Treasure of the Dead

Chapter 11

Fabi walked away from Maddock and Bones and they followed her down a stony corridor until it widened into a chamber. “This way looks like it opens up into a room.” Here, the darkness was complete, and Maddock produced his flashlight to cast its halogen glow on the hewn walls.

Immediately they could see a multitude of unnatural shapes. Fabi pointed at a series of strange contraptions, made of iron and blackened wood.

“These look like fun.” Bones winked at Fabi and held up a set of manacles attached to chains that were embedded in the stone wall.

“This looks more your speed, Bones.” She went to a wooden wheel set up on a support stand.

“Not sure I want to know what that’s for,” Bones said, “but judging by the rest of this stuff, it doesn’t look fun. Check this out.” He ran his fingers lightly over a set of rusty spikes contained inside a coffin-like container shaped roughly like an adult human.

“That’s the iron maiden.” Maddock aimed his light beam on the medieval torture device.

“Classic stockade here.” Fabi pointed to a hinged wooden board with cutouts for head and hands.

There were a plethora of other intimidating instruments but Maddock called a halt to the show and tell. “I think we can safely say this is a place where prisoners were kept.”

Fabi concurred. “This stuff is old enough to be from the 1700s, and it certainly fits with a prison or holding cell of some kind from that period.”

“Let’s look around some more, see what else is down here. It’d be good to know if this passage leads somewhere else in the fort, or if Fabi literally fell into some luck by having the ground drop out from under her.”

Maddock took a few flash photos of the torture devices and the trio moved through the room into the passage, which continued on the other side. As he played his light about the walls here, he began to call the structural integrity of the underground space into question. They reached one section where the ceiling was lower than the rest of the corridor, and Bones in particular had to stoop to make it past.

He squeaked by and then the tunnel-like passage veered off to the right, narrowing as it did so. Maddock led the way with his light. As soon as they had all rounded the turn, Bones said, “Look out!” He dove into Fabi, pushing her out of the way of a chunk of rock that broke loose from the right-side wall near where it joined the ceiling. Both of them ended up lying on the floor, having just cleared the falling hazard.

Fabi turned around to see the pile of stone on the floor and Bones’ black hair streaked with dust. “Honestly, Bones, I never took you for the type of man to push a lady around!”

“No, but I am known to get horizontal with a babe from time to time.” Bones winked.

Maddock was all business, pushing ahead as soon as it was clear no one was hurt. Bones and Fabi moved along behind them, and before long they emerged into another room, this one more square, although still imperfectly shaped. Set into the four corners of this room were four jail cells, iron bars extending from floor to ceiling around each corner. A door was set into each, but they were all swung open as if abandoned in a hurry sometime long ago.

“Holding cells!” Maddock approached one and gripped the iron bars. “Still pretty solid.”

Each of them went to a cell and began to inspect them. After a couple of minutes, Fabi said she might have found something. “Need some light over here.”

Bones had also produced a flashlight and was first to join her in the small cell. Fabi traced her fingertips over a series of engravings in the cell wall.

“Random scribblings of a bored prisoner or something exciting?” Bones squinted as he tried to make sense of the carvings.

“It’s writing.” Fabi sounded less than certain. Maddock joined them in the now crowded cell, and he took snapshots of the inscriptions while Fabi continued her assessment.

“I’m pretty sure this is Spanish, but it seems a little like gibberish.”

Bones looked around and shook his head. “I’d go crazy too if I were stuck in here for any length of time.”

“You already are crazy, Bones,” Fabi quipped.

“Well I must be, to…”

“Guys, c’mon, let’s get on with it.” Maddock waved his light on the engravings.

“Fine.” Fabi turned back to the writing and took down some notes. It was Bones who spoke next, while pointing to the wall.

“I see this word more than once. Does it mean what I think it means?”

Fabi considered the series of characters. “Demonio. It does mean ‘demon’.”

Maddock took a close-up shot of the etched word, then checked his watch. “We should get out of here. Boat, storm…”

The four of them got the point and filed out of the holding cell into the main chamber. After a final look around to be certain they hadn’t overlooked anything that could be a potential clue, they exited to the low chamber by which they had come, the only way out leading from the room. Retracing their steps, the treasure hunters made their way back through the corridor until they reached the torture chamber again.

Shining his light around the space, Maddock looked for signs of either Willis or at least of the rope that he had promised to return with. But he saw neither. He walked toward the opening and called up through it, in case Willis was hanging around just out of sight. “Willis, you there?”

But the voice that came back did not belong to Willis.

“I can hear you down there. Come here where I can see you and keep your hands visible. You're under arrest.”