Chapter Seventeen: Cave of Souls

“I told you there were ghosts,” Tobiah said with a chuckle. The princess was glaring at him and even Agnes didn’t look amused.

“How could you bring us here?” the princess asked. “The stories of what happens to people who trespass in the Cave of Souls -”

“Are not anything we have to worry bout,” Tobiah said. “I’ve gotten us this far without issue, haven’t I?” Throp scoffed but Tobiah didn’t seem to notice. “I promise everything will be okay. Don’t you trust me?”

The princess took a moment before nodding her head, but Throp could see the tension in her neck and shoulders remained and he knew she was just posturing.

Probably to prove me wrong, Throp thought. At this point he hoped he was wrong and that the pirate could be trusted. The alternative probably wouldn’t be pleasant.

“How do you even know about the Cave of Souls?” Tobiah asked as they started walking again. “Few land dwellers know the legend and I certainly wouldn’t expect someone of your station to be familiar with it.”

“My grandmother,” the princess answered. “She told me about it when I was little.”

Tobiah seemed satisfied with that answer, but Throp leaned in and whispered.

“Your grandmother ran into pirates on her travels? I’m surprised she ever made it back to Larowyn to marry your grandfather.” The princess just shrugged in response.

As they walked, the moaning became louder and more unnerving. Throp’s skin went cold at the sound, but he tried not to let it show. The girls seemed to be doing the same. The princess’s was still obviously tense and Agnes gripped Tobiah tightly around the neck, her eyes flitting around nervously.

They came to an opening at the end of the room, no wider than a normal doorway but a little shorter, so Throp couldn’t see what was inside. He could hear it, though. The moaning was very clear now. It sounded like a hundred voices and none of them were happy.

“Cave of Souls!” Cleo said in his ear, startling him. Even the bird knew this wasn’t a good idea. They stopped in front of the doorway and Tobiah set Agnes down and took her torch. Throp’s heart clutched as Tobiah disappeared into the Cave of Souls. The three stood frozen. The entry began to glow, dim at first but then brighter and brighter until Throp thought it must be daylight inside. He glanced at Agnes and the princess, who were gripping each other’s hands.

Throp was steeling his resolve. Surely they were meant to follow him. But he had never wanted to do anything less. Just as he worked up the nerve to step forward, inching a toe into the glow of the doorway, everything went silent.

He started, jumping back and fixing his eyes on the doorway.

“What happened?” Agnes said, her whisper seeming loud in the sudden silence. Then she screamed as Tobiah’s head peeked out of the doorway.

“Are you three coming or not?” He disappeared again and Throp followed behind, slowly. What he saw inside nearly knocked him on his feet.

This room was maybe twice the size of his house, but taller. The ceiling opened up and although the moon had started to lower in the sky, Throp could see stars through the opening. On the walls were a dozen torches in sconces. The room was made even brighter by the light reflecting off the mountain of treasure in the center of the room. It took up a third of the room and was as tall as Throp. Coins, jewelry, knick knacks, statues, plates - anything that had ever been cast in gold or silver seemed to be piled haphazardly onto the mound. Even the princess, who grew up around finery, seemed amazed. Tobiah wasn’t exaggerating when he called Captain Dregg a magpie. Finally Throp shook off his reverie.

“What about the ghosts?” he asked. Tobiah shrugged.

“You just have to know how to appease them,” he said. “Five years of dumping treasure here and I’ve learned a thing or two. Well? Help yourselves!”

Throp was incredulous and Tobiah could tell.

“This is more than one man could spend in a lifetime,” he said. “I may be a pirate, but I’m certainly not greedy. You’ll need something to tide you over until you get to Berabeth. And besides, you’ve done me quite the favor by instigating this whole thing, even if it wasn’t intentional. I think I can spare a sack full of loot.”

“That’s very generous of you,” the princess said and then shot Throp a smug look. Agnes was already at it, her ankle apparently feeling well enough now that she could climb on top of the mound.

Throp felt uneasy, inspecting these stolen goods for something he wanted, but it wasn’t as if he stole them, nor would he have any way of getting them back to his rightful owners. He decided to find small, easily traded things that wouldn’t weigh him down. He was already set to get a big reward from the king of Larowyn and the princess was probably right that the king of Berabeth would see he was compensated. So he didn’t need much from the pile. He took a pocketful of coins, a few minor jewels and some rings.

Agnes clearly felt differently. A crown sat on her head and around her neck were a dozen necklaces. Bangles ran up and down her arm and a ring shone from every finger.

The princess was ignoring the pile of goods and instead was walking around the edge of the room, inspecting the walls and the sconces.

“What’s this?” she asked and what appeared to be an old tapestry spread out over an outcropping of rock.

