The Crown of Fire

by Tony Abbott

  They made their way across the dark to the building, until about twenty feet from the foundation when Roald stopped. “Wait, everyone. Carlo, is that anything?”

  A heavy iron plate the size of a small hatch was set into a section of concrete. It had rusted chains crisscrossing it.

  “Good eyes, yes,” Carlo said.

  “We’ll bust it open,” Wade said. “Darrell, find a rock—”

  Roald took Wade’s arm. “Let’s not do anything recklessly.” He searched and found a length of iron pipe. “The chains are rusty. Maybe we can just snap them.”

  Roald and Carlo twisted the pipe into the chains and started to turn it, causing the chains to tighten, but they wouldn’t break. Wade and Darrell jumped in to help, and before long the chains split and fell rattling to the ground.

  “Still got it,” said Darrell.

  Wade nodded. “Yes I do.”

  To Darrell it was the first hint of humor, or something like it, that Wade had allowed himself since the clinic. Probably a reflex, he thought. They were all running on empty.

  Together, Lily and Carlo tugged on the hatch. It squealed open.

  “At least we know we’re the first ones here tonight,” said Sara.

  Behind the hatch lay a deep tunnel. It was too low to stand up in and was alternately made of steps going down and lengths of downward inclines. Crouching, they followed Carlo through a wide arcing passage for what seemed like miles, though Darrell figured it was probably only a few hundred feet long. It took them farther and farther from the surface, until the passage ended in a wall of thick planks crisscrossed with iron rods.

  Again using the pipe, Roald wrenched one of the rods clear. It made an excruciating noise that seemed to carry away far down the tunnel. He did this again and again until he pried away the last of the remaining planks and pushed into what looked like a completely unexcavated portion of the basement. The walls were rough, and the ground was damp, first with puddles and, finally, pools of water.

  “We must be directly under the Monster now,” Darrell whispered.

  Using an old map, Carlo guided them along a labyrinth of crumbled walls and passages that were evidently the basements and subbasements of the original structure. The ruins of the original Teutonic castle seemed to float around them. The foundation stones, or what were left of them, were plainly enormous. Some were underwater with only a corner sticking up. Others looked as if some giant had kicked them around and forgotten about them.

  “A gate called the Albrecht Gate is about fifty yards ahead,” Carlo said.

  “Sounds like a perfect place for the egomaniac to hide a stolen relic,” Lily added.

  Sara stopped short. “Hold on. I hear something.”

  Water was trickling up ahead of them.

  “We’re between a lake and a river, remember,” Darrell whispered.

  There came a distant rumble, and the stones around them shuddered.

  Roald turned to Carlo. “I don’t like the sound of that. What do you think—”

  Without warning, the wall in front of them tumbled inward, and water burst into the passage, pushing stones along with it. The ceiling quivered; some of it fell. Sara was pushed into Carlo, who jerked back violently, while Wade, Lily, and Darrell grabbed for support and Roald was thrown to the ground by the force of the water crashing over them. Lily gasped for air. All their flashlights fell in the mad scramble.

  Lily bolted to her feet. “Is everyone okay? Darrell?”

  “I’m all right. But, Lily, your cheek is bleeding.”

  She ran her hand across her face. “I’m fine. Wade?”

  “I don’t hear Sara. Mom? Dad?”

  “We’re on the other side of the wall!” she said. Her voice was muffled, distant. “We’re all right. Carlo’s here. The ceiling and part of a side wall fell in. Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” said Lily. “All of us.”

  “Then keep going,” Roald yelled through the wall. “We’ll find another way to get to you.”

  Wade teetered to his feet. “Let’s go.” He sloshed forward into the dark, feeling his way along the sides of the passage.

  “Lil, that’s an ugly cut,” Darrell said. He tried to wipe a soggy sleeve over her cheek, but she pulled back. “It might even scar.”

  “Like I care,” she grumbled. “We’ll all die here. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I knew it before you did.”

  The three pushed ahead in the darkness, wading through the rank water, when Wade, who was way up ahead, suddenly stopped. “Guys, do you see that?”

