Hannah, Garin, and the Terribly-Named Treasure: Part Four

     “You know what our problem is?” grumbled Jacques after about two hours of scraping. “Garin and I have been way too careful with the ship. We just spent a fortune getting this mortar replaced so no prisoners would be able to escape.”

     “Well, it’s pretty effective,” Kaidan said dismally. “Good job, I suppose.”

     Loud jeers started from the prisoners closest to the door and traveled backwards as three pirates nervously approached, holding large dishes of gruel and water and trying to dodge the debris being thrown at them. Jacques sighed and set his nail down. “Garin had better find that treasure soon and come back ready to take our ship back, because I honestly don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

     With that, he picked up a rotten carrot and threw it with gloomy accuracy at a pirate’s head.

     ***

     Garin, though he really was doing his best, was having quite a difficult time finding the treasure. The main problem was that his recollection was a bit patchy—apart from three landmarks unusual enough to have fixed themselves in his memory, he couldn’t clearly recall the path or the rest of the places marked on the map. He’d found the first point purely by accident when, while fleeing from a swarm of enraged bugs, he’d tumbled down a hill and landed right in front of the ancient petrified tree he was looking for; by following the muddy trail of some jungle creature, he’d located the tiny, sparkling waterfall that had been sketched on the map. But as to what lay between the waterfall and the next landmark, a formation of boulders that pointed to the cave where the treasure was kept, Garin was drawing a blank.

     He followed the waterfall’s stream for about a mile, then flopped down next to a large rock formation, scooping water over his head to try and ward off the relentless morning sun. “What comes next? WHAT?” he moaned, thumping his head steadily against the boulder to his right. To his astonishment, a loud, hollow clanging noise came from this action, so he got up to examine the rock further. Knocking on it cautiously with another stone, he listened to the resulting sound intently.

     “Yes, good job, it’s hollow,” Hannah whispered sarcastically from the lower boughs of a tree as she watched him impatiently. (Only her deep dedication to getting back at Garin was making her follow someone who traveled so incredibly slowly.) “Amazing work. You get a gold star. Just break it already and see what’s inside. Oh, never mind.”

     Garin, apparently in agreement with her, had suddenly brought the rock down with all the force he could muster, neatly cracking the hollow boulder into two pieces. It fell away to reveal a waist-high wooden statue of a Kadoatie. Hannah’s senses suddenly prickled with foreboding—she’d seen statues like that before, and they were not meant for decoration. Garin, however, had apparently never seen the like, and started to reach out as Hannah leaped out of her tree.

     ***

     Garin was just about to pick the statue up—hey, at least he’d get something out of this stupid journey—when he heard a voice scream, “STOP!”

     The Usul jumped almost a foot into the air, and accidentally brushed the statue with a sleeve. The Kadoatie’s eyes immediately started to glow with pure white light; Garin stared at it, transfixed, until someone tackled him hard, propelling them both about five feet away from the statue just as it exploded in a brilliant flash that incinerated the rocks around them.

     Garin rolled a few feet away, then flipped to his feet, ready to fight whoever had saved him if he had to; when he saw who it was, he groaned loudly. “Are you serious? When you storm away, can’t you ever just stay away?”

     Hannah stood up, brushing dirt off her skirt. She glared back at Garin, but suddenly, her shoulders drooped. “Look, I don’t want to fight anymore, okay? Honestly, I just want to go on an adventure again and do something meaningful for the first time in way too long. Surely you can understand that?”

     Garin’s annoyance faded slightly, to be replaced by twinges of guilt and pity. “Well... I guess.”

     “So why don’t we find the treasure together, and then I’ll help you try to retake your ship?” Hannah suggested. “If we succeed, I get any five pieces of the treasure I want, no matter how valuable; if we don’t, Earbeard will probably make us walk the plank, so it won’t be an issue. Deal?”

     Garin extended his hand, and they shook. “Deal. And, um, thanks for saving me from that thing. How did you know it was a trap?”

     “I saw one in this volcano on Mystery Island,” Hannah said. “Which is pretty close to this island, so I guess it’s not too far-fetched that someone planted a similar statue here. But we should probably stay on track. Do you remember the path drawn on your map?”

     “Not really,” Garin sighed gloomily, staring at the rock he’d been sitting on, which now consisted of a small pile of ash. “I remember there’s supposed to be a formation of boulders that clearly points to the cave, but look at this place. It’s completely full of rock formations, and none of them seem to be pointing anywhere.”

     Hannah looked around; he was right, all the formations along the stream seemed to point nowhere but up. “Well, maybe if you climb to the top of one of them, you’ll be able to see something helpful.”

     Garin shrugged and made for the nearest pile of boulders. “You want to climb another one? Two pairs of eyes are probably better than one.”

     “Um...” Hannah eyed a particularly pointy rock formation and gulped. “You know, I actually think I’ll sit this one out.”

     “Really?” Garin said, a bit taken aback, as he attacked the boulder pile, climbing quickly up it like only a Usul could. “Huh. I thought you’d have gotten a lot of experience rock-climbing in all those caves, but—”

     “I’m really, really scared of heights,” she blurted out. “I mean, I’m fine in normal-sized trees, but only in cases of extreme danger will I free-climb. In the caves, I didn’t really have a choice.”

