“But-” Caleb started to ask, then kept his mouth shut.
Phoebe also didn’t share the others’ enthusiasm. She looked at Qara and then Caleb. “I didn’t see this the first time. I saw a journey along an underground river of silvery water, then to the gates of a palatial city basking in the dark and protected by soldiers.”
Qara’s eyes softened, and she gave an almost-imperceptible nod.
Renee snorted. “It seems you can be fooled just as easily as everyone who’s read the Sacred History. It’s all a big game of misdirection. Sometimes,” she said, confidently, “the easiest path is the best. Occam’s Razor. And sometimes, the best choice is not to choose. We go in.”
The soldiers smiled, their steps lighter. They believed they were close, and the prospect of not having to pass over or around their mutilated comrades in either direction was a popular one. Chang ordered four men ahead through the door and down the stairs, into a slanting passage that was so dark no one could see the bottom.
“I suggest you to wait here,” Chang said to Renee. “Maybe more traps.”
“Doubtful,” she said, “given that we needed psychics to get this far and find this door, but just to be safe, we stay here and see what they find.”
“Agreed.”
Renee turned and pointed her gun at Qara’s face. “And if we lose these men too…”
Qara shrugged. “You’re acting rashly. If those men die, it will be your fault. I warned you.”
Renee took a breath, trying to calm herself. “Do you, in fact, know anything about what’s down here, or should I just put an end to your suffering?”
“Please,” Caleb said, “can we just focus? Qara can help. And I have seen that she will. But right now, you should have your men come back. We can try to remote view what’s down there again, try to visualize-”
“A coffin!” someone shouted, the voice amplified by Renee’s transceiver.
“Describe it,” she said back into the device.
In broken English, almost too choppy to comprehend, she heard, “We at bottom. In room, eight wall. Box in middle. Gold. Three meter long.”
“Carefully,” said Renee, “approach the casket.” She took a very deep breath, glancing from Caleb to Qara, seeing their expressions of resigned fear. “Touch it.”
“ Hao.”
Seconds passed without sound or commotion.
“Report?”
Crackling. Shuffling.
“Fine. Okay. We move top. Look inside. We see…”
“What? What do you see?”
Nothing.
“What’s going on?” Renee barked. Chang took a few steps down and Caleb moved close behind him, peering down. Maybe only forty steps and the stairwell widened, revealing the four beams of light playing around a room bare of any artwork, furniture or treasure; nothing save for a gilded coffin.
And the four men on their knees around it, holding their throats. Coughing, wheezing.
Chang started down, but Caleb caught his arm, even as he stepped back. “Gas. Poison.” Chang aimed his light past the contorting men, and for an instant Caleb caught a glimpse of a man’s face: a foaming mouth, blood trickling from his nose, his eyes crimson. The light stabbed through the triangular opening into the coffin, to reveal — nothing but a few strips of rags.
“They treated the cloth with something that would ferment, turn and release a gas that would be trapped in that air-tight coffin,” Caleb said, backing up and hanging his head, “until opened.”
Qara smiled. “By intruders who wouldn’t heed the warnings.”
Renee swung her fist, slamming it into Qara’s cheek and knocking her down. Then she pointed to Chang, whose horrified face had turned to bitter resolve. “Shut that door.”
Caleb couldn’t help but let out a snicker. “You’re running out of men, Agent Wagner. At this rate, pretty soon we’ll outnumber you.”
“Oh, I’ll make sure the odds stay in my favor. As I see it, Orlando and Qara here are nearly useless. They’ll go first. Now talk. Tell us which way.”
“I don’t think it matters." He scratched his chin, staring again at the inscription. “ The best choice is not to choose. Maybe it means that our choice doesn’t matter.”
“So, what then?” Phoebe asked.
Caleb looked at each of them, including the ten remaining soldiers. “Who’s got a coin to flip?”
“Tails,” Orlando said, flipping and catching a gold dollar. “Looks like we’re headed left, for the old spike pit.”
“Damn,” Phoebe said. “I would’ve preferred the pancake room.”
