Scroll

by Ruth Hartzler

  Abigail thought for a moment. “No one.”

  Thatcher hurried over to them. “Berat must have sewn it in when he abducted you.” To Riley, he said, “Berat must have intended to let her go so she could lead him to the treasure. It was his plan all along.” He took it from Riley and crushed it under his boot. The two men exchanged glances. “That means he’s on his way,” Thatcher added, “with explosives. We have to hurry. Abigail, put on the goggles.”

  She did as he said, and blinked several times in succession. Everything looked spooky almost, a funny shade of green, but at least she could see.

  The rock was cold and dark. Thatcher was already making his way along the tunnel. Abigail crawled as fast as she could, trying to escape the waves of claustrophobia that struck her, scared Riley would go too fast and leave her behind. She was also afraid the rocks would suddenly give way and she would plunge to her death into a bottomless pit. She knew it was an illogical fear, but it was a fear, nonetheless. And what if there was an earthquake? She would be crushed or trapped there forever. Her brow broke out into a cold sweat.

  Abigail tried some self-talk to calm herself. The tunnel wasn’t getting any narrower. In fact, it seemed as though it was getting wider. Maybe the Temple of Artemis was directly ahead. Still, that was no small comfort because it was underground. At that moment, Abigail wanted to be on the surface more than anything else.

  Suddenly, Riley’s boots vanished. Before she had time to panic, his hand reached for her. She crawled into another cavern, a smaller one this time, but at least it was bigger than the tunnel. Abigail trembled violently.

  Riley put his arm around her and held her close. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she lied. She was glad he couldn’t see her face because then he would see just how frightened she was. He squeezed her tightly and then released her.

  Diagonally opposite them to the right was a bigger tunnel than the one they had just crawled from. This one looked man-made. Thatcher made for the tunnel, but Riley put out a restraining hand. “There’s an inscription above it. What does it say, Abigail?”

  She walked up and shone her flashlight over it. “It appears to be a bilingual inscription: Lydian with a translation into Greek. I can’t translate the Lydian without a lexicon, but the Greek says,

  ‘Beware. All who enter here to steal the gold are cursed.’”

  “A curse?” Thatcher said. “That explains why the locals were too afraid to proceed.”

  “Curses have never prevented grave robbers over history from looting,” Abigail pointed out.

  Riley agreed. “I don’t think anyone has gone past the first tunnel that we just came through in centuries. If your professor didn’t do it, then I doubt anybody else would. Obviously, no one made the connection with the subterranean Temple of Artemis and the treasure of Croesus.”

  “Well, let’s go into that tunnel. What are we waiting for?” Thatcher asked, eagerness evident in his voice. “The treasure could be just ahead of us.”

  “Not so fast,” Riley said. “It could be booby-trapped. Are you sure there’s not a deeper meaning to that inscription?”

  “Not as far as I know,” Abigail said. “I think it’s safe to proceed.”

  “You think?” Thatcher said. “Then maybe you should go first.”

  “You’re going first,” Riley said roughly. “On your way.”

  Thatcher muttered something Abigail couldn’t hear and then disappeared into the tunnel.

  The next thing Abigail heard was a shriek.

  24

  SARDIS: UNDER THE ACROPOLIS NORTH

  Riley pulled Abigail away as bats flew past her face. She could have cried with relief. She wasn’t overly fond of cave-dwelling bats, but they were far preferable to Vortex agents.

  Abigail realized she was clinging to Riley and he made no attempt to let her go.

  “It was only bats,” Thatcher called back to them, somewhat unnecessarily.

  Riley released Abigail. He ducked into the tunnel and Abigail followed him. She shone her flashlight over the rough-hewn walls to get a better look than the night vision goggles afforded her. “Surely this must lead somewhere significant, maybe the temple,” she told Riley. Her words echoed strangely.

  “I thought as much,” he said.

