by Will Adams
'The hotel keeps its trash there,' Knox told him. 'I heard them collecting it yester-' A gunshot cracked out ahead, echoed ominously off the pass walls. 'Jesus,' said Knox. 'Did you hear that?'
'I'll get you your helicopter,' promised Angelos.
Knox stuffed the mobile back in his pocket as he ran. Two more shots sounded, giving strength to his heavy legs. The pass suddenly dropped away ahead of him and he reached the precipitous brim of a massive caldera. He scanned the plain at its foot, the fields, the house, the high surrounding cliffs. His eye was snagged by movement in a sea of yellow gorse far away to his right, where a figure shrunk by distance advanced upon another huddled in a clearing. Even from this distance, he knew it was Gaille. He yelled as loudly as he could, but the wind threw his shouts back uselessly in his face. He looked down at the excuse for a path beneath him: however recklessly he took it, he couldn't hope to get to Gaille in time to help her. But there was a track of sorts leading around the rim of the escarpment, and maybe if he got to the cliffs above her…
His legs were already aching and weak, but he steeled himself for one last effort, and set off.
III
Gaille flung herself to the ground as Mikhail turned the Mauser on her, hiding beneath the canopy of gorse. Beside her, Argo was going crazy; he danced in circles, tangling up his leash, then broke away from her and raced back along the path. 'Argo!' she cried. 'Come back!' But he didn't listen, he charged on. She braced herself; a single shot cracked. Her heart twisted. She heard Argo fall, his piteous yelps and whines. A second shot, then only silence.
Hatred, grief, anger, terror. Too many emotions to process. She heard rustling: Mikhail was coming for her. She scrambled through the gorse on her hands and knees, the gorse's secret life revealed, beetles and lizards and butterflies, sunlight dappled by the tangle of branches. A bird whirred from its nest almost beneath her face, startling her so that she raised her head above cover, ducking back down again before Mikhail could shoot.
She emerged into a small clearing, the last thing she needed. She crept around its edge, looking around for a way out, not seeing one. The escarpment rose to her left, though it wasn't a sheer wall like elsewhere, but rather a shale-covered slope. She leapt to her feet and ran along it with her head ducked, hoping to put distance between herself and Mikhail, but the shale gave way beneath her, she stumbled and fell almost at once into the yellow tangle. To her surprise, branches of gorse fell away with her, and she saw that their bases had been sawn-through, and that they'd been deliberately stacked against the foot of the hill, as if someone had been trying to hide something.
Mikhail was still bulling his way towards her. She pulled more branches away, revealing symbols chiselled into the rock-face, a triangle and a wavy band, and then the small low black mouth of a cave opening. She dropped down onto her hands and knees to crawl along it, grit and earth sprinkling on her face and hair, before it abruptly opened up. It was too dark to see inside, yet the echoes of her own heavy breathing gave her the impression of cavernous space. She got out of the way of the mouth, allowing in enough light to see a pickaxe and a sledgehammer resting against the wall. The sledgehammer was too heavy for her, so she took the pickaxe instead. The thought of using it against anything living made her feel queasy, but she reminded herself of what Mikhail had just done to Iain and Argo, and it gave her strength. She could hear him approaching outside; she hid herself out of view. The faint light dimmed further as he found the mouth. 'Are you in there?' he teased. 'Are you waiting for me?'
'Go away,' she told him.
'I won't hurt you if you come out. You have my word.'
'I said go away.'
It went even darker, she heard him grunting his way through the cave's tight mouth. She lifted the pickaxe, readied herself to strike. Perhaps he heard her, or glimpsed her foot, but he must have realised his vulnerability, for he stopped and then retreated. The cave grew a little lighter again. She rested the pickaxe back down on the ground, keeping a firm grip upon its shaft, certain it wouldn't be long before he tried again.
FORTY-TWO
I
Nico held his phone in both hands for the best part of a minute, as though it were a talisman, as though it had the power to answer prayers. And maybe it did.
All people's lives were set as children, Nico believed. Formative years, they called them, and they were right. The first time you ate a food that astonished you with its exquisite taste. Your first love, your first applause. Magical moments that made you so yearn for a reprise that you'd structure your whole life around them.
