The Bone Labyrinth

by James Rollins

  “That’s indeed most interesting,” Roland said. “Thank you, Sister.”

  With a small smile, she bowed her head, retreated back inside, and shut the door.

  As he headed after Gray, Lena kept alongside him. “What was that about?”

  “Maybe nothing, but I came across the name Nicolas Steno during my studies of Father Kircher. He was a Danish scientist, several decades younger than Father Kircher. They worked in the same circles and became close friends. But what’s most interesting is that Steno’s field of study was what would be called paleontology today. The study of fossils, old bones, et cetera.”

  “You’re thinking if Father Kircher took possession of what he considered Eve’s remains that he might have involved his friend.”

  They reached the fork in the path and met up with Gray. Roland pointed to the steep stone staircase winding up to the right. “From Sister Clara’s account, it sounded like those two men were up to something secret involving that chapel.”

  Gray had stopped to study the other path, the one that led down to a cliff face with a dark vertical cut in it. “That must be the famous grotto.” He pointed to a glass-enclosed shrine at its entrance, full of a jumble of skulls and bones. “But what’s that?”

  “An ossuary,” he explained. “According to the guidebook, it holds the relics of monks and friars who once served here. The inscription on its marble pedestal reads: Remember: what you are, we were. What we are, you will become.”

  “True, I guess, but definitely morbid.” Gray turned toward the flight of marble steps and headed up.

  Lena followed but glanced back at the ossuary. “Let’s just hope we don’t become that anytime soon.”

  Roland smiled. That was also true.

  Gray led them up the precariously steep ascent of the Scala Santa. Underfoot, the steps were made of white marble, worn smooth by the passage of many sandals, boots, and shoes over the ages. A low wall on the left was all that kept climbers from a fall down the cliff on that side.

  “I can see why they call this a Holy Ladder,” Lena commented, huffing from the effort.

  Roland wheezed, “It’s meant both as a challenge and to humble those pilgrims seeking to reach the chapel.”

  “Certainly does its job.”

  Roland stared up as he climbed, shading his eyes with a palm. The small tile-roofed chapel looked austere and simple silhouetted against the blue sky, clinging to the spur overlooking the next valley. Four arched windows faced each of the cardinal directions.

  Roland found himself winded by the time he reached its door. He stopped to catch his breath, taking in the panorama of white rocky cliffs and fir-covered slopes. A slight breeze carried the fresh scent of pine. He finally faced the door of the chapel, feeling a flicker of unease.

  What had Father Kircher hidden here . . . and why?

  11:48 A.M.

  Lena followed Roland across the threshold into the shadows of the small chapel. After such a difficult climb, she had expected to discover something grand and stately, but the interior was spartan. The only adornment was a small marble altar on the far side, holding a scatter of guttered candles below a simple stone crucifix. The room was little larger than a two-car garage, with arched windows open to views in all directions.

  Roland stared up at the roof, at the crisscrossing of stone arches above. “This is the same pattern of brickwork we saw in that chapel in the caverns.”

  He was right, which made her wonder. If that cavern chapel had been built to inter the bones of a Neanderthal male, was this same construction some clue about what had been done with the female’s remains?

  Roland searched around. “Sister Clara said there were hieroglyphics to be found up here.”

  Gray stalked along the perimeter of the room, running his fingers along the walls below the windows, peering closely. “All of these bricks are faintly inscribed with writing. They circle the room, row by row. The topmost appears to be Latin. Below that is Greek.”

  Lena joined him as he dropped to a knee.

  “This next level is carved with Chinese characters.” Gray glanced back at them. “And at the very bottom are strips of Egyptian hieroglyphics.”

  Roland crouched down. “It’s almost like he layered them by age. Going back in time.”

  Lena ran her fingertips along that bottommost level, examining the carving, impressed by Father Kircher’s ability to mimic this writing. She worked around the walls, studying the triple lines of hieroglyphics that ran along the walls near the floor.