Renee stared at the coin in Orlando’s open palm, two flashlight beams dancing across the eagle’s wings. “So, that’s it? All your vaulted abilities and we’re reduced to a coin toss?”
“That’s about right,” Caleb said. “Like I told you, our process takes months. Weeks at least. Even then, if we do see something, it’s hard to separate truth from imagination. In this case, the flip of a coin is as good as anything else.”
“I think,” Phoebe added, “that whichever way we choose, it won’t be easy.”
Qara cleared her throat as the soldiers prepared to move on Chang’s orders. Her eyes were haggard, and blood from the fresh cut on her cheek trickled down her bruised face. “Death walks with us.”
5
Nina led Colonel Hiltmeyer and Private Harris down the stairs first. Alexander followed after taking what he feared might be his last gulp of fresh air. Montross descended last, still holding aloft the Emerald Tablet in his left hand, his gun in his right. At the bottom, they followed the glow, approaching the threshold with caution.
“Left their floodlights behind,” Nina noted when they had passed the first door and saw the large halogen bulbs resting amidst the pile of skeletal remains.
“Good thing too,” Montross said, pointing at the mosaic floor. “Now we can follow Hansel and Gretel’s grisly trail.”
Alexander shuffled his feet, hands in his pocket, the chill reaching deeper as they proceeded. The air was dank and oppressive, stifling. The corridors on either side loomed dark and full of menace, and the stairs behind them only reminded him of the field of corpses above.
Death up there, death down here, he thought. As Above, so Below.
Private Harris went first, looking miserable and terrified all at once, rubbing his elbow which had been banged up during the fall down the stairs. Then Hiltmeyer went, glaring back at Nina with every step. Harris’s foot slid on one spot, almost connecting with another square tile. “Still wet,” he said with a shaky voice.
“We’re not far behind them,” Montross said.
Harris suddenly froze, unable to take another step, glancing in both directions, expecting a hail of spears to rip through him at any moment. He glanced back at Alexander. “Is this it?”
Alexander thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. I can’t tell.”
“A premonition?” Montross asked. “About Harris here? Ah, well if that was the case, the danger may now be passed.”
“You can change fate?” Harris asked hopefully.
“We all can,” Montross said. “We do it every day, every minute. But you’re only conscious of it when you can see the tracks ahead and you know what’s coming. Then, your choices seem to make you all powerful, make you feel almost godlike.”
That seemed to be confusing enough to mollify Harris, and he continued for now, following Hiltmeyer along the red-smeared tiles. Montross waited at the edge of the mosaic floor, staying back with Nina and Alexander.
“What’s up?” Nina asked.
He hugged the Emerald Tablet to his chest. “I just saw a flash of something. A glimpse ahead. Your friend Hiltmeyer… near the last tile, if we were still behind him, he was going to drop to his knees and roll over the wrong tiles, releasing the spikes from both passages-”
“Running us through while he rolled to safety.” Nina’s eyes burned. The Beretta felt lighter in her hand.
> “You saw the future again?” Alexander asked Montross, overhearing. “You keep seeing your death, don’t you?”
Montross glanced down. “Observant boy. Yes. Seeing it-and avoiding it.”
“Wow. How many times?”
Montross shrugged. “I’ve racked up more wins against the Reaper than I can count.”
Alexander gave a little laugh. “Yeah, but he only has to win once.”
“So true. Now, let’s get going. Nina, keep your gun on Hiltmeyer until I’m across.”
“With pleasure.”
Alexander followed Montross, matching his steps, finding comfort in the fact that he was also following in his father’s footsteps. Finally, they crossed the map and were past the border of the mosaic, joining Hiltmeyer and Harris, where the colonel refused to make eye contact. Instead, he gazed ahead, into the shadows.
Montross held the tablet in one hand as he waved Nina forward and pulled out Nilak’s Ruger with the other. The tablet’s glow provided enough illumination to see by, but not much more.
When Nina was across, she threw one of her backpacks at the colonel. “Flashlights inside. Also water and food.” She patted the goggles hanging around her neck. “I’m keeping the night-vision goggles.”
