“These are your roots, my dear,” Roman told her. An easiness, and a level of pride played in his words. “You have finally come home. I only wish we’d been able to bring you here in a more pleasant manner.”
“You call kidnapping me and throwing me in the back of a truck pleasant? Breaking into my house with a gun?” Marina was much shorter than Roman, but she didn’t let him intimidate her. She faced him, hands on hips, and called him on the carpet. What did she have to lose?
“A gun?” Roman’s face showed its first authentic emotion since he walked into the room. “We don’t use guns. Violence of that nature is forbidden.”
“Why did you want me here? Why kidnap me? Or was it a way to manage my father?” As if it was going to be difficult to manage him. The man was a mere shell; standing next to his twin, Dad appeared even more frail and pathetic. She couldn’t imagine they needed her presence in order to influence him.
And she’d risked her life to come here. For him. Her skin crawled when she realized what a non-person he was. The vacancy that came and went from his eyes made her cold.
“You needed to be here because you are a Skaladeska. You are of our blood and we wanted to make sure you remained safe.”
“Safe from what?”
Roman looked at her, searched her face, steepling his fingers. “We are about to implement an operation that will capture the attention of the world, and garner its respect.”
“For what purpose? To let them know the Skalas live and breathe?”
“That and more.” He gestured to her chair. “Sit, please, my dear. There is no sense in stalking about the room when you can be comfortable. You aren’t going anywhere.”
She’d known that, of course, but hearing the words spoken so clearly was a blow. “Where’s Gabe? What have you done with him?” She sounded like a deranged heroine from a gothic movie, but she didn’t care if her words were panicked and clichéd.
“Gabe? So that is his name. He wasn’t quite as forthcoming with that information as I would have liked.” Roman smiled, his handsome face turning cold.
“You hurt him.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Am I to be tortured next, then?” she asked, standing again, pushing herself nose to nose with her uncle. Her uncle.
Roman laughed and turned to take her vacated seat. “Since you don’t wish to sit … .Of course you won’t be tortured. You are one of us. You are an important piece in this whole puzzle, so you will be nothing but honored.”
She didn’t believe him. “Where is he? If I’m to be honored, I demand that you allow me to see him.”
“Is he your lover, then?” Roman asked idly.
“No. And even if he was, it’s irrelevant. The man has done no harm—“
“I beg to differ, Marina.” Roman stood, towering over her. Anger burned in his face. “He brought you here, or you brought him here; it makes no matter. You are welcome, he is not. We do not allow outsiders unless they become part of our clan.”
“So you’re going to kill him?”
“Would it matter to you?”
“What a ridiculous question.”
“That may be so, but your relationship with him does matter. It is in my interest to know how the last member of our line is procreating or continuing it.”
Marina felt as if she’d been slapped. “What?”
Her father spoke for the first time. “Marina, it is important for us—Roman and myself—to know who will father your children and when that will happen.”
“It won’t happen. I can’t get pregnant. So you can release me—us—now and let us on our way.”
The two men stared at her, then Roman spoke, gently. “I am sorry for that, Marina. I see that it pains you.”
“I have accepted it.” She turned away, angry that her eyes had begun to fill. “Now that we’ve cleared that up, you can take me to Gabe.”
Roman sighed. “Marina, there are other issues to consider. I—“ He stopped suddenly and pulled a small device from a deep pocket. It resembled a cell phone, and Marina watched as he used his fingertips to pad through something on a small screen. Then he flipped it closed and looked up at her. “I apologize; we will have to finish this discussion at a later time. Victor, you will accompany me.”
Before Marina could react, Roman reached out his hand and smoothed it over her jaw in a sort of caress. “You will be well cared for. If you need anything, you’ve only to push that button.” He gestured to a small, oval indentation in the wall. She wouldn’t have known it to be anything more than an unusual decoration, but when she touched it, a soft whirring opened a panel in the wall displaying a computer screen.
When she looked back, the two men were gone; and she was suddenly alone with a menu-driven computer screen offering television, movies, games, food selections.
Guys and Dolls or Ms. Pac-Man?
-35-
Marina spent the better part of the next several hours exploring her room; or, rather, her suite of rooms; while she tried to come to terms with what she’d learned about the family she thought had died off decades ago.
She’d come to the uncomfortable conclusion that they were, indeed, in Siberia. Somehow that egg-shaped transport had brought her and Gabe thousands of miles in little more than three hours.
Her accommodations were as comfortable as any hotel she’d stayed in. The walls were the same white of the hallways and the other rooms she’d seen; they curved into the floor and ceiling in gentle arcs. Perhaps it was because of her caving experience, but it all reminded her of elongated tunnels and cave chambers.
