He gave one vast heave, which lifted Mac up enough for Gideon to grab the shoulder strap. One more pull, and Mac was scrambling on his side, holding Gideon’s wrist, pulling himself up.
They all lay on the floor, panting.
“Oh my God,” Rei finally said. “Oh my God.” She started to cry. “Oh my God!”
“I lost my flashlight,” Mac said.
They knelt well away from the edge and Gideon and Rei shined their lights along the ledge and below. Across the chasm there was a small waterfall flowing down from somewhere high up, landing in what sounded like a pool of water. It was too far down to see. There was no water on their side of the chasm.
“We’re not filling our water bottles here,” Gideon said.
“No, and I’m damn glad I didn’t come down here alone last night,” Mac said.
“Don’t even say it! That was awful,” Rei said, squeezing her eyes closed.
“Well, we should head back. We still have to find the X, and the right tunnel. Hopefully that was all the excitement we get for today.” Gideon stood, stretched his shoulders, and put on his backpack.
Shaking his head at his folly, Mac followed suit. Gideon helped Rei up and held her pack for her to slide into.
“All buckles all the time,” he said. The others agreed.
Thanks to the glowing green smears on the wall, they had no trouble finding their way back to the central cave.
“At least we know it’s not that one,” Rei said, looking around at the other two tunnels. “I know he left a mark. He always left a mark. We’ll just have to look more closely at these two and find it.” She headed to the tunnel on the right.
The three of them searched the walls and the floor around the right tunnel entrance, and went a dozen feet inside the tunnel, before deciding to try the other one. Near the entrance to the left tunnel a stalagmite had slowly formed, looking like a column. They had to squeeze around it to look at the wall, part of which was obscured by the column of hardened mud.
“Nothing,” Gideon said.
“Nope,” agreed Mac.
“There must be. He wouldn’t have taken us this far and then stopped. We know we came the right way to this cave, because there was an X only a few yards from its mouth. What if there’s another of those really narrow ones, like the one we came through behind the waterfall?”
This perked the men up, and Mac took one flashlight, and Gideon and Rei the other, and they began to search for a smaller opening in the rough walls. Rei walked ahead in the pool of light and looked behind every outcropping or jagged rock.
“Here! It’s here! Well, something’s here… Shine the flashlight in there, Gid,” she said.
Gideon shone the light and Rei looked in. “I can’t really tell for sure, but it looks like an opening… Should I go in?”
“Wait a sec,” Mac said. “There’s no X out here anywhere. I’d rather not split up, even on the other side of a rock wall, until we’ve found the mark. And if we don’t find the mark… I think we have to call it a day. At least until we can come back with more supplies. We could die in here without those Xs to guide us out.”
“He’s right,” Gideon said. “I think we have to know for sure… We can’t afford to lose another flashlight, or a person—the last time we didn’t follow an X was shaving it way too close.”
Rei nodded, and stepped back from the rift. They all resumed their search, ending back at the left tunnel. Nothing.
“This isn’t right. Let’s think this through. He said he’d left marks all the way to the Throne. The last marked tunnel led to this room. So there must be a mark in here somewhere,” Rei said.
“There’s not. We’ve looked everywhere,” Gideon said, sitting back on his heels.
Mac shone the light around randomly, thinking. “Wait. What if…” He got up and went to the stalagmite and looked at the wide bottom, which was formed to the wall. “What if this stalagmite has formed here since Father Eduardo made the mark. What if the X is on this wall,” he rapped the rock, “but we just can’t see it anymore?”
“Brilliant!” Rei exclaimed. “And we’ll know if we go down the tunnel because there either will or won’t be another X.”
Gideon stood up. “Great work, Mac!” He clapped him on the shoulder.
“Let’s wait til we find the next X to get too excited,” Mac said, but he smiled, happy to redeem himself.
