Solomon's Throne

by Jennings Wright

  Mac’s backpack was on a pile of gold chairs ten feet from where the monk stood. His light didn’t illuminate it fully, but he saw it and walked slowly over. He took it by a shoulder strap, and lifted it. Suddenly he fell backwards, a gold arrow stuck in his right shoulder.

  Gideon and Mac both turned on their flashlights and ran to the monk. They had not wanted to kill any of the men, but not knowing their height or build they had assumed ‘average’ all around and aimed the arrow accordingly. The man was lying on his back with his arms spread out, the backpack still clutched in his right hand. His left hand clumsily tried to reach the knife at his hip, but Mac put his foot on it, and took the knife away.

  “Mac, I’ll tie this guy up, and then we’ll handle the other two. If they’ve come to, I don’t want you having to deal with them alone.” Gideon took out the remains of a sports bra that had been cut into strips, rolled the man on his side to bind hands behind him, and tied his feet. He stuffed a sock in his mouth. He looked at the arrow, but knew it was best not to try to remove it, or risk exacerbating the bleeding.

  They made their way back to the tunnel entrance, and stopped short. The two men were gone.

  “Crap!” said Gideon.

  “At least…” mumbled Mac.

  Gideon stepped close to Mac. “I don’t want to lead them to Rei, and she knows to stay quiet as long as she’s ok. They had to either go back down the tunnel, or towards to treasure. They hadn’t seen anything else. If we turn off the lights and wait, we should hear them eventually, if they’re still in here.”

  “If they went down the tunnel in the dark, they’re either idiots, or they have more people or supplies somewhere down the line. I’m hoping they’re still in here, and there’re not more of these nut jobs back there,” Mac said.

  “Agreed. So we check the throne first,” Gideon said.

  Mac nodded. “Lights off. Twenty seven paces dead ahead.” He clicked off his flashlight, and Mac followed suit.

  They walked quickly and quietly, twenty-seven paces, then each turned forty five degrees to their respective outside wall, and walked five paces. They stopped. Waited. The soldiers knew that their training made them patient. But they also knew, Gideon in particular, that life in a religious order had made their opponents patient, too. What they hoped was that the two younger men would be disoriented and scared without their leader, and would either resort to calling out for him, or try to find him and make enough noise to pinpoint their location.

  Time dragged on. Gideon thought of Rei, sitting alone in the dark, not knowing what was happening. He prayed for her, and prayed that they would get out of this hateful tunnel alive. Periodically they could hear the injured monk shift on the ground and moan off to their far right. Then there was a small sound, from behind the throne. A little shuffling noise, not long enough to follow. Quiet. Mac thought about the area where the sound seemed to be coming from. There were gold chairs piled haphazardly all along the back of the throne.

  Crash!

  Mac and Gideon both snapped on their flashlights and ran, one around each side of the throne. They saw the two younger monks on the ground, entangled by upturned chairs. They freed themselves just as the older men rounded the corners, and looked indecisive. One turned to run into the darkness, the other took a stand to fight. Gideon and Mac drew their confiscated guns and pointed them at the monks.

  “Don’t,” Gideon said.

  When they had the two men tied up with the sports bra ribbons, Gideon called out. “Rei! Are you ok?”

  “Oh, thank God! Yes!” she yelled. “Are y’all?”

  “We’re both fine. We’ll be a little while longer. Sit tight!” He breathed a sigh of relief.

  They walked the monks to the throne, and tied them to the base of it with strips of a windbreaker. While Gideon made sure they had no other hidden weapons and couldn’t get free, Mac went to get the leader. He walked back, half carrying, half dragging the man, who even in the LED light looked ghostly pale. The arrow was pulling his chest down toward the ground.

  “He lose a lot of blood?” Gideon asked.

  “Not too bad. He can’t afford to lose much more, and I’m sure he feels like crap, but right now I think he’s stable. Not sure what we’re going to do about this arrow though. If he can make it back through the tunnels, which I doubt, he isn’t going to fit through that opening under the falls with three and a half feet of shaft sticking out of him.”

  “I was hoping it would go clean through,” Gideon said. “But I don’t know what else we could have done other than dropping a rock on him with a deadfall. Then he’d be dead or trapped, and we’d be in a worse mess.”

  Mac looked at the men. “They don’t have packs. Must have left them back in the tunnel somewhere. I really hope they don’t have friends with them…”

  “We’ll look in a few hours. I want to get back to Rei, and we need to get some sleep.”

  Five hours later they ate breakfast and checked on the men. Rei tried to speak to the two younger ones in Portuguese and in English, but they prayed quietly and didn’t acknowledge her. The older man drifted in and out of consciousness, brow sweaty, and in obvious pain.

  “Can’t we take that arrow out?” she asked Gideon “He has to lie on his side, and that gold is so heavy it’s pulling down on both sides.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t see any choice but to remove it. You’re not supposed to, and he might end up bleeding to death. But it seems like our other option is for him to have to stay in here and starve to death, because he can’t possibly make it out with that in his shoulder. Mac, you up for it?”