  The temperature dropped as she crawled onward. If only she was back in her comfortable bed, or even giving a lecture—anywhere that was safe. She took a deep breath and forced herself to crawl further. Her knees were beginning to hurt. How far had she come? A hundred feet? More? She was completely disoriented with nothing around her but artificial green gloom, and the only sounds being her own breathing and shuffling sounds made by Riley and Thatcher.

  Abigail heard Thatcher gasp and then Riley reached back and helped her into what she at first thought was a cave.

  She stood up. She heard chem lights crack and shut her eyes at the ensuing blinding white light.

  Abigail removed her goggles. She was struck speechless at the sight before her.

  Directly in front of her were two large golden hippocampuses flanking the steps to an imposing marble-clad Temple of Artemis towering above her. She looked up in awe at the ancient building. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,” she said over and over again.

  Riley and Thatcher seemed equally shocked.

  Abigail, of course, had never seen a temple in its original state. She had only see ruins. Her eyes roamed over the giant marble columns. “It’s an Ionic design the same as the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” Thatcher asked her.

  “Well, I mean not a Doric or Corinthian order,” she told him. “The Ionic columns were more graceful than the Doric, and incorporated friezes of continuous sculptural relief.”

  She shone her flashlight over the friezes way above her head.

  “So the treasure would be inside?” Thatcher asked her. “And look at those golden animals!” His flashlight traveled over the golden hippocampuses.

  Abigail hurried to a column. “Look at the oak leaves and acorns on this column and snail scorpions and salamanders!” She was beside herself with excitement. It was just like going back in time over two and a half thousand years. No one in modern times had seen such a sight.

  “Abigail, there’s an inscription on the column,” Riley said urgently. “Do you think it’s referring to booby-traps?”

  Abigail bent to peer at the writing, which was in Greek not Lydian. “No, those will just be the donors of the columns,” she said. “It was common practice to record the donors’ names on the columns.”

  “Do you think there are booby-traps?” Thatcher asked her.

  “It’s always possible,” Abigail said. “I mean, this is a Greek temple, but Croesus wasn’t Greek. Sure, he funded the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, and like I said earlier, Xenophon mentioned an altar of Artemis from that time period, so maybe Croesus did follow the cult of Artemis. We know for certain that he made offerings to the Greek god, Apollo, at Delphi. There are no known booby-traps in Greek temples, but given that inscriptions with new information are being discovered all the time, maybe one day they’ll find inscriptions saying there were booby-traps in Greek temples.”

  “In that case, we will have to proceed carefully,” Riley said. “Does this look like a standard Temple of Artemis to you, Abigail?”

  “I’ve only seen them in ruins, of course,” she said. “But yes, it does fit with the descriptions of other Temples of Artemis.”

  “In what section of their temples did they keep the treasure?” Thatcher persisted.

  Abigail shook her head. Thatcher was just like one of her students, more interested in treasure than in ancient cultures and their social history. To Abigail, history was treasure. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she said. “Temples typically weren’t used for storage of mega amounts of treasure, but any treasure was normally kept in the opisthodomos.”

  “What are the sections of the temple?”
Riley asked her.

  “Sacrifice was always performed outside. People entered the temple through the columns into the vestibule, and behind the vestibule is the cella. Behind that is the cult statue of Artemis. Behind that is the opisthodomos and behind, that the posticum.”

  “English please,” Thatcher said.

  Abigail shrugged. Her eyes were still smarting from the brilliant white light after being so long in the tunnel. “No one knows for sure due to ritual secrecy. Sometimes the opisthodomos was the treasury although sometimes the word referred to the inner shrine. The posticum was the portico at the back, although sometimes the opisthodomos and the posticum were one and the same. The cella often included an adyton to house the statue, although adyta often also held sacred items.”

  “You really don’t have a clue where the treasure would be held, do you?” Thatcher said, a snarky tone creeping into his voice. “It sounds as though you’re just as confused as I am.”