They decided to go down the tunnel to see if Mac’s deduction was correct, but in either event, they would return to the open room for a meal and a pit stop. They walked two dozen yards, each flashlight scanning a wall, and there, on the right, was an X. They did high fives and laughed, but their relief was deep. The weight of being underground wasn’t so bad as long as they were following in the Templar’s and Jesuit’s footsteps. Being at a dead end made the rock seem heavy and the tunnels more claustrophobic.
After an hour of rest, they returned down the tunnel and carried on. The rest of that day was uneventful, and they had decided to stop within the hour, when Rei stopped and cocked her head.
“Listen! Do you hear that?” she asked.
The men listened, but shook their heads. “Nope, what?” Gideon asked.
“Water!” she said.
They hurried forward, and this time the water was right in their path, a small stream trickling over the rocks on the left and hurrying across the slightly slanted floor to disappear through fissures on the left. The little bed was a couple of inches deep, the water cold and free of smell. They all knelt down and splashed their hands and faces, letting water run over their arms.
“I didn’t find any purifying tablets,” Mac said. “Should we worry?”
“I’m not. We need water, here’s water. We’ll die without it, so we just have to hope we don’t die with it!” Gideon said, angling his empty water bottle as best he could into the flow.
It took a good while to fill the bottles, as the trickle wasn’t strong and the stream wasn’t deep. But when they had all drunk their fill, and replenished the bottles, they felt much better. Another hour hike brought them into a small cavern, and they decided to camp there for the night.
“Sometime tomorrow we should find it,” Rei said as she smoothed out her sleeping bag. “The Throne of Solomon. I can’t believe it!”
“What I can’t believe,” said Gideon, “is that those monks haven’t caught up to us yet. I’ve been listening—I haven’t heard anything. But they’ve got to be following us. I can’t believe they gave up, or that we were somehow so good that we lost them.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Mac said. “If it were me, I’d let us find the treasure before doing anything. After all, we’re doing the hard part, almost falling into crevasses and figuring out that lost X. There might be more of those tomorrow, none of us knows til we get to the Throne. That’s when the real danger is, if they’re back there somewhere.”
“You guys are real party poopers, you know that?” Rei asked.
“Yeah. But we’ll get there first, anyway. Probably a good bit ahead, too, since we haven’t heard anything. That should give us time to make some preparations, at least. Not much else we can do. I can’t see us all making it out of here without a confrontation—we’re going to have to cross paths sooner or later,” Gideon said.
“Great,” Rei grumbled. “I’m sure I’ll sleep really well now, wondering if Gollum is on our tail.” She flopped down on her back and jammed her foam pillow under her head, crossing her arms over her chest.
Despite her protestations to the contrary, Rei did sleep well. They all woke early, and completed their morning meal and ablutions quickly. Regardless of the coming confrontation with the Congratio a Achalichus, today they would find the Throne of King Solomon, and their excitement was mounting.
By lunch time, however, they had found nothing but more tunnel. Twice they had come to rooms with more than one passageway, but the X was always clear, and they didn’t get lost. They found another stream, this time with
a basin worn in the rock which made it easier to fill the bottles, and that made them feel refreshed. They ate their dried fruit lunch sitting in a line in a tunnel, drinking the cool, delicious water, not talking.
At four o’clock they still hadn’t come to the throne room, and all three were beginning to have misgivings. What did they know about this Jesuit, anyway? He’d obviously been here, but what if it was all a huge practical joke? They weren’t worried about finding their way out, but behind them somewhere there was probably a band of angry monks, who were certainly armed, and crossing paths with them in a six foot wide rat hole didn’t seem particularly appealing.
At five o’clock they were completely dejected. Not finding it today meant extra time in the warren of tunnels and caves, and while they did have enough water, they didn’t have a whole lot of extra food, and even less extra patience. Their feet hurt, they’d already changed the batteries on the flashlights twice, and the lack of the natural day and night pattern of the sun was making them cranky.