“No, don’t-” Tobiah started, his hands raised, but it was too late. The princess pulled the tapestry down and the room was once again filled with the horrible moaning. It was even louder inside the room as it echoed off the walls. Agnes squealed and put her head down and Throp expected to see spirits flying around him, demanding their treasure back. Tobiah ran to where the princess was, grabbed the tapestry and put it back into place. The moaning was muffled. He adjusted the tapestry and then it was quiet again. The princess looked to him for an explanation and he grinned at her.

“Ghosts are appeased by tapestries,” he said, unconvincingly. The princess lifted the edge of the tapestry.

“It’s the wind!” she said. “There are just holes in this piece of rock. There must be a tunnel that breaks ground and the wind is blowing through.” She looked disappointed. “There are no ghosts at all.” Tobiah shrugged and Throp walked over to see it for himself. He lifted the tapestry higher, bearing with the noise which, now that he knew what it was, sounded less like moaning and more like wind blowing through crevices. The outcropping of rock was dotted with deep holes, each shaped slightly differently to create the illusion of multiple voices. The Cave of Souls was just a trick Mother Nature was playing on gullible and superstitious people. In his ear, Cleo began to mimic the moaning sound and Throp shushed her. He threw the tapestry back onto the outcropping and looked to Tobiah.

“The Cave of Souls is legend,” Tobiah said. “Very few people know the truth. I hope can trust your discretion.” Throp nodded, although the truth was he didn’t care either way about a ridiculous pirate legend. If pressed, he would probably omit the Cave of Souls portion of his story entirely.

They continued to rifle through the treasure for a while. Tobiah seemed to be looking for something specific and Agnes was so weighed down from jewelry that Throp hoped she wouldn’t expect him to carry her around like a rag doll. Throp stopped collecting things, satisfied that he had enough to get him to Berabeth without trouble. He hoped the road there would be easy.

He noticed the princess, kneeling down but not moving. He went to her and looked over her shoulder. A small chest was open in front of her and it was full of gold medallions. Throp leaned down for a closer look. He recognized them from somewhere, the intricate knot work stamped into them seemed very familiar.

He pulled at the chain around his neck and retrieved the princess medallion. He never gave it back to her and had forgotten it was even there. He took it off his neck and set it on top of the pile inside. It blended right in, identical to the others.

“What are the odds?” he asked. She looked up at him, smiling. She picked up her medallion and ones of its brothers and held them next to each other.

“Do you see?” she asked but Throp didn’t. They were exact, except hers had a hole pounded in the edge so it could be hung from the chain.

“It means she was here,” the princess said. “My grandmother was here, in this spot. She took this medallion from this chest.”

Throp thought about what that meant. The princess set off wanting to emulate her grandmother’s adventures and now she had. He wondered if this would satiate her, if she could rest easy now knowing she had been in the exact same extraordinary place her grandmother had. Tobiah said very few people knew the secret of the Cave of Souls and one of them must have been the princess’s grandmother.

“Wait,” Throp said. “Does this mean your grandmother was a pirate?”

The princess had tears in her eyes but her smile was wider than ever and she looked happier than Throp had ever seen her.

Winner!

I won, by the skin of my teeth! I hit 50k on Friday evening, just six hours before the end of NaNo.

I'm still going to post the rest of the novel, as it was written, over the next week or so. I'll also post about what I learned from this experiment and what the plan is for the future.

Chapter Sixteen: Not Suited For Caves

Tobiah was carrying Agnes and she had her arms wrapped around his neck. Although uninjured in her fall, she had apparently rolled her ankle sometime after that. When they reached the dead end Tobiah put her down and she limped over. She threw her arms around the princess.

“Are you okay?” the princess asked.

“Oh, it was just awful,” Agnes said. She explained how Tobiah had led her through a series of passageways, how they had to crawl on their bellies under an outcropping. Agnes held her hands about two feet apart to show how much room they had. He could see the princess shudder at the idea.

 “And then, of course, I rolled my ankle, which only slowed us down even more. I am obviously not suited for caving. It’s fortunate for me that Tobiah is such a gentleman.” She gave him a little smile and Throp had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Oh, but there was a beautiful little part of the cave that had a hole in the ceiling. It went straight up to the surface and you could see the moonlight through it!”

Throp felt a pang of envy although he was glad to know they weren’t as far underground as it seemed. He decided not to share the story of the dead torches with them.

“So the alternate route leads you to this corridor, huh? So that means it is safe,” he said pointedly to the princess.

“But if you went down it now you would be heading in the wrong direction,” she said.

“But safely,” Throp countered. The princess ignored his jab and instead looked to the opposite corridor.

“Does that mean we’re going this way?” she asked, a note of trepidation in her voice.

“We will be,” Tobiah said. “But first we have to do a little housecleaning.” Throp looked to the girls to see if either of them understood, but they also looked confused.

“If you would please stand against the wall, just there,” Tobiah said. “This can get a little messy.” They all backed up against the cave wall to the left of the passage opening except Tobiah, who stepped just into the opening of the cave. He waved his torch back and forth, then hurled it upward. It extinguished when it hit the ground. Throp leaned forward, trying to get an idea of what he was doing. He could barely see Tobiah now and had no idea where his torch had gone.

