Chapter 10: The Hall of Bones
The scratch of their footsteps filled the dark tunnel. Mikey lead the way, with Data close behind holding his lantern high.
"Do we have any idea where this thing is even leading us?" said Stef.
Mikey scratched the back of his neck, trying to remember the last lines inscribed on the spyglass.
"Something about 'Acland's Lantern guarding the Sovereign's crown.'"
"So we're looking for a lantern?" said Data.
"Maybe the crown's hidden inside a lantern," said Chunk.
"A crown's not gonna fit inside a lantern, dummy," said Mouth.
"Ya never know," said Chunk. "Maybe King Alfred had a really small head."
Mikey interjected. "If the Eye of Acland is a spyglass, and the White Wall is a waterfall, then the Lantern could be anything."
"The Black Rock was a black rock, so it could be a lantern," said Mouth.
"Maybe the Lantern's a metaphor," said Jackie. "Like enlightenment, or-"
"Look!" Data shouted.
Their eyes shot forward. Far down the tunnel came the dim glow of sunlight. Without even realizing he was doing it, Mikey was sprinting down the tunnel. The pounding of footsteps behind him told him his friends were doing the same.
Mikey skidded to a halt as the tunnel widened into a vast chamber. Holes in the roof of the cavern spilled golden sunlight across a grizzly scene.
A sea of skeletons lay strewn about the cave, the casualties of a some centuries old battle. They still clung to their rusty cutlasses, rapiers, muskets, and pistols. Broken barrels, wooden chests, and empty bottles of rum lay amidst the dead.
Through the center of the chamber ran a small river. It seeped in from under the wall and ran into the wide mouth of a tunnel on the opposite side. A splintered longboat sat on the bank with two pirates draped over the side. Their attempt to make a hasty getaway had failed.
"Yo," said Mikey in an awed whisper.
"What is this place?" asked Chunk.
Mikey took the first step onto the battlefield. He looked down at a pirate in a faded bandana and crumbling silk shirt. A main gauche stuck him between his ribs. Despite the grimness of the scene, Mikey couldn't help but smile at the sheer awe of it. Besides, it proved they were getting somewhere.
Mouth stepped into the cavern and pulled a boarding axe from a brigand's cleft skull.
"Man, this place must have been like the Gettysburg of the pirates."
"This is so amazing," said Mikey. "This must have been Crooked Joe's hideout. He must have come back years later and built this place when he was searching for Willy's treasure."
Mikey looked down the river through the dark tunnel into which it flowed.
"They would row out through there to the sea where they would attack and plunder ships, and then bring the treasure back here to hide it.
He approached a long table, where the marred and dust covered pewter plates had held some great feast long ago. More dead pirates sat in high backed chairs, flung across the table next to web covered candlesticks. Grimy mugs and flagons were still in their boney hands that had once been held high during merry sailing shanties and bawdy drinking songs.
Jackie came up next to Mikey, her eyes filled with fear of the dead men.
"What happened to them all?"
"There must have been a mutiny or something," said Mikey.
He could almost hear the roar of gunfire and the clash of steel as if the sounds of battle were still echoing deep in the caves. Some scoundrel among Crooked Joe's crew must have taken arms against the captain and sought to take all his treasure for himself.
Mikey suddenly had an urge to take a rapier in hand and leap atop the table, fighting off a horde of treacherous buccaneers. If there was a chandelier nearby, he would have grabbed Jackie around the waist and swung across the chamber on it.
"Hey, maybe some of their treasure's still here," said Data.
"Yeah, treasure!" said Chunk.
Chunk and Data raced towards a large chest that sat amidst the bones. Two pirates clung to the handles of the chest with their dead hands. Data took up a broken cutlass and pried open the lid. Chunk reached inside, drooling as if he were reaching into a chest full of ding-dongs, but his pudgy hand pulled up nothing but dirt.
"I don't get it," he said. "Where's all the treasure?"
"It's gone, you morons," said Stef, treading over a dead man skewered with a marlin spike. "Whoever won this fight took all the treasure."
"C'mon, there's gotta be something left," said Mouth.
Mouth wandered towards a mountain of barrels stacked by the wall near the river.
"Maybe in here." He ripped off the dirt covered lid of a barrel and reached inside. His already pale face blanched even more. "Whoa."
"Did you find gold?" said Chunk.
