“Here's what they'll say,” he said, drawing out the crowd’s anticipation. The gathered listeners leaned forward visibly, waiting for the punchline.
“Nothing!” The Fallen King laughed heartily at their crestfallen reactions. “Sorry! Their whole empire meant nothing.”
Several people muttered angrily and turned to leave. One woman pointed at him and laughed aloud. I pursed my lips in irritation. This was the great prophet of Ealdwic, providing sage answers to all of its secret questions? His revelations left a lot to be desired in my book.
I scuffed my shoe against one of the cobblestones and looked down. There was a faint image of a mural in the stones. What was so special about these stones? Could the mural really be a relic from Roman times, right out here in the middle of the street, unprotected from the ravages of foot traffic and weather?
Huh. Maybe there was something to what the Fallen King said.
The cobblestones were a dirty tan, but the image seemed to hold a circular mural of some kind of animal. It was too faint to make out. I examined the edge of the decoration, which filled most of the space of square we were standing in, and could just make out the faint impression of words. Was there a Latin inscription here?
The Fallen King carried on with his rant, but I ignored him as I stepped around the mural slowly, looking at the inscription on the stones. There was “maximus” on one stone. That meant something like “big,” I think.
Making a full circle around the mural, I finally pieced together the whole phrase: “sub maximus arbor ille flevit dixit inferius sicut superius.”
Not that it did me any good. My Latin was mediocre at best. I was pretty sure “sub” meant under, and “arbor” meant tree. That would make the first part “under big tree”? Maybe “inferius” and “superius” meant lesser and greater? What did the whole phrase mean?
So much for my great investigation to prove my capabilities at being an agent. Stymied in the first half hour by a lack of Latin. Ugh.
I was going to have to figure out where to find a Latin dictionary before I could learn any more. I knew the Templar Library was somewhere in the Court. It was more famous than the Innsmouth Academy library, and I definitely planned on visiting it at some point.
I could run up there right now. Was it open on a Saturday? Would someone let me in? I thought back to my adventures with Gypcie at the Innsmouth Academy. She had chastised me time and time again about running into things half-cocked, with no clear strategy. Was this one of those times? Argh. I didn’t know what to do.
My shoulders slumped. I was pretty sure I needed to think this through a little more carefully. Maybe I could ask Brigadier Lethe about the Library on Monday, but without alerting him to my little investigation. I gritted my teeth. Waiting was not my strong suit. Why didn’t I have a cell phone? Google would have the answer to this.
I looked up at the Fallen King, still preaching, and realized that behind his make-shift pulpit lay the entrance to Ealdwic Park.
With resignation, I decided that I’d go explore the park instead. It was something to do today that was unlikely to get me into too much trouble. The investigation, like my initiation, would have to wait.
I stepped around the gathered crowd and moved through the ornate, wrought-iron gates into the park. It contained the expected greenery: trees, shrubs, and grass. It seemed to be a large square park, the size of a small city block. In the center was a wooden stage made out of old pallets and boxes. Someone had created an ad-hoc “castle” that acted both as scenery and backstage area and had spray-painted “CAMELOT” in large red letters. Red cloth banners, intended as pennants, hung around the castle and stage proper.
It was sort of impressive in a thrown-together way. I imagined that Shakespearean troupes did performances here in the summer evenings. A couple of people sat on the side of the north end of the stage, so I moved to the southern end to afford them their privacy. Looking south, I could see my apartment window and the Albion Ballroom. This was a small borough, but it might as well have been Trafalgar Square for all the people I knew. I looked back around at the edge of the stage and noticed a massive oak tree growing behind it. It towered over the park, lending shade to most of it. If there was ever a big tree needed, this was the one.
Still feeling a little sorry for myself, I decided to sit for a bit under the tree on one of the boxes that comprised the stage. Ravens cawed in the tree branches, scolding one another. In the distance, I could hear a light-rail train passing by on its tracks above the city. A gentle breeze blew, and the leaves whispered overhead. I could smell the damp soil beneath the Spring lawn. It reminded me of making my way through the crevice in the rock to the Agartha portal.