“What’s up ahead?” Hiltmeyer asked, finding a flashlight and turning it on. He and Harris advanced, probing the shadows.
Alexander took a light from Nina and shined it straight ahead as he walked, following them. Then left, then right, down the newly revealed passageways.
“I smell something,” he said.
Montross wrinkled his nose. “Something toxic.” He pointed left. “From that direction.”
“I saw water,” Alexander said, closing his eyes and focusing again. “Water, or something like it. Shiny, like silver. And a boat filled with people. And my Dad!”
He took off running in that direction, but didn’t get far. Nina was on him in a flash, collaring him and holding him still. “Don’t do that again. Apart from not wanting you to escape, running into shadows is the best way to get yourself killed down here.”
“I know,” Alexander said. “But they went this way.”
“If they went that way,” Montross said, quietly, as he turned and faced right, ignoring the partially open false door ahead of them, “then I believe we’ll to go this way.”
“What?” Hiltmeyer asked, shining his light back and forth. “Why?”
“Because we need to make up time, and because that”-he shined his light on an inscription on the wall ahead of them-“says our choice doesn’t matter.”
Nina came back, pulling Alexander with her, even as he dragged his feet, looking back over his shoulder, fighting the tears in his eyes.
“This way may even be faster,” Montross said, urging Hiltmeyer and Harris toward the room with the ceiling-press trap. “I have seen the river too. It’s beautiful. And fortunately there’s a vessel there as well, waiting.”
“For what?” Harris asked.
“I don’t know. For Temujin’s use in the afterlife, should he desire a scenic boat ride?” Montross tightened his grip on the tablet. “Or just for someone who might come knocking with the right key.”
Alexander moaned, still looking the other direction. “But Dad and Aunt Phoebe! They don’t have the key, any key! And that way, the one they picked…” He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to dislodge the horrific visions.
“That way is worse. Much worse. They’re not going to make it!”
6
The river Caleb had seen in his vision wasn’t fresh water at all, but a highly contaminated mercury-enriched stream. An oily, silvery river of perfect calmness, shimmering deceptively, hiding its toxicity beyond a lustrous sheen.
Back before the shore of silt, small rocks and dry earth, their footsteps mapped their progress through the arched doorway from the room of spikes, where Caleb had carefully led the team around seven-foot long metal lances, spaced only feet apart. They had crossed diagonally, and uneventfully, to the northern side of the room to the open archway and the waiting beach. Chang’s men had found a grooved ladder on the western wall, just under the place where the floor had given way after they had tripped the weight sensor by tossing a heavy pack in the center of the floor. Once the floor had dropped, simply jamming a rifle into the visible gears at the lower corner prevented the floor from resetting and allowed them to descend.
They carried four flare guns and twenty-eight flares, hoping that would be enough. Caleb took a flashlight and played it over the river, the light skipping over its metallic appearance. Then he shined the light higher, the beam darting across the arched ceiling twenty feet above. Mostly earthy, their rooftop sported occasional stalactites hanging like swords.
More lights fanned out from the soldiers, finding the two gondola-like boats tethered with chains to iron posts thrust into the shore. Gazing at the river besieged by flashlight beams, Orlando whistled. “It looks like that cybernetic liquid alloy stuff in Terminator 2. Hope nothing pops out of there and slices us in half.” He turned to Caleb and Phoebe. “I think we should take this fine opportunity to psychically Mapquest the next leg of our journey.”
“Definitely,” Phoebe whispered, holding her hand over her mouth, coughing.
The tunnel ahead beckoned, shimmering in the flashlight beams before disappearing around a bend into darkness. It gave Caleb the impression of the start of a watery amusement park ride, like one he had taken Alexander on just last year at Busch Gardens. “Hold up,” he said. “Anyone think to bring gas masks?”
Sniffing the air, Chang motioned one of his guards who wriggled out of a backpack, opened it and began passing out masks.
Good old Chinese efficiency and preparedness, Caleb thought.
