Addison patted the sand from his hands. “Malazar’s men weren’t able to see the pattern because they’re down in the valley. Only we can see it because we had to climb the ridge to get past them.” He nodded with satisfaction. “We have the advantage.”
* * *
• • • • • •
It took only a few minutes for the group to scramble down off the ridge. They raced across the floor of the desert, chasing their long shadows in the moonlight. Addison zigged around the endless pits of copper mines that cratered the earth as if from a long-ago missile bombardment. The valley air was filled with a pungent oily smell like the stink of a gas station. Addison spotted black puddles of desert oil, shiny in the starlight, oozing through cracks in the rocky ground. He kept running, wrinkling up his nose and breathing through his mouth instead.
“Our footprints,” said Raj, pointing back at their sandy trail. “We should cover our tracks.”
“There’s no time,” Addison called. “Besides, by the time Malazar’s men wake up in the morning, we’ll be long gone.”
Molly was first to reach the mine at the exact center of the valley. The rest of the group loped up behind and paused for breath. Addison took a moment to wipe off his feet and put his dress shoes back on.
Before them was a circular hole in the ground no more than five feet wide. Raj clamped his flashlight in his teeth and eased himself down into the pit. He disappeared under a lip of stone.
Addison heard the scuffling sound of feet scraping on rock. He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered into the darkness below. “Raj, you okay?”
Raj’s excited voice floated right back up. “I’m fine! It’s not too deep and not too hard to climb! Maybe ten feet, tops.”
“What’s down there?”
“A tunnel!” said Raj. “It winds around too far for my flashlight to see.”
Addison felt confidence stirring in him once again. They were on the right track.
Molly tightened the laces on her shoes and lowered herself into the hole.
Eddie loosened his shoulders and stretched his legs, limbering himself up for the climb. He turned to Addison. “Real quick,” he said. “King Solomon might be buried down here, right?”
Addison shrugged.
“So, once again, Addison, you’ve got us going into a catacomb.”
“Eddie, there’s a reason ancient treasure gets buried underground instead of, say, hidden in a tree. A tree might only last thirty years, but a pit in the ground can last forever. So it’s really not my fault we always find ourselves mucking around underground.”
Eddie swung his legs so that his feet dangled over the pit. “So I’m supposed to just climb down there like some grave robber?”
Addison blew a speck of dust from the sleeve of his ballroom jacket and shook his head. “Grave robber sounds so . . . déclassé.”
“What else can you call it?”
“You heard Mr. Fiddleton. We’re not grave robbers . . . We’re relic guardians.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Eddie grumbled. He eased himself down into the hole in the earth.
Addison gazed up at the twinkling stars and smiled. He planted his palms on the ground and lowered himself in after Eddie.
* * *
• • • • • •
Addison climbed down to the floor of the mine and turned in a circle, taking his bearings. The open pit had dropped them into the middle of a tunnel that led off in either direction, vanishing around a bend. The tunnel was low enough to cause Eddie to stoop, and it was almost perfectly round.
“Which way?” asked Raj. “Right or left?”
Addison looked both ways, peering into the gloom. He could see no difference. He shrugged. “Right,” he declared.
They set off down the tunnel, Raj leading the way with his high-powered flashlight. The walls of the mine were smooth and chalky, eroded by time. Addison was surprised by how light the sandstone was in the glare of the flashlight—almost the color and texture of marshmallow. The tunnel constantly bent to the right, but its shape remained a perfect cylindrical tube. Addison imagined they were inside the ossified blood vessel of some massive and long-dead creature. He tried to picture the copper miners laboring with picks and trowels, thousands of years in the past.
The path forever wound to the right. The walk became a hike. After a few minutes Addison’s excitement began to fade. And after a few more minutes, Raj let out a startled cry. “We’re right back where we started!”
Addison stared up at the night sky through the open hole in the mineshaft. They had just walked in a complete circle. “It’s another ring.” Addison scratched the back of his neck. “Solomon’s priests were hiding the treasure from Babylonians. If it’s stayed hidden for nearly three thousand years, they must have done a decent job. We’ve missed something. Let’s take another lap. Look for anything unusual!”
The team took a second lap around the tunnel, this time more slowly. Raj halted to play his flashlight over every stray rock and pebble they crossed. He even knelt down to examine the sand beneath their feet.
“What is it, Raj?” asked Molly, joining him at his side.
Raj let a handful of sand filter through his fingers. “Some of this sand is green. Does that mean something?”
“It means we’re in a copper mine,” said Addison. “The Statue of Liberty is copper, and when it was built, it gleamed like a shiny new penny. But copper turns green when it mixes with air. So now the Statue of Liberty is as green as this sand.”
Raj looked at the sandy green splotches staining the floor of the cave. “So everywhere we see green, there’s copper?”
Addison nodded. “If treasure hunting doesn’t work out for us, we can always become copper miners.”
They kept moving. Addison pulled out his pen flashlight to study the walls as they passed. They were exactly halfway around the loop when Addison made a discovery. “Raj, over here!”
Raj backtracked to where Addison was standing and lit up the cave wall with his flashlight. “What is it?”