  Abigail frowned. Thatcher was certainly departing from his previous pleasant demeanour. Before she could respond, he added, “I suppose you won’t know unless we proceed. If it is booby-trapped, what sort of booby-traps could there be?”

  “Could be anything. Could you get that flashlight out of my eyes?” She wondered why he was still using it when the chem lights illuminated the area so strongly.

  “Sorry,” Thatcher said, although his tone suggested he was anything but sorry. “These golden winged creatures must be worth an absolute fortune, a king’s ransom in fact!” His voice rose to a high pitch. “I wonder how we’ll ever get them out of here? Maybe we’ll have to enlarge the tunnels, or maybe the roof of this cavern is close to the surface and we can drill. Have there been any earthquakes in recent times?”

  “There was the big one in 17 AD. The Roman historian, Tacitus, reported that people were swallowed by the earth opening up. It was a massive earthquake, with the ground levels being significantly displaced and fires everywhere. There was no warning and it came at night. It affected twelve cities over eastern Turkey, but Sardis was the worst affected. This temple this has obviously survived it,” Abigail added.

  She was not at all happy with the thought of anyone removing the golden hippocampuses or doing anything to the temple. This was an archeological delight, an incredibly rare, preserved precious piece of ancient architecture. In that regard, it was priceless, even if it hadn’t contained any gold.

  “All right, let’s proceed. Be careful, and Abigail, you stick close to me,” Riley said. “Let’s shine our flashlights over every dark place in case there are inscriptions warning of booby-traps. We can’t be too careful.”

  Abigail agreed. “The Lydians built this, and we know very little about them. Maybe they did have booby-traps. Other cultures had things like streams of mercury, poisonous gas, steps that would give way to chasms, as well as the deadly mercury sulfide powder,” Abigail cautioned them. “I wonder if we could throw rocks ahead of us to see if they trigger something. Of course, we would have to be careful that we don’t damage anything.”

  Both Riley and Thatcher agreed, and soon the three of them picked up various stones and small rocks lying around the ground and threw them up the temple steps.

  After an interval, Thatcher said, “Nothing’s happened,” just as Riley threw another rock.

  At that moment, arrows flew out of the walls, about three feet into the air.

  Thatcher froze on the spot. “Did you see that?”

  Abigail clutched Riley’s arm. “Booby-trapped crossbows are said to be hidden in the tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Have you heard of him? He’s famous for building the Great Wall of China and for the army of terracotta warriors.”

  Both Riley and Thatcher nodded, so she continued. “Today, most people think the crossbows are a myth, but the renowned Chinese historian, Sima Qian, who was born about sixty years after Qin Shi Huang’s death, recorded that Huang’s tomb was protected by lakes of mercury and booby-trapped crossbows. In recent years, archeologists discovered high levels of mercury in the soil surrounding the tomb, so maybe Sima Qian was right about the crossbows too.”

  Riley nodded. “In that case, we’ll have to crawl up the stairs and keep low to the ground.”

  “It happened when your rock landed on that step there,” Abigail said. “Riley, can you throw rocks on the steps either side of it?”

  He did as she suggested, but no more arrows shot out. Finally, he threw a rock on the same step and arrows shot out almost too fast for Abigail to see.

  Riley pointed to the step. “It might be just that step, but it’s too wide for us to jump across, so we’ll have to crawl up anyway.”

  Abigail was shaking. She dug her fingers into Riley’s arm a little tighter and said, “That means there will be other booby-traps. That won’t be the only type.”

  “Yes, I know that.” Riley’s tone was calm.

  Abigail wondered how he could be so brave. She wanted to turn tail and run back to the safety of the outside air, to feel the sun’s warmth on her face, and to breathe crisp fresh air rather than the eerie air of the giant cavern.

  “What are we waiting for?” Thatcher said. “Come on!”

  “Keep low,” Riley said again.

  It seemed to take an age. Abigail crawled along, keeping as low to the wide steps as she could. The marble felt cold under her hands and her knees were raw. She was in awe of the ancient building and at the same time, terrified for her life. She fought the panic as it came at her in waves and threatened to overwhelm her time and time again.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, Abigail sat down and tried to steady her ragged breathing.

