The Jade Chalice

The Jade Chalice

By: Caleb M. Branam

The Sea had been calm all morning. It had been too calm in fact, as the empty fishing nets strewn about the deck gave testament to. It was more than just the nets though; Jacque had felt it all throughout his bleak predawn preparations. He felt it as he made his way out to his usual fishing haunts.

He could feel it still.

Most likely he had eaten something that didn’t agree with him last night, or perhaps he drank too much wine. In the end he reassured himself it was just the mysteries of the Sea and Her unfathomable ways. In this way he returned to his nets.

Still yet, a suspicion nagged at him, and he couldn’t seem to sit still. His restlessness combined with his frustrations at the mornings catch thus far led him to weigh anchor and head further out to sea, out beyond the sea stacks to the spot Armand had claimed a massive haul not three weeks ago.

“If that luckless fool can bring in a catch like that, why not me?” Jacque said to himself as he caught the wind in his small sail and his cutter leapt forward towards his waiting destiny.

He made good time and by midday was hauling up his third full net, singing an old song softly to himself all the while. No sooner had he wrestled it onto the deck, did he catch movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned and what he saw filled him with terror.

A Tripolitan corsair ship!

“How did I not see it before!” His mind reeled. Where had it come from? Had it been hidden by the sea stacks? Was it some kind of optical illusion?

No.

It seemed to appear from nowhere. It was almost as though it had arisen from beneath the waves. Where once the horizon was empty, he was certain it had been, now there was a ship three hundred yards to starboard bearing down on his cutter anchored placidly alongside the sea stacks.

Growing up on the Mediterranean he had always heard tales of the Barbary Pirates who had terrorized these waters for centuries and knew of their legendary brutality. Jacque had no intention of becoming a galley slave. He drew his knife and dove headlong for the bow in a single motion and began to frantically hack and saw at the anchor rope, panic making him bungle the task terribly. Still fumbling with his blade and the rope, which was frayed but holding fast, He gathered enough courage to hazard another glance towards the ship, now just under two hundred yards distant, he could see the decks were completely deserted. The sails were reefed, no hands in the rigging, no oars run out, and no sounds coming from the menacing hulk. No sign of life at all could be detected. Jacque took what might have been a moment or an hour to compose himself and made the fateful decision to investigate further.

He brought the cutter alongside after circling around the stern to scan for anyone hiding, searching for any signs of life. He saw none. He did see the name of the vessel, the Sultana.

With his knife still clutched in his hand Jacque clambered over the gunnel and dropped, not so silently, to the deck. His lack of stealth made no difference, for there was no one to hear him.

“A ghost ship.” He croaked out through a throat gripped tight with fear as he cast his eyes around and saw that the deck looked as though it was freshly swabbed and cleared for action. There were signs of battle, scars and gouges in the wood here and there which might have come from any host of encounters. Curiously there was no blood, and no bodies. All aboard the Sultana was strange and still. After a brief inspection of the ship above deck Jacque steeled himself and plunged into the gloomy interior of the vessel. On his way he found a lantern still burning.

“Unsettling.” Jacque spoke to the Sultana as much as himself.

He took the lantern all the same. As he made his way into the bowels of the ship, his curiosity, like a siren called him toward the hold, he first came across the oars, then the chains.

It was here the galley slaves would be chained, to row and to die. Sometimes the dying would take decades, but they would die all the same. He resolved not to linger here. There was a darkness about the place no light could touch, and it made him feel a heaviness deep in his soul. With every pitch and roll of the Sultana the chains would shift and jingle ever so slightly. Each jingle echoed like a broadside inside Jacques ears. He gathered himself once more and passed through the place as swiftly as he could, all the while doing his best to ignore the cacophonous chains.

He found the ladder to the hold and made his descent.

What he found within lit him up brighter than the whale oil lantern he carried, his only defense against the vile dankness of the ship’s underbelly. Every available bit of space was crammed with casque upon casque of Madeira wine. At least Madeira was the word marking all the barrels Jacque could make out in the dimness.

“A hoard of Madeira.” Jacque whispered without realizing he had spoken. A madman’s grin plastered across his face.

“I’m rich!” he cried as he danced about sloshing light over seemingly endless rows of Madeira stretching out into the darkness. Jacque tasted from one barrel, then another. By the time he had tasted the contents from half a dozen casques he was convinced they all contained Madeira wine of the finest quality.

“Emperor Bonaparte himself would be jealous of so grand a bounty as this!” He shouted into the blackness of the Sultanas hold.

“Perhaps I’ll take it to him and sell it, might even make me the imperial sommelier!” He added to his own great amusement, his laughter sounding ghoulish in the ghost ships silence.

Jacque was fortified now, not only by the wine, but the dreams which swamped his mind and washed it clean of the horrors and evil that prowled just a deck above.

He had a flashing moment of clarity and snapped himself out of his reverie.

“I must get this ashore.” He gravely and urgently stated.

With a parting glance at his new fortune in wine he turned and raced back up the ladder, past the darkness and the chains, past their macabre and deafening elegy. He didn’t stop until he tasted the fresh sea air.

When he reached the deck, he noted the ship was still roughly the same distance from the sea stacks then, her decks remained entirely barren and silent.

He made for the stern castle and the captains’ quarters. Once inside he took note of how decidedly spartan they were. There was a desk, a high-backed leather chair, modest bed, liquor cabinet, and an empty weapons rack. The bed was neatly made and upon the desk were some papers that Jacque couldn’t translate, an ink well and quill, as well as a carafe of dark liquid he assumed must be Madeira, and lastly an ornate jade chalice.