Addison scraped dirt from the wall with his hand. “Solomon’s priests seem to be using rings as a theme.” He backed away from the wall. There in the sandstone stood the faint outline of a large circle, shaded in with green.
Raj scratched at it with a finger, fascinated. “That’s a lot of copper. Why is it in the shape of a circle?”
“Because it’s a hatchway,” said Addison. He removed one of his dress shoes and used the hard heel to scratch away the sand that had melded with the copper. Raj, Molly, and Eddie joined in. Soon they revealed a circular copper door molded into the rock.
Addison pushed hard against it. Eddie and Raj threw in their shoulder weight. Metal screeched as it tore against stone. The entire copper disk popped inward, like a cork being pushed into a bottle. The copper door clanged as it struck the stony ground.
Before them was a tiny tunnel winding deep into the earth.
Chapter Forty
The Dark Spring
MOLLY TOOK THE FLASHLIGHT from Raj and led the way inside. The tunnel was small enough now that everyone needed to stoop. The air smelled coppery, like blood, and was so stuffy that Addison felt quite sure this tunnel had been sealed for centuries. The atmosphere grew more cold and damp as they descended, the tunnel winding in tight coils like a spiral staircase. Addison’s shoes squelched when he stepped through puddles of oozing oil and tar that seeped from the rock.
In a few minutes the shaft leveled off and widened into a chamber no bigger than Addison’s old New York apartment. It was an abrupt dead end. Before them was a deep pool of water, twenty feet across. It appeared black as ink in the flickering halo of Raj’s flashlight.
Raj dropped to one knee. “It must bubble up from an underground spring.” He dipped a finger in the water and sampled it. “Tastes fine to me.�
�� Raj filled his canteen.
Water was not what Addison was thirsting for. He played his penlight over the cavern walls. “Look for more green sand. There must be another door here somewhere.”
They spread out, scouring the room. Addison pushed on rocks, hoping for a secret switch or panel. Eddie studied the ceiling. Molly scraped at the floor with her heel. No one found anything worth reporting.
At last, Addison set his hands on his hips and turned to the pool of water. “There’s only one place we haven’t searched.”
“There’s no telling how deep it is,” Molly mused.
The still water was impenetrably dark. When Addison ran his light across the surface, it only reflected back at him. But the pool was circular, like a ring, and that fueled Addison’s curiosity.
Raj stepped forward, beaming with pleasure. “I’ll search the water. I can hold my breath for—”
“—over a minute and a half,” said Addison, Molly, and Eddie in unison.
Raj began sucking deep breaths through his nose and blowing them out through his mouth. His chest heaved like accordion bellows.
“Guys,” said Eddie, “Raj is going into labor!”
Raj shook his head vehemently. “I’m oxygenating my lungs!”
After a minute of this, Raj gulped one last breath of air, clasped his palms together, and swan dived into the water. He steered for the opposite wall of the cavern and vanished into the gloomy depths.
The water eventually grew still. The team waited for any sign of Raj to emerge.
Addison checked his fake Rolex. “Thirty seconds,” he declared.
Soon, a minute had passed. “It’s no problem,” said Addison a little nervously. “He can hold his breath for nearly a minute and a half.”
Molly and Eddie nodded.
Addison watched the second hand of his watch orbit past the two-minute mark. He peered intently at the dark water, willing Raj to appear.
Nothing.
“Okay, I’m worried,” said Molly.
Addison paced in a circle. He ran his hands through his hair. Once again, someone he cared for was in trouble and it was probably his own fault. He knew he could not handle losing anyone else close to him. His watch slithered past three minutes.
Still no Raj.
“We have to do something!” said Molly, wringing her hands.
“Okay,” said Addison. “What do we do?”
“We should go in after him!”
Eddie shook his head. “If Raj got lost down there, we could get lost, too!”
Addison held his flashlight close to the water. If Raj was somehow lost down there, he hoped Raj would see the beacon and find his way to the surface.
“I’ll go in,” Molly volunteered.
Addison shook his head. “Eddie’s right. If Raj got trapped, you could get trapped as well.”
“Well, we have to do something!”
Addison turned to his sister. “Molly, I can’t lose you twice in two days.”
Molly folded her arms.
Together, they watched the water in silence.
At last, Molly spoke. “How long has it been?”
Addison checked his watch one last time. “Four minutes,” he said. He took a few steps and sat down by the pool. He buried his head in his hands.
That is how Addison got thoroughly soaked when Raj burst out of the water.
* * *
• • • • • •
Raj climbed out of the pool and shook himself off like a golden retriever.
“We thought you were dead!” cried Molly. She threw her arms around his shoulders. Raj did not appear to be any worse for wear. He did not even appear to be out of breath. He did, however, seem to be enjoying the newfound attention.
Addison pointed to his watch. “Raj, it’s been nearly five minutes! You broke your record!”
“I wish,” said Raj. “This tunnel continues on the other side of the rock wall. The pool of water is just clever camouflage. It only takes about ten seconds to swim under the wall and reach the other side.”