There was one entrance to the rooms, and the rooms themselves consisted of a main area with a sofa that she figured out slid into a flat bed after messing with a panel of buttons, and a separate room that offered a toilet, shower, sink, and tub.
A hotel room and nothing more.
A prison.
Damn them.
And worry for Gabe topped it all.
Marina, galvanized by concern and fired by anger, examined every iota of the crack around the door. There had to be a way to make it open. She couldn’t remember how Roman had caused it to do so when he left with her father. She’d been distracted, as he no doubt intended, by the oval depression in the wall that turned on the computer screen.
She found nothing: no handle, no hinges, no little panel that opened to offer buttons or dials or even a slot to slip in a small pat as she’d seen her captors do. Nothing.
At last, weary and frustrated, she gave up and decided to try for some rest. If she was going to get out of here, she needed to have a clear head and strength—food would be nice too—and as difficult as it might be, she needed to sleep.
But before she succumbed to that, she poked around a little more in the area of the room far from the door. Since she’d spent the bulk of her time at the door, she’d missed the small cupboard and refrigerated chest tucked under a table.
There was food there. Dark, stringy meat that she thought might be bison or elk, thick, hearty bread slices, bottles of water, apples, grapes, plums, carrots, and celery. Interesting. Had they compiled these supplies specially for her, or did they keep them on hand for other visitors—or victims?
Again she wondered about Gabe. Concern knotted her stomach. If she got out of the room, she’d need to have something for him to eat too, if she could find him. Not to mention something to patch him up.
After eating, she took a quick, hot shower in an effort to get her body to relax, figured out how to turn the inset lights down to a bare glow, and curled up on the sofa. She had no idea when or if Roman would be back.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t difficult to drift off to sleep.
It happened so easily that Marina only realized she’d been dozing because she awoke.
Someone was in the room.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, but immediately she recognized the stooped figure of the old man.
She watched in the darkness. Ready
but waiting.
He approached her where she lay on the sofa, and she had to focus all of her attention and willpower to not react. Her senses, her sharp instincts, weren’t screaming “danger” … and she trusted them. But if he made one unexpected, quick move, she’d shoot off that sofa like a bullet.
But no, he didn’t. He stood and stared down at her for a long time as she fought to keep her breathing steady and slow.
When he reached out toward her, she stiffened and caught her breath, but did not move. He wasn’t threatening.
His smooth, trembling fingers touched her cheek, pressing oh so gently against her skin, then drew away.
“You are awake,” he said at last. In English.
“Who are you?” Marina asked, still unmoving.
“I am your grandfather. My name is Lev.”
“Grandfather?”
“If you come with me, I would like to show you something. Your heritage. Will you come?”
She nodded against the pillow scrunched into the corner of the sofa, and slowly moved to sit up. She felt as though she were in a dream.
Perhaps she was.
Perhaps her food had been drugged.
But nevertheless, she dropped her feet to the floor and stood. She was of a height with Lev, her grandfather.
He grasped her arm; as much to keep her with him, she supposed, as to support himself. The door opened in front of them as if by magic, silent and smooth. She would have slept through it opening and closing if she hadn’t felt his presence in the chamber with her.
Lev’s fingers were strong, thin vises around her upper arm; not uncomfortable, but firm. Marina realized she could twist away from his frail strength and make a run for it; but she checked the urge to do so. She wouldn’t get far; he’d likely alert the guards or whoever it was Roman had helping him; and she wouldn’t have the time to search for Gabe … plus, she was a historian. She wanted to know what he was going to show her.
He moved quickly for his age, and Marina tried to keep track of their route, but she feared that her exhausted mind wouldn’t remember all of the twists and turns. She wondered briefly why he’d chosen to visit her at night.
At last, after walking through a sliding door that required a tab moistened with Lev’s saliva, they approached an entrance that was different from every other one she’d seen. This one had a door made not of white-painted metal, but of an iron-colored steel. Heavy, with riveted beams across it; it looked rather like the portcullis of a medieval castle—but solid.
She watched as Lev opened a small door next to it and pulled a lever.
The heavy door rolled up, into the ceiling that Marina suddenly noticed was higher than the others.
Lev drew her in and the door lowered closed behind them.
She looked around and gaped.
Cabinets; really, they were display tables with heavy glass tops, lined the room. Made from heavy wood, with strong, foot-wide legs, the table-cabinets rose as high as Marina’s waist. Low lights along the seams of ceiling and wall, and wall and floor illuminated the chamber, bathing it in a delicate gold glow. She stepped in and looked down at one of the tables. It was like being in the National Archives.
