While I spent many a week in search of the old Templar’s treasure, following his journal and his wanderings, trying to make sense of his abbreviated prose, I will not require that you follow quite so closely in my footsteps as I in his. You must go to the Sea of Milk, and there, if the rains are not upon you, is the resting place of the Throne of King Solomon, the wealthiest king to ever live.
You will need to reach the top of the Sea of Milk, and search behind it. There is a great rock, appearing in shape as a bishop’s mitre. If you start at that place, and head west to the sea, you must part the curtain at the midway point. There I have left you my mark.
Behind the mark, you will enter a large catacomb. You must be very careful not to lose your way. I have left signs, as I myself did, indeed, lose my way upon my first investigation, and was brought to the doorway only by the grace of God and His mercy. You will need torches to break up the interminable darkness. And you will be in there as Jonah was in the great fish. But you will come, in the end, to the greatest sight your eyes will behold until our Lord Jesus returns to this earth: the Throne of King Solomon himself.
I know not how you will remove this treasure from its long resting place. But if you find it, I trust that our Lord will give you what is needed to complete the quest. I will pray every day of my life for you, my son, and give thanks for the Templar whom Providence used to give me a life of freedom.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, blessings.
Joao Xavier
X
In the year of our Lord 1687
“So that’s it. We just have to find a Sea of Milk, part the curtain, go behind the X, camp out in a catacomb, and figure out how to haul our treasure out of an enormous cave. No worries.” Rei said glumly.
“Uh huh. Any ideas on any of that?” Gideon asked.
“Nope. I’m hoping the internet will at least give us the Sea of Milk. I’d say the Jonah reference means we’re going to be underground for three days, which I don’t find a hugely appealing prospect personally… And if we find the treasure, I’m leaving it to Mr. Xavier to get it out.”
“I can get the camping gear, flashlights, all that.” Mac said. “This is a pretty tourist-driven place, and there is apparently a big national park to the east somewhere, so surely there’s somewhere that caters to adventure seekers.”
“We’d better not ask Mrs. Pandey,” Gideon said. “I don’t want her to know more than is good for her…”
“We’ve passed about a dozen coffee shops that said ‘internet cafe’ in the last two days, so Mac, why don’t you drop Gid and me off at one of those, then get directions from someone for the supplies. Hopefully we’ll figure it out while you’re gone. And maybe get a map of the whole state of Goa, not just this city area?”
Mac nodded and stood up. “I’ll get the keys, you get your laptop. Let’s do it!”
Gideon and Rei were sitting in the back of a smoky coffee shop, drinking tiny cups of espresso and surfing the web. There were a half dozen other patrons, all Indians. Still dressed in their local garb, they didn’t feel too conspicuous, and, in fact, no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. They were only a couple of miles from the Basilica of Born Jesus, in Old Goa, and the cafe seemed to be surrounded by a good number of eco-tourist and adventure-tourist stores and tour companies.
“I think I’ve got something…” Rei said, not looking up.
“You found the Sea of Milk?” Gideon asked.
“I think so. There is a waterfall called Dudhsager Falls, on the border of the state of Goa, and the neighboring one, Karnataka… In Marathi and Konkani, the languages spoken around here, it means ‘the mihir and Chandiveera Sea of Milk.’ It comes from a legend about a naked princess pouring a jug of milk over herself so a prince can’t see her body, and apparently when the water comes down during monsoon season it looks white and makes white foam in the pool at the bottom.”
“Her nakedness?” Gideon asked.
“That was not exactly the most important part of what I just told you!” she teased.
“To you maybe…”
“Anyway…as I was saying,” she said, making a face at him, “since we’re not here in monsoon season, the waterfall is not very impressive. That’s great for us, and must be what Father Eduardo meant by praying we weren’t here in rainy season. The falls are naturally divided into four tiers, and it looks like we need to go to the top. That’s going to be a bit of an issue, since there’s not a trail up there. The two ways to see the falls are by a train that goes over the lowest tier, and by being driven in on jeeps from a nearby town, and then hiking the last kilometer. But that puts you down low, too.”
“So we need to drive, find somewhere to leave a rented car, and hike through what, woods? To the top. Find a rock that looks like… what was that again?” Gideon rubbed his forehead.
“A bishop’s mitre. That’s the big pointy hat with the two tails that bishops wear in fancy services,” Rei said.
“Right. A pointy hat. Then ‘part the curtain’… I assume that’s actually get behind the waterfall somehow. I’m sure that’s safe. And then find the X and get behind that. Which might be a passage, or we might have to bust through some rocks. That sound about right?”
“Yep, and all while carrying enough supplies to be in the cave for a week.” Rei smiled at him.
“A week? You said like Jonah, three days!” Gideon was liking this less by the minute.
“My interpretation is three days in, then three days back out again.”
“That’s a lot of food and water to haul…” Gideon pondered.
“I know. We’ll have to take the minimum of each. You were in the Army—what’s the minimum water consumption for an adult per day?”