“Do you hear that?” Throp asked. It sounded like the fluttering of wings, but Cleo was still perched on his shoulder. The sound grew louder and suddenly Tobiah darted from the passage entrance and flattened himself against the wall on the other side. All at once, a great river of bats flowed out of the cave. Agnes screamed and Throp raised his hand to his face, but the bats didn’t come near them, just poured out of passage and into the one from which Tobiah and Agnes had come. Their combined screeching was deafening. It seemed to go on forever, this streaming black mass and just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Agnes was still screaming, crouching on the ground, her hands over her head. The princess tapped her on the shoulder and she looked up and shrieked.

“I am definitely not suited for caves!” she said and then narrowed her eyes at Tobiah. “You could have warned us!” He shrugged and gave her a cheeky grin.

“Would it help if I carried you?” he asked. 

“My ankle actually feels much better now,” she admitted.

“I’m not as worried about that, as I am your slippers,” Tobiah said. “The bats live in a nook just above there.” He pointed inside the entrance. “It gets a bit messy underneath.” Agnes pulled a face and allowed herself to be swept up by Tobiah.

“My boots will be fine,” the princess said, just as Throp wondered if he ought to offer. She was still wearing her ‘Gus’ outfit, which included a pair of ankle length boots.

The passageway was short and Throp was grateful for that, as it stunk almost more than he could bear. The ground was squishy under his boots and he held his torch high so he wouldn’t have to see exactly what he was stepping in. Tobiah hadn’t even bothered to pick his torch up from the muck. As the passage opened up to a larger but nondescript room, Throp found himself exasperated.

“You really go through all this just to deposit a bit of treasure?” Throp asked. Tobiah sighed, stopped and set down Agnes

“At least once a month,” he said. “Carrying half a dozen chests or more. You can understand now why I was ready to turn on my captain. And what’s worse, most of the men never made it past the next room. Starnes, the captain and and I did the rest of the hauling ourselves.”

“Why was that?” Throp asked.

“Because they were too afraid,” Tobiah said. Throp didn’t like the way that sounded.

“Afraid of what?” Tobiah smiled, his face looking eerie in the light of the flickering torch.

“The ghosts of course,” he said. Throp groaned and Tobiah laughed. Agnes laughed, too, but she seemed to find everything Tobiah did charming.

“And now for the last bit of work we have to do before we retire as rich men. And women, of course,” he said, winking at the princess. He gestured back at the passage exit and told Throp they needed to block it. Like most of the cave rooms they had gone through, this one was littered with rocks from small pebbles to large boulders. Tobiah wanted every one of them stacked in front of the exit.

“Someone will make their way here eventually,” he said. “And I don’t want to have to rely on bats and ghosts to keep them away.”

By virtue of her aching ankle, Agnes sat down and rested while Tobiah, Throp and the princess worked to block the hole, staring with a large boulder that took all three of them pushing to make budge. Then they filled in the gaps with smaller and smaller rocks until the exit was barely even detectable. It was hard, sweat-inducing work and when they were finished Tobiah stepped back and admired it.

“They’d need a battering ram to get through that from the other side,” he said. “And even then they’d likely slip in the bat waste and fall on their rear ends.” He laughed to himself at the thought. They took a little rest, drinking the last of the water from the canteens. Tobiah told them not to worry, though. They were nearly where they needed to be.

As they made their way to the next room Throp noticed small trickles of water seeping from between some cracks in the cave wall. It gathered into a small stream, which grew into a small stream that was soon large enough that they couldn’t help but splash through it as they walked. Tobiah had offered again to carry Agnes who would clearly be used to being fawned over by the time she became the princess of Berabeth.

At least, thought Throp, the water might was some of the muck off of his boots. The princess had the same idea, swishing her feet in the stream and then scraping the bottoms against a rock. Suddenly she paused and furrowed her brow.

“Do you hear that?” she asked no one in particular.

“Hear what?”

“Shh,” she said. She cocked her head to the side. Throp did the same, trying to hear what she was hearing. And then he did.

He thought it was a whistle at first, but then realized that wasn’t it. It was too low to be a whistle, and what’s more, there wasn’t just one. Several sounds merged together, raising and lowering in pitch but with no obvious pattern. Then Throp realized what it was and chills when down his spine.

“It’s moaning,” he said out loud. He looked to the princess, whose face was ashen. She turned on Tobiah.

“This is the Cave of Souls,” she said, an almost accusatory tone in her voice. Tobiah looked surprised.

“You know of the Cave of Souls?” She nodded.

“What is the Cave of Souls?” Throp asked.

“It’s where the souls of pirates go when they die,” she said.

“What does that mean?” Agnes asked, her voice rising in fear.

The princess answered.

“It means this cave is haunted.”