“This will be a very toxic stretch,” he said, pointing ahead, down the tunnel into the darkness. “Especially as we begin paddling, as the oars will stir up the mercury. It’ll combine with the air and get in our lungs, and depending on the levels, which I imagine are quite high, we’ll soon be suffering a host of nasty symptoms. Burning lungs, stinging eyes, coughing. It gets into the bloodstream quickly, impacting the central nervous system, and could cause paralysis and even death, given enough exposure.”
“Twenty masks,” Renee said, counting them.
I only hope Montross and Nina are likewise prepared, Caleb thought.
“We have extra,” he said. “Can we leave some for Montross and my son? If they come this way?”
Renee narrowed her eyes at him.
“Please.”
“Fine, drop three. Only because I think you may be right, and we may need your son.”
Orlando took a mask, making sure he got his before they were all accounted for, then moved closer to the edge to examine the boats. “Sturdy bastards. Looks like iron plating and reinforced wood. Very little decay. Maybe the mercury helped.”
“How did this water get so contaminated?” Phoebe asked.
“On purpose, I believe,” Caleb said. “He may have just been copying, but like Emperor Qin Shi Huang, Genghis Khan may have also come to believe in mercury’s alchemical powers. For centuries, mystics used mercury-also known as quicksilver-as a combining reagent to induce elemental changes, attempting to turn lead into gold for example, but it was also believed to be a source of a great many cures. And possibly, if mixed just right, an elixir for immortality.”
“No thanks,” Orlando said, fitting on his mask after coughing into his hand. “That’s the crap they used to put in dental fillings.”
Phoebe groaned through her mask. “Here we go. Conspiracy time. Let me guess, dentists are all part of some master plan to monitor our thoughts, weaken our resistance, make us sick-”
“Scoff if you like.” Orlando shined his light into his open mouth. “But I’m a brushing fanatic, not one cavity.”
“That’s because you’ve never been to the dentist.”
He smirked. “At least I’m confident that my mind is my own.”
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br /> “Trust me, no one else would want it.”
“Please shut up,” Renee snapped. “And let’s get moving.”
Afraid to move, Phoebe stared at the water. “So emperors actually tried drinking this stuff?”
Caleb nodded. “It was what killed Qin Shi, if the legends are true.”
“Enough talk,” Renee said with her mask on. “Get in the boats. Eight in each. Chang, you’re with us. And two of your men will row. You keep an eye on Qara. Caleb, Phoebe and Orlando, remote view the path ahead. I want no surprises.”
“Best to do it here, on the shore,” Caleb said, tightening his mask. Phoebe did the same.
“No, in the boat,” Renee replied. “I believe you will perform better in the thick of things. Urgency sharpens your need.”
“Aren’t you suddenly the expert?” Phoebe quipped.
“Get in, and get to work.”
They settled into the two boats. Caleb’s team left second, after the boat full of soldiers pushed off. Phoebe and Orlando sat on one side, at the stern, with Caleb and Qara facing them while Renee stood at the prow, her. 45 still in her hand, scanning the shadows ahead.
It all looked surreal and mythical: two gondolas carrying men and women wearing gas masks along a silvery river into a dark tunnel. Caleb thought it would have made a great Salvador Dali painting, an interpretation of Charon ferrying the dead into the waiting embrace of the Underworld.
“iPad,” Phoebe said after a minute of intense focus. She held her hand out to Orlando, who quickly passed it over. “I think I’ve got the next leg of this map.”
She leaned in to Caleb and whispered, “Just keep faking it, big brother. I’ve got you covered.”
“You’re the best,” he replied. “I’m trying but…”
“Nothing?”
“I keep seeing her. Lydia. But it’s not like our visions. They’re just memories.”
“Ah. Worse, then.”
Caleb nodded. But maybe just as important. A catharsis, perhaps. A flood of images played against the back of his eyelids every time they closed. Meeting her for the first time at the book signing in SoHo; their growing connection on the book tour, working together on research trips to exotic ancient locations, the steamy nights under the stars, or under the cool sheets in five-star hotels; the reunion after he had thought her dead, the moment her emotions cracked through and she revealed he had a son.
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