Addison tried to remain calm. “If you were only under water for ten seconds, why did you wait five minutes to come back?”
Molly was trembling with anger. “We were worried sick about you!”
Raj shrugged helplessly. “Well, first I wanted to look around. And then I needed to do my free-diving breath exercises. You know that takes at least a minute.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Molly, staring daggers at Raj. “You needed to do your free-diving breath exercises in order to swim for ten seconds?”
“Well,” said Raj, looking sheepishly at his dripping combat boots. “It’s good practice.”
“Okay,” said Addison. “The good news is Raj is alive. I mean, I guess that’s good news.” He turned to Raj. “How do we swim under the rock? Is it a tunnel?”
“You can’t miss it,” said Raj. “Just aim straight and keep kicking.”
Addison did not love getting wet, but at least he knew his ballroom blazer was wrinkle-free. “Let’s keep moving. We have a treasure to find.”
He dove into the freezing water.
Chapter Forty-One
The Pendulum
ADDISON SWAM BREASTSTROKE, FORCING himself deeper and deeper. He was not sure if his flashlight was waterproof, so he switched it off just in case that helped prevent a short circuit. In pitch dark, he felt the edge of the rocky wall ahead of him with his hands. Feeling his way along, he passed underneath the stony ledge, and then allowed his buoyancy to pull him back up to the surface. He breathed clean air. He was on the far side.
He shook the water from his flashlight and switched it on. To his relief, it was still working. One by one, his friends burst through the surface of the water. Raj appeared last, presumably because he needed to perform his breathing exercises.
Addison surveyed the new chamber. It was a mirror image of the room they had just left. He hoisted himself, dripping, out of the pool and skimmed water from his hair with the blade of his hand.
Before them, the tunnel continued into the darkness. They didn’t have to follow it for very long before the ceiling rose and the passage opened up into a larger cavern. Ahead of them, a treacherously steep flight of stone steps led up to a circular copper door. It was covered with a series of small copper disks.
Addison turned to Eddie. “What do you make of it?”
Eddie stared thoughtfully up at the distant door. “It looks like a very, very ancient combination lock.”
Addison was thinking the same thing. “A safe.”
“So we’ve made it,” said Molly. “This is the door to the treasure vault.”
Addison guided Eddie to the base of the stone steps. “This is all you, Eddie. This is your moment.”
Eddie glanced nervously up the stairs at the gleaming copper door. “Do I go up alone?”
“Yes,” said Addison. “The stairs are too narrow and there’s only room for one person to stand at the top.”
Sweat broke out on Eddie’s brow. His hands began trembling. “Is the safe safe?”
Addison could see that stage fright was already wreaking havoc on his friend. He tried to buck up Eddie’s confidence. “Of course the safe’s safe. Solomon’s priests were more concerned with keeping the treasure hidden from Babylonians. They weren’t interested in hurting anyone. We haven’t seen any booby traps so far.”
“So far,” said Eddie.
“This treasure was hidden nearly three thousand years ago,” said Addison. “There simply wasn’t enough technology for elaborate booby traps. All the priests could do was bury their treasure in a cave and hope for the best. Eddie, you’ve got this.”
Eddie wiped the sweat from his palms on the front of his slacks. He sighed and nodded. He turned and mounted the narrow staircase with the eagerness of
a prisoner heading for the gallows. There were no railings to keep him from plummeting over the side. Soon Addison, Molly, and Raj were far, far below him.
Nevertheless, Eddie plodded onward, climbing the steep flight of steps. And it wasn’t until he reached the tiny platform at the top that he triggered the booby trap.
* * *
• • • • • •
Addison had to hand it to Eddie. If there was a booby trap within a hundred-mile radius, Eddie would find a way to trip it. Still, it wasn’t entirely Eddie’s fault. The whole platform at the top of the stairs seemed to be the trigger.
With a creak and a groan, a massive copper pendulum swung from a crevice in the cave wall. Suspended from a heavy brass chain, the copper wrecking ball sizzled past Eddie, missing him by inches. Eddie shrieked. Within seconds, the pendulum reached the end of its arc and swung back toward Eddie, picking up speed.
“What do I do?” Eddie shouted.
Addison could see that if the pendulum struck Eddie, it would blast him off the steps, sending him plummeting fifty feet down to the jagged, rocky floor of the cavern—not a good way to end the evening. But he also knew that if Eddie retreated, he would never get Eddie back up those steps.
“The safe!” Addison cried. “Open the safe!”
Eddie wheeled to face the round copper door. The pendulum sliced past him, grazing the back of his blazer. The door was covered with dozens of copper disks the size of teacups. On each disk was carved either a curving line or a straight line. He tried to make sense of the dizzying array.
The pendulum whooshed past. He could feel the wind on the back of his neck.
Eddie took a deep breath. He picked one of the copper disks and swiveled it. It rotated like the dial on a master lock. He spun it, straining his ears to hear it click into place.
The giant copper wrecking ball swept past again. Eddie shook his head. Even if he swiveled this one copper plate into position, there were still dozens to go. “Addison, this is the mother of all locks!”
Addison Cooke and the Ring of Destiny Page 21