Pirates of the Caribbean 04 The Sword of Cortes

The Sword of Cortes

The Sword of Cortes (Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow #4)

Rob Kidd

CHAPTER ONE

Jack Sparrow's mates--the fearless crew of the mighty Barnacle--had finally been shaken. They'd been searching so long for the Sword of Cortes, a weapon with unearthly power, that they had lost track of time. Had it been days, weeks, or months since they'd first set out on their quest and encountered sea beasts, cursed pirates,
and the cunning and vicious men
folk? No one could remember exactly, but they knew it had felt
like a long and tiring journey.
They had arrived on Isla Fortuna only that morning. They discovered that the notorious pirate Left-Foot Louis was in possession of the Sword. He had used its power to cause all of the honest people of Isla Fortuna to vanish. In just a few hours, the crew had defeated the vicious pirate and finally procured from him their prize. The Sword was in their hands now, reunited with its scabbard.They knew from legend that when the two charmed parts of the weapon were joined and an ancient incantation read, the Sword would become imbued with godlike power.Jack Sparrow had done all that. But when he waved the Sword and spouted off the first few magical spells that came to mind, nothing happened. He wasn't able to make anything di
sappear or transform, things he
thought a magic sword should be able to do easily. In fact, the Sword seemed less powerful now than it ever had. Something was wrong.Very wrong.Jack was frustrated. He was about to toss the Sword away, but the horrified looks on the faces of his crew told him that he should reconsider. A second later, Jack realized they were looking at something behind him. He whirled around and saw--well, he wasn't quite sure what it was.Jack's first mate, Arabella, was quick to fill him in."Jack," she said, "don't ye realize what's happened? The pirates' stories lacked a wee detail. The incantation ye read brought back the Sword's owner! This is the spirit of Hernan Cortes, risen from the dead!"Jack siz
ed up the phantom. Was Arabella
sure he had risen from the dead? The chap still looked pretty un-alive to Jack. The pale, sallow man was clad in old Spanish armor. The stench of rot hung around him. Jack waved his hand in front of his face and coughed to vanquish the smell, but it didn't work. Cortes was one stinky conquistador. His glowing red eyes glared at Jack.Then Jack did what any good adventure-seeking captain would do. He stepped up to Cortes and introduced himself."Well, hello there, mate," Jack said, extending his hand. "Captain Jack Sparrow. How very nice to meet you."Apart from Cortes's chest, which heaved and fell heavily (Jack thought this rather odd for a dead--or undead--guy), Cortes did not move. His breath stank like a barrel of rotten fish.Jack smi
led uncomfortably, coughed, and
dropped his arm. "So, mate, I suspect you've materialized here, from wherever it is you dead people go, in order to get the Sword back, eh?"Cortes leaned forward, attempting to bow. This appeared to be quite difficult for him. His
armour
creaked and his bones seemed to crack."The Sword," Cortes said in thickly accented English, "is now yours. You read the incantation. You invoked its power."The crew of the Barnacle was shocked-- and impressed--that Jack was so at ease talking to a dead fellow."So, then," Jack said, "why are you here? A genie from the bottle or something like that? Just come along for the ride? Stick by ye ol' sword whenever it may be imbued with godlike power? Oh, wait, let me correct myself, ye ol'
sword that is supposed to have
been imbued with godlike power." Jack tapped the blade with his index finger. "Your little metal stick doesn't seem to be doing much of anything right now."

"I am here, boy," Cortes said in a grave voice, clearly trying to put Jack in his place, "to teach you how to use this weapon."Jack's eyes brightened and he turned to his crew, smiling broadly. The crew was much less at ease with the current situation than their captain.Jack cleared his throat and clapped his hands together. "So, when do my lessons begin?"Cortes stepped forward, his armor grating and squeaking."Now," he answered.There was a long pause. Cortes did not say anything more. Jack raised an eyebrow."Want to gi
ve me a little more instruction
than that, mate?" Jack asked. Behind his hand, he whispered to Arabella, "Now we know why he was a conquistador and not a schoolteacher in his former life."

