Library of Gold

by Alex Archer

  She was just in time.

  No sooner had she frozen in place than the light from the lanterns illuminated the passageway outside and the small group of men strode past. She’d been prepared to jump out and defend herself with her sword if need be, but thankfully the deep shadows kept her hidden from view.

  She waited several minutes after they had left, then slowly crept out into the main tunnel. Her light was still off, leaving her surrounded by darkness, but this time she didn’t mind. She looked in the direction the others had gone, but didn’t see anything, not even a faint whisper of light floating back behind them.

  Satisfied that they were gone, Annja turned toward the vault, flicked Vlad’s headlamp back on and entered the room.

  Unlike Gianni, Annja had plenty of experience with clever men who devoted their time and energy to devising hiding places for their sacred objects and treasures. She’d managed to defeat every obstacle such men had put in her path in the past and she was confident that she could do the same here.

  Annja disagreed with Gianni’s assessment. She didn’t think the library had been smuggled away at some point in the past; she thought it was exactly where it was intended to have been. To rest through the ages.

  The room they’d been standing in was a decoy.

  Chapter 40

  Annja turned in place slowly, examining the room with intent. The chamber was an octagon, about thirty feet across. There were twelve shelves on each of the eight wall sections for a total of ninety-six shelves.

  A lot of information had sprung up about the library over the years and, as with most other legends, Annja knew that the majority of it was complete crap. But sometimes there were kernels of truth mixed up in the legends. When it came to the legends, one of the pieces of information that continued to show up time and time again whenever the library was mentioned was that it was supposed to contain more than a thousand volumes. These were not slim volumes, either—certainly nothing like the average book you might pick up in any bookstore today—but rather thick, highly decorated volumes. Tomes, really. And as such they took up a lot of space.

  There was no way a thousand volumes could fit in this small a space.

  That was the first clue.

  The second was the number of shelves.

  Annja thought back to the clue they had discovered in the Gospel of Gold, the one that had led them to the map, which in turn had led them here.

  2-6-8.

  That’s all it had said.

  Which was why she found it so interesting that when multiplied together, those three numbers equaled the number of shelves in the room she was standing in.

  Annja had learned long ago that there wasn’t any such thing as a coincidence when it came to hunting for buried treasure.

  Counting clockwise from the entrance way, she walked over to the second set of shelves and pushed down on the second shelf from the top.

  Nothing happened.

  She nodded to herself, then pushed down on the second shelf from the bottom.

  It shifted slightly and clicked once.

  “Gotcha,” she said to the empty air.

  She crossed the room, carefully stepping around the wide puddle of blood that had pooled beneath Gianni’s corpse, and moved to the sixth wall section. She counted six shelves from the bottom, and repeated the procedure.

  Shift-click.

  Grinning now, pleased she had managed to figure it out without too much difficulty, she crossed to the eighth and final section. Counting up eight shelves she pressed down for a third time.

  Shift-click-whir.

  She could hear the rattle of a large clockwork mechanism as it unwound behind her. Turning, she gaped in surprise.

  The center of the room had opened up in an iris, revealing the stone steps that led down toward the true treasure vault.

  With her heart pounding in excitement, Annja began to descend.

  Chapter 41

  The passage ahead of her was much narrower than any of the others she’d encountered so far in their search for the library. It wasn’t wide enough for two people to walk abreast at the same time and that gave Annja pause as she prepared to step off the stairs.

  Why create a passage so narrow? she wondered.

  The answer, when it came to her, seemed obvious.

  To keep your target within a specified area.

  Annja went back up the stairs and out into the main corridor. She hunted until she found a rock about the size of a cantaloupe and took it with her back down the stairs.

  Squatting at the edge of the last step, Annja rolled the rock down the length of the corridor. It tumbled end over end for a good ten feet before coming to rest in the middle of the passage.

  It sat there. Nothing happened.

  She shrugged, about to step off the stairs, when the stone flooring beneath her makeshift trigger suddenly sank about two inches.

  Annja barely had time to turn her face away and hug the wall for protection when the guns secreted along the length of the corridor went off with a vengeance. The sound was deafening. Musket balls came out of both walls simultaneously and Annja knew she would have been torn to ribbons if she’d been caught in that narrow space. As it was she was pelted with several razor-sharp chunks of stone that slashed her clothes and even drew blood from a nasty cut along one cheek.

  When the cacophony finally stopped, Annja stood and surveyed the scene. She could now see a snakelike pattern of raised flagstones revealed on the floor of the corridor, all the rest having sank a few inches downward. Hidden rooms and pressure-plate traps. Her respect for Fioravanti’s cleverness was growing.

  So was her desire to go back in time and strangle the man.

  * * *

  SEVERAL HUNDRED YARDS DOWN the passageway, back in the direction from which they had come, Colonel Goshenko and Sergeant Danislov both stopped and looked behind them.

  The sound of gunfire reverberated through the tunnel.