  Roland crawled beside her. “One of Father Kircher’s greatest published works was a three-volume epic titled Oedipus Aegyptiacus. It was his major treatise on Egypt, hieroglyphics, and ancient knowledge. He merged Greek myths, Pythagorean mathematics, Arab astrology, biblical accounts, and even alchemy, all in an attempt to comprehend the universal source of all knowledge.”

  “Like some grand unifying theory of intelligence,” Lena said.

  Roland nodded.

  Lena felt a sudden kinship with this historical figure. Maria and I were researching the same, to discover the true source of human intelligence.

  Gray scanned the ribbons of hieroglyphics. “Can you translate any of this?”

  Roland frowned. “It’s likely all meaningless. Father Kircher believed he had a discovered a way to decipher hieroglyphics, but in the end, he was deceiving himself.”

  “Then what do we hope to gain from all of this?” Lena asked.

  With no answer apparent, silence settled over them.

  After a few minutes, she was about to admit defeat when Gray stirred. He shifted closer to one section of the wall. “Look over here. In the middle row, at this pair of antelopes. Notice the one on the right with the raised horns.”

  He rubbed his thumb there to better reveal a pinkie-sized divot centered between the horns. He glanced back at them. “It’s almost like a hieroglyphic representation of Saint Eustace’s symbol. The stag’s antlers and the cross.”

  “Like what we found drawn in the back of Kircher’s old journal,” Lena said, leaning closer. “But what does it mean?”

  Gray pivoted to face her and held out his hand. “Can I see that key you found?”

  Lena understood and fished it out of her pocket, then handed it to him.

  Gray positioned the tip of the key near the indented mark between the horns. It appeared to be the same diameter. “Notice how there’s a half inch of clean rod at the end of the key, almost like a steel punch.”

  Roland looked doubtful. “You’re thinking of using it to unplug this hole.”

  Gray took out a pen and dug at the divot. “There’s definitely looser material packed in here.” He rubbed at some of the debris generated between his fingers. “Fine sand and maybe wax.”

  Roland swallowed and rubbed his chin. “Try it.”

  Gray shifted around, positioned the key’s tip into place, then used the heel of his hand to strike a hard blow. With a grating of stone, the key sank to the level of its first toothed bit. He pulled it back out, then blew at the newly created hole.

  “I think that did it,” he said. “The impact even broke away part of a vertical slot along the bottom. Looks like it would accommodate the protruding teeth of the key.”

  To make sure, Gray slipped a dagger from a boot sheath and used its sharp point to clean out the slot. Once satisfied, he tested it with the key. He had to push and prod—then finally it sank fully away, teeth and all, coming to a stop at the skull-adorned crown of the key.

  Gray gave them both a questioning look.

  Surely this lock won’t work after so many centuries, Lena thought.

  “Do it,” Roland instructed, his eyes shining with hope. “Beyond studying lost languages, Father Kircher was a master engineer, concocting all sorts of mechanical devices from magnetic clocks to windup automatons. He even had statues at his museum in Rome that would talk, amplifying the voices of someone in another room.”

  Given the okay by the priest, G
ray tightened his grip on the head of the key and gave it a firm twist.

  Lena held her breath, not sure what to expect.

  A jarring clank echoed from the wall. Then a large marble slab at the foot of the chapel’s altar dropped away, swinging on hidden hinges to form a ramp leading down. A waft of rock dust blew up from below.

  Lena stood but kept warily back from the hole. Roland stepped to her side as Gray removed the key and joined them.

  The ramp led to a shadowy set of stairs hidden under the altar. They looked hewn out of the mountain bedrock, descending steeply away.

  “It’s almost like a dark mirror of the Holy Ladder outside,” Roland whispered.

  Lena had a larger concern.

  But where does it lead?

  12:18 P.M.