Gazing at the chalice Jacque found himself suddenly very thirsty despite his samplings in the hold. He wanted some wine, needed some wine! Mostly he desperately had to drink some from the chalice. In the moment it seemed to be the only thing of importance in his entire life. So, with his stare fixed unwaveringly on the pale green goblet he stalked over to the captains’ desk and took hold of it. The surface was carved in relief to depict a scene of a stag and a unicorn locked in combat amid an apple orchard. Awed by the beauty of the piece, with reverence, Jacque filled the chalice and drained it. As he went to pour himself another the ship lurched forward violently, and he lost his balance, nearly fell face first into the desk, and spilled the wine all over the sleeve of his already stained canvas sailing shirt. For a long moment Jacque staggered about dramatically and though at length he managed to right himself and find his sea legs again, he lost his grip on the carafe and it fell, shattering into innumerable pieces. The chalice he managed to hold firm without effort, as though it were a mere extension of himself. He was temporarily stunned, then realization dawned upon him and heedless of the anything, but the ships movement, Jacque ran out of the cabin still holding onto the chalice.

As he came on deck he was struck first by the sight of the sails. They were all now set, and the wind and tide were driving the Sultana on a collision course with a cluster of sea stacks now perhaps fifty yards away and rushing ever closer.

“Too close however close they were.” Jacque thought.

He shoved the jade chalice inside his shirt sprinted for the port side, it being the closest. With a leaping step he vaulted from the gunnel and dove overboard into the tumultuous surf, narrowly missing a pair or churning oars on his way down. The Sultana along with his newfound fortune continued hurtling towards the towering stacks.

He clawed towards the surface the saltwater stinging his eyes. When his head had crested the waves, he located his cutter. It had broken loose of its moorings and was now being tossed by the sea approximately a hundred yards off. Just then he heard the first thunderous crash of the Sultana against the sea stacks. The vessel was hurled into the rocks again and something gave way in one of the stacks aquatic foundations. It teetered for an instant then tilted towards the spot where Jacque was treading water. He wasted no time taking in the sight. He turned and dove under swimming for his life. He was off like a dolphin before the shadow of the falling stack ever had a chance to touch him, and as the stone and ship alike crumbled and crashed into the sea in his wake Jacque swore, he heard a strange low mumbling. Close to a chant almost. Though unquestionably odd, impossible in fact under the surface of the sea he thought, Jacque did not dwell on it. He put the chanting, his lost fortune, and all other concerns from his mind and focused solely on swimming. He swam desperately, he swam as he had never swum in his life. The jade chalice seemed to tug at his shirt, it felt impossibly heavy. More than once, Jacque feared it might drag him down to the ocean floor. Still, he refused to discard it. Damned if he wasn’t going to have something to show for his adventure aboard the ghost ship! His dreams of future wealth still shattering along with the Sultana and her cargo somewhere behind him. In the final stretch of his swim, he felt the unmistakable grasping of a hand on his ankle. The shock of it nearly caused him to drown on a mouthful of involuntarily gulped sea water before he furiously and wildly managed to kick himself free. He swiftly put that from his mind as well, swimming a bit faster towards the sanctuary of the small boat. At long last and with a herculean effort he hauled himself aboard his erstwhile craft and lay there gasping like so many fish on deck beside him. When the cold lingering terror had passed and he had regained his strength, Jacque turned the cutter and headed back for the relative safety of the village. He had tempted the sea and his luck enough for one day.

“Perhaps some barrels are still intact, and I can retrieve them tomorrow.” Jacque told himself with a desperate optimism even he didn’t feel. He had wracked his brain the entire voyage back about the strange goings on aboard the pirate ship. How had the sails been set? He wasn’t in the cabin that long surely. More troubling than this was who could have done it, and who was manning the oars? Jacque brooded and brooded, and still found no suitable explanation. Had he not explored the entire ship? Was it possible someone had been hiding? Perhaps, but how many would it take to make ready to sail, to pull the oars, surely more than one person? Had the ship’s crew, or some of them at least still been aboard? It didn’t seem possible. If so, why had he been allowed to roam the craft? In addition, he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling someone had also loosed his cutter from the Sultana just before it screamed towards the rocks in an attempt to strand him aboard. He thought at first it was the frayed rope, but now he was less sure. He then recalled the feeling of a fingers around his ankle and the effort it took to kick himself free of the iron grip, with a redoubled mental effort and a few failed attempts Jacque managed to put it from his mind. Perhaps he would leave the hoard to the Sea after all.

“At least I still have my life, and a fine catch, and this chalice.” He consoled himself as he took the jade object out of his shirt and emptied the sea water it had collected. He ran his fingers over the pale green surface, tracing the translucent swirls that rose like incense smoke throughout. He caressed the cup as though it were a lover, returned it to the recesses of his soggy tunic, and limped his cutter back into the harbor. As he came up to the docks and reached for the tie line, he realized he was again holding the jade chalice.

“Strange.” Jacque puzzled aloud to himself. He didn’t recall bringing the chalice out. He put it away with a deal more ceremony than before, finished securing the cutter and turned to walk down the docks for home. As he did again, Jacque heard faintly over the waves, a weird, wild chanting.

He paused to listen.

It seemed now that the chanting was a bit nearer than before, coming from far out at sea but also somewhere nearby, somewhere always just out of sight. After a moment he turned away from the waters edge and began his walk home strangely unbothered, and with a renewed vigor he couldn’t account for after the days trials. As he walked the chants followed him.

Jacque was growing used to the sound.