no tricks.”

“Tricks!” Jack said, pressing his hand to his chest like he was mortally offended. “As if I would ever—well, no, that seems fair, actually.” Behind Sao Feng’s back, he blew Lian a kiss. She hid her face behind the fan again, then peeked out at him with a flirtatious sparkle in her eyes.

“Well, I am not going,” Barbossa said, putting his foot down. “Yer not getting me to the bottom of the ocean, I don’t care what ye say.”

“Fine. I’ll take Diego and Billy with me. Your big, stupid hat would probably keep you from sinking down to the depths anyway,” Jack said.

Carolina frowned at him. She knew Jack well enough by now to know that he was hoping to trick his friends into stealing the opal for him.

But if that was his plan, it wasn’t going to work. Back out in the sunshine, Carolina managed to take Diego aside to warn him before the group set off.

“Be careful, Diego,” she said, squeezing his hands. “Don’t touch that opal. Don’t go anywhere near it. And don’t let Captain Jack talk you into taking it, because he can be very clever that way.”

“Stop worrying,” Diego said, brushing her hair out of her face lightly. “It’ll be all right.”

“Oh,
Diego
!” Marcella cried, knocking Carolina to the ground and flinging her arms around Diego’s neck. “I’m so
frightened
for you! You’re so brave!” She stepped back and flapped her eyelashes at him. “Listen, if you see anything else down there that this Rainbow Serpent can spare—any smaller opals or pearls or pretty jewelry of any kind—well, I would be
so
charmed if you’d bring something back for me, dear, sweet Diego. I mean, it
is
my birthday…in a couple of months.”

Carolina climbed to her feet again, amused at the mix of terror and confusion on Diego’s face.

“Come on, Diego, lad!” Jack called, waving him over to the railing of the
Pearl
. “No time like the present for deep-sea diving and confronting serpents and liberating mystical opals, I always say.”

Sao Feng stood at the rail of the
Empress
, watching closely as Jack removed his beloved hat and entrusted it to Carolina’s care. After some thought, Jack also removed his boots and set them carefully beside the railing. He rolled up the sleeves of his white linen shirt, revealing a blue sparrow tattoo on his right arm. Sao Feng raised his eyebrows at the
P
that was branded on Jack’s wrist just below the sparrow.

“You have encountered the East India Trading Company, I see,” he said.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Jack said, waving his hand in the air. “Small misunderstanding. Are they over here, too? They really ought to think about changing their name to Whole Flaming Planet Trading Company, shouldn’t they?”

“Ready, Jack?” Billy said from beside him.

Lian stepped up to Jack’s side. He beamed at her. “’Allo, love,” he said. “Stay close to me; I’ll take care of you.”

“Yes,” she said, leaning in seductively, “I think we
should
stay close.” Jack realized that while he’d been staring into her eyes, she had been tying their wrists together with a firmly knotted silk scarf. He tugged on it, but there was no escaping now.

“Right,” he said. “Well, if that’s the way you like it, darling—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Lian yanked him up onto the railing, and then dove into the crystal blue sea. With a yelp, Jack was dragged along behind her.

He managed to inhale a deep breath before they sank below the surface. Lian began kicking her feet immediately, scissoring swiftly through the waves, swimming deeper and deeper. Jack saw Diego and Billy splash into the water above them. Soon they were all diving down into the ocean depths.

They swam past intricate castles of coral inhabited by schools of sunshine yellow fish, translucent pink jelly man o’ wars, and placid sea turtles that watched them swim by with bewildered expressions. Waving fronds of seaweed brushed their feet and sleek dolphins darted around them, inviting them to play. Explosions of bubbles burst like fireworks as clumps of fish suddenly darted out of their way. The water was so clear that Jack could see for miles across the coral reef, and down almost to the ocean floor. It was one of the most beautiful places he had ever been, and he imagined he would quite enjoy it if he weren’t tied to a pirate and on his way to pick up a new curse.

Well, maybe he wouldn’t even mind the “being tied to a pirate” part, considering how attractive this particular pirate was.

But she was also determined, and possibly able to breathe underwater, since she was still swimming at the same pace while Jack’s lungs felt like they were about to burst. Down, down, down they went, beyond the reach of the sun, into the mysterious, dark ocean depths. Jack was beginning to see stars. He tried to pull at the scarf with his free hand, but there was no chance of getting it loose. Lian glanced around at him, her long, dark hair swirling around her in the water.

