by Chad Brecher
Suddenly the light caught the reflection of Alex’s eyes. “I’m alright,” he answered, shielding his eyes from the glare. He tussled his hair, sending dust into the air. “The drop is farther than I thought. Toss me a flashlight.”
Ellie released the flashlight and watched as Alex caught it against his chest. She reached back and received another flashlight from Clay.
They waited in silence as Alex disappeared into the room. After several minutes, his face emerged from the hole.
“What do you see?” Clay asked, pushing Ellie aside. She gave him an annoyed glance.
“First thing is that there are stairs so no need to be all Tarzan-like,” Alex squinted. “We need more lighting. It’s hard to see what’s down here.”
Clay silently gathered the flashlights and handed Jonas the lantern. Clay prodded his assistant with the butt of the flashlight, driving it into the small of his back. “Let’s get down there and see what Polo has left us.”
Jonas helped assist Clay into the hole and Alex guided Clay’s foot onto the hidden staircase. As Clay disappeared into the blackness, Ellie maneuvered towards the opening but was stopped by Jonas.
“I think it is best that one of us stay up here,” Jonas commented.
“OK, stay up here,” Ellie shot back and tried to break his grip on her arm.
“I don’t think you understand. I’m going down and you’re staying up here.”
Ellie broke free and backed up as Jonas looked at her menacingly. He suddenly smiled at her. “No worries. It’s a crypt. This is no place for a girl, anyway.” Jonas turned away and descended down through the hole.
Ellie stood beside the opening in the ground, fuming. She looked at the stone resting on the pile of wood and gave the pile a kick for good measure. The stack did not budge. ‘No place for a girl.’ What an ass, Ellie huffed to herself. There’s no way I’m staying up here.
She slid her body along the ground until her feet dangled into the hole. She could feel her feet contact the edge of a step and gained her footing. As she carefully backed her way down the staircase, her flashlight caught the undersurface of the pile of wood above.
That pile better hold, she thought and took a deep breath in.
36
Jonas turned the dial on the lantern, bathing the room in a warm yellow glow. The room was configured in the shape of a rectangle. In the southwest corner of the room was the short flight of stone stairs they had descended. Up above, the stone ceiling was approximately eight feet off the ground. The walls were constructed of small stones of various shapes, sizes, and colors that were fastened together by gray mortar. The far wall had partially caved in over the centuries, with a lattice-array of crisscrossing cracks and holes.
Alex silently walked around the room, methodically directing his flashlight across the surface of the walls, examining the room for any sign of writing or symbols, any clue left behind by Polo. He came away disappointed by the monotony of the patterns on the walls. He directed the beam of the flashlight across the floor and found it to be constructed of tiles. Each one of the tiles was rectangular in shape and covered with a layer of dust and dirt collected through the ages. Alex bent down and wiped away the grime from one of the tiles.
“Gold,” Ellie exhaled as she squatted beside him, marveling at the rich golden color of the tile.
Alex scratched at the surface of the tile with a fingernail and came away with gold dust upon his fingertip. He brought his finger to his lips and blew. A puff of yellow dust wafted into the air. They looked down upon the tile and found simple gray stone beneath the scratch.
“I guess it’s not 24 karat gold. Not by a long shot,” Ellie muttered and glanced at the hundred or so similar tiles that composed the floor.
Clay appeared agitated as he paced around the room. Ellie gave Alex a somber glance that encapsulated her academic assessment.
Alex lingered in a squatting position, bounced on his ankles for a moment, and then stood up in the center of the room. He swung around completely as the disappointing reality set in.
The room was empty.
37
“Empty. It’s empty. After all this…empty,” Clay wailed. He waved the flashlight in the air.
“We don’t know if it was always empty,” Alex mumbled, nervously tapping his index finger against his chin.