"No," said Mouth. As he pulled his hand out of the barrel, they saw it completely covered in black powder.
"Gunpowder," said Mikey.
"Uh… Mouth, maybe you should step away from the big pile of gunpowder," said Stef.
"Yeah, good idea," said Mouth, casting a weary glance towards the stack of barrels as he beat the powder off on his jeans.
Jackie furrowed her brow with worry.
"If Acland stored all his treasure here, and the pirates took it, they might have taken the crown to."
Mikey cast a determined gaze across the chamber.
"I don't know," he said. "Joe wouldn't have just left it sitting around. He would have hidden it."
"In a lantern," said Chunk.
Mikey's eyes scanned all along the cave walls. On the far side of the river there were more tunnels branching off from the main chamber.
"We gotta explore those tunnels."
Two logs lashed together formed a rickety bridge that each of them crossed. Four tunnels lead off deep into the bowels of the cavern.
"Which one do we go down?" asked Data.
It took Mikey a moment to notice that all of them were looking at him.
"Oh, uh… I don't know."
"Oh great," said Mouth. "So do we all just split up? If someone gets lost or breaks their leg we just scream?"
Chunk began to tremble as sweat beaded on his forehead.
"Hey Mouth, cool it," said Stef.
"We're not just gonna wander off aimlessly, Mouth," said Mikey. "We can figure this out."
Mikey rested his chin on a clenched fist.
"Well, this tunnel's going south… I think. And this one-"
"Hey, look at that," said Jackie, pointing towards the mouth of a tunnel.
Mikey took a closer look, and furrowed his brow.
Hunched against the wall at the threshold of the tunnel, was a skeleton dressed in a shabby, but eloquent dark red coat, its brass buttons still shimmered in the sunlight. In his lifeless hands he held a flintlock pistol and a golden, bell guard cutlass. Mikey approached him as if afraid he would wake him from a nap.
He knelt next to the skeleton and with the greatest care he could muster, lifted the sword from the dead man's grasp. Mikey rubbed the sleeve of his jacket on the blade, and beneath a thin layer of rust, thought he could make out a Latin inscription.
"Hey Jackie, can you read this?"
Jackie came and knelt next to him. She rubbed her glasses on her blouse and stared hard at the blade. She began to read aloud.
Though a Black Flag flies above us, we are one and all Princes of the Sea. -C.J.A.
"C.J.A.?" said Mikey. "Crooked Joe Acland."
"This is him," said Jackie.
Mikey looked at the dead pirate. He lay slumped against the wall, his head resting as if he had simply drifted off to sleep. The center of his sternum was shattered, and Mikey knew he must have caught a ball right in his heart.
"They just left him here to rot," said Mikey. "We would never have saved the Goon Docks if it wasn't for him."
"Well, maybe they didn't get the crown," said Jackie.
Mikey looked down the dark tunnel and back at Crooked Joe. He smiled.
"That's why he's here. That's why he's guarding this tunnel."
Mikey shot to his feet and turned towards his friends.
"This is it guys, this has to be it."
The others smiled. The excitement that had left them had returned. The crown was close. They could feel it.
"Let's go," said Stef. She grabbed Data's lantern out of his hand and took off down the tunnel. Chunk and Data followed close behind. Mouth paused for a moment to lean against the wall, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath.
"Whoa, Mouth, you ok?" said Mikey taking him by the arm. His eyes fell on the wrapped spider bite.
"I'm fine, just a little winded," he said shaking off Mikey's grip. "C'mon, this crown ain't gonna find itself."
He followed after Data as if nothing had happened. Mikey looked down at Crooked Joe as Jackie rose to her feet.
"Are you ok?" she asked.
"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine. Go on ahead, I'm right behind you."
Jackie looked Mikey up and down, gave him a reassuring smile, and stepped into the tunnel.
Mikey crouched next to Joe once more and tightened his lip.
"Thanks, Joe."
He wasn't sure why he was doing it, and knew in the back of his mind that it was probably a foolish thing to do, but he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the golden spyglass. He squeezed it tight for a long moment, and placed it in the hand of Joseph Acland.
Mikey stood up tall, taking the captain's cutlass in hand. Tightening the muscles in his arm, he slashed at the air. He slid the blade into his belt, his heart racing with the promise of glory.
Whatever challenge awaited him in the darkness, whatever battle must be fought with Garofalo, he was ready.