     Garin blinked as he clambered over the top and dusted off his hands. “Don’t worry about it—I’m deathly afraid of clowns; we all have weird phobias. Anyway, I don’t see anything much from up here so far.”

     Hannah pursed her lips, thinking hard. “Do you see any markings on the top of your structure? Maybe a map or something?”

     “No,” said Garin, scrutinizing the rock and then making to climb down. “But I might find something on one of the other ones.”

     It took him four rock formations for Garin to find the little etched arrow (“So much for clearly pointing to the cave,” he grumbled), but when the two traveled east as directed, they found the overgrown but mostly machete-cleared path fairly quickly. Unfortunately, so did the pirates who had been following them, although they stayed out of sight for the moment.

     The sun was setting by the time Hannah and Garin reached the cave mouth, embedded in a large cliff wall and nearly concealed by hanging vines.

     Hannah paused and looked at him. “Well, I guess this is it.”

     “Yup. I highly doubt there’s a curse, but be warned, it’s probably way nastier than an exploding statue. Are you sure you want to risk it?”

     “Of course!” said Hannah firmly, and they walked in.

     The moment the two Usuls entered the cave, a slight breeze ruffled their fur. Hannah had no idea why, but all of a sudden, she felt cold desire claw at her heart. Why was she allied with Garin at all? She was so close to the treasure—why shouldn’t she take it for herself?

     Garin was having similar thoughts. Pure, untamed greed seemed to roar in his head. He wanted the treasure. All of it. And he didn’t know why, but he was suddenly willing to do anything to get it.

     Hannah and Garin’s hands both reached for their weapons, and they probably would have fought then and there if their pirate spies had not chosen that moment to burst into the cave with loud and triumphant yells.

     All thoughts of treasure forgotten, both drew their weapons, and with fierce cries of their own, they met the pirates’ attacks. Hannah darted around the Krawk, trying to dodge his large cudgel, while Garin did his best to deflect the Lupe’s sword with his badly damaged cutlass. Both Usuls were backed against the wall when Hannah nearly tripped over a good-sized rod of bamboo. She threw her dagger at the Krawk’s head; he ducked, giving her enough time to bend down, pick up the rod, and break it into two on her knee.

     “Here!” she shouted, and tossed one half to Garin, who caught it in relief, his cutlass having shattered a moment before. With two quick strikes, he blocked the Lupe’s next stab, and thwacked him hard on the head, knocking him out cold. Hannah hit the Krawk hard in the stomach; as he bent over, gasping for breath, Garin knocked him out as well.

     “Thanks,” gasped Hannah, bending to retrieve her dagger. “How did they find us?”

     “Maybe Earbeard gave them the map,” Garin said grimly. “Or they followed us, which means there could be more. Let’s just get the treasure and get out of here.”

     Both scanned the cave, and both spotted the treasure chest in the back of the cave at the same time. And just like that, their truce was broken. Both dashed for the trunk; Garin reached it first, and Hannah arrived a second later with a shriek of “It’s mine! I saw it first!”

     “In what universe!?” shouted back Garin, wrestling with the lid. Hannah grabbed the other side of the case and yanked—the ancient, warped wood groaned, and with a final tug on each side, the chest split apart.

     A colossal explosion rent the air, and both Usuls flew away from the case, landing on opposite sides of the cave.

     Garin didn’t know how much time passed before he opened his eyes, moaned, and pushed himself up to a sitting position. Through the silver lights flashing erratically in his vision, he could vaguely discern a small, shadowy figure whom he supposed was Hannah weakly sitting up across the cave, and though he blamed the blast, he thought he heard distant laughter fading as a cold wind rushed past him and died. This, then, was the curse of the Booty of Briny Baldric? Now that Garin could think more clearly, he was beginning to understand how it worked—it made whoever entered the cave so greedy they just had to open the chest, and then they were exploded upon. Garin snorted and then regretted it when his head pulsed with pain. Some curse—if it were really effective, he and Hannah would both have been killed.

     He supposed he should go make sure she was okay, though. As the streaks of light receded, Garin, leaning heavily on the stone wall, managed to stand, although the action caused his head to pound worse than ever. Feeling his way along the wall, he took a tentative step.

     And fell over.

     “What the...” Garin inspected the floor but saw nothing. It was odd; he could have sworn he’d tripped over some sort of fabric. Oh well, it was probably just a weird aftereffect or something. The Usul pulled himself up again, and took another step.

     And promptly fell over again.

     “Okay, seriously, what is happening?” he growled, and, once he had shoved himself upright again, he looked down at the ground again. This time, he saw a flutter of cloth apparently dangling in the air above his foot. Garin wiggled his foot, and to his consternation, the fabric moved with it. A more thorough investigation revealed that he appeared to be wearing... a skirt.

     Garin blinked at this new and very unexpected development. Was this another part of the curse? Was he hallucinating? Whatever it was, he supposed it could wait, and, holding his skirt so he didn’t fall over again, he made his way over to where Hannah was kneeling, staring into a puddle next to the wall.

     But as he neared her, he saw that something was not quite right. For one thing, her hair now seemed to be short and spiky, where before it had been quite long (did the curse also inflict hair-loss or something?); for another, she appeared to be wearing his clothes.

     “Hey!” Garin called with a growing sense of foreboding, and as Hannah turned around, he stopped dead.

     He was staring into his own terrified-looking face.

To be continued...