“Tomb-robbers?” Ellie asked. She had spent much of her archeological career confronted by the disappointment that followed the handiwork of tomb-robbers. How many times had she discovered a new excavation site only to discover the contents had long ago been looted? It made her irate.
“It’s possible. This room has probably been here for centuries. I’m sure there was ample time to steal whatever items were in here.”
“Maybe we’re not in the right place, man,” Jonas argued.
“You saw the Polo family insignia on the stone slab,” Ellie countered.
Jonas cheeks twisted in anger. He brought his face close to Ellie’s. His eyes opened wide. “What I saw was chicken scratch…chicken scratch! That’s right! Scuffmarks from some tourist’s shoes. No more!”
“It would be quite a coincidence that the scuffmarks happened to look like three birds walking in a row,” Ellie shot back.
“I saw those marks. Could have been birds, could have been hippos, could have been Jesus, Father, and the Holy Ghost for all we know!” Spittle flew from the corners of Jonas’s lips as he advanced menacingly towards Ellie, his face twisted and maniacal in the glare of the lights.
Alex jumped between Jonas and Ellie and lifted his hands in the air. “Look, everyone needs to calm down. We haven’t eaten, or slept for that matter, for some time…let’s just take a second to think about this. We need to be systematic and examine what we have before us. If you could just hand me the lantern, I’d like to take a better look at the room.”
“Go ahead. It’s all yours, Gandhi.” Jonas grunted angrily and pushed the lantern forcefully into Alex’s chest, sending him stumbling backwards onto the tile. He landed in a heap upon his back, the back of his head smacking against the hard tile. The impact sent the lantern flying from his hands. After clanging against the floor, the lantern light flickered and went out.
Alex’s vision dimmed. Flashes of colors flickered in the blackness above him. As he blinked several times in an attempt to refocus, gravel fell from the ceiling and landed on his cheek. Alex reached up and brushed the grit away. A thin beam of light projected down from the ceiling, striking Alex in the center of his forehead.
Ellie flipped on the flashlight and rushed to Alex’s side. Clay joined her and attempted to lift Alex to a sitting position. He resisted. “You O.K?”
“Flashlight,” Alex urged. He wrested it from Ellie and directed it up towards the ceiling. Alex began to laugh.
Ellie studied him with concern. Had he gone mad? Did the fall knock something loose?
Alex smiled at Ellie and Clay and motioned towards the ceiling. Ellie and Clay followed the beam of light as it danced across the ceiling and finally settled on a rudimentary circle carved into the stone surface. In the center of the circle was a tiny chiseled hole that allowed a thin beam of light to pass through it from the crypt above. “It’s the third symbol. It was right above us all the time.”
38
Stop looking at me!
The dark eyes peeked out from rivulets of blood dripping from the crown of thorns.
Father Fermo swiveled his chair and averted his eyes from the large crucifix fastened to a wall in his office.
He was glad that the banging from the crypt had finally ceased. What was that lot up to anyway with all that noise? he wondered. It sounded like they were tearing up the place.
The priest guiltily peered up at Jesus. I did it for the church! Please don’t look at me that way. The church will be taken care of. That’s all that matters in the end. And why not a little something for me? Have I not earned it after all these years of service?
He closed his eyes and allowe
d his thoughts to drift to a sunny day as he floated along in a wooden boat on the placid waters of Lake Como. But something continued to nag him. His eyelids crept open. Through the slits, he could detect the penetrating glare of the statue.
Stop looking at me!
Father Fermo swung his chair completely around so that he faced the door to his office. He was startled to see two men standing in the doorway.
“I’m sorry, but the church is closed.”
“Closed?” the shorter of the two men asked.
“Renovations,” the priest replied and swallowed.
“I see.” The shorter of the two men turned his back to the priest and shut the door to the office. He lingered for a moment staring at the wooden surface of the door. The corners of his lips curled tensely. “I’m sorry, Father Fermo but we are not here for the church.”
