The Pirate's Progress (2/5?)

[erinya]

"I thought you said there'd be ladies," said young Sandy Miller, glancing around at the empty, rocky shore on the near side of the river, then towards the huge shadowy gate that loomed ahead of them.

"I thought you said there'd be a feast," said Pip, accusingly.

"I thought you said there'd be rum," grumbled a spectacled sailor, ruddy and ginger-haired, who rejoiced (or not) under the name of Smee.

"Steady on, lads," Jack said, alarmed. It seemed neither the time nor the place to remind them he had, in fact, made no such promises. "Just a bit farther now. We've got to get past that gate."

"Ye say that like it'll be easy," sneered the ill-tempered old tar who had first hailed Jack in the Locker. He was called Jonah, and Jack found himself wondering if that white puckered scar across his face was not, in fact, the mark of the great Leviathan's teeth. He supposed he should have some fellow feeling for him if that was the case, but instead he rather wished he could have left him behind. He felt very peculiar indeed when he looked at that scar, and had to push back too-recent memories that writhed up from the depths of his mind, like tentacles.

"What's not easy about it?" he said. "Walk up, ring the bell, walk in. Nothing to it."

"Doesn't sound like much of a plan to me."

Jack rolled his eyes. "And can you think of a better one? Fine. I'll do it meself," and he swaggered towards the gate. The others straggled along some ways behind him. Honestly, he couldn't really blame them. He was half-expecting to see Abandon hope, all ye who enter here inscribed in flaming letters on the iron arch.

There was no inscription, but as he approached, a hulking shadow separated itself from the thick shadows at the gate's base and growled low in its throat.

Throats. Three of them, as it happened. And the thing was as tall as a horse and twice as bulky, with a prehensile tail that darted and coiled as if it had a mind of its own.

"Oh, bugger." Jack stood stock-still as the great hound stalked towards him, hearing only vaguely the startled cries of his followers. Running, he knew, would be worse; flight was merely an invitation to pursuit for a creature that did not know the fear of man. He wished heartily that he had his pistol, just then, but his weapons had been lost somewhere between the Kraken's belly and the Locker; or perhaps they were not permitted here. Not that a pistol would do a great deal against a demon-hound like this one. Besides, put a bullet in its brain and even if it were not immortal it would have two heads to spare, and angry ones at that. "Good doggie…"

The beast was standing over him now, bending its snouts to sniff, hoarse pants filling Jack's ears like thunder. A thick thread of drool dribbled down to soak one shoulder of his coat. Its steaming breath was…well, perhaps not as bad as the foul exhalation of the Kraken, but a worthy competitor in the field of stenches not to be borne. Stale death and fresh, sulphur and saltpeter, like the reek of a ship's deck after pitched battle, no quarter given and the washports bleeding red into the sea.

He swallowed convulsively and shut his eyes, waiting for the inevitable crunch of teeth on bone and wondering if it was possible to die again once you were already dead. But the attack never came. When he opened his eyes again, the three heads had swung away from him, uninterested, and the hound was following a wandering scent back towards the gate in a manner that was ludicrously canine and benign for such a monster.

"There's a good pup," he encouraged it, fanning away the stink. "Go on, then. Good boy."

"Cap'n!" Smee called nervously from behind him. "Did it eat you?"

"It's all right, lads," he shouted back. "Seems the beastie's just charged with the duty of making certain we're good and dead." Yes, that sounded right, a scrap salvaged from a long-ago education: the dread hound who prevented mortals from passing over this Threshold before their time, and who would tear to pieces any spirit who tried to escape.

Suppressing a qualm at that last thought, he stepped forward. Before him, ponderously, the immense gate creaked open of its own accord; and he walked through it, into the Realm of the Dead, while Cerberus turned its jowly heads to watch him go.