"Take the Sword and point it toward the port's docks," Cortes told him.From the hilltop graveyard where they stood, Jack had a clear view of the docks below. He lifted the Sword and pointed it at the dock farthest from where they had moored the Barnacle. An unbelievably powerful current of energy flowed through Jack's body and out through the Sword. Instantly, it blew the empty dock out of the water."Whoa!" was all Jack could muster.He examined the blade closely. It was smoking and smelled of sulfur. He could feel heat radiating from it onto his face.Cortes smiled.Jack qui
ckly whirled around and pointed
the Sword at Constance, the mangy, obnoxious cat that Jack's crewmate, Jean, claimed was his sister under a curse."Begone!" Jack shouted."Constance!" Jean cried out in horror.But nothing happened. Constance just hissed at Jack, stretched, and yawned. Then she sat down and curled her twitching tail around her."I knew it wouldn't work, or else I wouldn't have tried it," Jack said quietly to Jean. He hoped he sounded convincing.Jean wasn't buying it. He scowled at Jack and ran to Constance, gathering the nasty, matted cat up in his arms.Just then, Cortes stepped up behind Jack. Cortes placed his slimy, decaying hands over Jack's and gripped the Sword with him."Do you think we can use this sword to clean you up
a bit, mate? Maybe just to get
rid of that awful smell?" Jack asked.Cortes did not seem to be bothered by Jack's quips. He extended Jack's arms, pointing the Sword toward the sea. Another rush of energy flowed through Jack. A haze of
vapour
began to rise off the sea. It rapidly became thicker. Within seconds, the water along the entire coast of Isla Fortuna was violently boiling.Cortes stepped away from Jack, smiling smugly, and the sea simmered down.Then, Cortes stepped up to Jack again, holding the Sword together with him once more. Jack looked out at the turquoise Caribbean. The Cutlass! In all the excitement, Jack had shoved to the back of his mind that despite the fact that the pirate himself was gone, Left-Foot Louis's ship and crew were stil
l docked right off the island.
Cortes positioned Jack's arms--and the Sword --so that they were directly in line with the Cutlass. The huge pirate ship with its signature crimson Jolly Roger shimmered on the sea. Then with a quick blink, the ship
vanished. “Guess
that threat is over with," Jack said
flatly. His
crew was in awe."Neither the ship, nor the crew, will interfere with you any longer," Cortes said.Jack shifted uncomfortably, unsettled by the fact that Cortes had made an entire ship and its crew disappear. And all the while, Jack had been holding the mystical
sword. Cortes
stepped away from Jack
again. Jack
wiped Cortes's slimy grime from his hands and stared at the Sword in awe. He looked at Cortes, who was still smi
ling, then
turned his attention back to the Sword, which glowed with a waning power, the way a hot iron would as it cooled. Finally, Jack turned to his crewmates. Their expressions ranged from uneasy to terrified. Could no one share in his enthusiasm? Jack rolled his eyes and stomped over to his trusted crew, who were waiting for him at the foot of the hill.Tumen, a Mayan sailor, looked particularly troubled."Tumen!" Jack said, smiling. He slapped the young sailor on the back. "Look alive, mate! What's eating at you?"

"I'm just not feeling very well," Tumen said."He does look pale," Arabella said, touching Tumen's forehead. "And he has a bit of a fever, too."

"Well,
never fear, Tumen, mate," Jack
said. "Once I learn to properly wield this sword, I'll make you right as rain.""Jack," Tumen said, shaking his head and clearly straining to speak, "I don't trust this sword."

"Well, you didn't seem to have any trust issues prior to discovering it."