  “Do you think there are more arrows or will there be a different type of booby-trap up ahead?” Thatcher asked her.

  “I really don’t know, but I’m sure there will be more.”

  “What type of booby-traps did they have in ancient tombs?”

  Abigail scratched her head. “Oh gosh. Well, the crossbows were supposed to be a myth, but I guess we found out that they weren’t.”

  “What about proven ones?” Thatcher pressed her.

  “Many of them were used in warfare, like the explosive Chinese land mines from the thirteenth century.” Thatcher’s mouth dropped open as Abigail continued. “They used a rip cord or a pin that released falling weights. Those rotated a flint wheel, which created sparks to ignite the fuses for the land mines.”

  “See if you can find any inscriptions,” Riley said to Thatcher.

  “If you’re looking for warnings, I don’t think there will be any,” Abigail told him. “Croesus and his men would have had no reason to warn anyone of the booby-traps.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but it won’t hurt to check,” Riley said.

  Nevertheless, they didn’t find any inscriptions warning of booby-traps, just as Abigail had predicted.

  Riley and Thatcher cracked some more chem lights and threw them inside the building. Abigail wished there was electric lighting so she could take in the true magnificence of the structure. The chem lights were bright, but they were not pervasive.

  When they carefully walked inside the building, Abigail expected to be impaled by an arrow at any minute. Her imagination was running away with her.

  “What now?” Thatcher said. He stopped right by a fluted column.

  “We proceed—carefully,” Riley said. “Abigail, stay behind me.”

  Abigail didn’t need telling twice. She certainly didn’t want to go ahead.

  She heard the sound before she saw anything. Riley and Thatcher heard it at the same time.

  “Quick, retreat,” Riley said. They ran back the way they had come. Abigail was going to keep running, but Riley caught her arm. She swung around.

  To Abigail’s horror, where they had just been standing was now a stream of silver liquid.

  “What is it?” Thatcher asked.

  “Mercury,” Abigail said. “We must have stepped on something that released it. Arc
heologists have found mercury in at least four sites around Central America. They found a large quantity of liquid mercury in a chamber below the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent in Teotihuacan, in central Mexico. And I’ve already told you about mercury in Qin Shi Huang’s tomb.”

  “Enough of the history,” Thatcher said. “What else are we likely to encounter?”

  “Don’t touch anything covered with red powder, because that could be the deadly mercury sulfide I mentioned before. Apart from that, the only other booby-traps I know of are oil and liquid tar, and the ground suddenly opening up into a pit.” She thought for a moment and then added, “And sometimes spikes come up from the ground.”

  Thatcher rolled his eyes. “Great! Well, so we proceed and look for the treasure? The mercury seems to have drained away.”

  Riley hesitated a moment and then said, “I would prefer to leave, but it’s our mission.”

  They edged on ever so carefully until they came to the giant statue of Artemis.

  “Wow,” was all Abigail managed to say.

  Thatcher seemed impressed. “Is the statue gold all the way through?”

  Abigail shook her head. “I doubt it. One ancient writer said the cult statue at Ephesus was made of cedar wood, but others said ebony or grapewood covered in silver or gold. I’m surprised those crossbows still worked after thousands of years,” she said as an afterthought. “Surely the cords would have been destroyed by bacteria by now or the metal mechanisms rusted.”

  “Maybe that’s why they only worked on that one step,” Riley speculated. “Maybe the crossbows were supposed to work on every step.”

  Abigail shuddered. “I didn’t think of that. Still, archeologists recently found chromate on weapons excavated with the terracotta warriors, and chromate would prevent the mechanisms from rusting.”

  “Let’s keep moving,” Thatcher said. “You said the treasure would be behind the statue?”

  “In a normal temple it would be.”

  Thatcher edged forward, followed by Riley and Abigail.