“Let’s quit soon,” Rei said. “I’ve had it. I’m sick of these tunnels.”
“I agree. By six?” Mac asked.
“Works for me. This day is dragging on forever,” Gideon said.
They trudged on, no one speaking. Mac was unofficially in charge of the time, as he had the most sophisticated watch, so the Quinns left it to him to tell them when it was time to think about setting up camp. They both just walked, Rei in front of Gideon, heads down, thoughts wandering to good food, sunshine, the beach, good food…
Suddenly Rei stopped short, and Gideon bumped into her backpack. “What?” he asked, frustrated.
“Look!” she said, and pointed the flashlight ahead at shoulder height. Something flashed in the light, just at the outer reaches of the beam.
“Come on!” Gideon said, and grabbed her hand. They jogged forward, shining the flashlights alternately ahead and at the uneven ground. The tunnel gradually opened out into a huge space, and they stopped.
There it was, in front of them. The Throne of Solomon. There was no mistaking the magnificence of it, or the greatness of the king that had ruled from it. The seat itself was at the top of six steps made of gold. On each side of each step was a golden animal. The throne glittered with precious gems. Over the throne was a gold menorah and a golden dove. There was a large golden chair on either side of the throne, and stacks of smaller chairs within the reach of their flashlight beams, also seeming to be gold.
Mac took his flashlight and began to circle around to the left, looking at the chairs, and the throne. Rei and Gideon walked slowly to the front, Rei examining the gold sculptures on the steps: lion, ox, wolf, lamb, tiger, camel… They were exquisitely and realistically formed, with jewels for eyes, and ivory teeth. Examining the seat, she realized it was ivory covered with gold.
“This is just…fantastic!” she said to Gideon. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”
Gideon stepped on the first step. As he did so, they heard a mechanism start. Gideon froze.
“What’s that?” Rei whispered.
“I don’t know…” Gideon said, standing still. Mac came running around to them.
“What’s that?” Mac asked. Both Quinns shrugged, eyes wide.
The ox and the lion on the first step began to move. Both stretched out a leg, which Gideon used for support to the next step. When he put his weight on that step, the wolf and the lamb did the same thing. Tiger and camel. Eagle and peacock. Cat and rooster. Hawk and dove. He turned and sat on the seat, and heard the sound of another set of gears.
Rei pointed over his head, and he looked up. A gold hawk from somewhere above was descending with an elaborate crown in its talons. It stopped inches from his head, and stayed there.
“Incredible…” he breathed.
The three set up camp in the corner of the cathedral sized room, away from the treasures themselves. Rei would have stayed up all night exploring, but the men were cognizant of the danger behind them.
“They’ll be as stunned as we were at first by the Throne, Rei. That’ll slow them down. And they’ll expect us to be near it, so we need to be over here, away from the reach of their flashlights when they first enter the cavern,” Gideon said.
Rei stayed at the camp, alone in the dark, while Gideon and Mac set up diversions and traps with military precision. She could hear them murmuring, and every once in awhile something banging. Beams of light shot up and out at random intervals. She felt very alone and vulnerable, and sat with her knees up and her arms crossed in front of them, tense and watchful.
After an hour they returned. “Let’s eat quick, and take care of any bathroom issues. I want to get the lights out for good as soon as we can, and Mac and I will pull watch duty, four hours on, once we’re ready. I don’t want anything to give away our position with Rei over here, so we need to be quiet, and dark. Got it?”
Rei nodded, and quickly got out dried beef, dried fruit, and some semi-crushed crackers, along with water. They ate in silence, washed up, and then made the world dark.
The cavern was black. Totally and completely without light, the only sounds those of the Quinns sleeping nearby. Mac had done watches at night in boot camp, and thought he knew what dark was, as well as loneliness and fear, but pulling watch in this cavern was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. The good news, he mused, was that unless the monk bastards had night vision goggles, he’d see their flashlights long before they got to the huge cave. If they had NVGs… Well, best not to think about that. He pushed the button on his watch for the hundredth time, the blue light illuminating the dial. Only halfway through the shift. He leaned his head back on the wall.