“I think three to four liters is the minimum. A liter is… jeez, about 4 cups, give or take. I don’t know exactly. So that’s about 2 regular bottles of water per day per person, which means we have to hump in at least 42 bottles of water. And that doesn’t leave any for bathing, washing hands, brushing teeth…” Gideon turned Rei’s notebook around, turned to a new page, and started making a list.
“Holy cow…” Rei said. After a silent minute, she said, “Let’s think this through. Father Eduardo didn’t have plastic water bottles. He might have had a clay or leather canteen. When he first went into the cave, he wouldn’t have known it would take that long… and he got lost once, too, he said. So there’s no way he carried his own water in there. There must be fissures from the waterfall, or springs or something. There’s got to be! It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”
Gideon nodded slowly. “That makes sense. But Rei, that was four hundred and fifty years ago! Can we count on the conditions being the same now? That seems like a pretty big risk.”
“What if we hedge our bets? We get a couple of cases of water, and we leave them in the car. We carry, say, five or six each. maybe 10. If we find the cave, and are able to get inside, we can certainly go back for the water if there’s none along the way, right? And if there is, we’ll have the bottles to refill, and we wouldn’t have to do that too many times to make it.”
“That should work. But where does the water for the waterfall come from? Is it clean? In the States we could get tablets to put in water to make it reasonably safe to drink… maybe Mac needs to see if he can find some of those while he’s out. I’ll text him.” Gideon tapped out a text message while Rei searched the web.
“The water is from the Mandovi River. It provides water for Goa and Karnataka. I can’t find anything that says it’s polluted… But there could be parasites or things in it. So if he can find those tablets, that would be great. I don’t suppose we can boil it, so if we don’t find the tablets, I guess we just pray!”
They returned to the guest house, the back of the SUV laden with bags. On the way, Gideon had placed a call to Mr. Xavier. Their boss had been thrilled with their progress, but not very excited about their being out of contact for a week or more.
“If you don’t
hear from us in eight days, call the local authorities and tell them where we went. We will go to the closest town, Kulem, and stay tonight, and head to the Falls first thing in the morning. That gives us a week to get in, find it, and get out. It’s going to take more than the three of us to get out whatever’s in there, so we won’t do more than take some pictures, maybe make a map, before we head back.”
“Gideon, you and your wife are doing a great thing for my familia. I can’t thank you enough…” Mr. Xavier said, his voice heavy with emotion.
“No problem, boss. It’s been kind of fun.” Gideon disconnected and smiled at his wife, who was looking at him with her mouth open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They checked out of Mrs. Pandey’s guest house in the mid afternoon, telling her they would try to come back after they had explored the area, and they thanked her profusely for her hospitality and help. The drive to Kulem took two hours, over marginal roads that were still better the bests roads they’d traveled in Africa. In Kulem they found a guest house off of the main road, this one a lot more run down. Mac booked them two rooms, but warned them when he came back to the car. “One bathroom for all the guests, and this time it’s full up. No dinner, no breakfast. Looks like even getting coffee is going to be a pain.”
“We’re giving up caffeine for the next week anyway,” Rei pointed out. “Might as well start now!”
They drove to a local market and stocked up on high energy, light weight foods. They bought fresh fruit for the first day or two, but purchased dried fruit, dried beef, a nut paste that they assumed was similar to peanut butter, and roasted nuts. They bought paper goods too, reminding Rei of one of the less pleasant aspects of being in a cave for a week with two men. They stopped at a quiet side street and sorted their packs out. Lightweight sleeping bags. Memory foam pillows that squished down to the size of a large sausage. LED flashlights with lots of extra batteries. Whistles. Lightweight jackets, caps and gloves. A couple of changes of clothes and the few toiletry items they thought they might be able to use, even with limited water. Chamois for drying off in the event they were blessed enough to clean their bodies. A first aid kit. An extra bottle of ibuprofen. The bottles of water.
“I think that’s the best we can do,” Mac said. “Lift it up and make sure you can carry it.”
Rei lifted hers and put it on her back. She grimaced. “It’s ok standing here. But I don’t know if I can carry it for a week, even figuring it’s going to get lighter as we eat the food.”
Gideon took her pack and moved some of the water and heavier items to his. “Try it now,” he said.
She put it on and nodded. “Not gonna be fun… But this is ok. And we have the Advil, right?”
They stopped at a street vendor for a quick bite of grilled chicken on na’an, and went back to the guest house. Their rooms were next to each other, and the Quinns stopped while Mac unlocked his door.
“We haven’t seen our friends…” Gideon observed. “That makes me a little nervous.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too. At this point, I assume they want us to lead them to the prize. So they’re probably following us, and not pushing an encounter,” Mac said.
“Not much we can do about it, I guess,” Gideon said. “Just be on the look out.”
“Yeah, and there’s this,” Mac said, and entered his room. His suitcase was there, on the bed. He unzipped the large compartment, and then peeled back a section of the lining. He handed Gideon a large knife, one of two hidden there. “I had no idea how to get guns,” he said, “But I had a lot of knife training in boot camp. I assume you did?”