  Darrell moved up to him. Something was glimmering—no, pulsing—out of the blackness. A vaguely purple light glowed then vanished, glowed then vanished. They slogged toward it. Pale as it was, the light cast an eerie violet glow along the surface of the water.

  “The collapse must have opened up one of the old castle rooms,” said Lily. “The light’s coming from inside.”

  The half-crumbled wall was high, and the light’s source was an inside corner they couldn’t see, so they took turns prying loose the remaining stones and made a kind of stair to the summit of the wall.

  “It’s shaky, but I think I can make it up,” said Wade.

  “Don’t kill yourself,” Darrell said. “Of course, if you do, I’ll take over. But I’d rather not. So don’t.”

  “Tender. Really.” Wade climbed up the pile and peeked into a small space. “There are chains all over the place, huge ones, and large blocks of stone. I think this is the ruin of a gate. Maybe there was a drawbridge? Or something.”

  “And?” said Darrell. “Any relics lying around?”

  “The thing is glowing under the water. I can’t reach it from here. . . . Whoa!” His feet slipped on the wet stones, and he fell back suddenly. Darrell caught him.

  “My turn,” said Lily. She climbed up to the top of the crumbled wall and leaned over, then slid down the other side.

  “You okay?” Wade asked.

  “Yeah. This thing is blinking like crazy. Hold on a sec.”

  Lily drew in a breath of stale air, pushed her arm down under the murky surface, and clutched at the light. The object in her hand was cold and pulsing so brightly that she couldn’t at first make out its shape. She pulled. What emerged dripping in her hand was a heavy figurine of a snarling wolf’s head.

  “It’s Lupus,” she said.

  “Really? You found another relic?” said Darrell.

  Lupus was about eight inches high and appeared to be made mostly of iron, though it wasn’t rusty and was fashioned intricately, with springs and rods and dials and hinges. As it sat in her palm, it opened and closed its jaws as if by magic. When the jaws were open, the purple light shone in her face. When they were shut, the room was plunged into blackness again.

  “The constellation is named after a wild forest beast dangerous to humans. Guys, we found it! Darrell, Wade—”

  “Shh!” Wade hushed her. “Someone’s coming from the other way.”

  “Mom? Dad?” Darrell called softly. “Carlo?”

  No response.

  “They would have answered,” Wade whispered.

  Lily slid the relic into her backpack, the passage went dark, and she scrambled back over the wall to the others. Water sloshed slowly and rhythmically up the passage toward them. She heard at least two people pushing through the water at different speeds.

  Three white lights—one leading two others, some yards behind—shone out of the dark and bounced from wall to wall until they finally focused on the children. Lily didn’t dare move. Darrell and Wade didn’t breathe. Then someone spoke.

  “Please raise your hands. All of you.”

  Lily shivered to hear Galina’s voice. She hadn’t heard it for almost two weeks, and hearing it now, echoing among the wet stones in a submerged crypt, it seemed more unearthly than ever. It was a ghostly, pale voice speaking from beyond time.

  “Please do come forward.”

  Even in the watery semidarkness, the le
ader of the Teutonic Order seemed a shadow of the woman Lily had seen just days ago in Uruguay. She knew Galina was ill, but the white streak in her black hair had grown, the eyes seemed even deeper under her brow, her skin, so . . . transparent . . .

  “We make a rather good team, yes?” Galina said, her words tinged with the slightest accent. “You find. I take. Like Aquila in Uruguay. I will receive Lupus now.”

  Lily shifted her pack higher on her shoulder. “I don’t think so.”

  If Galina’s face was emotionless and pale, the scar on her neck—the result of her surgery four years ago—was oddly alive, raised, enflamed.

  It must be painful.

  Two more figures entered the light. The first was Markus Wolff. Ebner von Braun followed him, waving his gun at them. Wolff stepped over to Lily instinctively. He stripped her pack off her shoulder, opened it, and snatched Lupus from inside. Tossing the pack back to her, he gave the relic to Galina. “Our friend Carlo Nuovenuto has vanished in these passages,” he said, then added, “with Sara and Roald Kaplan.”