  Seichan kept in the shadows of the convent walls. The midday sun hung in an achingly blue sky. She watched a hawk slowly circle on the thermals rising from the warming mountains. The air smelled of fresh pine, along with a hint of rosemary from the convent’s nearby gardens. She could faintly hear voices of the nuns inside the building, their words rising and falling in a prayerful cadence.

  She tried to imagine what it would be like to live a life of such seclusion and isolation, to be at peace with oneself and one’s god. Her upbringing had been full of terror and desperation as she scrabbled for life in the slums of Southeast Asia. From there, she had been recruited, trained in a brutal manner to grind away the little humanity that was left in her. Only lately had she come to reconcile her past, to set herself on a path to right the wrongs she had committed and to find a semblance of peace.

  A peace she still mistrusted.

  She knew how easily it could all be taken away.

  She glanced toward the church, to the chapel higher up the hill. She had watched Gray climb up there with the others a few minutes ago. She did not doubt his love for her, nor could she deny how she felt about him. But as much as she tried to hide it—and she was good at putting on other faces—she could not discount her wariness when around him. It was some combination of fear at losing him coupled with the guilt that she did not deserve him.

  Or any of this new life.

  The bang of a door drew her attention back to the church. A middle-aged couple headed toward the small parking lot. The woman slipped her hand in her husband’s, as naturally and easily as a bird landing on a limb. The wife said something that made the man smile. As they walked, they drew imperceptibly closer. It was a dance older than time, driven by their paired hearts beating together, synchronized by the passing years into a perfect rhythm.

  She shifted, stiffening her back. The sight irritated her—not because she envied them, but because she didn’t. She found them naïve, blissfully ignorant of the harsher realities of life. For her, such peace was an illusion, a purposeful blindness, like blinkering a horse’s eyes to keep it from spooking at the dangers around it.

  In the end, the only true and lasting peace was found in death.

  And I don’t intend to go without a fight.

  An echoing rumble drew her attention away from the couple and toward the lower road. A tourist bus slowly trundled a switchback, heading up. It was painted a bright crimson, with a stylized dragon emblazoned on its side. She had seen similar buses across Europe, full of camera-toting Asian tourists who flocked together as a group, clinging to their own culture as a wall against foreign influence. She knew some of the tour companies even discouraged their clients from sampling local cuisine, preferring instead to stop at noodle shops or Asian restaurants.

  Though the sight of such a bus was common throughout Europe, Seichan still slunk deeper into the shadows of the convent. She knew a Chinese faction had kidnapped Kowalski and Lena’s sister and likely orchestrated the ambush in Ogulin.

  As a precaution, Seichan maneuvered over to a narrow window, open to the soft breezes across the mountaintop. The voices of the nuns in midday prayers grew louder, rising from deeper within the centuries-old structure. Earlier, she had canvassed the area, making a full circuit of the grounds, surveying various vantages of approach and escape.

  Crouched now, she listened for the crunch of gravel under the bus’s tires as it pulled into the parking lot. She took that moment to leap up and drop cleanly through the convent window into the empty room beyond. Safely ensconced out of sight, she spied as the bus heaved to a stop amid a cloud of dust and exhaust.

  After a moment, the doors sighed open, and people began piling out, stretching, yawning, and checking cameras. The tour guide—a hummingbird of a woman in a bright crimson jacket that matched the bus’s exterior—opened an umbrella of the same color. She used it both to shade herself and as a focus of attention as she chattered loudly in Mandarin, trying to herd her charges together. After a bit of wrangling, she began to march her clients toward the wooden doors of the church.

  Seichan studied the tourists. They were all Chinese, ranging in age from young children to bent-backed elders. Clearly this was no assault team. Still, such a crowd offered the perfect cover for anyone who wanted to get closer to Seichan’s group. She observed each member closely, paying attention to how they moved, who they talked with, how they interacted.