  Without a word, they turned and retraced their steps to the empty treasure vault.

  * * *

  SATISFIED THAT THE PASSAGE in front of her was now free of obstacles, Annja stepped out onto the raised flagstones and made her way along the length of the corridor. What she found at the other end made her gasp in wonder.

  A vast space opened up before her, this one even more beautifully adorned than the false library before. The floors were inlaid with bright marble that reflected her light back at her. The ceiling had been painted in traditional Renaissance style, the oil paints preserved so well in the dry underground climate, Annja imagined they hadn’t changed since the day they’d been painted there by Fioravanti. The shelves were polished stone, fashioned right out of the living rock and spanning the entire circumference of the room.

  But it was what those shelves held that truly captured her attention.

  Books and scrolls and tomes of all kinds were lined up in rows, each one in its own special place. Gold and precious jewels gleamed back at her from hundreds of covers. The decorative additions to the books made them worth millions; the historical value of many of the texts made them priceless.

  In the center of the room a single closed book rested on a pedestal all by itself.

  Resolving to solve that puzzle momentarily, she turned her attention to the rest of the library. She was lost in admiring the collection when a voice spoke out of the darkness of the tunnel behind her.

  “You are a difficult woman to kill, Miss Creed.”

  She’d heard that voice enough times now to know who it belonged to and she clenched her fists at the sound.

  She slowly turned.

  Colonel Viktor Goshenko of the FSS stood just inside the library, looking around in wonder. He had no concerns that Annja might try to hurt him, since his ever-present watchdog, Sergeant Danislov, stood beside him, staring at her all too eagerly.

  “If you’d given him more time, he would have found it, as well,” she said, referring to the recently deceased Gianni.

 
; Goshenko focused on her instead. “I doubt that, Miss Creed. You were the one I was putting my money on, or didn’t you know that? Surely you’re smart enough to have figured that out?”

  She was.

  The colonel went on without waiting for an answer from her. “That fool Travino was just there as insurance, a way of making sure I got what I wanted in the end should something happen to you. You have no idea how delighted I am to see you alive and well. I was sorely disappointed when you startled us all by charging my man Danislov here and forced him to shoot you in self-defense.”

  Goshenko paused and his eyes narrowed as he watched her closely. “Where did that sword come from, anyway?” he asked.

  Annja didn’t reply.

  Goshenko cocked his head to one side. “What’s that now? Cat got your tongue? You were more than happy to give your opinion a moment ago.”

  She ignored his comment. There was nothing to be gained by answering it and she certainly wasn’t going to explain to the likes of him how she’d come by the sword or what it allowed her to do. Let him worry about it; it would keep him on his toes.

  But unfortunately for her, Goshenko now had what he wanted—the Library of Gold—and saw no reason to keep her around. Without another word he signaled Danislov.

  But Annja had seen that gesture before. Goshenko had used the same one to order Gianni’s death less than a half hour before.

  Even as the sergeant went for the gun on his belt, Annja was in motion, turning sideways to present a smaller target while at the same time whipping her right hand up behind her back as if she were getting ready to hurl a spear.

  When that hand blurred forward a half second later, there was a broadsword grasped firmly in it, point forward.

  Danislov was in motion, as well, turning and twisting to the left while bringing his gun up. He had it halfway to horizontal when she hurled the sword at him with deadly accuracy.

  The blade entered his body just below his armpit and slid between his ribs to come out the other side.

  He collapsed before he had a chance to fire a shot. From his stillness, Annja was confident he was dead.

  The sword winked out of existence, only to appear a split second later back in Annja’s hand.

  Her battle senses were screaming at her now, shouting that she’d left the other opponent unobserved too long. That if he had a gun she was already dead… .

  She spun to the left, searching for Goshenko.

  The bullet took her in the left leg, passing through the meat of her calf without striking anything vital but knocking her off her feet in the process. She yelped in pain even as she was rolling frantically to the left, trying to get out of the way of the bullets she knew had to be following.

  More shots ricocheted off the marble behind her as she kept rolling, her mind racing, searching for a way out.

  That’s when she came up against the pedestal in the middle of the room and rolled to an abrupt halt.

  The sudden silence in the room was broken a moment later by Goshenko’s laughter.

  Gritting her teeth in pain, Annja peeked out from behind the pedestal.

  She didn’t see him.

  “Over here.”

  The voice was coming from behind her.

  Fully expecting a bullet through the head at any moment, Annja slowly turned the other way.

  Goshenko stood with his back to one of the shelves, his pistol pointed straight at her.

  “On your feet,” he said, and this time she could hear his anger.

  The colonel, it seemed, had finally had enough.

  Using the pedestal for support, Annja dragged herself to her feet, doing what she could to keep her weight off her injured leg and holding her head high. She might be caught dead to rights in the other’s sights, but she’d be damned if she went out meekly.

  Glancing down, she happened to note the title etched into the cover of the tome resting atop the pedestal.

