Black Sails

   Thomas stood on the deck of the nightmare. His flesh had shriveled to his bones, leaving him a desiccated corpse. But his sightless eyes bulged with an understanding, and his white-knuckled fingers moved with a hideous intelligence. Behind him stood his new captain: a grinning monstrosity in powder and polish, bare teeth flashing behind drowned lips. The crew around them were equally horrifying: murderers and pirates a hundred years dead. They shuffled about their duties with the certainty of the damned, quiet moans echoing across the storm-filled sky.

   "Why, Uncle Philip?" the tattered Thomas pleaded at him. "Why did you let them get me?"

   Philip Gosse sat bold upright, his bedsheets soaked with sweat.

   "The Black Freighter," he whispered. "He's with Legion's crew?"

   "More bad dreams?" Hernando Ochoa asked from across the cabin. The old ex-priest folded his carefully over the Book of the Prophets as he gazed at his old friend.

   "Even worse than before," Gosse nodded. Struggling out of his night-shirt he began to get dressed. "It's out there somewhere. And I think it's got Thomas."

   "Thomas drowned saving Martin, you know that," Hernando spoke calmly. "I know you feel guilty about his death, but that is no reason to assume he's been claimed by some outlanding legend."

   "How do you know?" Gosse almost sighed. "Sightings of the Black Freighter have run the length of Théah. Legends aren't always lies, my friend. You and I know that better than anyone."

   The priest shrugged. "Thomas is with Theus now, legend or no legend. He was a good lad and died an honourable death."

   "Yes, I suppose you're right," Gosse muttered as he buttoned up his coat. "Still, it's not saving me any sleep."

   "With the Black Freighter on you mind, I'm not surprise," Ochoa closed his book. "It's a whale of a story, you have to admit. Ship's crew, betrayed by their captain, only to rise from Legion's pit for revenge..."

   "...sailing the seas in search of the living..." Gosse continued almost unconsciously, "...sinking all they can find and conscripting the damned to join their unholy crew..."

   The cabin rocked hard under the waves. The sky outside the window was an angry grey, punctuated by occasional flashes of lightning.

   "Looks like a major storm is coming," Ochoa murmured. "You'd better make sure -"

   "Ship! Ship off the port stern!" the cry came from the crow's nest. Gosse paled and charged towards the door.

   "I knew it," he shuddered. "I knew it in my bones."

   The deck of the Uncharted Course lurched as its crew battened it down in preparation for the storm. Ignoring them, Gosse stepped to the railing, producing a spyglass and peering towards the horizon. It took only a moment to confirm; the spyglass slipped from his nerveless fingers as he saw the tattered black sails over the horizon.

   "...The Black Freighter..."

   The drenched hulk was covered in seaweed, its wooden sides swollen with countless unhallowed decades on the bottom. The front third of the hull seemed composed of huge bones, like the ribcage from some fallen giant. As he watched, the undead crew scrambled to their positions, their rotten flesh discernable even from this great distance. As the Black Freighter turned, the lightning around it grew more intense, as if feeding the cursed thing's hate.

   A pale form could be seen high in the vessel's crow's nest. Gosse didn't have to look to see who it was.

   "Thomas," he whispered. "Theus have mercy on us all."