Which made me think of Innsmouth Academy and Gypcie and Carter. And Ms. Usher and Renee. And even Headmaster Montag. Before I knew it, tears were rolling down my face. I was homesick, and I was throwing myself a pity party.
Abruptly, the cawing of the ravens stopped, and the park went still. My breath caught. What was this? I wiped the tears from my eyes as I strained to listen through the unnatural silence.
Then, the sound resumed. The wind picked up above me, diving down from the branches and whirling around me. I could actually see the air movement in a golden light, flowing like a party streamer. The magical breeze pulled at me, tugging on my blouse and hair, urging me to follow where it wanted to lead. It drew me in a southeastern direction, back out onto the May Queen Market, past The Horned God and the fish & chips place. When I got to the small Post Office, the pull changed, dragging me down a small alley, ominously named “Warlock Stairs.”
As advertised, down a set of stone stairs the alley led, and I followed. The breeze pulled and pushed me toward its destination, gold streamers flowing past my face and down, down. I passed another small shop on the left and went down another staircase. The streamers took a left turn into a high tunnel made of brick, with an arched ceiling overhead. Was this part of an old Roman aqueduct?
More likely it was a modern-day sewer, I mused, as I continued to follow the streamers. So much for not jumping in blindly. But this was too wild to ignore. I couldn’t turn back now any more than I could throw my picture of Richard Sonnac in the trash.
A deep hum filled the tunnel, the sounds of the city itself above me. Water dripped from the ceiling and plopped onto the brick pavers every few seconds. It was damp, but not wet, so I continued my pursuit of the streamers. The tunnel sloped down before it let out in a wider area. Here there was a small river of water flowing, but a walkway had been created above it with metal grates fastened at the edge of the tunnel walls. Probably for city workers to access the tunnels, I thought. I stepped out onto the grate nearest me carefully, but it seemed stable, so I continued along chasing the golden streamers.
What was it that they wanted to show me?
I turned left again into another small side tunnel and jogged after them a few yards. The streamers came to a stop before a door, and the wind stopped pulling at my hair and shirt.
Was this where they wanted me to go?
I could hear the noisy racket of a portable generator behind the closed door. I was probably about to give some poor city water employee a startle, but I wasn’t about to give up now.
The door was locked.
Argh. Stymied again.
I turned away, disappointed. All that magic, just to be led to a locked door? I stomped my foot in frustration and started to trudge away. A small wicked voice in my head mentioned that it wouldn’t stay locked for long if I hit it with a little chaos magic.
Hmm.
I hunched my shoulders and looked around. No one was here to see me. I shouldn’t do this but…I couldn’t stand it. Gaia’s magic had led me in, and now I wanted to see what was behind the door!
Moving back to the entrance, I reached into my backpack and pulled out my Chaos focus. I concentrated on it for a moment, focusing my Will, then cast some entropy at the lock. A couple of sharp jabs with my fist to deconstruct the
lever and bang, the lock sprung, and the door swung ajar. I put my Chaos focus back in my pack, pushed open the door and went in, pulling it closed behind me.
Stepping through the threshold, I could immediately smell dust and dirt, and feel a dryness which was strange after all the water in the tunnels. Large commercial lights and a water pump sat inside the door. I could see that someone had excavated the old brick wall of the shaft, revealing an older stone tunnel beyond.
I paused. This looked purposeful, like some kind of archaeological excavation. I knew that London was actually the modern name for the Roman settlement Londinium, which was built in the same spot two thousand years ago. Over the years, people had piled their household garbage, building rubble, and animal waste and built the modern city on top. There were digs all over the British Isles to uncover the hidden history.
Could that be what this was? I would be in all sorts of trouble if someone caught me down here, but I pushed that aside. A Templar agent wouldn’t be afraid to investigate a mystery. Besides, I was too engrossed with what might lay ahead.