39
Clay reached down and pulled Alex up from the ground. The muscles in Alex’s back protested as he stretched. He glared at Jonas who shrugged and sat against the wall. Alex massaged the back of his head and detected a contusion developing.
“I must apologize for Jonas. He’s always been a loose cannon. He can be very emotional. It’s the Portuguese in him, I think.” Clay frowned at the figure sulking against the wall.
Alex peered up at the circle carved into the ceiling. The edges of it were rough, as if a child had dipped a branch in wet cement. The hole in the center was nearly imperceptible if not for the rich yellow light streaming through it. Alex sized up the room they were in, placing it in the three-dimensional layout of the church.
“The hole must have been behind the altar, near the display of candles. The light must be from the candles above.”
Clay craned his neck and looked up at the ceiling.
“Dirt must have loosened from the hole, allowing the light to pass through it.”
“Do you think it is the third symbol?”
“Well, it sure looks a lot like it…a circle with a dot in the center.” Alex pulled out a sketch of the three symbols from a paper in his pocket.
“What do you think it means?”
Alex held up a finger to silence him. He inspected the ceiling and then squatted down on the floor. Clay watched with intrigue as Alex brushed aside dirt from the surface of a tile and polished it with the sleeve of his shirt.
“Maybe the more appropriate question is not ‘what does it mean’ but ‘what does it do?”
“Well, what does it do?” Ellie wondered as a smirk appeared on Alex’s face.
He reached out, grabbed Ellie’s shoulders, and turned her body so she was facing the far end of the room. “Stay here and watch the floor.” Alex retreated to the stairs and scampered up several steps. From the elevated perch, he surveyed the floor below him. “Everyone, please, turn off your flashlights.”
One by one, the flashlights were shut off until the room was pitch black except for the thin beam of light traveling through the hole in the ceiling. Ellie gasped as the light settled on a single tile on the ground. The tile sparkled a luminous, golden glow that cast wave-like patterns across the walls.
Alex leapt from the stairs and ran over to the illuminated tile. As he kneeled down in front of it, the ethereal light reflected on his shirt and face. Clay crept along the floor and pushed his body close to Alex’s side.
The tile, on first glance, looked like any one of the hundred or so seemingly identical gold tiles that composed the floor. Alex ran his fingernail across the surface and smiled as he pulled up his finger. He held his finger up to Ellie who could see that there was no gold paint on it like the other tile they had examined.
“You think it’s real gold?” Clay raised his eyebrows and gave Alex a sideways glance.
The word ‘gold’ roused Jonas from his depression. He sprung to his feet and approached the two kneeling figures at the far end of the room.
Alex studied the tile closely, nearly allowing his nose to brush up against the surface. “I don’t see any writing or symbols on the tile. It sure looks like all the other tiles, but it is different.”
“What is it then?” Clay asked.
“What if it is a foundation stone?” Ellie chimed in.
“A what?” Jonas asked.
“A foundation stone. Throughout history, when a building was going to be constructed, a special stone was often placed within its foundation, thus a ‘foundation stone.’ It was mostly ceremonial in nature, often having an inscription on it or a blessing bestowed upon it. You know, the Grand Poobah would come out from the village and maybe sacrifice a sheep on it, sprinkle some holy water, or chant something. Sometimes it had a more important engineering role — it would serve as the first stone placed that would allow the builders to use it as a reference point for all the other stones. This was big with the Freemasons, who had a whole elaborate ritual associated with it. Most of the time the stone was positioned within the northeast corner and it was sometimes called a ‘cornerstone’ but not always. And sometimes things were hidden in it or under it.”
“Hidden?” Jonas asked.
“Like a time capsule?” Clay followed.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Treasures?” Jonas mumbled with wide eyes.
