The Second Sleep

by Robert Harris

  Shadwell had already reached the lip of the crater by the time they caught up with him. They all four peered down over the edge. It was ten feet deep, a shallow inverted cone. At the bottom, the exposed concrete was split by a fissure perhaps two feet wide, the jagged edges pointing upwards slightly and held together by rusted metal rods.

  Fairfax realised his hearing was returning. Birds were calling in the woods. But still nobody spoke. They were transfixed by the black crack and the darkness below it. Hancock was the first to move. He sat on the side of the crater and pushed himself off, sliding down the loose soil until his boots touched the concrete. He braced and leaned over the hole.

  Fairfax called out to him. ‘What can you see?’

  When he did not reply, Fairfax followed his example and slid on his back down to the roof of the chamber. The metal rods, each a half-inch in diameter, were embedded in the concrete a hand’s breadth apart. Bent upwards in the middle, they formed a barrier similar to the bars on a prison window. It was impossible to make out anything in the darkness beyond them. The concrete was a couple of feet thick. The force required to shear it must have been colossal, Fairfax thought. He would not have imagined that even twelve barrels of blasting powder could have caused such damage. He searched around for a small stone and dropped it into the abyss. It clattered onto a solid floor.

  He shouted up to Sarah. ‘Can you find us a saw?’

  ‘And a ladder,’ added Hancock. ‘And torches. And rope.’

  The saw, when she threw it down to them, at first made so little impression on the metal that Fairfax feared they were doomed at the last to be denied their prize by a half-inch of rusty steel. But Hancock was determined, and after a few minutes he had cut through one of the rods very close to the concrete. He kicked at it with his boot; it did not bend. He set to work on the other side. When Fairfax offered to take a turn, Hancock answered with a shake of his head. The last shred of steel gave way and the bar dropped out of sight and landed with a clang. Hancock set to work immediately on the next.

  Thunder sounded in the distance. It started to rain again.

  The saw was blunted. The second bar took longer. But when at last it fell away, Hancock had created an aperture two feet long and eighteen inches wide, just big enough for a body to pass through.

  Sarah passed the ladder down to them. Hancock lowered it through the hole and leaned in after it. Fairfax held on to his belt to stop him falling. The ladder was stout and heavy, seven or eight feet long, but even so it seemed to be either too short or Hancock too exhausted to manoeuvre it properly. He twisted and turned, grunting with the effort, and then it slipped out of his hands. Fairfax heard the crash and the sound of the captain swearing. He hauled him back.

  Hancock said, ‘No matter. We can use the rope.’

  He untied the coil, paid out a length into the hole, and tied the other end to one of the metal rods. He tested the knot, sat on the edge of the opening and dangled his legs. His hands grasped the rope above his head and he lowered himself into the space. It looked to Fairfax to be too narrow for him, and for a minute or more he seemed to be stuck at the waist, wriggling like a man trapped in quicksand, but then slowly he started to sink. His chest passed through the gap, his shoulders, and then very quickly his head and arms, and he was gone. The rope snapped taut. He landed heavily, with a cry of pain.

  Fairfax leaned over the hole. From within there rose a strong, cold smell of mould and lime. He could just make out the figure of the captain, crouching. ‘Are you all right, Hancock?’

  ‘Aye.’ The voice rang hollow off the concrete walls. ‘A twisted ankle, nothing more. Drop me a torch.’

  Sarah called down to Fairfax, ‘Is he safe?’

  ‘So he says.’

  She slid down the side of the crater to join him, and so did Shadwell, coming to rest in a spurt of mud. It was raining heavily now. Water was running off the slopes of soil and pouring through the aperture.

  Fairfax dropped a torch and Hancock caught it. They heard the rasp of a match being struck, and then the soft whump of the pitch catching fire, followed by a gasp of shock. They craned their necks, but the thickness of the concrete restricted their field of vision to a faint orange glow.

  Fairfax said, ‘What can you see?’ There was no reply. ‘Captain Hancock? Can you see anything?’

  A long silence.

  ‘I have not the words.’

  They looked at one another. Fairfax said, ‘I’m coming down.’

