The Adventures of Damnation Kane Book IV: Damnation and Grace

By Theoden Humphrey

The Adventures of Damnation Kane is an ongoing serial adventure story about Damnation Kane, an Irish pirate captain, born in 1650 to an English Puritan and an Irish druidess. Through means mystical and mysterious, somehow Damnation finds himself, with his ship The Grace of Ireland and his crew of scalawags, in strange seas. They do not know where they are, nor how they came to be there. Is it Hell? An undiscovered country? The Blessed Shores? The land of the Fae?
No: it is Florida. Near Miami. In the year 2011.
In Book IV, Damnation and his loyal crew travel to the Florida Keys in search of the vessel that brought them through space and time -- and that they hope will bring them back again -- the Grace of Ireland. Finding the ship is simple, but retrieving her from her current berth is quite a bit more complicated. The same is true for the mutinous crew. Damnation will need new allies, and a source of funds, and to keep a tight grip on his temper.
Alas: he does not manage all of these necessities.
This is the last of four short books which combine to make the first volume of the Adventures. The story continues on the Adventures of Damnation Kane blog, and look for Volume II to be published soon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theoden Humphrey
• Release date: May 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463605752

Theoden Humphrey

I write because I can't stop. I write because nothing else I do brings me the same joy, the same excitement, the same life. I write because J.R.R. Tolkien and John Steinbeck and Stephen King and Robert Jordan and Edgar Allan Poe and ee cummings and George Orwell and Virginia Woolf and William Shakespeare and Christopher Moore and L.A. Meyer and James Baldwin and Jim Butcher were and are writers. I write because fantasy takes us away from the world, in order to give us back the world. I write because I have ideas to share, which I hope people will hear. I write because I can't stop.

Book preview

The Adventures of Damnation Kane

Pirate of the Past and Present

Book IV: Damnation and Grace

In which Damnation Kane returns to his proper place, as the Captain of a Ship of Rogues: but finds anew that there are many rogues in the world, and not all of them are Irish.

by Theoden Humphrey

Published by Theoden Humphrey at Smashwords

Copyright 2018 Theoden Humphrey

The Adventures Begin:

Book I: Out of Place and Out of Time

Book II: Bastards and Buccaneers

Book III: Lions and Ladies

Available at Online Retailers

Smashwords Edition

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Please visit my website at www.theodenhumphrey.com

Cover art by Toni DeBiasi http://www.burningseahorse.com/

Table of Contents

Log #28: Tantalized

Log #29: Innocent

Log #30: Bondsman and Countryman

Log #31: Seeking Grace

Interlude #1

Log #32: Muse and Rave

Log #33: Pain Shop

Log #34: Free Men, Bound Men

Log #35: The Gallows Log

Interlude #2

Log #36: Filling in the Holes

Log #37: Time to Go

Log #38: The End of the Voyage

Interlude #3

Afterword

Log #28: Tantalized

Captain’s Log

Date: 16 July 2011

Location: 50 mi. south of Glass Palace, camped on sand-beach

Conditions: Joyed to return to the sea, though my ship is uncommonly shrunk. Weather is glorious for sailing, if rather hot for breathing.

We have come a fair distance along the coast today, thirty miles in my estimation. The boat sails well, for a ship’s boat. The prevailing winds are largely against us, but I have three stout, lusty companions and four oars, and we make headway even against the wind. We are determined, aye, fixed on our goal.

Our leave-taking was rapid, even somewhat abrupt, but ’twas better so. I spoke to the Enchantress in the morning, before she could depart for her day of law-warping; I asked her for assistance in sending a message to Maid Flora. She looked at me most peculiarly, and then stepped to a smooth white gewgaw, an object I had oft polished, but had never recognized as having a useful function – but lo! She lifted a raised, rectangular block, which revealed several bumps on its underside, numbered one to nine and naught, some others bearing symbols and strange words: Mute and Talk, and Ready-all (No, I think perhaps that was Redial, a word I am unfamiliar with.). The Enchantress pressed several of the bumps with her thumb, and then held the object to her ear; then it was that I understood: this tackle-block was akin to the tellafone, like the Verizons my friends the Lopezes carry. Indeed, in mere seconds, the Enchantress was exchanging greetings, and then she handed the tellafone to me, and I found myself speaking to and hearing the words of Maid Flora, though she were far, far away at that very moment.