  “You’d better not hurt them!” Darrell cried, lunging forward.

  Ebner sprayed the water with bullets. “Back up, boy!”

  “Markus, find Carlo,” Galina said. “Wherever he goes. To the ends of the earth if necessary. This is your sole mission from here on.”

  “As you desire.” Wolff sloshed back through the passages and was gone.

  “Ebner, tell the Crows where we are. They have a job to do here.”

  “Our elite forces, yes, of course.” Ebner’s assault weapon was a nasty piece of machinery. Even as he texted with his thumb, he kept the gun trained steadily first on one, then another of the children.

  Galina slid her handgun into a holster under her arm. She held the relic up to her flashlight. “A legend reports that the Magister deposited Lupus with a noblewoman in France. Her name was Pernette Marot. In fifteen forty-one, her château was robbed, one assumes by Albrecht’s agents, who brought Lupus here to Königsberg. I had long heard the legends, have searched these ruins before, found nothing. Then word came to me that you crossed the border, and I knew.”

  “You could get your own life,” said Darrell. “Instead of lurking after us.”

  “Silence, joke boy!” Ebner said, waving his weapon at Darrell now.

  “Finding Lupus here in Albrecht’s house is, after all, to be expected,” Galina said. “What I don’t understand, however, is how this came to be here.”

  She opened her palm to reveal a small, rusted, and inexpensive replica of a round church window. It was, in fact, the rose window of Westminster Abbey in London.

  “It is part of a souvenir key chain,” said Galina.

  “Where in the world did you find that?” Lily said, her hand going to her side.

  “Here. Among these ruins. It has obviously been under the water a long time.”

  “Impossible,” said Wade. “We’ve never been here before.”

  “Show me your key chains,” Galina said.

  They did. All of theirs were accounted for.

  Could it be . . . Becca’s? Lily wondered. But how can it? She’s never been here before, either. Could someone else have dropped the exact kind of key chain we have?

  Is it just a bizarre coincidence?

  Except as Wade always says, there are no coincidences.

  “Where are the Crows? Ebner, we must leave—”

  A series of detonations thundered down the passage, and the walls quaked suddenly around them. Seconds later, a wall of rushing water hurtled through the tunnel at them.

  There was a shout, and Sara and Roald were there, she with one of Carlo’s weapons, he with his pistol, both firing nonstop into the water around Galina.

  Ebner crouched nearly under the surface, firing as he did, while Galina dived to the side of the passage, clutching Lupus in both hands.

  “Out! Behind us!” Roald yelled as Sara continued firing into the darkness beyond the kids. They swept past her. Sara’s forehead was bruised and she was bleeding, but she wiped the blood away with her forearm. “Up the stairs!”

  “Follow me,” Roald said.

  They were back on the street minutes later, just in time to see two or three dark SUVs race off. The building was still rumbling and the ground shaking. They ran past a half-dozen emergency and police vehicles racing to the site. Hurrying away through the dark streets, they finally spotted Carlo’s van. It was empty.

  “Where is he?” Wade said. “They didn’t get him, did they? Dad?”

  “Wolff was seconds from finding us,” Roald said. “Carlo had to lure him away. He said his chase with Wolff was a long time coming.”

  Lily groaned. “To lose his help just after we got to see him again. It’s like . . . like all the Guardians.”

  “It was a short time,” Sara said. “But Carlo said he would be here to the end, and I believe he will be. In the meantime, we need to go.”

  Roald started the van while everyone piled in. “The GPS has directions to Frombork. It didn’t before. This is a clue for us. Maybe this is, too.” He picked up a narrow strip of very old parchment that was lying on the floor next to the gas pedal. “A series of letters.” He read them aloud.

  “E D H S I A C X D Y T F I R T Q P A T P H”

  “Not another code?” Darrell groaned. “Carlo, why don’t you just tell us?”

  “Standard field procedure, Simon Tingle would say,” Lily said, taking the paper from Roald and studying it. “Wait. Carlo didn’t write this. I’ve seen this handwriting before. I think Hans Novak wrote it. Wade, check the diary.”