  ‘And I,’ said Sarah. They turned to Shadwell.

  He nodded. ‘If it is my last act on earth, I shall rest happy.’

  Fairfax called down, ‘We all are coming.’

  He tested the rope, then slipped off the concrete and eased himself down into the gap. The fit was tight, even for him. The sharp edges scraped against his back and stomach. He experienced a moment of panic as he lifted his arms and clutched the rope, pushed himself free and committed himself to the drop. His body was too heavy, his grip too feeble. The rope shot through his hands. He had a flash of memory – of the pall-bearers dropping Lacy’s coffin into his grave – then he let go and fell six feet to the floor. As he struck it, his legs gave way and he crumpled.

  His hands touched earth then concrete. He was lying on his stomach across a jagged wide crack that seemed to match the fissure in the roof, as if the ground beneath the foundations had been shifted by the explosion and the subterranean structure snapped. He pushed himself upright. The chamber was large, about fifteen feet square. He had dropped through a corner of the ceiling. In the opposite corner was a metal door. At first, until his eyes became used to the dim light, he thought the walls were painted – dappled in patches of red, ochre and light brown – and that time or damp must have damaged the surfaces. But then Hancock held out the torch and he saw that the different-coloured patches were in fact drawings of hands – hundreds of palm prints, the fingers spread wide. Where one ended, another began. The density conveyed an impression of shrieking panic – of a crowd reaching up out of an inferno, clawing for air and light.

  Fairfax said, ‘It is like a painting of Hell.’

  ‘Aye. And what devilry is this, d’ye suppose?’

  Hancock was standing by a small table in the middle of the chamber – the only furniture in the bare room. Candlesticks were set on either side of it, like an altar. Frozen drips of yellowish wax had melted on to what must once have been a cloth but was now nothing more than dust and a few colourless threads. Between the candles was an empty picture frame of tarnished metal, propped beside a thicker piece of rotted material that had disintegrated into a mass of feathers, like the carcass of a bird. On it lay what Fairfax thought at first was a large coin but then saw was a medal of some kind, almost three inches across, with fragments of ribbon still attached. Hancock seemed reluctant to touch it, so Fairfax lifted it up.

  It was remarkably heavy for its size, nearly half a pound. He rubbed it, and the gold began to gleam. Hancock held the torch closer. On one side was a pagan goddess, on the other a man’s bearded profile. Latin inscriptions ran around the edge. Fairfax turned it to read them: Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes and REG. ACAD. SCIENT. SUEC. There was a name and date beneath the bearded man: ALFR. NOBEL NAT. MDCCCXXXIII OB. MDCCCXCVI. And another name was also inscribed: P. MORGENSTERN MMXIX.

  Sarah called down, ‘May we join you?’

  At the sound of her voice, Hancock scowled.

  Fairfax retrieved the ladder from where Hancock had left it lying on the floor, and with some difficulty, for it was heavy, swung it into place. The top just reached the opening. He shielded his face from the rain and shouted up, ‘Throw more torches!’ There was a pause and she dropped three. He caught them, one after the other. ‘Use the rope to help you.’

  The sky was blotted out as she climbed through the gap and put her foot on the first rung. Fairfax held the ladder steady. Hancock carried away the torches and began to light them. Sarah came down slowly. Fairfax held out his hand
to help her the last few feet, as if assisting her out of a carriage, then looked back up to the opening. ‘Dr Shadwell? Can you manage it?’

  Shadwell’s head appeared, then vanished, to be replaced by a pair of tiny feet. They waved around blindly as he tried to find the ladder. Finally, he connected and began to descend. Halfway down, he missed his footing and swayed out, clinging to the rope. Fairfax was certain he must fall. But somehow he found the strength to haul himself straight, and with painful deliberation he came down the rest of the way. Fairfax wondered how they would manage to get him out again. But Shadwell seemed unconcerned. He took a torch from Hancock and moved around the walls to examine them.

  Fairfax also took a torch. With four now burning, the chamber was suddenly bright, the walls more vivid. ‘Well, Mr Shadwell? What do you make of it?’

  ‘Remarkable. Remarkable.’

