Abandoned Memories (45 page)

“Ah, ah, ah, Captain.” Patrick braced his feet on the rolling earth. “I
will
kill you. Don’t think I won’t. I’m giving you a choice here, Captain. I can shoot you dead on the spot, or I can tie you up and leave you here to take your chances with the”—he took in the walls where chips of dirt and rock started to break free—“crumbling earth.”

Two pirates approached their captain and relieved him of his sword, knife, and two pistols before grabbing rope and turning him around to tie his hands. Ricu’s face bloated as red as a beet. He cursed and spit and growled like an animal in a trap. A violent jolt struck the chamber, sending the men off balance. Ricu kicked behind him, striking one of the pirates’ legs. He fell to the ground. Without glancing back, Ricu plowed toward the opening, stumbling over the teetering earth. Patrick fired. The shot cracked like a whip, echoing off walls. Ricu’s terror-streaked eyes glanced over James before he disappeared through the opening.

Angeline’s breath came hard beside James. Hair clung to her face and neck in sodden braids. Her skin was pink, her gown was damp with sweat, and she seemed to be fighting for every breath. He kissed her forehead. She wouldn’t make it much longer. Neither would Eliza, who sat slumped across a boulder behind them, hand on her rounded belly.
God, please, help us
.

“I’ll be all right, James,” Angeline whispered with a nod. He smiled and wanted to tell her how proud he was of her, how much he loved her, but Patrick’s sarcastic voice brought him around.

“Never fear.” Patrick waved off Ricu with his smoking pistol. “We will kill him later. Now, get that gold! And you”—he leveled the weapon at James and his friends—“get out! Or I’ll shoot all of you. I don’t know what tricks you are playing. I don’t know how you made those swords fly, but you won’t make this pistol move before I shoot one of you through the heart.” His hard gaze took them all in. “Why are you here, anyway? Want to steal the gold for yourselves?”

James braced himself on the quivering ground. Sulfur and gun smoke stung his nose. He wouldn’t answer the man. Nor would he leave. Not when there was still a chance someone could read the Latin phrase. But his eyes betrayed him as they shifted above the alcove.

Patrick fingered his goatee and glanced up. Grabbing a torch, he leapt onto a boulder and held it toward the alcove. “Writing in Latin. How odd. What would Latin be doing beneath this old temple?”

Dodd finally emerged from behind a boulder, shook dust from his coat, and cast wary eyes over the scene.

The ground canted. The rock walls shook. But Patrick seemed unfazed. “My Latin is a little rusty, but I think I can manage it.”

HAPTER
38

H
old hands!” James shouted. With Patrick about to speak the Latin phrase, James had no other choice. He must do the only thing he knew to do. His heart seized in his throat as Blake helped Eliza rise and the six of them formed a line with linked arms. “We command you beasts to return to your chains!” James shouted.

The quaking increased, tossing them over the ground. Larger rocks broke from the walls and ceiling and thundered to the dirt. An eerie
thwack
that sounded like the snap of a thousand whips sent a rod of steal down James’s spine. A crack etched through the rock wall on their left as if an invisible hand drew a chaotic design. Frozen in place, James watched as water trickled from the cleft, slow at first like a lazy stream, then faster and faster until it gushed from the ever-widening fissure. Chunks of rock broke from the wall in the torrent that now surged into the room, cascading onto the floor, splattering mud into the air.

“What’s happening?” Magnolia yelled.

Dodd leapt onto the boulder beside Patrick, but the man shoved him down, the first hint of fear appearing on his face. The pirates stopped their work.

“Why isn’t it working?” Blake shouted. Eliza stood firm beside him. Hayden, Magnolia trembling in his arms, inched back toward the entrance.

The ground canted. Balancing himself, James shook his head. “I don’t know! This is all the book said to do. Besides something about a prince.”

“A prince?” Angeline stared down at the water swarming around her shoes. “What prince?”

“There was a story in the book about a prince who came to rescue his people, but his name was never mentioned.” James had gone over it several times, praying for help with the interpretation, praying he hadn’t missed something.

The water soon flooded the chamber floor and began to rise. “Hurry!” Patrick shouted at the pirates. “Fill the sacks, take the gold above and come back for more!” Snatching a pack of gold from one of the pirates, he sloshed through the water and disappeared through the entrance, only to return within seconds for another. The pirates followed suit. Dodd knelt to fill his own sack, water gushing around his knees.