I will remember, now, that tellafones come in various guises, shapes and colors; the key is the numerals in that strange pattern: three across, three down, and the naught below 8.

I told Maid Flora that her family could return safely, though I had to apologize profusely for the damage done to their home; I assured her that all the villains responsible were now utterly destroyed, and her family’s injuries all well avenged. She expressed gratitude most becomingly, which I demurred, of course. Then we said our goodbyes and her voice vanished from the tellafone, which I returned to its mistress, who set it back in place atop the smooth white box-piece. She said, So Flora’s coming back? Then you’re leaving?

Aye, milady. My task here is complete, and Maid Flora’s family is again safe, and hale. I must sail on.

She made a pretty pout. Too bad. I was getting to like having a handsome houseboy. I was going to get you a nice Chippendale outfit for a uniform, so I could sexually harass you all day.

Though I comprehended little of that, I did grasp her main thrust. I stepped close, seized her in my arms, and kissed her passionately. When I took my lips from her soft, sweet mouth, she sighed most prettily, and said, Oh, my. I kissed her brow and said, I must go, milady. But I am not glad of it.

I strode out of the room, then, to mount my steed, which I meant to return to House Lopez ere we departed. The Enchantress – a name most apt, aye, in more ways than I knew! – came running out after, calling my name. I stopped and turned to her, and she took my hand and filled it with the paper money of this time. Here, she said, You earned it. And this. And then she gifted me with one last, sweet kiss, one I will carry with me fondly.

I returned the steed to its owners, and placed a letter of thanks and farewell on their doorstep, and then I walked back to the Glass Palace (Now that the Enchantress was gone for the day, I had no fear of being seen and questioned crossing her demesne), to the Redoubt, where I found my men ready to depart. I exchanged my maid’s clothes for my proper finery, heaving a comfortable sigh of relief as I armed myself anew, with sword and wheel-gun firmly in my sash where they belonged. I did keep the servant’s togs as a useful disguise. And with water casks filled from the magic tap and some last few bottles of wine gathered from the galley, we bid the Glass Palace a very fond farewell. It was our first refuge here, and served us all a great kindness; we owed it a debt of gratitude.

We found a secluded beach to make camp that first night, and leaving MacTeigue and Lynch to set a fire and watch the boat, Vaughn and I made our way to a 7-11 shop we had spotted a mile or so northwards. There we exchanged some of my maid-money for victuals – I must say, maids are quite well-paid in this place! I seem to have earned a 50-paper every day I worked at the Palace, and only half of those days did I work a proper servant’s watch, from near dawn to near dusk; those same twelve hours in Ireland would have earned me a crust of bread, a bowl of milk, and a soft kick out the door! But perhaps I was given a gift, rather than wages – and perhaps it was not by maidish prowess that I earned it. Any road, while culling out our foodstuffs, Vaughn found a rack of broadsheets, several of which featured prominently a remarkable etching of the Grace of Ireland, and portraits of O’Flaherty and Shluxer – whose name is spelled Schluchzer, it seems, though for this record I intend to continue use of my own spelling, for simplicity’s sake. Vaughn gathered them up and added them to the purchase. As the clerk evaluated our goods and named me a price – which he would not dicker over, not even a cent! – Vaughn scanned one of the broadsheets and spoke most excitedly to me: the pamphlet reported a location for my ship! I told him we must seek out a proper map if we could locate a cartographer – at which point the clerk pointed and said Maps over there, dude. (The last word is unfamiliar, but I have rendered it here as similar to duke, which title it did resemble in sound. I thus take it as compliment.)