For Nico, the defining moment had come during a family holiday in the Peloponnese. His brother had been the class swot; he'd persuaded his father to take them on a tour of Mycenae, Epidaurus, Corinth and the other great sites. Nico had suffered from a boredom so intense that it had been a kind of torture. Then they'd visited Olympia, site of the ancient games. This had been long before the tourist boom, of course; they'd been the only ones there. More damned ruins! What did people see in the things? He'd mooched off by himself, had come across a tall grassed bank, a short arched passageway cut into it. He'd walked through it and had emerged shockingly into the ancient stadium. He could remember that moment still, the dazzle of the rising sun, the grassed banks for the crowds, the whole arena infused with a spirit of celebration, competition, achievement. Of greatness. He'd never really understood until that moment what people had meant by atmosphere. He'd never believed in ghosts. But all that had changed in a single heartbeat. His dream of becoming an Olympic athlete had been born at that moment; and when that dream had failed him, he'd turned to archaeology instead, because his love of ancient Greece had been born that day too.
He owed that love to his parents.
The ringing, when finally it began, seemed longer and deeper than usual, as though time itself were being distended. He almost hung up on the fifth ring, but then it was picked up and it was too late. A man's voice. 'Hello?' he said.
'Hello, father,' said Nico, his mouth sticky and dry. 'It's me.'
A silence ensued; an incredulous silence, if silence can have such a quality. Then: 'Nico?'
'Yes.' The silence grew and grew. Too much time had passed. This had been a mistake. 'I'm sorry,' he blurted out. 'I shouldn't have-'
'No!' said his father. 'Don't hang up. Please. I beg you.'
'I wanted to talk to you,' said Nico. 'I wanted to see you. I thought maybe lunch.'
'Of course. Your mother and I…that is, we were having friends over. The Milonas. You remember them?'
'Yes.'
'We'll put them off. They won't mind.'
'Not on my account. But maybe I could join you. I'd like to see them. It's been a long time.'
'Of course. Of course. I'll go tell your mother now. She'll want to make sure we have enough. And Nico…'
'Yes?' He waited, but his father said no more. It took Nico several seconds to realise it was because he couldn't speak without betraying himself. It was strange and rather shocking to hear his father weep. He'd always seemed the embodiment of strength. 'It's okay,' he told him.
'It's not okay,' sobbed his father. 'It's not. It's not. Forgive me, Nico. You have to forgive me.'
'I forgive you, father. And I'll see you for lunch. Ask mother to do some of her spanakopites. I can't tell you how I've missed them.' He put the phone down then stared down at his hands in surprise, the way they were shaking. Then something splashed into his palm, and he realised he was weeping too.
II
Inside the cave, Gaille waited for Mikhail; but moments stretched into minutes and still he didn't come. Her adrenal surge ebbed; her arms and shoulders began to ache from the tension and from gripping the pickaxe handle too tight. She tried to loosen her grip, only to discover that her palms had glued to the wood with congealed blood. She must have torn them open on the thorns or the shale. She pulled them free one at a time, the reopened cuts stinging like lashes.
She risked a glance along the t
hroat of the cave to its mouth. Motes danced with midges in the circle of sunshine, but there was no sign of Mikhail. She felt a flutter of hope. Perhaps he'd given up, realising that her position was impregnable. Perhaps rescue had arrived. Or perhaps he was simply waiting for curiosity to get the better of her. Her eyes had adjusted a little to the gloom. She could see things now that had previously been hidden. A generator with its pearly white plastic tank; an orange electrical cable snaking off it; a wooden crate on the floor beside it. She took another glance to make sure Mikhail hadn't returned, then hurried to the crate and rummaged through it for anything useful. Old water bottles filled with fuel that left their distinctive stench on her hands. A torch, heavy with batteries. She turned it on, found another replica Phaistos disc in the crate, reminding her of the triangle and wavy line she'd seen carved in the rock. She looked for those symbols now and found them at the very centre of one of the spirals, suggesting the disc was a map of some kind, one side of which led here. She looked at the spiral on the obverse side. There was a rosette at its heart, symbol of Minoan royalty. She set the disc back down and shone the torch upon the nearest wall, where faint traces of ancient paintings showed upon the rock, then up at the high jagged ceiling and finally at the rear of the cave, where a passage vanished into the darkness. She considered going to look for somewhere to hide, but decided against. The cave mouth was defensible, but once Mikhail got inside, she'd be lost.
