The Crown of Fire

by Tony Abbott

  “Can we see the palace from here?” Wade said.

  “Keep your heads down,” his father said. He brought them to the crest of the ridge.

  Wade was awed by the strange beauty of the partly restored ruins. Looking from the mountaintop down on the expanse of the spotlit palace grounds, he watched Galina’s forces excavating an open court between the grand staircases.

  “That would be where the golden treasure was,” Lily said, explaining what she had read. “It was said to have vanished when Knossos was destroyed.”

  “Except it didn’t vanish,” Wade added. “The astrolabe was that treasure, and it caused the explosion that destroyed Knossos. The horrors of time travel go all the way back to the end of the Minoan culture.”

  “In a little over twenty-four hours, we go in,” Roald said. “Until then, we wait and plan.”

  That night, only hours now from the actual equinox, Wade found himself stepping away from the lights of the camp. He had gone over and over his own plan so many times, it now seemed either the most complex nonsense or a precision path to victory, though he could no longer tell which.

  So he gave it up and fell back on what he knew.

  The stars.

  The night was clear, almost too clear. A million stars flamed and twinkled against the deep black, and, as if he had no control over it, the immensity of the sky fell over him.

  This was Nicolaus’s sky, the very same, when centuries ago he had looked up.

  Wade had loved the night ever since he was born. The vast array of stars sprinkled across the black. The extra-brilliant ones, the distant strings of fairy lights that signified faraway galaxies. His father had lovingly taught him everything he could about the greatness of the cosmos. Then when Wade was seven, his beloved uncle Henry had given him the antique star chart that sat in his backpack now, the chart that had in so many ways begun this adventure and sealed his destiny as a lover of the night sky.

  And look what all that had led to.

  This.

  The end of the world.

  Lily walked over to him. “What now, Wade?”

  He nearly choked to hear the question. “Whatever it is, it happens soon.”

  Except soon couldn’t come soon enough. The minutes ticked so slowly it felt like time had stopped. The hours between midnight and two crawled like a man dying of thirst in a desert.

  Then, finally, a half-dozen Range Rovers drew up to their camp. Julian bounced out of the first one, giving the kids a quick nod of his head, then Wade’s father called the kids over.

  “Finally, all here,” he said. “The equinox is three hours away. According to all Nicolaus’s and Hans’s—Carlo’s—documents, there isn’t more than an hour in which the hole in the sky is visible, that is, traversable.”

  “She’s going to try to retrieve the cargo from wherever it is,” Wade said. “I’m convinced that’s what this is all about. Albrecht’s cargo. Whatever and whenever it is, Galina’s going for it.”

  “I agree,” Sara said. “But when the hole closes, that’s it. We need to know that. Galina will mount her deadliest defense—and by that I mean offense—very soon. But not too soon. She’ll want the chaos of battle to shield her launch.”

  Terence nodded grimly. “MI6 has timed the assault on the Cyprus tanker at precisely when Galina is busiest here, or we risk her detonating the underwater devices. Special forces are ready, including black ops teams from Britain, Germany, France, and Turkey, and Navy SEALs from the US, all under overall MI6 leadership. Over a thousand troops are waiting for our signal to push in, both here and on the tanker.”

  Wade stole a glance at Darrell and Lily. “How many troops do you think they have defending the launch site? That’s where it all happens. In the core of the labyrinth. The center of the maze.”

  “Thousands,” Terence said. He pointed with his scope before handing it to Wade. “It’s Galina’s most heavily guarded position. There’ll be no way in without a full-scale attack.”

  “Which is why you kids will stay far back from the ridge,” Roald said firmly. “I don’t want you getting any nearer. You hear me?”

  “Loud and clear,” said Lily.

  Leaving them, Roald took up a position high on the ridge with Sara and Terence.

  “This is insane; you realize that,” Julian said soberly. “We could be sliced to ribbons before we get anywhere near the maze, to say nothing of the risk to Becca.”

  “Unless you’ve been studying the legends of Minos,” Wade said.