  ‘How did they build such a place?’

  ‘They did not build it. Such chambers were constructed by the state, for the purpose of defence. They must have occupied it.’

  ‘And the hands?’

  ‘I have seen similar designs in a book describing primitive peoples who dwelt in caves – ten thousand years before the ancients.’ He put his own hand over one of the images. ‘Left hands mostly, do you see? They placed their painted palm upon the wall and then used their right hand to hold a pipe to blow more paint around it, thus creating the effect.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘How can we know? In a world where there was no longer ink and paper, it was perhaps their way of telling some future generation they once existed. And here we are, at last.’ He surveyed the walls. ‘It seems to have been a colony of some size. Children, too.’ He glanced at Hancock, who was cleaning the medal. ‘Now what is that?’

  Hancock bit it, inspected the tooth marks, then handed it to him. Fairfax said, ‘It was arranged on the table, on a bed of feathers – once a cushion, perhaps – with candles and an empty picture frame.’

  ‘Solid gold,’ said Hancock. ‘Five thousand pounds’ worth, or thereabouts.’ He turned to Sarah. ‘Ye have got what ye came for, Sarah Durston. The treasure to restore your fortunes.’

  Shadwell took off his spectacles and held the medal close to the torch so he could translate the Latin. ‘“They who bettered life on earth by their newly found mastery” … It is Morgenstern’s prize for physic. And the bearded man must be that Nobel, who gave it. Your courage is rewarded, your ladyship.’ He presented it to Sarah. ‘But do not have it melted, I beg you. It’s too rare for that. Now let me see the picture frame.’ He took it from Hancock and examined it with the same care he had bestowed on the medal. He turned it over, fumbled with it, prised off the back and withdrew a piece of shiny stiff paper. ‘It appears blank, Mr Fairfax, but it is not. The ancients recorded lifelike images on such paper, but the portraits lasted only two centuries or so before they faded to nothing. And yet I believe there is still the ghost of a face to be seen …’

  He offered it to Fairfax. Now that he studied it closer to the flame, he saw that there was indeed perhaps the misty outline of a head, but the features had entirely disappeared. ‘Morgenstern?’

  ‘Yes, presumably. That tells us something. Whoever arranged the chamber would not have taken the trouble to set up a blank portrait, so we may date this place to within two hundred years of the Apocalypse – probably much earlier. It seems they made a cult of the man who had led them to safety – he was their Moses after all. It is possible this is his burial chamber.’

  Sarah said, ‘Then where is his body?’

  ‘This antechamber may have served as the shrine. The body is most like beyond that door.’

  It was the first time they had paid attention to it – heavy and rusted, with a wheel for a handle. Painted on it in faded yellow, just discernible, were the words GAS-PROOF ROOM. Above it was a concrete lintel. Letters had been carved into this as well. Fairfax held up his torch. ‘There is something written here, in Latin.’ He pronounced the inscription slowly as he made it out. ‘Mal … maledictus …’

  ‘Cursed,’ said Shadwell promptly.

  ‘Maledictus … qui … intrare … hic.’

  ‘“Cursed be he who enters here.” It is a quotation, again from long before the ancients’ own time, that was placed upon the tombs of rulers.’

  A brief silence.

  Sarah said, ‘Perhaps the warning should be heeded.’

  ‘What nonsense is that?’ sneered Hancock. ‘We have come so far – a man has died. Surely we’re not to be stopped at the very last by a childish superstition? Shadwell, Fairfax – do ye agree?’

  Shadwell said, ‘Of course. I set no store by curses.’

  ‘Fairfax?’

  He glanced at the door. ‘I agree.’

  ‘’Tis settled then.’ Hancock spat on his hands, seized the wheel and tried to turn it. It would not shift. He growled through his clenched teeth as he tried again. His neck turned red and bulged with the effort. His growl became louder. Something metallic cracked. He stopped and unbuttoned his coat, wrapped it around the wheel for a better grip and set to work again. Gradually, in tiny increments, it began to turn. When he had moved it as far as he could, he put his coat back on and tried to push the door open with his shoulder. Nothing happened.