James squeezed his eyes shut. Perhaps in all the mayhem no one would say the Latin phrase now, but they still needed to imprison the other three beasts. Terror like he’d never known drained the blood from his heart. Not terror of drowning or being buried alive, but terror of failing. Failing God, failing his friends. Hot water, brown with dirt, licked his ankles, seeped into his boots.

The ground tilted. Water sloshed left, then right, shoving them into the filthy mire. Shaking sludge from his hands, James rose and helped Angeline. Mud splattered her arms and neck and slid down her gown. She lifted her eyes to his, and for the first time he saw her confidence waning.
God help me. What do I do?
James had no idea. Panic fired idea after idea into his mind. None of them sticking. None of them making sense.

Patrick, Dodd, and the pirates continued to fill their sacks and carry them above. Instead of pouring out in a stream, the gold now only trickled from the holes with each leap of the ground. One of the pirates tried to pry loose another rock lower in the wall.

That’s when the snakes appeared, dozens of them slithering through the muck. Magnolia screamed and leapt into Hayden’s arms. Eliza scrambled to stand atop a boulder. Angeline buried her head in James’s shirt. Reaching through the water, Dodd grabbed one of Ricu’s swords and began hacking the reptiles. But still the snakes slithered around their trousers, around the women’s skirts, slinking between their legs. One of the pirates leapt atop a pile of rocks and shot his pistol into the water.

“Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

The scripture blared in James’s mind. “They can’t hurt us. They aren’t real!” he yelled as a jolt sent both water and snakes to the left, splashing against the wall, only to return and flood them once again. One of the slithering beasts coiled around James’s leg.
It sure feels real! God, please help!
Terror choked him. He kicked the snake off. And the next one. And the next. His friends did the same.

The snakes were harmless, just as God had said. Another tremor struck. James caught his balance and steadied Angeline. Hayden lowered Magnolia to the water as the reptiles disappeared.

Eliza grabbed her wet skirts and waded toward James. Stark golden eyes met his. “The prince who rescued his people!” she shouted, kicking one of the remaining snakes away. The ground tilted, sending her tumbling back. Blake caught her and held fast. “The prince who rescued his people!” she repeated with more exuberance, nodding at James as if he knew the answer.

The answer Magnolia must have also just realized as she lifted wide eyes to James. “Of course!”

Angeline gripped James’s arm. “You know. The prince who rescued his people!”

James’s thoughts were as muddied as the water now clawing his knees, splashing on boulders and up the sides of the chamber. His dream of the blood ship played in his mind. He and his friends had linked arm in arm as the ship approached the darkness. But it wasn’t completely dark. There had been the figure of light at the bow. The lion-lamb.
The Lion-Lamb!
The name lit the shadows of his mind like a flame in a dark tunnel. With a nod, they all joined arms again. James cleared his throat and shouted at the top of his lungs: “We command you to return to your chains in the name of Jesus!”

“In the name of Jesus,” Angeline repeated, and each of them followed, ending with Blake who shouted, “In Jesus’ name!” with vehemence.

Patrick faced them, gold coins spilling from his arms while laughter spilled from his lips. But his chuckle was soon muffled by a thunderous growl that sounded like a mortally wounded animal. A very large animal. A very angry animal. The force of it shoved James and his friends backward into the hot muck.

Water ceased pouring from the wall. The roar silenced. The ground became still. Chains in the empty alcove lifted in the air around the pole that stretched from top to bottom. The sound of rattling metal echoed through the chamber as the irons shook and trembled with such violence, it seemed they would burst. Then as if by invisible hands, the lock looped around the thick clasp and clanked shut.

No one uttered a word. Only the sound of breathing and the
drip, drop
of water filled the cave. All gazes remained on the lock. The third beast was imprisoned again. And James had no doubt the first two had also returned to their chains in the room above.

They had defeated the four demonic generals!

With God’s help. In the name of His Son.

James glanced at his friends, all bloody, bruised, muddy, and sweaty. And they all began to laugh, to cry, to praise God!

Patrick, Dodd, and the pirates stood, mud dripping from their shirts, disbelief dripping from their expressions.