His mind was wandering, thinking about wide open skies and grilled steaks and maybe getting a massage to work out the kinks he’d collected sleeping on the rocky ground, when his eye detected a very faint change in the light. It was still too dark to see his hand in front of his face, and at first he thought he was imagining things, but no, there was a slight warming of the monotonous dark at the tunnel mouth.
He shifted slightly and toed Gideon. He could feel the man’s body tense as he sat up, and he hissed ever so softly. Gideon crawled towards him, and put a hand out, touching his knee. Mac leaned over, close to his head.
“Light.” He felt Gideon nod once, then crawl away.
Gideon felt for his wife, and then leaned over her, putting his mouth next to her ear. “They’re coming,” he whispered. “Stay here.” She nodded, and he kissed her, and went back to Mac.
Both men had a knife in a sheath on their belt. Both had a flashlight in their jeans pocket. Mac had a long branch, which appeared to be made of gold, but wasn’t heavy enough to be solid metal, that he had found near the throne. The end wasn’t sharpened to a point, but with enough thrust it would penetrate. Gideon had gold arrow, which had a lethal tip. He had found no bow, and they had assumed the arrow was either ceremonial, or that the bow had been made of wood and was long since decayed.
They stood, shoulder to shoulder, as they watched the light slowly grow brighter. When it was still a mere inkling, their adjusted eyes could see enough to move forward towards the tunnel mouth. If there were more than four monks coming, the odds were against them, although they still had some surprises, and the benefit of knowing the layout of the cavern. If the monks were armed with guns, and they didn’t act quickly enough, they didn’t stand a chance.
Judging by the rate with which the light increased, the men were being very cautious. They had been smart to plan their attack for the wee hours of the morning, but were taking no chances with noise or a sudden burst of light, which, after so much darkness, would be as startling as a gunshot to their quarry. Gideon and Mac stood still, one on either side of the tunnel mouth, aware that any noise they made seem loud in the absolute stillness.
As they had hoped, the monks entered from the narrow tunnel in single file. The first one came into the space, swinging his light side to side, still walking forward. He stopped shor
t as his light illuminated the throne and surrounding treasure. Behind him, two other men came in and stopped, gaping, at the mouth of the tunnel. When no further man appeared, Mac and Gideon lunged at the two in the rear.
Gideon put his left hand over the monk’s mouth and pressed hard on the carotid artery in his neck. The man dropped in five seconds, without a word, and Gideon lay him quietly on the ground, removing his flashlight and feeling for weapons as he did. Mac had done the same with his man, and they both stepped quietly back into the shadows.
The lead monk said something softly in Portuguese. “Voce pode acreditar nisso?”
When no one answered, he turned back and saw his men on the ground. He didn’t go to them. He shone the flashlight around in a wide arc, and then snapped it off.
Neither Gideon nor Mac had seen night vision goggles on the monk, so they assumed that he was feeling his way slowly and quietly towards the treasure in the dark. He would have to turn on the light eventually, as he had no idea of the layout of the cave beyond the throne, and even if he wanted to retreat, he couldn’t do it blind. Gideon and Mac had counted off paces to strategic locations in the cavern, and each made their way to their next vantage point. Gideon was worried about the two unconscious brothers reviving, but they had removed their flashlights and guns. There would be nothing for them to do but sit tight and wait.
When Gideon reached his spot, a large rock to the right of the throne, he whisked his hand over the top. The quiet “shhiish” sounded loud in the silent cavern. Gideon quickly stepped off thirty paces backwards, and dipped down behind another rock outcropping. He heard the monk stumble, and then the light clicked on. The man shined it in the direction of the sound, and then down at his feet. He picked his way carefully, putting the light on a low, almost night light, setting. He got to the rock, and looked around it cautiously.
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