  “Thanks to me and the books I bought in Switzerland,” Lily added. She opened one to a detailed archaeological drawing from the early-twentieth century. “I found this last night while we were waiting. The archaeologist who excavated Knossos, Sir Arthur Evans, made a map of the entire site; but he skimped a bit on the outer edges, thinking the Minotaur’s labyrinth was in the center of the palace. He was right, yes, but the maze was so much larger than Evans or anyone thought. In fact, its passages run all the way to the perimeter of the palace grounds. Look here.”

  Lily ran her finger around the edge of the map and stopped at what appeared to be a cave located in a narrow valley between two hills. “It’s at least half a mile from the center. Galina’s troops aren’t anywhere near this section of the ruins. With time and enough cover, we can get in there.”

  Darrell breathed in. “So . . . are we ready?”

  Julian nodded once. “I know my part. Keep your folks and my dad occupied. Lie to them if I have to, to keep them focused on Galina and not on you.”

  “You’re a true friend, thanks.” Wade went over to one of the MI6 trucks. In the rear were six steel boxes housing the relics they had managed to obtain: Vela, Triangulum, Corvus, Lyra, Sagitta, and Corona. He, Lily, and Darrell each slipped two carefully into backpacks. Wade scanned the extra stashes of weapons and glanced up at the ridge. His parents were eyeing the distant ruins. He took up a large pistol. It was black and heavy with an extra-long ammunition clip.

  “Wade, don’t,” said Lily. “You can’t.”

  “Bro, I couldn’t use the one I had in Cuba,” Darrell said. “Those things are evil.”

  “I know. I know.” Wade put down the large pistol and slid a small handgun off the table and into the pocket of his cargo pants. “Just in case.” Then he took several hand-sized explosive devices and removed the tiny tracking device Silva had given him.

  He turned it on, and clipped it on his belt.

  “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Funny, but you never know until the end how easy it is to pass. It’s just the lightest thing, my fingertips kissing your palms good-bye as I go.

  I leave the dark behind, the passage ahead glows with twinkling, sparkling light, and I remember all of it.

  The stars that shone that blue-black night above the gardens in Rome.

  The cave of rain and sunlight in Guam where we couldn’t stop laughing.

  The prisoner’s holy cell, the rolling Thames, the wavering canals in Venice, the snowy snows of dark Siberia, your faces. The rustic teeming groves of France, the endless red Algerian sands, the baking sun of hotel parking lots, old Roman stones, your faces. Narrow Paris streets blossoming at night. The tangled jungle deeps. The thousand friends.

  Your faces.

  Good-bye, Mom. Good-bye, Dad. My Maggie, oh! Oh, Lily. My laughing Darrell. Oh, Wade, oh, Wade. It’s hard to pass.

  But all I never saw, I see in all your faces now.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  It was just over two hours away—two hours and nine minutes by Wade’s watch—until the precise moment autumn reached Crete. The barest pinpoint in time. The instant the astrolabe’s relics would draw in the vast energy of the cosmos, harness it to itself, and bolt away into the twistings of time.

  Like a skier mentally traveling the slopes before setting off on his run, Wade had worked it out again and again. It would take forty minutes to worm their way to the edge of the site. Finding the lost entran
ce to the maze might take another twenty minutes.

  One hour gone.

  Then they’d thread a half mile or more of the labyrinth itself. Since there were no maps of the maze, because it had never been excavated, they’d have to rely on their wits to get to the center without falling victim to its legendary tricks.

  He was leaving an hour for that.

  After thinking it over and over, Wade had realized that there had to be some sort of opening over the center of the maze to allow King Minos and his court to watch the final moments of a victim’s encounter with the Minotaur—or whatever the actual beast really was.

  That opening above the center would be how Silva, who was keeping Becca safe and comfortable, would get her to the astrolabe.

  Wade knew that final part was a bit fuzzy, demanding precision impossible to guarantee, but he hoped that once they were inside the palace, he, Darrell, and Lily could assemble the pieces of the puzzle that they didn’t yet have.