The torch beam started to dim, the batteries evidently weak, for all their weight. She turned it off again, its light too valuable to squander, then put it back in the crate and returned to her post. Her hopes began to rise as the minutes passed and there was still no sign of Mikhail. But then she heard noises outside, and those hopes came crashing back to earth. The cave grew darker again. 'Getting lonely yet?' he asked.
'Leave me alone.'
'It's lovely out here. Lots of nice moss for you to lie on.'
'Go away.'
'I have to do this, you know. I gave your boyfriend my word. I always keep my word.'
His assault was coming. She could tell it from the excitement in his voice. She tightened her grip on the pickaxe, lifted it above her head, prepared herself to bring it down. One shot, she prayed silently. That's all I ask.
Scuffling in the passage, then a glimpse of his head beneath his baseball cap. She didn't hesitate, she smashed the pickaxe down. But to her horror his head simply tumbled away across the cave, coming to rest on its side, and it was Iain looking up at her, not Mikhail. She shrieked and dropped the pickaxe just as Mikhail appeared, his blood-smeared knife in his hand. She turned and fled blindly into the cave. The floor was slick; her feet flew from beneath her, she careened down a short abrasive chute, her elbow and knee banging, her head hitting rock. She staggered up, fumbled her way along a wall, small pools of drip-water on the floor seeping through the thin canvas of her shoes, cold as fear upon her soles.
Behind her, she heard the rip and stutter of Mikhail hauling at the generator's starter-rope. The engine caught first time and lamps began to glow all around, robbing her of the sanctuary of darkness, and leaving her at Mikhail's mercy.
III
Knox's legs were jellied with fatigue, his ankles turning with painful regularity on the loose rocks that he used as stepping stones to cross the thick tangle of thorny shrubs. It felt like he'd been circling the escarpment for hours, though it could only in truth have been twenty minutes. The terrain near the cliff edge was so difficult that it forced him out wide, denying him the chance to monitor what was going on below. But eventually he reached the marker he'd given himself-an outcrop of rock like a pine-cone lying on its side-and he cut back to the escarpment rim to find himself high above the yellow sea of gorse, the clearing visible a little to his below, though without any sign of life.
What now?
His breath was whistling in his throat; a stitch jabbed in his side and at his bruised ribs. He got down onto his knees then lay on his front and leaned out over the edge to examine the cliff-face beneath him for a manageable way down. What he saw could have been better, but it could have been worse too. The top third was almost sheer, but it was craggy enough to offer plentiful holds, even for an inexperienced climber like himself. Beneath that, it grew incrementally less steep to a slope of loose earth and shale that fed straight into the gorse.
He gave his legs a few moments more to recover, then he lay on his belly and grabbed some roots with either hand and swung his legs out over the edge, searching with his toes until they found crags and ledges strong enough to take his weight. He let go of one of the roots and took a grip of the cliff edge, then lowered himself further. He kept at it, not looking down, his progress frustratingly slow. But finally he reached the end of the first section, where the gradient relented a little. The face was still steep, but seemed to consist of bands of limestone that had weathered at different speeds, creating a series of giant steps cut by time and nature. It was an opportunity to make up some time. He turned around until he was facing outwards, then jumped down onto the ledge several feet beneath him, legs bent to cushion his landing. He stumbled a little but made sure to fall against the face and away from danger. He picked himself up, wiped the grit from his palms, then looked down for another ledge to jump down to. This time, however, his ankle turned beneath him, and he stumbled the wrong way, forcing him straight into a third leap, then a fourth, his arms now flailing wildly for balance. He hit the lower slopes at such speed that it would have been suicide to try to stop, so he went with it instead, trusting to gravity and the skill of his quick feet, his legs pumping crazily, soil and loose grey stones cascading all around him, until finally he stumbled and tumbled and crashed like a bowling ball into the gorse, the thorns ripping his shirt to shreds, but acting like a safety net too, slowing and then stopping him.