  Six men—all in their late twenties or early thirties—made her uneasy. They did not walk together, nor did they converse with anyone else. Instead, their eyes swept the mountaintop a little too purposefully, and one gaze settled for several seconds too long on their parked Mercedes SUV. As that figure turned back around, she noted a telltale bulge under his light jacket.

  It could be a camera—but she wasn’t buying that.

  She ducked away, struggling for a plan, yet knowing one certainty.

  The time for peace was over.

  12:32 P.M.

  Gray led the others down the dark staircase. The way was narrow and treacherously steep, requiring them to proceed single file. He lit their path with a penlight while Lena trailed behind, using her cell phone to help illuminate her steps. The air was several degrees cooler than the sunlit chapel above and also drier than he had expected.

  Like entering a dusty Egyptian tomb.

  Roland ran his fingers along the wall. “If I had to guess, I’d say this must lead to some cavern within the mountain, similar to Saint Benedict’s grotto.”

  In another handful of steps, the priest’s estimation proved to be true as Gray’s light vanished into a cave. It was small, no more than five yards across. As he stepped off the last stair, his bootheel sank into what appeared to be a layer of crushed gravel over the floor. He moved aside to let the others join him. The crunch of their steps was loud in such a confined space, but not enough to cover the others’ gasps of shock.

  Lena lifted her cell phone higher.

  Roland wavered where he stood, looking close to falling to his knees.

  Across the cavern, seated on a throne carved from the bedrock, was a bronze figure of the Virgin Mary. It was a perfect replica of the wooden Madonna in the sanctuary’s church—from the bejeweled crown atop her head to the infant Christ cradled on her lap.

  “She’s beautiful,” Roland murmured.

  Lena spoke, tempering his enthusiasm. “But it’s not what we came to find.” She searched around at the rock walls of the cave. “It’s just another chapel. Maybe a private place for Father Kircher to pray to the Virgin Mary.”

  “Still, to discover such a holy place, one hidden for centuries . . .” Roland’s voice was full of passion, sounding close to tears. “It’s miraculous.”

  Gray stepped closer, washing the beam of his penlight over the figure. “For now I’m less concerned about miracles than I am about answers. Like, why did Father Kircher hide this statue down here?”

  He stared up into those serene eyes of the Madonna, remembering how Sister Clara had said Kircher wanted his heart to be buried in the church beneath that holy gaze.

  There must be more here.

  He looked down at his toes, sweeping at the gravel. The granular material did not
look like debris from the construction, but more like kitty litter. The motion drew Roland’s attention from the statue.

  Gray leaned down and pinched up some of the grains, rolling them between his fingers. “It’s like what I felt plugging the keyhole above. Some sort of sand.”

  Roland bent down and examined it himself. “Not sand,” he concluded, a soft smile on his face as he looked back up. “Silica.”

  “Silica?” Lena asked.

  “A form of silicon dioxide,” Roland explained. “Like you find in those desiccant packets inside pill bottles, used to keep things dry.”

  No wonder the air down here felt so arid.

  “The material was a scientific curiosity during Father Kircher’s time,” Roland continued. “He wrote chapters on its synthesis and drying properties. He even used it to help preserve some of the inner workings of his mechanical devices.”

  Lena glanced back to the stairs. “Like the locking mechanism above.”

  Roland nodded.

  “Maybe not just that,” Gray added. “Father Novak, didn’t you tell us that Kircher built moving statues, some of which were featured in his museum?”

  Roland’s eyes widened. “You don’t think . . .” He turned toward the bronze sculpture of the Madonna. “It couldn’t be.”

  Only one way to find out.

  Gray crossed to the statue and searched with his penlight, suspecting what he would find. He discovered it in the crown atop Mary’s head: a cross-shaped hole framed by a crescent of jewels below it.

  Like a rack of antlers.

  Roland made the sign of the cross, whispering a prayer.

  Lena looked no less stunned.

  Gray handed his penlight to Roland and retrieved Kircher’s old skeleton key. He had to lean on the statue’s lap to reach up to the crown.