Legends of the Treasure Child: Sparrow's Nest

The noise from the hammer which repeatedly connected with the head of the chisel, was heart-wrenching. Every beat from the hammer, every inch the chisel ploughed through the hard wood, was agonizing. The Roman letters emerged, one by one, and they seemed to glow with the hatred and decadence of every infidel, every non-believer.

'Jesus of Nazareth. King of the Jews.'

The long, squared wooden board it was chiselled on, was rough around the edges. The carver flinched as he accidentally stung himself on a splint. A drop of blood marked the spot where the splint stood. He brought the injured finger to his lips and closed his eyes. Hard. He swallowed, as if he again mustered some motivation to go on. He was a skilled carver, with more than twenty years of experience, carving on every possible material. When he was first presented with the simple task of carving into a wooden board, he took it as a personal offence. But that was before he realised who the sign was for.

The crucifixion of the Jew.

The carver hammered away grudgingly, seemingly undisturbed by the commotion which now took place on the field beyond the palace. The moans and pleas from the women mingled with shouts and verbal taunts from the men. Then, a clear male voice tore through the crowd of voices.


“Eloi, Eloi! Lama Sabachthani?!!”

*

After two thousand years, John Sparrow could still hear the panic in the Jew's voice. It did not matter how many times he dreamt. The dream held the same vivid memories, the same agonizing sense of helplessness. As the Roman soldiers hammered the nails through the hands of Jesus of Nazareth, the air went cold. The sky turned dark, as if it were night time.

No. God had in deed not abandoned his own.

The sun turned blood red. The sky turned pitch black. God saw. And God did – so that the death of his son would be remembered for eternity. The Word of God would prevail at any cost. The sin of Mankind would forever be etched into The Word – so that every man, woman and child would know their debt and duty towards God Almighty.

That day, every demon of Light and Darkness cringed. Their wings came to a halt. They bowed their heads and shuddered. Even in their darkest and most cruellest moments, they never fathomed the cynicism such a sacrifice took.

Jesus of Nazareth was born through the Virgin Mary with only one intent: To become the ultimate human sacrifice. A sacrifice for the good of Mankind.

Jesus had known this. From he was eight years old, he had known that he was the son of God, and that he would have to die for The Word to prevail. His death would be recorded. And that record would result in The Word, which would bloom and bleed its way across the boundaries of great kingdoms. Forever. When he had been arrested, aged 33, he had kept his cool. He had turned his eye inward and thought of his divine Father. The mockery, the purple robe and the spiked crown had been nothing. This was never his intent. He never asked to be king of anything. He had played his part well. He had done his Lord's bidding. It had all been endurable as long as he had been inside the palace walls. But when confronted with the field of Golgotha, the open space and the freedom of the blue skies, his determination had left him.

How much longer? How much more pain must one endure?! You promised!!

And the first nail had been placed against his wrist. The hammer had struck the head of the nail.

John Sparrow sat up in his bed. The loud noise from the hammer striking the head of the nail still rang in his ears. He rubbed his face against his palms, and sighed. All though awake, the memories kept rolling inside his head. He shuddered.

Like a lost child, Jesus had cried out to his Father. And God had answered by turning the sky into darkness. The dead had risen from their graves. In his mind's eye, John could still see their decaying, rotting faces. The ghosts of the martyrs and the saints. Every poor soul who ever had suffered wrongly. They all rose from their graves to deliver the same message:

The Passion of the Christ will be the undoing of you all. A holy man dies. The Son of God. His blood are on your hands.

The power of the Christ had compelled him, just as it had beckoned every other demon. The request was irrefutable, irrevocable, undeniable. It was the second time in a short span of time, not more than thirty-three years apart, that God displayed such power.

I am sacrificing my son. My first born. For you. All of you.

For the demons, it was a power demonstration. Even Lucifer was silenced that day.

John walked up on deck. It was in the dark of night, and they were in Norwegian waters. The cold nocturnal air stung his naked skin as he stepped out, shoe-less. The touch of crude wood beneath his soles brought his mind out of the maelstrom of distant memories from a past life and back into the present. A movement on the waters immediately caught his attention. Golden-eyed as John was, his eyes glowed in the night like the eyes of a cat. The ship in the distance floated out of the darkness, passing close to The White Swann. Close and soundless. The ghostly appearance of a long since passed longship brimming with Vikings ready for battle, took shape. Their forms, shades of pale grey, showed them standing to attention. The ship came to a halt, its railing touching the railing of The White Swann.

The chief, a giant of a man with long, blond hair and a chest as wide as the door of a barn, stepped forward and raised his arm to greet John.

“Hel, Lord of Niflheimr” the chief spoke in old Norse “my men and I are weary. We have travelled far and have lost our way. How far to your realm?”

John closed his eyes and focused inwardly on the Flying Dutchman. Calling it silently, he reached out with his arm towards the dark horizon. Clenching his fist tight, John waited until an greenish light emerged from the cracks of his fingers. Slowly opening his fist to reveal a green ball of light, John the Gatekeeper of Hell opened his golden eyes and stared.