  He dug it out of his pack. “Good call, Lily.” He showed them. From the very first page of writing, it was clear that this note was written by the same hand that wrote the early parts of the diary. It was the handwriting of Copernicus’s assistant, Hans Novak.

  “Becca would go ape over this,” Lily said. “It’s incredible. How did Carlo get a code written by Hans Novak? We have to decrypt this right away.”

  “While we drive,” said Sara. “Let’s get out of Russian territory before the Red Brotherhood come looking for us.”

  “Do it, Mom,” Darrell said. “Drive like you’re in the Königsberg Grand Prix!”

  “I already had that in mind,” she said. “Belt up!” She stepped on the accelerator, and they shot down the street away from the Monster.

  Forty minutes later, after squeaking through the border checkpoints before word arrived about the break-in at the Monster, Sara and then Roald drove across the Polish border, heading southwest to Frombork. Huddling in the back of the beat-up van together, the kids tested and rejected any number of decryption methods, when Wade happened to come across the coding mechanism used to hide the Scorpio decoy.

  “Trithemius, remember him from San Francisco?” he said. “How Becca found the folded page in the diary and uncovered his strange alphabet grid. I always wondered if we would use it again. This might work.”

  He unfolded the complex square of letters from the diary.

  “The Trithemius cipher needs a code word to solve it,” said Darrell. “I remember in San Francisco it was the Portuguese word for Scorpio. You spell the code word letter for letter over the encoded message and then you use the square to translate it.”

  “It’s twisty, but it works,” Lily said. “You can’t decode it unless you know the word.”

  They went through several obvious words. Neither Hans Novak nor Carlo nor Carlo Nuovenuto worked, either.

  “Frombork?” Roald offered from the driver’s seat. That didn’t work, either.

  “Protocol?” said Sara.

  Lily set the letters of the word protocol over the coded ones.

  P R O T O C O L P R O T O C O L P R O T O

  E D H S I A C X D Y T F I R T Q P A T P H

  “Let’s try it,” said Wade. “You start by locating the first letter of the top line—P—in the left-hand column of the grid. From P we go straight in to the coded letter, which is E. From there stra
ight up to the top row to get the decrypted letter. That gives us O.”

  “Next is R to D to . . . L,” Darrell said.

  Before long,

  E D H S I A C X D Y T F I R T Q P A T P H

  became

  O L S Z T Y N K N E E L T O C E P H E U S

  Lily examined the letters. “These are all smushed together. I think it could be . . . ‘Olsztyn Kneel to Cepheus.’”

  Darrell frowned. “It’s still code to me.”

  “Not code,” Wade said. “It’s a riddle, which is easier for us. Plus, Cepheus is a constellation. And Olsztyn is a castle, right?”

  “A castle where Copernicus lived,” said Roald, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

  Sara nodded. “He did. Galina found some parts of the astrolabe there. . . . Stop! Roald, stop the van!”

  He slowed down and pulled the van to the side of the road. “What is it?”

  “We’ve been driving to Frombork because that’s what the GPS says,” said Sara. “But what if the GPS is a decoy in case someone tracks us? Satellites control GPS programs just like they track cell phones. What if Carlo doesn’t want us to go to Frombork? I think this message from Hans—however Carlo got hold of it—is telling us that Olsztyn is where the Protocol is hidden!”

  “Whoa, Mom!” Darrell said. “You did it. Good catch. Pit stop is over. Hit the road!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Davos, Switzerland

  August 22

  Night

  I sink below the heavy water.

  I know this water. It’s the Thames, the wild green beast that coils through London in the shadow of the Tower. It’s the beast that’s pulling me under, keeping me down.

  I try to hear the creaking cartwheels and clattering hooves on the streets above. Instead, the briny sting of the beast fills my nose and mouth, and I sink and sink.

  And there is Joan Aleyn, a girl a few scant years older than myself, and she is underwater, too. I try to raise her from the coiling tide, my body dragging me down.

  I burst up from the surface. “No!” I scream. “Joan, no!”