  He hoped.

  Hope.

  And it was all Becca again, and time to act.

  The first forty-two minutes went according to plan. Whether Wade’s parents saw them slip away from the camp, he couldn’t tell. They certainly wouldn’t know where they were heading. His parents couldn’t think them that reckless. Besides, it was Julian’s job to keep them from uncovering their mission. Good man, Julian.

  Ridges threading the hills gave them decent cover until the very last. Rushing singly across a stretch of flat land, they made it to a kind of crevice, which Lily said might be the bottom of an outer wall, because “it matches an angle in the book’s map.”

  “It’s not just a wrinkle on the page?” Darrell said, looking over her shoulder.

  “You’re a wrinkle,” she said. “This is it.”

  Lining the map up with the remains of the ruins, Wade discovered what appeared to be a depression in the flat surface of an earthen wall. “I’ll be back,” he said.

  “I hope you—” Lily started, but Wade didn’t hear the rest.

  He scurried along the wall and found the depression. He removed two explosive devices from his pack, positioned them, and set them for detonation in thirty seconds. He ran back and huddled with Darrell and Lily. The soft whoomp was enough to blast dirt everywhere, but the sound was lost under the noise of trucks and troop movements near the palace.

  Not waiting for the dust to settle, the three hurried into the small opening. The tunnel inside was low and crudely hewn from the earth. It smelled of dry air that might have been trapped for centuries. Crawling ahead, breathing through their mouths, they soon found themselves in corridors of polished stone tall enough for them to walk upright.

  The Minotaur’s labyrinth had begun.

  Without warning, the paths turned and twisted back on themselves. Openings to other passages abounded—some were wide and inviting, while others were little more than slots in the walls, leading into darkness almost impenetrable even to their powerful military-grade flashlights. Every ten or twelve steps a pit gaped where the floor should have been.

  On the search for Triangulum in the Saint Paul’s Catacombs in Malta, they’d worked off a map sketched by Leonardo da Vinci. If they hadn’t, they might have wandered aimlessly for hours or days or gotten lost altogether. Here they had no such map. Here they had to rely on three flashlights and instinct, though Wade wasn’t really certain what instinct was anymore. Blind fury? Sure, that urged him on. Revenge? Lots of that, too.

  Or maybe it was just pain. Yeah, maybe pain drove him most of all.

  “A downward ramp,” Lily said. “It’s very steep. Hold on to the walls.”

  When they reached the bottom, the path swung cleverly around and up again to a blank wall. “False passage. Back to the top.”

  “Not all the way to the top,” said Darrell. “I felt air coming in from another opening halfway up. That’s the way to keep going.”

  There were slides, fake openings, passages that led only to other passages that led only to the first passage again. Where two openings seemed to offer identical pathways forward, they found the floor in one of them hinged to give way at the slightest pressure. Encountering one like that, Darrell quickly wedged his arms against the narrow walls, while Lily frantically grabbed at him and pulled him back to solid ground by his belt.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

  “Handy belt.”

  “It’s the one Maurice Maurice gave me.”

  Right, straight, right again, then backing up to catch a missed path. Up, down, a ramp, uneven stairs, revolving stones, left, left, left, a sharp right. The smell was old and musty, a kind of animal scent.

  Wade felt the evil growing stronger as they pushed closer to the center of the labyrinth. The beast that wandered between its walls now, however, wasn’t a legendary half man, half bull, but a young woman not much older than they were. Galina Krause wasn’t even twenty, yet she was deadlier than any mythical beast he could imagine.

  “Do you feel that?” Lily whispered. She held Wade and Darrell back with hands on their shoulders. “Coming from the right. Air. Night air. The outside. And I don’t hear the trucks so much now. Everyone must be in position. It’s so quiet.”

  Wade closed his eyes and breathed. Yes. He could sense the early morning sky. “The center of the maze. It must be open to the air. Carefully now.”