"That was before I saw what she could do," Tumen urged. "This type of power is dangerous. And what's worse is . . . Cortes." Tumen looked over at the ghastly figure and shuddered. "He scourged the Yucatan before moving inland to defeat the Aztecs. This sword had a part in that slaughter.""But we said we'd take the Sword and harness its power for different purposes. To free ourselves--to free the Caribbean--from pirates and corrupt politicos and all sorts of other ne'er-do-wells," Jack said,
waving his hand dismissively.
"I have a different view now," Tumen said, slumping against a nearby tree to support himself."As do I," Fitzwilliam P. Dalton III, the aristocratic runaway, chimed in. Seeing the corro
sive conquistador in the flesh
or lack
thereof
was really giving the crew a very different perspective. "Cortes slaughtered an entire empire. He could have very well used that sword to do it. Families, Jack. Mothers, fathers, children. Let's think about this rationally."

"Oh, you aristos and your rational behavior! 'Rational' this and 'rational' that," Jack said, waving the blade carelessly. "Fitzy, there is nothing remotely rational about this here sword. And I am convinced that I can make this work to our benefit. It might have made a lot of bad things happen in the past, b
ut it doesn't have to be bad."
The crew members stood silent, clearly united against Jack. Despite their earlier enthusiasm, now that they had seen what the Sword could do, none of the crew wanted its full power unleashed.Jack sneered."You're either with me on this, or you're against me," Jack said.The crew, even Constance, still stood united in their defiance."Very well, then," Jack said. Turning his back on his crew, he st
arted back toward Cortes.

CHAPTER TWO

Jack found Cortes waiting patiently at the top of the hillside
graveyard. “Welcome
back."

"What say we cut the formalities and just get this business done with, savvy?"

Jack said."The first rule is to respect your elders," Cortes answered. "And I am certainly your elder, by hundreds of years."Jack r
emembered Arabella saying that
Cortes died in the middle of the sixteenth century. That would make him very old, indeed. More than two hundred years older than Jack . . . if you counted all the years the conquistador spent dead in between.

"Well, then, old man, may I beg you to please guide me in the ways of this so-very-mystical sword?" Jack asked sarcastically. "Respectful enough for you?"Jack handed the Sword over to Cortes."Much better," Cortes said, swishing the Sword before him. Sparks flew from the blade, and the air that it cut seemed to take on an iridescent glow.Jack looked down the hill, where his crew waited and watched. Jack shot them an arrogant glance."Now, take the Sword," Cortes said.Jack reached out for it, but
Cortes quickly pulled it away.

"Not like that," Cortes said. Then he drove the tip of the Sword into the ground. "Now, take it. But don't move from where you are."

"With all due respect, Cortsy, that sword is a good three yards away from me. How am I supposed to retrieve it from way back yonder?"

"Use its power. Concentrate and call it to you.""Call it to me?" Jack said. "Here-swordy-swordy-swordy!"

"No! Call it with your mind. Call it with your soul," Cortes
said. Jack
gave Cortes a dubious glance, then redirected his attention to the
Sword. “Concentrate
," Cortes told
him. Jack
looked at the Sword. He thought about all the things he could do with it. He could be the c
aptain of his own ship. A real
ship, not like the Barnacle. He could rule his own island. Sail the Seven Seas--and rule them, too. He would be free of all the constraints placed upon him. He'd answer to no one but
himself. As
Jack thought about all these things, the Sword slowly rose from the ground and floated into his hand. Jack gripped the Sword and felt a tingle of energy emanate from its hilt. He smiled.

"Very good," Cortes said.

"Thank you," Jack replied, bowing. "You know, I really have always been very good at things like this--levitating objects and such. I once juggled a scallop and a sea cucumber using nothing more than my breath and my willpower."

"Did you?" Cortes said skeptically.Jack squirmed awkwardly. "Yes, well, anyway, back t
o this here sword." He held it
out to the sea and willed a fleet of ships to appear--a fleet he would command. But nothing happened. Cortes stepped up to him once
again. “You’ve
not yet perfected the art. Point the blade toward that valley in the distance."

"Which one, mate? This island is full of hills and dales. Come on, get with it. Specifics. We need specifics," Jack said.