  “Not really,” Mac said, making a face. “But I think you’re right. It’s going to be hard enough to get all of us out of here before we’re out of food. He’s going to slow us down either way, but I don’t see how we even start with that arrow still in him. And we should probably worry about infection, too.”

  Rei got the first aid kit and one of Gideon’s tee shirts. Mac took one of his own tee shirts from his pack. They studied the monk, who was barely conscious.

  “Mac, you’re going to have to pull it out the back. We can’t pull that arrow tip back through. I think I can get the flights off, so it’s a pretty smooth ride out.” He plucked the finely made gold feathers out of the shaft. “OK, so I’ll hold him down, and you pull. Rei, you be ready with the shirts. Put one on his back, and we’ll lay him down quick, and then put the one on the front and I’ll kneel on it, try to put pressure on both wounds at the same time.”

  Rei looked ill.

  “Babe, can you do it?” Gideon asked.

  She nodded, and gripped the tee shirt in her hand. Mac wrapped his tee shirt around the arrow tip in case his hands slipped down the shaft as he pulled, and grabbed the gold with both hands. Gideon straddled the monk at his waist, and pushed down on the side of his shoulder. The man groaned.

  “Ready… Set… Now!” Mac said, and heaved the heavy shaft. The monk screamed, and then passed out. Mac landed on his backside with a crash. Rei paled, but stuck the tee shirt under the monk’s shoulder, caught the tee that Mac tossed to her, and put it on the flowing blood on his front. Gideon pressed down with his hands as he rearranged his stance, and then knelt down on it.

  No one spoke for several minutes. The two younger monks were on their knees, heads bowed, hands tied behind them, murmuring prayers. Finally Gideon risked a look under the tee shirt.

  “It’s not too bad on this side. Gravity is helping us. Can you tell if the one on the bottom is soaked, Rei?” he asked.

  “Hand me the flashlight,” she said. “OK, roll him a bit.” She shined the light on the tee shirt. “It’s red, but it’s not sopping wet.”

  “We’d better keep pressure on. Mac, can you spell me?” Gideon asked.

  Mac came and they quickly switched places. The monk was sweating and moaning, but didn’t seem to be getting any worse, which was encouraging.

  “Let’s look underneath,” Rei finally s
aid. Mac got off the man’s chest, and Gideon rolled him gently to the side. Rei looked at the wound. “It’s ugly, but it’s just barely leaking blood. I think if we can somehow sew it up, he’ll be ok.”

  “Sew it up?” Mac asked incredulously.

  “Watch this…” Gideon said as Rei took the flashlight and ran back to their original encampment.

  She returned with her backpack, and unzipped a small front pocket. She removed a tin box and held it up triumphantly. “Ta da!” she said.

  “And that is?” Mac asked.

  “She doesn’t go anywhere, ever, without that sewing kit.” Gideon said. “Her mama drilled that into her from a tender age. You never know when there will be a sewing emergency.” He laughed, enjoying the release of tension.

  “I’ve never sewn up a person, and this is just regular thread, so I don’t know how well it will hold. I’ll double it, of course. And I think it’s gonna hurt like hell,” she said with a frown.

  “He’s out, basically. Just do it now. We’ll hold him down.”

  Rei tackled the wound on the front first, using the antiseptic from the first aid kit. After some thrashing around, the monk seemed to fall into a deeper state of unconsciousness. She found that if she thought of his shoulder as an inanimate object as she sewed it helped, but she still felt vaguely sick. When she was done, they bandaged the wound and gingerly turned him over. She repeated the process on the back.

  “Well, that’s it. We can give him ibuprofen when he wakes up, but that’s about all we can do for him,” Rei said. She looked up and saw the young monks looking at her with stoic expressions, and smiled at them. “We could all use something to eat, I think.”

  To allow the young men to feed and otherwise attend to themselves, they untied their hands, but tied one’s right to the other’s left. They tied the joined hands back to the throne’s base. All of them ate sparingly of crackers and nut paste, chased down by water. The men drifted to sleep shortly afterwards, leaning against the golden throne.

  Gideon decided that he would take Rei and back track into the tunnel looking for the monks’ gear. They would need to pool their resources for the journey back to the waterfall. Mac agreed to stand guard over the prisoners. The Quinns found the stash about five hundred yards down the tunnel, three large black backpacks full of military rations, water bottles, ammunition for the two guns, batteries and communications equipment. There was a minimum of toiletries and changes of clothing.

  “These guys humped in a lot of stuff!” Gideon said as he hefted one of the packs.

  “I guess they didn’t know about Jonah and the three days,” Rei said. “We’ll have to split the everything up from the third pack. The two younger guys can carry their own.”

  They took one, but left the other two backpacks where they found them. They could get them on the return journey, when the young monks could put them on. Gideon felt a lot better knowing how much food they had, as he suspected their trip back was going to be greatly slowed by the injured man.

  They spent the rest of the day photographing the throne, chairs, and the small pots of gold and gems that they found under the seat of the throne itself. Rei used her iPhone and a flashlight, and Mac and Gideon also did their best to illuminate the site for her. She also took copious notes and made detailed drawings, adding dimensions.