  After a few minutes of cautiously picking their steps, they could distinctly hear the sound of water. The night breezes. And the wind over the palace ruins.

  Then they saw it.

  The golden machine, sitting alone in the center of the maze. The twelve niches ranged around the center wheel were empty. Galina’s six relics were not there.

  “She has them somewhere else,” Lily whispered. “Why didn’t she connect them?”

  Wade glanced up from the shadows. In the glow of spotlights, just above the rim of the pit he saw what must have been a hundred soldiers in NATO uniforms, milling around. He put his finger to his lips. They watched as Ebner bustled about, then stared down the thirty feet into the center of the pit.

  “Try it again!” Ebner shouted. “It should move more quickly this time!”

  There was the sound of grinding stone, and the open ceiling began to coil closed overhead, revealing the mosaic of a twisting green serpent. Darkness filled the chamber.

  “Good! Good!” they heard Ebner shout. “Galina, see here!”

  The ceiling sealed tightly, and any words were muffled. The large room was now empty but for the machine. Wade stepped toward it.

  “They’ll open the ceiling again,” Lily whispered.

  “I know, but . . .”

  The center of the labyrinth was large but oddly configured, with twelve walls of different widths set at different angles. There was the same number of openings and passages out into the labyrinth, most of which would have claimed their victims long before they reached the center.

  “Guys, this is where it happened,” Darrell said. “Creepy, but beautiful. But so creepy.”

  The walls were covered with paintings. Spirals, large-eyed women and bronze-skinned men, and beasts of all kinds—lions, monkeys, birds, griffins—all in brilliant and outlandish colors. Lily busily took pictures with the camera she’d brought from Antarctica.

  Darrell was right, Wade thought. The core of the maze was frightening, but so very beautiful, a place of death and terror, but also of survival, if one believed the myths. Elude the Minotaur and you might make it through the maze to safety.

  Wade wondered how many people had died to find the labyrinth—not just because of the mythical Minotaur, but because of the Legacy, too. All the perished Guardians. Hundreds over the last weeks, thousands over the many centuries. Millions, even, if you believed Copernicus that time travel caused untold numbers of horrors.

  Wade stepped toward the machine, then stopped. “I feel her. Galina’s near.” He clutched the grip of his handgun.

  “Wade, don’t even think about using that,” Lily
whispered.

  “But she’ll be armed. And she’ll be here soon. I know she will. In fact, she’s—”

  Click.

  Galina Krause stepped out of the darkness.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Wade practically felt the point of the arrow as Galina aimed a crossbow at his chest.

  “I would be lying if I say I am surprised,” she said. “You have been the worthiest of foes. You have fooled so many people, escaped so many dangers, defied so much so many times. I suspect you think you were fated to. Except that fate doesn’t exist. Nothing at all exists until it does, and then—whoosh—it is wiped away as if it had never been.”

  “Whatever,” said Darrell. “You’re not stopping us from stopping you.”

  She smiled. “Do you know that King Minos used to send innocents—children—into his labyrinth as an offering to the gods. They were all killed by the beast, of course. Everyone was killed that neared the golden treasure. But the idea is an interesting one.”

  “We’re not innocents,” Lily said. “Not anymore.”

  “You do look a little rough around the edges, Lily Kaplan. Not the bright young thing I first saw in Berlin a few months ago. None of you are, anymore.”

  To Wade, Galina’s voice was eerily distant, coming from a place far away.

  “Uh-huh, well, maybe it’s rude to say it,” said Darrell, “but you look different, too. Your scar. Your white hair. You’re sick, aren’t you? Really sick.”

  “Sick?” she said. “Oh, I am dying. That is beside the point.”

  “What is the point?” Wade asked. “Why are you doing this? For the cargo? Yeah, we know about the cargo. Is some junky thing worth tearing the world apart?”

  “Markus is dead; you know that,” said Lily. “We saw him die. Ebner the ghoul? We heard him before. Where is he now?”

  “Nearby. You are surrounded by the colonel’s men, too. Darrell, have you seen your father lately?”