A snapping sound drew James’s gaze to the chasm where the water had poured forth. The crack widened and jetted upward then spiked across the ceiling like lightning, etching a rut that grew larger with each turn and twist. Rocks chipped off walls and stalactites fell into the receding water. The earth jolted and the crevice expanded, arching down the opposite wall and jutting across the muddy ground. The floor split open. The remaining water poured down. Steam shot into the air.

“The room is collapsing!” Hayden shouted.

“Get out! Get out!” Blake yelled, holding his side and grabbing his wife.

They hurried back through the hole. Dodd brought up the rear, carrying two sacks of gold. Once back in the first chamber, James glanced at the alcoves. Chains hung suspended in air, locked tight. He smiled, longing to shout at the beasts, to tell them they could no longer hurt the colonists—that they couldn’t send visions and nightmares and floods and snakes. But there was no time for gloating. The earth still shook like a carriage on hilly terrain as the walls around them crumbled.

Drawing Angeline near, James scanned the group, bouncing and jostling in his vision. “Where’s Patrick?” he yelled. The celling of the first chamber began to crack. Halting, Hayden glanced back toward the opening. “Go ahead! I’ll get him!” He started limping toward the lower chamber. James handed Angeline to her friends and insisted—against their protests—that they keep moving. Then turning, he followed Hayden. He wouldn’t let his friend deal with Patrick alone. Or risk getting killed by staying too long.

“Father, please! Come with us!” Hayden shouted as he ducked to avoid falling rocks. “You’ll be buried alive.”

“Go on without me!” The imperious man pulled another empty sack from the pile, knelt at the base of the rock wall, and scooped gold into it.

The water was gone, replaced by a sea of mud sliding across the chamber with each leap of the earth. Some fell into the steamy fissure that grew wider with each passing minute. Balancing on the trembling ground, Patrick wiped a sleeve over his forehead and yanked a rather large goblet from the pile.

Perhaps they could hit him over the head with one of them and drag him above. But James doubted they had time. He must ensure the others made it safely to the surface. Yet how could they leave Patrick here? Hayden started for his father when a jet of steam shot from the crevice, forcing him back.

“Go on, Hayden…I’ll be along.” Patrick grinned. “And richer than you ever imagined.”

The room split. Pebbles showered them from above. The rock wall shielding the gold shifted. Some of the rocks tumbled from the top into the mud beside Patrick. Another tremor struck. The wall teetered like a heap of pudding. Patrick gazed up in fear, started to leave, but it was too late. Raising his arms to cover his head, he crouched as an avalanche of rocks struck his shoulders and back and piled around his feet. Momentarily stunned, Patrick shook his head and raised his gaze as gold—finally freed from its barricade—showered over him. Ignoring the gashes on his arms and shoulders, he grabbed handfuls of the treasure and flung it in the air, laughing.

The chasm widened. Steam spit in his face. He screamed and fell backward. The ground opened up. Rocks and gold slid into the opening. Terror pinching his face, Patrick tried to move away from the growing fissure, but the weight of the rocks and gold surrounding his feet and legs kept him in place. Coins slid into the crevice as the mouth opened wider and wider, gobbling up the chamber.

“Father!” Hayden shouted, agony spiking his voice.

In that split second between time and eternity when life hangs between the living and the dead…Patrick’s gaze met Hayden’s. And for the first time since James had known them, a thread of affection spilled from father to son.

Hayden saw it too. He dashed toward his father.

But the ground widened, and the man slid into the steaming fissure, along with all his gold. His scream silenced within seconds.

Heat seared them as Hayden stood staring at flames leaping from the opening. No. Not flames anymore, but molten lava bubbling over the edge.

Clutching Hayden’s arm, James hauled him back into the chamber above, angry when he saw his friends had waited. “Go!” he shouted. Magnolia grabbed her husband, and the two darted forward.

Elation, terror, and heartache battled in James’s chest as he clutched Angeline to his side and followed the others through the tunnels. Was it his imagination or was the passageway narrowing with each step? Heat pursued them—heat that could turn them to ash in seconds. Heat and the roar of a mighty fire. He didn’t look back. Didn’t want to see what he assumed was a sea of flames chasing them up the shaft.