He lay there for a moment, face down in the tangles, gathering his breath, assessing himself for injury. Every inch of him throbbed and stung and ached, but nothing felt broken or ruptured. He got gingerly to his feet, fought his way through the gorse and the creepers to the clearing. There was a gash in the rock-face. Light was coming from inside, along with the low chunter of a generator. He breathed in deep to steel himself, then got down onto his hands and knees and crawled inside.
FORTY-THREE
I
The lamps were each connected by a short white flex to the main cable, noted Gaille, the junctions wrapped in balls of duct-tape to keep out moisture. They made eerie pockets of light in the darkness, coaxing ghosts and monsters from the walls, so that she suffered a sudden brief flashback to a forgotten childhood trauma, losing hold of her mother's hand while walking with her through a fairground haunted house, giving her a horror of the darkness that had lasted for months.
She reached a new gallery, sparkling with seams of quartz and calcium, glanced almost instinctively upwards to see how high the chamber's ceiling was; but the footing was too slick for such liberties, and her feet went from beneath her, so that she had to grab the wall and cling on. The moment she let go again, however, she slipped once more, clapping her ankle against rock, grazing her skin, feeling the sharp pulse of drawn blood.
There were chalk-marks scrawled in French upon the wall. Plumed head, read one. Ox-hide, read another. Symbols from the Phaistos disc, discovered and marked up by Petitier, more evidence that the disc was a map designed to find and navigate through this place. But navigate to what? A low overhang forced her down onto hands and knees. She crawled through a cobweb veil, gossamer, flies and grit congealing in her hair.
A lamp was wasting its light by lying face-down against the left-hand wall. She turned it around to illuminate a large chamber with a ribbed roof and several shallow pits dug in the dirt floor. Several boxes of artefacts were stacked against the walls, votive offerings and what looked like fragments of bone. Caves had often been used as cemeteries by the ancients, one reason why so many of them had become sacred ancestral sites. An albino insect scurried for the darkn
ess as she set the lamp back down, giving hints of a closed ecosystem in which everything fed off everything else.
She followed the orange cable up a hummock of loose rubble, an ancient rock-fall through which Petitier had burrowed a tunnel several metres long. She hoped that the far side would prove defensible, like the cave mouth had been, but the new gallery opened up too gradually for an ambush. Again, Petitier had left abundant evidence of his excavations; despite everything, Gaille couldn't help but notice how meticulous he'd been. He hadn't simply charged around with a spade, looking for plunder, as she'd half expected. He'd taken great pains to-
Mikhail suddenly grunted behind her. She whirled around, heart in her mouth, expecting to see him almost upon her; but she was alone. Nothing but cave acoustics. The fright spurred her on, however. The cave forked in two ahead, with symbols carved into the rock above either passage, circled and chalked by Petitier. The orange cable led away down the left-hand passage, offering her a very Manichaean choice between light and dark. She was about to choose darkness, the better to hide, when it occurred to her that if Mikhail had taken the torch, he'd have too great an advantage. She headed left instead, came to a high rock shelf against which a wooden ladder was strapped with frayed white rope. She climbed it quickly, knelt down to untie it and pull it up after her, but the knots were damp and pulled so tight that she couldn't work her fingernails into them, and then she heard Mikhail coming and it was too late.
She fled deeper into the caves, reaching the top of a sloped shelf of rock, so smooth it looked almost polished. She got onto her backside and used her palms and heels as brakes as she slithered down to the foot, finding herself at the opening of a very different kind of passage, one that had been deliberately excavated out of the rock: its floor was level, its ceiling arched, and its walls were smoothed and inlaid with fragments of marble and precious stones. There were even substantial sections of surviving plaster, the paint upon them recently revived by Petitier, to judge from the basket of cleaning equipment upon the floor. To her left, a young man vaulted over a bull. To her right, three goddesses held up poppies, grapes, mushrooms and other gifts of the earth, while snakes weaved about their feet.