  Apocalisse.

  It was Italian for apocalypse.

  In all the literature she’d read on the Library of Gold, she’d never heard of a single book by that title, never mind one written in Italian.

  Fioravanti! Oh, you clever devil.

  Chapter 42

  “From the moment I heard your name I knew you’d be trouble,” Goshenko said, staring at her with venom in his eyes. “You’ve been extraordinarily lucky so far, but this is where it ends. I’ve had enough of your meddling.”

  Goshenko took two steps forward and centered the gun on the bridge of her nose. The barrel loomed impossibly large in front of her, like a giant hole she was teetering on the edge of. One wrong move and she’d fall inside it forever. Vertigo washed through her.

  “But I’m not done yet, Colonel,” she told him softly and slammed her hands down on the cover of the book in front of her.

  Goshenko fired.

  Annja flinched.

  That instinctive reaction saved her life. The bullet passed by her face with a subsonic crack and embedded itself into a thousand-year-old gold-laminated tome on the shelf behind her, missing her by less than half an inch.

  Beneath the weight of her hands, the book sank down into the pedestal just as it had been designed to do whenever anyone touched it. It was the final trap designed by Gianni’s ancestor, Ridolfo di Fioravanti, and it reached across the centuries to protect the one who had finally come to discover his fate.

  The descent of the book set off giant clockwork mechanisms embedded deep in the walls behind the bookshelves. In every instance those mechanisms worked perfectly, sending a stone rocketing toward a piece of metal, striking a spark, which in turn ignited the kegs of black powder that had been standing there for centuries, just waiting for a light.

  The resulting explosions tore through the stone shelves, sending earth, rock and the remains of priceless books in every direction.

  And that was only the first wave.

  Goshenko was standing right in front of one of the wall sections that exploded and even as Annja watched he was buried beneath a thundering pile of debris. She didn’t wait around to see if he clambered back to his feet, however, for her attention was already on the rear wall, searching for that little detail Fioravanti had unwittingly revealed in his recounting of what happened on that last day.

  I constructed an emergency tunnel at the rear of the vault… .

  Annja just hoped they hadn’t filled it in again when they were finished with the construction.

  She scanned the rear wall, conscious of time ticking down as the explosions continued. The whole room was shaking now and debris was falling from the ceiling, indicating its pending collapse. She had seconds at best… .

  There!

  A three-foot section of the far wall collapsed inward, revealing itself to be plaster slapped over a wooden frame and painted to look like the rock around it. Beyond it, a narrow tunnel beckoned her.

  Move! she screamed inwardly, and her body listened, scrambling to take her forward across the shaking and unsteady ground.

  More explosions tore through the room, sending Annja crashing to the ground and this time she stayed there, choosing to crawl rather than fight the ground’s shakiness from her feet. Especially with an injured leg.

  She kicked and clawed her way forward, expecting at any moment to be buried, but somehow avoiding the worst of it until she reached the entrance to the emergency tunnel and threw herself in.

  Behind her, in the center of the room, the ceiling directly above the pedestal suddenly gave way, collapsing and bringing everything else with it.

  The books!

  Annja curled up against one side of the tunnel, drew up her knees and tucked her face into them with her hands over her head and rode it out.

  The shaking and crashing went on for what seemed forever.

  When it finally stopped, Annja cautiously raised her head and found herself once again shrouded in darkness. The headlamp she’d been wearing strapped to her arm had been smashed.

  She was tra
pped in the dark.

  But then she remembered the gear she’d taken off Vladimir and reached into her pocket for the light stick. She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt it.

  The light it provided wasn’t all that bright but it allowed Annja to take stock of the situation. She saw immediately that the entrance back into the vault had been blocked off by a cave-in similar to that which had buried her before. Going back the way she’d come was now permanently out of the question.

  That left only the emergency exit tunnel for her to use and she wondered how Fioravanti might have felt if he’d realized, all those centuries before, just who might have need of the tunnel in the future.

  She hoped he would approve.

  Fioravanti’s journal had said that the tunnel ran directly to the surface. She hoped that was true. The light stick would only last so long. She didn’t want to be caught down here in the darkness without any light. That might just be the final straw that would do her in.

  With the light stick in one hand and her sword in the other, Annja set out for the surface.

  Chapter 43

  An hour later she emerged from the tunnel to find herself in the midst of the Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street subway station. Several people stood on the platform waiting for the next train when she stumbled out of the tunnel, boosted herself up onto the platform and climbed the stairs. Her every move was watched, but no one tried to stop her or asked what she had been doing in a restricted area.

  Once out on the street she hailed a taxi and asked the cabbie to take her directly to the nearest shopping plaza. He hesitated when he got a good look at her, taking note of the fact that she was covered with dirt and was wearing a filthy bloodstained bandage around her head and another around her leg. Anticipating his objections, she showed him that she actually had enough cash to be able to pay him when they arrived and that seemed to settle the matter.