From the bowels of the nocturnal waters blasted forth a ship much larger and greater than the White Swann. It was nowhere as sleek and elegant as she was. The Flying Dutchman was built to induce fear, not to be pleasing to the eye. She settled swiftly and unnaturally still. There was no creaking of timber, no howling of orders or anything. Swiftly and silently, like a ghost ship, she anchored up next to The White Swann and The Thorarim, dwarfing both ships in comparison.

“May your passage to Valhalla be swift.” John raised his hand in the air with a solemn gesture. A shimmering bridge appeared between the Viking ship and the Dutchman. The warriors prepared to abandon ship, and on signal by their chief, they formed a line, solemnly walking across. When the last soldier had passed over, the bridge disappeared. The Lord of Niflheimr watched as the Flying Dutchman weighed anchor and came about, disappearing into the fog.


Jack lay on his stomach as John re-entered the cabin. The former pirate lay on his bed, which was placed by the opposite wall of the fairly spacious captain's cabin. He had not expected Jack to be awake. John lingered in the doorway for a brief moment, wondering what to say. Thinking the better of it, he closed the door behind him and went to sit on the edge of his own bed. He watched Jack's unmoving figure through the half dark.

The former pirate turned his head around to gaze at his son. His first born. John had been reborn through him about fifteen years earlier. And with 'reborn' it wasn't in the spiritual sense. John was literally reborn through Jack, spending nine delightful months inside the pirate's belly, encompassed by Jack's very own flesh and blood, growing and strengthening to the sound of Jack's beating heart. And already then, John had the mind of an adult demon warlord but the body of an infant. And the shape had been momentarily kept, purely out of practical purposes. By the time he was a year old, his body had re-grown back to his original size.

John rubbed his face in his palms and sighed. He watched his father again, imagining he saw fathom tears on his cheeks. There was no need to ask in order to verify if Jack in deed had been shedding tears.

“I thought … that breeding a child with Will Turner would make you happy. It's what you wanted, right?” John asked quietly. He stroked the patch of goatee he'd grown on his chin. It gave him an mature appearance. Combined with the breathtaking, golden glowing eyes and the high cheekbones inherited from Jack, John was more than average looking. Long, dark brown silky hair cascaded across his shoulders. Strings of beads, diamonds and gold doubloons played hide and seek in the thick mass of hair, and it always had a weak scent of perfume. His soft lips hid sharp, slender fangs worthy of Dracula himself, and he took care to cut his razor-sharp fingernails often so he wouldn't accidentally tear those he touched. John waited patiently for Jack to answer.

“It's – you know – it's just the body changing. Adapting …!”

“ You are worried.”

“ If I lose it, I won't know what to do with myself” Jack swallowed hard. He spoke fast and hushed, his eyes darting about in the dark room. John knew what Jack was anxious about.

Saieros.

Jack's master. For fifteen years, Jack Sparrow had suffered underneath the demon whom once had been John's brother by blood. Saieros was the firstborn. Then came Sakias. Then, Aloysius. The Golden Child.

Now, Aloysius was known by another name, in another body: Captain John Sparrow.

“I have been thinking” John spoke soothingly after a while, “that it's time we hid you properly. These are difficult times for you, dear father. The Black Pearl is in dry dock at Land's End, undergoing repairs, and you're stuck here, on The White Swann. Not much of a pirate ship. Your company is going great. You've got so much money you could wipe your arse with it and still not have to worry about the next twenty years. Apart from the Catholic church and the witch hunters, Saieros is your greatest enemy.”

John was referring to the Sparrow Salvage Company. Owned by and run by Jack, the company specialized in retrieving and salvaging sunken ships and their treasures. He had a number of people on his payroll, still, the really difficult and heavy jobs were done by John. Jack had just opened a department in London, and the company received much attention because of Jack's background as a pirate lord. But Jack's list of clients – including the Queen of Spain and the King of England – ensured him all the papers necessary to live life as an honoured citizen. All misbehaviours and offences against the Crown of England had been forgiven. No longer a hunted man – in protestant England – Jack Sparrow walked the streets as he pleased.

Jack had changed. The shaggy appearance and the dreadlocks were gone. He had grown back his natural, slightly billowy brown hair and he kept it at shoulder length. At sea, he still wore a bandanna. The trinkets and beads in his hair were a minimum, and he had taken towards a fashion which looked more like the stuff the gentry wore. From time to time, he wore silk suits and finely embroidered coats when he met with clients. But at sea, Jack was same old Jack, wearing billowy linen shirts and comfortable pants and knee-high boots.

From time to time, Jack Sparrow faced charges from witch hunters and Catholics who were convinced he was a witch and that he was in league with the devil. Rumour even had it that he had been seen as a woman, nursing a demon child. It was all quite amusing to Jack, for no one knew just how right they were in their allegations.

“I think it's time we paid a visit to the Countess of Wessex.”