She pointed at a cave up ahead. He pointed at his mouth, then up at the surface. She shook her head and kept swimming. He really wished he could make a smart remark right about now.

Suddenly the cave was right in front of them, and as they swam into it, as if crossing an invisible barrier, they fell to the sandy floor in an airy cavern. Jack sprawled onto his back, gasping for breath. Even Lian was panting a little. She leaned over him, gazing into his eyes.

“Listen, love,” Jack said. “Normally I like to get to know a girl before I let her tie me up and nearly drown me. But in your case, I’ll make an exception.” She ducked away from him quickly, revealing that she had untied the sash that was holding their wrists together. He stretched out his arm, relishing the feeling of freedom.

Billy and Diego crashed into the cave, rolling to a stop beside Jack in a flurry of sand.

“
Madre de Dios!
There’s air down here!” Diego cried, jumping to his feet and looking around. “What kind of witchcraft is this?”

“Why, haven’t you been in an enchanted, mystical, underwater cavern before?” Jack asked. “They’re everywhere, apparently. Really nothing to get excited about.”

Jack was hiding a sense of uneasiness from his friends. He had actually been in a cavern very similar to this more than once, when he was a teenager and captain of the
Barnacle
. In order to save his friends from the sirens’ song, he’d swum down to a cave like this to bargain with some very disagreeable mermaids. And he’d nearly wound up being trapped there as their prisoner for life, too. He shuddered. He couldn’t bear to think about it. Billy had heard the story during his and Jack’s earliest adventures, and he and Jack had been trapped by the merfolk more than once.

Luckily, however, those mermaids were on the other side of the world, in the Caribbean. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any Scaly Tails, as Jack called them, in
this
cave. The turquoise light reflecting off the coral reef walls was similar to the mermaids’ cave, but here the coral that spiraled all around them was pink and white instead of black, creating a much lighter, friendlier atmosphere. That suited Jack just fine.

A tunnel led off from the back of the cave, with a glowing multicolored light at the end of it. Tiny rainbows shimmered in the nooks and crannies of the coral reef as the pirates tiptoed cautiously along the tunnel. Jack nimbly jumped over the pools of turquoise water on the floor. He admired how lightly and gracefully Lian slipped along beside him. She smiled when she saw him watching her.

Suddenly the tunnel opened out into an enormous cave. Lian grabbed Jack’s arm and pulled him backward behind a coral outcropping. Billy and Diego crouched behind them. They all stared out at the source of the rainbow light.

A giant snake filled the entire cavern. Jack couldn’t imagine how it got in and out—it seemed far too large to fit through the tunnel where he and his friends were crouching. Perhaps it never left. To be trapped in a cave forever, cut off from the sounds of the waves and the smell of the fresh sea air and the bracing wind of freedom…that sounded like Jack’s worst nightmare.

Sunrise-bright clouds and swirling colors that Jack had never seen before shifted through the serpent’s iridescent scales. The tip of its tail, gleaming lavender-indigo–midnight blue, rested near where they were hiding, and the serpent’s coils took up almost every inch of floor space.

Diego pointed over Jack’s shoulder to the serpent’s head, where forest green scales seemed to overlap with seashell pink and pale ivory, then changed as they watched to fiery reds and oranges. Its eyes were closed, and its long forked tongue flicked in and out as it slept.

But more interesting still was what was just
beyond
the serpent’s head: another cave. It was the only other exit from this room. And based on the serpent’s position, it was clearly guarding whatever was inside that cave.

Jack signaled to the others for silence. Slowly and carefully, in tense quiet, the four pirates slid around the serpent’s tail and tiptoed across the cave. They held their breath as they squeezed past, making sure to not even brush against the snake’s shimmering scales. It was a delicate dance, finding the next safe place to set a foot down.

But finally they made it across to the far wall and darted past the snake’s tongue. One by one, they ducked into the last cave.

In the center was a pool of clear water, lit by a glow from within. As they drew closer, they could see something shining from the center of the pool. It was an enormous black stone, shimmering with colors and gleaming with a mysterious inner light.

They had found the Deep Sea Opal.