  “I don’t know how they got this in here, or how Mr. Xavier will get it out,” she said.

  “My guess is, there’s another way in. This cavern has other tunnels besides the one we came through. Father Eduardo found his way in because of the Templar’s journal, but the throne had been here long before the Templar found it. With the right supplies and safety equipment, they should be able to find the original entrance,” Gideon said.

  Mac agreed. “Unless there was a rockslide a lot of years back, that stuff sure as hell didn’t come in through the waterfall. That rock face seemed solid to me. So there’s got to be a cave or mine entrance somewhere. This isn’t man made, so somehow the people who hid it here already knew about it.

  “I wonder who it’ll belong to?” Rei mused. “India? Israel? It’s probably going to be a big mess.”

  “Mr. Xavier’s big mess. We found it, but he can deal with it. I hope we get a bonus, though!” Gideon laughed.

  They spent a final night in the cavern. The injured monk was able to drink some water, but he couldn’t swallow any of the dried food or thick preparations of the MREs. Rei mixed some nut paste into the water, making a very bitter drink, but at least he got some nutrition. By the morning, he was able to stand up unassisted, although he was very shaky.

  After breakfast, they packed everything up, donned their backpacks, and headed down the tunnel. The young monks retrieved their own packs, and their hands were retied in front of them. Mac walked behind them with the gun, and Gideon and Rei helped the leader. Their progress was painfully slow, as the injured man needed frequent breaks.

  At the end of the first day, they had gone barely half the distance they needed to travel to be able to exit in three days. Secured to a stalagmite, the monks ate and drank, still not speaking, even among themselves. The Quinns and Mac sat off to one side.

  “We need to move faster,” Gideon said.

  “How?” Rei asked. “He can’t go faster.”

  “I think we’re going to have to leave him. We’ve got enough food and water to leave some here with him. If we get back to civilization quickly, we can have help for him sooner than we can get him out of here at this rate,” Gideon said.

  “I agree,” Mac said. “We leave him food and water and a flashlight, with extra batteries. We can have someone back to him in four days if we bust it.”

  Rei looked stricken at the thought of the man having to stay alone. But she saw that they were right, and slowly nodded.

  The next morning Rei explained the situation to the monks in Portuguese. “We’ll send someone back, I promise. It will be faster this way.”

  The leader nodded, but the two younger monks began to protest, “Nao podemos confiar-los! We can’t trust them!”

  The leader looked for a long time at Rei, and then nodded again. “Penso que podemos… I think we can.”

  “I will stay with you, father,” one of the young men said.

  “Yes, Eli, that will be fine. Thank you.” He turned to Rei. “It appears that we have misjudged you. We have been searching for so long…” He closed his eyes. “I would like to tell you why.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Our brotherhood was started by a distant grandson of Paul’s scribe Achalichus in the third century. He had become a priest, and was a secretary to a powerful bishop. By that time the Church had amassed much wealth, but there was a power struggle among those clergymen who sought personal wealth and those who sought the furtherance of the Church. When our founder realized what the significance of an old letter handed down without thought through generations, and that the letter undermined the entire claim to legitimacy of the pope’s, he gave it to the embattled Pope, who used to solidify power. He founded a secret order charged with the protection of the letter.” The monk seemed to draw strength from his story, but he still spoke slowly, softly.

  “Why didn’t he just destroy it?” asked Rei.

  “The letter was written by Saint Paul himself! No good Christian would dare destroy such a thing. But he saw that, if the contents of the letter were to become known, the influence of the church in Rome would be diminished by those seeking only to grow wealthy, not live by her teachings. He felt that he could not let that happen, and allocated funds to recruit a few young men already in training for religious life. They were given the name Congratio a Achalichus, the Society of Achalichus, and a charter similar to other monastic orders: chastity, poverty, allegiance to the Church. And the perpetual task of protecting the letter. When the Templars looted their monastery in the early thirteen hundreds they found the letter. Thus began our eight hundred year quest to return it. We have continued to be funded as a long
lived, but small order. We do not demand much from the Vatican, and our small budget is never questioned. We try to do good works in our community outside of Lisbon, but we have become soldiers in recent decades under our late abbot, Lucius. As he got older he was increasingly obsessed with finding the letter and returning it to the Society’s protection.”

  “But the letter was never made public. It might even have been destroyed, for all you knew. I don’t understand why you needed to get it back,” Rei said.

  “I do not either, looking back. I have been in the Society since I was seventeen years old. Since his death, I am now Abbott myself. I never thought to question him, or his obsession. He knew about the Xavier family. It has apparently been passed from abbot to abbot that Father Eduardo became Joao Xavier. All of the sons of that family have been watched since he returned to Lisbon is 1689. His home was searched many times, as was his business, and all of the Xaviers’ homes and businesses since that time, to no avail. But the real obsession was the suggestion of treasure. A brother had written a letter in 1685 to the abbot, mailed to him from Goa, that the priest had disappeared. But when he reappeared as Joao Xavier, he had suddenly become wealthy. Our order knew of the Templars and their treasure hoards. The Templars were alive and well in Portugal long after they had been wiped out elsewhere.” The monk fell silent, eyes closed.