David Golemon: Leviathan

When Deveroux awoke, he tried to sit up. The sun outside the cave opening was setting, but in its waning death it allowed light to be cast into the interior. The former prisoner of Napoleon stood on shaky feet but collapsed. Then, more slowly, he rose, braced himself, and looked around.

He tilted his head as he saw something recognizable to his salt-encrusted eyes. Lining the interior walls were torches. He stumbled, righted himself, and approached. They were old — very old. He removed one from the hole that had been carved into the wall and hefted it. He sniffed the burned, dead end and smelled the aroma of grease — old and dry, but grease nonetheless. As he turned to look back at the cave's opening, his bare foot struck something sharp. He reached down and felt the dry sand, running his fingers though it. He hit upon an object and brought it up into the diffused sunlight. It was flint, used at one time to ignite these very torches lining the wall. With flint in hand, he brushed up the cloth-and grease-covered tip of the torch, then he knelt and started striking the flint against the stone wall.

It took him more than thirty minutes and five bloody fingers, but in the end the torch finally smoldered, then caught and flared to life. As he averted his eyes from the brightness of the flame, he saw the skeletal leg in the sand. He stepped back, brought the flame closer, and followed the leg upward. There, lying against the wall, were the remains of a man. He was tied by rope and spike to the very wall where Deveroux had found the torch. The clothing on the skeleton was old and falling apart. The corpse had several gold teeth, and even more were missing. However, there was one feature that made Deveroux look around nervously. This was the fact that this man had been slashed through the head by a sword, shattering the front of the skull. As Deveroux held the torch closer, he could see that the sword had smashed everything from the skullcap through the nasal cavity.

He shook his head and stepped back nervously. The remains had to be more than a hundred years old, in his estimation. The bloused pants, tattered vest, and red shirt made the skeleton look as if he had been a Gypsy, like the flotsam he had seen in the streets of Paris in the past. The bony fingers had rings upon each, even the thumb.

Deveroux brought the torch around and looked farther into the cave. The body was sitting upon a small shelf that seemed to wrap around the large interior. The small cove that rose and fell with the tide was up at that time, so he moved cautiously along the wall, staying high above the water.

He had traveled for what he estimated was a half mile into the bowels of the cave when he came to a huge gate. As he brought the torch to bear on the makeshift wall, he screeched a hoarse bark and stepped back as he saw two more bodies. These were not like the first, which had been tied to the wall and executed. These two skeletons were lying beneath the sharpened points of the bottom of the wall, which was imbedded in the men's torsos, crushing their ribs and spines.

As Deveroux examined the trap, he could see that the wooden device at one time had been placed into a separation in the cave's natural ceiling. These men had somehow triggered the pitfall, and been impaled by the sharpened base of the wall as it crashed down upon them. Deveroux grimaced at the horrible specter before him. The men were dressed as the first man had been. Jewelry of every kind adorned the skeletons. The one major difference — these men had been armed. One still grasped the sword he had more than likely used against the defenseless man Deveroux had discovered tied to the cave wall.

Deveroux examined the wooden trap and surmised it would harm no other. He gently pushed on the gate. It creaked and bent, but held firm. With eyes wild, he knew he had to find out what was so important about the rear of the cave that men would be driven to create such horrible deaths for their fellows.

He looked around him, and using the torch for light he leaned down and pulled upon the sword entwined in the skeleton's bony grasp, then cringed when three of the dead man's fingers came off with his effort. He looked at the skeleton and watched its long dead and empty eye sockets for a brief moment. Then he raised the sword, and while still looking at the dead man, slashed at the wood with a weakened blow. The sword severed the rotten rope where it crossed another of the old wooden beams. The wood creaked, and then Deveroux fell to the sand as his muscles began to cramp with just one swing of the heavy sword. Deveroux cried out in pain as he went to his knees, trying to get the cramp to cease its hold, and then he suddenly stopped and looked around as if he were being watched. With his right arm throbbing, he swung the torch in his left hand to and fro, searching for the set of eyes that he knew to be there. He saw nothing but the darkness. He was the only witness to his transgression.

He switched the torch to his right hand, and with tears of pain he swung the sword once more, severing another rope, and then he yelled out in fear when the crossbeam fell from the gate and almost crushed him. He saw one beam fall, and then another, until a small avalanche fell free, the remaining ropes not able to withstand the weight. They fell, crushing the remains of the two lost souls trapped years before. When the dust cleared and Deveroux stopped shaking from fright, he saw the gate had succumbed to his minuscule efforts, thanks in most part to the rotted rope holding it together.

He rose from the damp earth, and on shaking legs stepped through the opening and easily swung the torch forward. He couldn't make anything out at first, but then he saw the stacked items along the wall. Three hundred large and small chests. Some made of wood, others of iron. Some were locked while others had come apart with age and water damage.

He approached one that had broken open and held the flame close to the spilled items. There, twinkling in the bright flame, were what he assumed were diamonds. A thousand pigeon-egg-sized pieces of glittering and sparkling stone that had been torn from the earth, possibly centuries before.

Deveroux swung the torch back and looked at the two skeletons. He examined their clothing again and thought, pirates! Buccaneers, free seamen. He had found what these men had hidden, and had obviously been murdered for.

He turned and examined more of the chests. Gold from Syria, Babylon, and Arabia, and diamonds from Africa. Arabic coins stamped with artisans' renderings of faces that were hundreds of years old. He held the torch against a lock that still sealed one of the large chests and saw the seal of England — the head of the lion and the three crowns of Richard I.

Deveroux fell to his knees, lowered the torch, and crossed himself. The rumors were true. He had found what was lost more than six hundred years before: the legendary lost treasure of the Crusades. Gold, diamonds, and other riches ripped and stolen from the Holy Land. King Richard was rumored to have invaded Jerusalem for the sole reason of pillaging, not its liberation. The king died soon after his return home and his treasure was lost, or hidden away from his own countrymen, later to be discovered by this marauding band of cutthroats.

Deveroux saw in the treasure the route and means to his revenge against Napoleon. By his quick estimation, and not figuring in monetary terms of pound, shekel, or carat, he calculated that he had found over fifteen tons of riches. Billions upon billions of francs' worth of diamonds and emeralds alone. The gold was incalculable.

He cried at seeing the redemption that lay before him. He would exact the revenge he had coming to his soul for the death of a wife and the murder of his father.

He would then use this wealth to continue the work he had started. He would make the world a better place and in the end he would challenge humankind not to need the very avarice that lay before him.