Ellie sighed and gathered the group around her. She felt as if she was suddenly back at the university lecturing a class of undergraduates. “We talked before about the Epic of Gilgamesh, that marvelous, ancient Sumerian text which referenced a great Flood, magical gardens, and plants bestowing immortality long before the Judeo-Christian Bible. Well, the epic has a prologue that goes into detail how one could find the tablet of lapis lazuli upon which the tale of Gilgamesh’s exploits was inscribed. In the prologue, it is stated that the tablets could be found under the cornerstone of the Eanna Temple in Uruk. If the cornerstone were removed, one would find a hidden copper box that contained the tablet. All I’m saying is what if this tile, this wonderful, golden tile, is the foundation stone of this church? What if Polo has led us to something hidden underneath it?”
“Yes, amazing.” Clay stuttered. Alex smiled at Ellie who beamed back.
“We need to see if we can pull up this stone. Two in one day,” Clay pronounced and disappeared into the darkness. He quickly returned with one of the crowbars they had previously used to pry up the stone slab that allowed for their descent. “I suppose this will have to do again.”
40
The tip of the bar sunk deeply into the mortar. Alex had chipped away for nearly an hour and was finally battling the last of the stubborn cement. He maneuvered the bar in a circular motion, loosening the mortar and causing the tile to nearly float within the space he had carved out between it and the adjacent tiles. With a crack, the mortar was driven upwards and sent rattling across the floor.
“Supreme job!” Clay congratulated him with a paternalistic pat on the back. “Now let’s see what’s under that bugger.”
He could feel the group close tightly in on him. Alex looked at each member of the eclectic team assembled with some uncertainty. What if there was nothing beneath the stone? He slipped the bar beyond the edge of the tile and pried it upwards. With a grating noise, the tile popped free of the surrounding stones. Ellie reached down and gripped the golden brick to her chest, surprised by the heaviness. They stared down at the rectangular void beneath the tile. The flashlight shook slightly in Alex’s hands as he directed the light into the hole with tremulous anticipation. As he explored the blackened hole, he could make out the faint edge of a box.
“There’s something down there!”
Alex extended his right arm deep into the void and searched blindly for the box. His fingers crept along the dank earth until he could feel the chill of metal against his fingertips. He stretched his arm to the limit as his shoulder ran up against the surrounding tile and prevented further exploration. Just as he was about to remove his hand from the hole and see if someone else in his party would have any better luck, his fingers were able to seize hold of a clasp. With
a heave, he pulled his arm out of the space, clutching the box and set it upon the ground.
Ellie sunk to her knees, still tightly hugging the golden block to her chest.
The box was simple and unadorned. It was constructed out of dark, gray iron and had a clasp in the front of it. There was no lock, and Alex merely flipped the clasp upwards and silently lifted the lid back. Clay, eager to see the contents, leaned in excessively, blocking the light and causing Ellie to groan. She swatted him to the side with the backside of her hand.
With the flashlights trained intensely upon the interior of the box, they could see that the box contained a brown piece of leather that was folded snuggly upon itself. The leather covering was tied with a string made of horsehair. Alex reached into the box and carefully undid the knot of the string, allowing it to fall to the side. The four huddled closely together as Alex’s fingers seized each end of the leather covering and delicately peeled them back. Beneath the leather was an eight-petaled metallic object seemingly identical to the one recovered from Dr. Gozzi behind the painting of the Black Doge.
“Wonderful. Now we have two of those ‘things’ that we don’t have the foggiest clue what they are or what they are used for,” Jonas complained.
Alex shook his head and attempted to shut out Jonas’s comment. He lifted the metallic object, passed it to Clay, and suddenly froze. He stared down at the treasure that was beneath the artifact and gasped. Ellie edged closer to the box.
“Do you know what this is?” Alex flipped over the leather cover and could see the title written in Franco-Italian on the yellowed parchment. “I think we’ve found…”
Alex voice trailed off as his eyes were suddenly drawn to the opening in the crypt’s floor from which they had descended into the subterranean lair. A shadow scampered across the hole, followed by a creaking noise.