Gideon nodded. “Hopefully they couldn’t get guns, either… the old ‘knife to a gun fight’ problem. But I feel better having this, anyway. Thanks, Mac.”
Mac handed him a leather sheath that would slip on his belt. “Better get to bed. I think we’re not going to sleep all that well for the foreseeable future.”
They woke with the sun and were on the road in thirty minutes. They stopped at another street vendor and grabbed some buttered na’an, and decided a last coffee wasn’t such a bad idea. There wasn’t much traffic on the road, and they didn’t spot anyone following them, but Mac thought the monks could have stuck a GPS tracking device on the car. As soon as he said this, Gideon asked him to pull over, and they all looked under the vehicle for anything odd, but found nothing.
“Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Rei said. She was the only one without a weapon, but since she didn’t know how to use one anyway, that was probably for the best.
They drove the seven kilometers to the parking area used by the local tour company. They had purposefully gotten there well before the first scheduled tour, and backtracked down the rutted, bumpy, distinctly Africanesque road until they found a break where they could enter the woods. They drove parallel to the road, back towards the car park, until they found a clump of dense bushes, behind which they parked the SUV.
“At least it’s black,” Gideon said as they tried to cover it with vegetation. “I’m sure the rental company would be thrilled to know what we’re doing with their vehicle…”
“No problem. They have your credit card number, right?” Rei teased.
They put on their packs, covered the rest of their belongings in the cargo area with empty bags and strewn clothing, and hiked to the lot. From there, they followed the path that led to the lower tier of the falls. In twenty minutes they were looking up at the steep hill they were going to have to climb to reach the top.
“Oh my gosh,” Rei said, craning her neck. “I didn’t know it was going to be that high! It didn’t look that steep from the bottom.”
“I definitely don’t think we can go straight up it,” Gideon said. “For one thing, when the train comes, or when the first tourists come, they’ll be able to see us up there.” He looked around. “I think we can go back this way, and then cut around the side. If we do what we did at Lions Head, and try to angle up, it’ll be a lot easier.”
“Easier. Not easy,” said Mac. “But I think that’s all we can do. You’re right about being visible… no way to stay under trees all the way up to the top.”
“I’ll take easier any day,” said Rei. “Lead on, honey.” She adjusted her pack and tightened the strap across her chest.
Gideon took them back the way they had come for a few hundred yards, and then turned off the trail and started angling up the side of the hill that made up the base of the falls. It was still rough going, and the men kept Rei between them as they went single file so that they were able to help her, or catch her, as the need arose. None of them had on hiking boots, and their sneakers tended to slip and slide on the rocky parts. They clung to trees, went down on all fours, and worked up a sweat as they made their way ever higher.
As they came around the back side, they realized their only choices were go almost straight up, or go a long way out of their way towards the river feeding the falls, and then angle back.
“Can you do it?” Gideon asked Rei, looking at the shorter, steeper option.
“I think so. I’d rather do that than have to go all the way up there and back again. I hope we don’t need to be on the other side of the river, though… I hadn’t thought of that!”
“Me neither,” Gideon said. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge.. Uh, river… when we get to it.” He once again led the way, this time heading for the top.
It was very slow going. Twice they all started to slide downhill, and had to catch themselves on saplings. They rerouted to the side as much as possible, but it came down to crawling on their hands and knees, and pulling themselves up with anything they could hold onto. Rei was about to call it quits when Gideon slipped over a ledge and out of sight. He leaned over and gave her a hand.
“This is it! We made it!” he said.
When all three were up at the top, they leaned against a large rock in the shade and drank from their water bottles. They were sweaty and dirty, and Rei realized how long a week was
going to be without a bath, when they were starting out in such a state.
“Ok, boys. Let’s find our bishop’s mitre,” she said. She left her pack where she’d been sitting and walked out in the open where she could get a better view.
She found herself standing on a large, gently rounded rock, looking out across the falls. She was able to see down them a very long way. After a second of vertigo, she enjoyed the view and the sound of gently falling water. She understood now what Father Eduardo was saying about not coming in the rains, though. The rock on which she stood would be under water, and the sound would be deafening. The men joined her.
“So, anyone see a big hat?” Gideon asked, looking around.
They finally decided that they must not be in the right location to see a hat in the rock formations, and debated the best way to change perspective. Going straight down would be very dangerous, and could probably only be done successfully with rappelling equipment. They could go back the way they’d come and angle over to come out by the third tier. But looking at the falls from this angle, Gideon realized one thing. All of the tier ledges were on the opposite side of the water. The side they were on was a sheer drop to the bottom.
“We’re going to have to cross the falls. We either have to go all the way down, cross the railroad tracks at the bottom, and go up the other side, or figure out if we can cross the river up there somewhere,” he said as he pointed back to the river.
“The water is low right now,” Mac said. “But we have the problem of the packs. We really can’t get them wet…”
“And the current,” Rei said. “I don’t really want to get swept down there.” She glanced down the steep falls.
“Right,” Gideon agreed. “We’re already at the river, so let’s check that out first. If we have to go all the way down and back up the other side, this whole day will be shot.”
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