I stepped through the makeshift threshold and onto the wooden pallets the archaeologists had laid down to secure footing into the dig. The entrance led to tunnels dug out of the earth and stone, reinforced in spots with chicken wire to prevent sloughing. The excavators had suspended wires along the sides, connected to modern lanterns. Boxes and scaffolding stood along the walls. Down and down the tunnel wound until it opened into a sort of amphitheater.
A stone facade of a Roman building—some kind of temple?—had been dug out of the dirt and muck. Five tall Corinthian columns stood at the top of a graceful set of stairs. Behind it, a square doorway signaled the start of the building proper. I stepped inside and discovered an electric lamp that pointed toward another breached wall behind it.
This area had not yet had the extent of excavation and renovation. I picked my way across the rubble. The older building still stood and looked like I could enter it. Giant spider webs covered the passage, and I shuddered as they stuck to my face and hair. I didn’t want to know how big the spider that made that web was. At the end of the passageway was another set of stone stairs, leading even deeper underground. These again appeared to be part of the older building. Flaming torches were fastened to the wall in antique sconces. Curious. How come there weren’t electric lights? How were they even burning? Who lit them? And, they were lit, illuminating the stairwell.
I saw movement to my right and stifled a shriek.
Oh. My. God. It was a freaking familiar. Hadn’t I dealt with enough familiars already after coming from Innsmouth Academy?
Argh. I stomped my foot in sheer irritation.
Familiars were an all-too-common magical construct, with pale, animated bodies that could perform simple tasks for the person who made them. Their bodies were acquired—stolen by some enterprising grave robber—and prepared by taking a small, spiked chisel to the corpses’ brains to destroy the former personality and then imbued with the creator’s Will to animate them. We had learned to make them at Innsmouth Academy by coating them with a reagent to preserve them, which made them very shiny.
This one was not shiny, but instead dull and dirty. Its skin was also darker than the ones I was accustomed to seeing, like it was made of old leather. It was hard to guess how long it had been down here. The hostility of the academy’s familiars fresh in my mind, I reached into my backpack for my chaos focus and prepared to fight, my heart racing.
Chaos spells at the ready, I watched it for a few minutes. It was wiping an area of the wall over and over, like a faded and forgotten caretaker, lingering over its task. Finally, I calmed myself and realized that it was paying absolutely no attention to me. It didn’t give a damn what I was doing. And, most likely, it would leave me alone as long as I didn’t try to stop it from doing what it was doing.
Hmm. Did that mean its creator was still alive somewhere? At least, it seemed, something still had it under control.
Fair enough. I’d let sleeping dogs lie.
Leaving the creature where it was, I put my chaos focus back in my backpack and headed down the stairs. In front of me at the bottom was a round circular hole in the floor, covered by an ancient iron grate. I guessed that it had provided ventilation or aqueduct access to the original building, similar to the access tunnels above, but I was not about to walk across this centuries-old grate to see if it could hold my weight. I edged around the side and progressed deeper into the structure. I was quite far below the Earth at this point, and it was quite cool, like a natural cave. Shivering, I regretted my short-sleeved blouse with the open midriff.
Two more lingering caretakers wandered the hall toward me, making their customary hisses, squeaks, squeals, and squawks. They were yawning and humming away, the little buggers. Yep, these were definitely someone’s familiars, but they seemed to be a more docile variety than those that were running amok at Innsmouth Academy. One of them walked past me up the stairs. The other dug in a pile of rubble in the hall in front of me. It seemed distressed like it was trying to put the rubble back where it belonged. I glanced up, noting that was up in the ceiling somewhere.
Oh great. I was deep underground in a collapsing Roman temple with a bunch of animated maintenance monsters. And there was another massive spider web covering the hall. Who knew what manner of creepy crawlies scuttled and slithered around down here?
Yuck!! Maybe Gypcie did have a point about me jumping into things without thinking them through.
Why was I here again? I scowled at the caretaker. That’s right. I was investigating on my own, and I was not afraid of spiders, snakes, or familiars.