Ancient scrolls, books, papers, maps … .everything one could imagine that was of the written variety was organized inside these cabinets. Protected and displayed. The writings were faded, but legible, and as Marina peered down into one of the display boxes, she saw the thick, neat font of an ancient language.
“Greek? Latin? Sumerian?” She looked up at Lev, who’d remained near the entrance, watching her. “What is it?”
“It is all of them.” Love shown in his face; love for the secrets and the manuscripts protected in this room.
“Where did they come from?” Marina stared down at the book in front of her, walked a few paces, and found herself gaping at a cracked-edge scroll that lay half-unrolled. “My God … .this is incredible. Why isn’t this in a museum?” But she knew the answer. Because then it wouldn’t be here, at the whim of the Skaladeskas.
This room made the Lam Pao Archive look like a tattered first edition of Sense and Sensibility.
“Come, sit.” Lev gestured to two large chairs. The massive antlers or horns of some animal created the frame, including armrests; and the back and seat of each chair was upholstered with a thick, comfortable looking cloth that reminded Marina of alpaca. “I will tell you the story. You should know your family heritage.”
She wanted to look at all of the manuscripts and scrolls; but she accepted the invitation. The historian in her could not fathom the value, the importance of this collection, so she had to hear the story.
“When Princess Sophia Palaeologa of Byzantium married Ivan the First of Russia, her father dowered her with, among other things, this library of ancient manuscripts. They were ancient at that time, in fact—in the fifteenth century.
“She brought the books and manuscripts with her—there are nearly eight hundred of them; most of which have never been translated or catalogued. In fact, throughout the ages, no one has really been sure what is included in this selection. Sophia brought them to Russia and they were kept in a special chamber beneath the Kremlin. Moscow at that time was prone to fires, and no one wanted them destroyed, so a protective room was built especially for the library.
“Not many in Ivan’s court knew about the library; Sophia herself was not an academic; she saw little value in so many old books. But her father wished her to take them, and so she did. Ivan did not spend much time studying them either, and they languished, forgotten for decades, under the Kremlin.” He took a sip from a cup nestled in a hollow in his chair’s arm.
“Then, in 1560, Ivan the Fourth, who you would know as Ivan the Terrible, became the heir at age three. He lived in the castle but was fairly left to himself. In fact, he was neglected for the most part—left to his own devices and dressed in rags, barely given enough food to eat.
“The courtiers subjected him to extreme and rampant violence; forcing or allowing him to watch them torture, punish, and execute political enemies. If there was a state affair, the men who acted for his mother, the regent, would dress him up in rich clothing and jewels and show him off like a puppet … and then afterward, banish him to roaming the halls, hungry and cold.
“Yes … .the poor boy was left to his own devices; but despite that, he developed a great love of learning and reading. He found the lost library in its special chamber, and, fascinated by the books and appreciative of the solitude the library afforded him, spent as much time there as he could as he grew older.
“Of course, he could not read many—or perhaps any—of the books; as I mentioned, they were written in Greek—ancient Greek, Roman, Sumerian, Atlantean, and numerous others—“
Marina jerked upright, pulled out of the story. “Antlantean? As in, Atlantis?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, that, and even other languages that have yet to be identified.”
She stared at him. Unbelievable. This had to be a dream. Or else the elderly man was demented. “Go on.” She had to find out how the dream ended.
“When Ivan became tsar at age seventeen—Russia’s first tsar, as you likely are aware—he immediately had a huge number of eligible women brought to him from which he intended to select a wife; and he did. He selected a woman named Anastasia Romanovna. Despite the way she was chosen—as one of many paraded in front of the tsar—it was a love match. Ivan almost immediately fell in love with her, and she with him, and they were happy together.
“Ivan shared with her the secret of the library, and she urged him to set translators on it. She believed, and convinced him it was so, that the secrets in these books and manuscripts could unlock many mysteries, and unveil many things about this world that the ancient civilizations knew … and that have been lost.”
“And? How did they come here? Did someone steal the library?” Even as she said it, Marina believed it an absurd idea. Wherever she was—whether it be Siberia or Canada—it was so far fro
m Moscow that it boggled the mind to imagine how eight hundred ancient books could safely be transported that distance in the sixteenth century.
“No; in fact, it was Anastasia who insisted. She was very ill; and she and Ivan both recognized that she was dying. He believed she was being poisoned by his enemies in the court—and indeed, it was proven not so long ago that she was indeed poisoned with mercury—and he was overcome with grief. But there was little they could do; she was already nearly gone.
“As the story goes, one day near the end, Anastasia called him to her and extracted a promise from him to protect the library; to hide it somewhere and keep it from the evil boyars at court.
Colleen Gleason Page 23