  He said, ‘Rusted solid. Stand clear.’

  He retreated a few paces, turned and ran at it. The whole chamber seemed to shake. Fairfax wondered how he didn’t break bones. He went back and charged it again.

  Sarah said, ‘My God, John, you’ve cracked the ceiling!’

  They all looked up. A thin black line ran all the way across the roof.

  Fairfax said, ‘It must have been there before.’ But it seemed to him that the whole structure was shifting slightly.

  Shadwell said, ‘I did not see it.’

  Hancock mocked them. ‘That roof is two feet thick! D’ye think I’m Samson, bringing down the temple?’

  This time he took an even longer run-up, and when he smashed into the door, the metal yielded part of the way. A pattering of soil dropped from the ceiling. The crack had widened to an inch.

  Sarah said, ‘This is not safe. We should all get out.’

  She took Fairfax by the arm and tried to pull him towards the ladder. But he resisted. ‘I want to see what lies next door. You go.’

  ‘I’ll not go without you.’ She looked desperately from him to the ceiling and then to the ladder. ‘Please, Christopher – it is not worth it.’

  Suddenly the shaft of light at the top of the ladder darkened. The woodwork quivered. A pair of black boots appeared and began a cautious descent, feeling for each rung with care. It crossed Fairfax’s mind to lunge for the ladder and pull it away. But his legs refused to move. A black uniform came into view. Then a thick leather belt festooned with manacles and a truncheon. Then one black-leather-gloved hand clutching the ladder, and another holding a pistol. And finally the bearded face of Axford’s chief sheriff.

  ‘All of ye – stay still!’ The command was shrill and edged with fear.

  As he reached the ground and trained his pistol on them, another pair of boots appeared above him and a second sheriff descended, followed by a third, and a fourth. They drew their weapons and formed a line, cutting off all chance of escape. After them came Quycke, shaking with terror. He kept his eyes on the ground and shrank into the corner.

  Shadwell cried out. ‘Oh Olly, Olly – what have you done?’

  ‘Quiet!’ The chief sheriff struck him in the face with the barrel of his pistol. The old man yelped with pain. The sheriff stepped back a pace without taking his eyes off his captives. Standing at the foot of the ladder, he shouted up to the surface. ‘It’s safe now, my lord.’ He steadied the ladder.

  An elegant shoe caked with mud checked its footing. Then a long black cassock came into view, and a pair of hands, upon one of which glinted a large episcopal ring, followed shortly afterwards by the long white melancholy face of Richard Pole, Bishop of Exet
er.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  In which the quest is ended

  FAIRFAX FELT SARAH take his hand. He glanced at her. She was staring at the bishop. He wondered if he would ever be allowed to see her again. The thought was unbearable. After a moment, she let go of him.

  The chamber, which had once felt empty, now seemed crowded by the presence of ten bodies. The sheriffs stamped their feet to knock off the mud. Behind them the rain continued to fall.

  No one spoke while the bishop walked around the walls, torch in hand, examining the paintings. At last he stopped in front of Fairfax, who had to struggle against the instinct, born of long habit, to go down on one knee and kiss his ring. He remembered Shadwell’s description of the bishop’s visits when he was in prison. This was what he enjoyed. Toying with his victims.

  ‘So, Christopher,’ Pole said affably, ‘you do not kneel, I notice. Dr Shadwell.’ He nodded to the old antiquarian, who was clutching his bloodied cheek. ‘It has been a long time since we talked. Captain Hancock. Lady Durston.’ He bowed. ‘You see, I know you all well.’ He gestured to the chamber. ‘Well then. What do we have here, Dr Shadwell?’

  Shadwell took his hand from his wound and somehow managed to stick out his chin in a show of defiance. ‘Morgenstern’s ark, my lord – long believed in, long sought for, now discovered.’

  ‘But is this all? It cannot be!’

  ‘There is another room – most probably more than one.’

  Hancock said, ‘I have just at this moment broken through to it, my lord.’ He sounded uncharacteristically deferential, as if the bishop was a merchant who might be bargained with and they could sort it all out man to man. He turned and touched the wheeled handle.