More torches ahead illuminated a closed set of doors and what appeared to be a T-juncture to a hall. The lights flickered, teasing me with the secrets the temple might hold.
Excitement leaped inside me. Nope. I was not turning back now.
I stepped to avoid both the caretaker and the spider web, hopping over and around the rubble to advance to the juncture. I spotted a recessed circular mosaic of small tiles in the center of the floor and got down on my knees to take a closer look at it, positioning myself so I didn’t block the dim light quivering from the sconces. The shadows were deep, so I moved my face close to see what was pictured there.
Ugh! My lip curled at the horrid looking face as it revealed itself to me from the shadows, fashioned in the center of the mosaic, decayed and gaunt, but with curly golden hair and a lighter yellow halo or sun rays of a sort behind its head. Holes gaped in the eye sockets of the face, and an actual sword had been stabbed down between its teeth.
The whole effect of the image of the face was skull-like, but with an unsettling touch of youth in the golden hair. Below the image, I could make out the name “Sol Invictvs,” inlaid with small tiles to look like a scroll.
This was probably that guy’s temple back in the day. Yeesh. I hoped he wasn’t still in here somewhere.
I looked more at the recessed bevels of the mosaic. They looked like they could move up and down. I reached down and touched the sides of the mosaic. I could feel small scratches on the inner bevel of the stone that framed the face. I touched the socket holes where its eyes should have been. Were those holes intended to hold something? Shuddering, I removed hands and dusted them off.
I shook my head at myself. My imagination was running away from me. I’d seen too many Indiana Jones movies.
Still, the face was puzzling. Stepping back into a crouch, I pulled the sword out of the mosaic’s mouth, and then immediately decided that it had looked better with the blade in. Some craftsman two thousand years ago had taken the time to insert tiny tile teeth into that mouth with a rectangular slot between its lips.
Creepy.
A passage I remembered learning from the Book of Revelations crawled unwelcome into my mind, “And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He will smite the nations.”
I looked at the sword I’d pulled out. This sword didn’t seem to be in any shap
e to smite nations; it was broken beyond repair. And wrong pantheon anyway. The architecture and style suggested this was a Roman temple, not a Christian one, as far as I could see.
Still, a chill ran down my back.
I shrugged it off and moved over to a nearby torch for more light. Holding the sword up to the flame, I could see the hilt of the blade had a glyph engraved on it that looked like the planetary symbol for Mercury, the god of thieves and tricksters. Well, that confirmed Roman deity worship. Mercury was also the god of communication and words, I realized with a shudder. I might not be out of the woods on that smiting thing. I wondered when the sword had been placed in the mosaic’s mouth and to what end. Curiouser and curiouser.
I broadened my view of the area. As I suspected, a hall extended to the east and west of the mosaic, although it was not well lit in either direction. To the north of it was a set of ornately carved stone doors. I could see a seam that indicated they opened, but who knew when that last was. The whole area was cool and musty and lit only by the few torches high up on the walls. The floors were in shadow.
I stepped around the side of the mosaic toward the doors in front of me.
CLANK!
I looked down and stifled a scream. On the floor was a metal shield, attached to the very decayed skeleton of a Roman centurion, its skull covered in a bronze helmet with cheek guards. It had been hidden in the shadows. And I’d just kicked it.
My heart raced. I couldn’t tell what scared me more, the skeleton, or the noise. I was in so much trouble if someone caught me down here. The centurion looked long dead, but I was certain a fully dressed skeleton in situ was a pretty significant archaeological find. I was contaminating the area just being here. Why was it even still here? What kind of shoddy archaeologists would leave such a find exposed to the elements?
Shaking my head in irritation, I pushed on the stone doors. Nothing happened. Judging by the dust on the floor in front of them, they hadn’t been opened in years, maybe millennia. Wiping my hands on my jeans while juggling the broken sword, I turned back to the mosaic and jumped in fear as I saw a naked body moving down the hall behind me. Adrenaline shot through my body.
London Underground: An Unofficial Legend of The Secret World (Unofficial Legends of The Secret World Book 2) Page 9