"Any one of them will do," Cortes replied, and Jack could hear a note of agitation in his voice. Jack felt proud. It wasn't every mate who could tick off the undead.Jack waved the Sword before him more dramatically than he probably needed to. Then he pointed it at a valley near the
centre
of the island. The valley began to shimmer. Before Jack's eyes, it was suddenly filled with a roaring current of water. He'd created a riv
er from nothing! Well, nothing
but thin air and the magic of a legendary sword.What else could he do? Jack pointed the Sword at the river, and willed it to turn red. But nothing happened. He waved the Sword back and forth, willing treasure to fall from the sky and jewels to spring from the ground. Still nothing. He pointed the Sword at his crew, which, even from a distance was noticeably terrified to be in its line of fire. Jack willed them to cooperate with him, but they did not move from their place at the foot of the
hill. With
every failure, Jack became more
frustrated. “Seems
this here sword only works when you're telling me what to do with it, mate," Jack said, handing the Sword back to Cortes.

"So, why don't you just play with the landscape on you
r own? A river here, a rainbow
there, maybe a tea shop down in the town square for the
tourists. “

Cortes’s
red eyes glowed like hot coals. He was clearly angered, and for the first time Jack felt a twinge of fear. Cortes held the Sword above his head and howled an unearthly scream that shook the very ground beneath Jack's feet.Above Cortes's head, the sky soon began to churn with a thick cover of roiling black clouds. There was a crack of thunder followed by a flood of rain. Then the humid heat of the Caribbean afternoon was swept away by a bitterly cold wind. Jack had never felt so chilled in his life.He looked up, and what he saw truly amazed him. Huge white flakes cascaded from the sky. The Sword o
f Cortes had caused it to snow
right there in t
he Caribbean.

Cortes smiled smugly once more. "So, how do you like the new landscape?" he asked. Jack did not respond, he was clearly stunned. "Your first lesson is over," Cortes continued. "In fact, this first lesson will also be your last. You now know all you need to know."But Jack was not having it. He clearly did not, in fact, have the training he needed in order to properly work the Sword. What was this Cortes mate trying to pull?"Jack!" Jean called out, running up the hill toward his captain. His crewmates were right behind him, their teeth chattering. They were not prepared for weather like this, especially on an island where the temperature rarely dropped below scorching.Jack casually pointed the Sword toward the sky and commanded the snow to stop falling,
but to no avail. Would he ever
master this sword? Especially now that Cortes was giving up on training him?"Jack, I'm worried about Tumen. He's getting worse," Jean said.Jack looked over at Tumen, who was supported on either arm by Arabella and Fitzwilliam. He looked only a shade healthier than Cortes. The cold and snow could not be good for such a sick sailor."We need to take him back to town," Arabella said. "Jack, look at him. He's near death with whatever it is that's afflicting him. We need to get him into warm blankets and near a fire and some shelter. And that goes for the rest of us, too. Will ye be joining us? Or is yer lesson that much more important than yer crew?"

"I resent that," Jack said. "Go on, I will be there shortly."

"Jack," A
rabella said, "not long ago ye
convinced me not to do something I'd regret, not to become someone--somet
hing-- I didn't want to become.
I only hope I can convince ye of the same thing. Just, please, be careful. I care for ye, Jack. We all care for ye." She kissed him on the cheek, gathered up the rest of the crew, and set off in search of shelter in the town below.Jack hesitated for a moment, then turned back to Cortes."Okay, mate, now listen. I know that I can't use this sword just yet, despite what you say. So I'm asking you, about as kind as Jack Sparrow knows how, to show me how to use it.""I can make you a master of the Sword," Cortes told him."So, what are you waiting f
or?" Jack said.
But on a condition . . ."

"Of course it's on a condition. What in the bloody Caribbean is not done on some condition or other? And what is said condition, senor?"

"Retrieve for me the eye of the man who last wielded this sword. I want the stone eye that belonged to th
e pirate Stone-Eyed Sam."