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.