Apparently ’tis not only the Enchantress and her wealthy peers who can acquire such wonderful maps as she showed me; they are for sale at the local shop, and for far less than the cost of a meal. (Though I must then question the price of their food, for surely a bag of those potato chips, no matter how delicious, isn’t as valuable as the assurance that one never need be lost and wander aimlessly to one’s doom, as has been known to happen on the moors and in the deep forests of home.) Any road, Vaughn and I pounced like hungry dogs on the rack of maps the clerk indicated, and took one of each thus offered us. We made our way back to camp with our booty – in strange bags, made of stuff so thin and strong it resembles spider-silk, but which the clerk, when asked, named plass-tick – and there we ate, and read, and plotted our course on our new maps.

This day was spent making headway on that same course. We should reach our destination on the morrow.

Captain’s Log

Date: 17 July 2011

Location: Treasure Harbor, Islamorada

Conditions: Frustrated. Trapped like Tantalus.

Like Tantalus indeed: standing in a stream of cool water, beneath an apple tree heavy with fruit, starving and thirsting both; this was that Greek tyrant’s curse in Hades. When he reached up for the fruit, the bough would withdraw, and the water below would rise; he would then crouch down to drink, and the water would recede, and the branch then come lower to tempt him with its bounty – hence the word tantalize. I feel it now, though I think I have not sinned so sorely that this be my just reward.

Not a mile to the south-west of our camp, the Grace of Ireland sits at anchor. Perhaps two miles to the north-east, my men may all be found, both the good and the bad, the penitent and the insubordinate. Yet so close as they be, neither crew nor ship are within my grasp.

My ship is at the Islamorada Coast Guard Station. By land, she is guarded by locked gates, high fences, and armed men; by sea she is even more unreachable, as a constant stream of beast-ships come and go all day long, all grey steel, with cannons and swivel-guns visibly mounted in the bow; not a sail among them, but all moving as quickly and easily, and loudly, as do the beast-wagons on land; and every one manned by generous crews of proper military sailors, alert and disciplined. This coast be well-guarded, indeed. And so too is my ship.

I did not intend to steal her. On the journey down, Vaughn pointed out that, her reputation as a corsair notwithstanding, the Grace is my ship, bought and paid for, with my name on the bill of ownership as well as the logs and charts. He argued that I could simply claim that my ship was stolen from me – as indeed it was – and with three stout men (and the Lopezes, should the word of four Irishmen insuffice) to swear to my identity and the veracity of my claim, I might just be able to take back my ship with a smile and a handshake. Thus, upon our arrival at this tiny island south of the mainland of Florida, we beached the boat and left Lynch, as the youngest and least credible witness, to guard, and then Vaughn, MacTeigue and I went forth to press my claim.

Our first gauntlet was the thick-skulled cretin at the gate – thick-skulled he must have been, for surely that rock atop his shoulders was not full of brains. He could not understand my accent, first, though my brogue is negligible – gods, some of my men speak Gaelic as much as English. Never in all of my travels have I failed to make myself understood with the King’s English, until now, and I vow the fault was not with my tongue. When I had slowed and emphasized my words sufficiently – approximately what I would think a drunken Ourang-Outang would require for comprehension – for the dolt to comprehend me, then the man could not grasp my name. When I shortened it to Nate, and this abbreviated moniker sunk through that ponderous browbone, then he could not understand my mission and purpose for requesting entry.

Thank the gods, Vaughn was there to stop me drawing steel and running him through! And thank all the saints and devils as well that I did not need to treat with that imbecile after I had won entry to the station, or even Vaughn could not have restrained me.

But ’twas all for naught, even so. My name on the logbook and ship’s papers, and my intimate and minute knowledge of my ship, did not serve to establish my ownership of her; according to Lieutenant Danziger, the stolid, middle-aged officer with whom I parlayed, I must have a registration. Even my identity was called into question, and indeed our word was not good enough – though the man was clear that he did not name us liars, and I believed him; the Lieutenant was a man of morals and sober intelligence, unlike his buffoon of a watchman. He called it red tape, and when that mystified us, he explained it was a colloquialism for rules and regulations and laws, Byzantine in their complex convolutions, but inviolate nonetheless. Apparently I must have a birth certificate – though I would think my birth could be stipulated without witnesses, since here I am – a social security card, and a drivers license or some other – I believe he called it foe-toe-aye-dee; perhaps this means identification, another