Eagle of the Empire

by Martin Ferguson

  I search for IV27 across the side of each craft, knowing it must be an identifier. Across the hull of one of the smaller boats, I find it, the craft big enough for around ten people with a large outboard engine at the back. The sight of black sloshing water around the boat halts me. The dizziness threatens, and my heart hammers in my chest as the fear threatens to overwhelm me. Think of Matt, I tell myself. He needs you.

  I untie the ropes, securing the boat to the jetty and then, summoning all the courage I have, jump on-board, cursing as I slip and bang my knee hard into the side. I stop and wait a few moments, ducking out of sight in case my crash-landing alerted anyone to my ‘borrowing’ of the craft. Peeking over the side, I see no signs of discovery, the door to Mike and Gillian’s house unmoving.

  The dashboard of the boat is, thankfully, vaguely familiar. My father, the great outdoors type, had taken Matt and I on regular fishing trips in a friend’s boat. I put the keys into the outboard and shift the lever straight up into the neutral position, remembering all that my father taught me. That was back when my fear of water didn’t exist, when I enjoyed swimming and diving. That was before I nearly died, and when my father was still alive.

  The engine is cold so I pull the choke out first. It doesn’t make for the quietest exit. I check the house quickly for signs of movement and pop the choke back in. The engine is now running smoothly and I guide the boat away from the shore with the throttle arm.

  With my free hand, I take out the larger flashlight from my rucksack, using its powerful beam to light the way. My printed map of the islands is now laid out over my lap. I instantly see why Mike was cautious of crossing the loch at night; masses of rocks rise out of the water unexpectedly with the tide, forcing me to veer the boat away several times. I should travel slowly but the need to find Matt overrules me and I urge the boat on as fast as it can go. I hear the hull grind against rock more times than I’d like, but no water floods into the boat and it’s not sinking, yet.

  To my left, I can only just make out a half dozen islands to the south, but my destination is northwards, at the very centre of the loch. I see it in the darkness, a land mass that grows with every moment. The island of Inchlonaig. Covered from shore to shore in trees. To the south, a few buildings are visible, cottages mostly which flank a small bay. I aim for the bay, seeing no other spot to moor up.

  Taking hold of the bow line rope, I jump ashore. Gripping the tree tight until the fear passes again, I slowly back away onto the safety of dry land. I tie the boat to the tree trunk, keeping it in the water without grounding, not wanting to damage Mike and Gillian’s vessel more than I already probably have. I will owe the couple for that, but hell, Matt can pay them, if I ever find him.

  There are tracks from the machinery and equipment, and from the looks of it, the cottages have been occupied lately too. There are rubbish bags outside, and dry wood by the door. But it’s abandoned now. I’m certain of that. You can just feel the emptiness. Following the tracks, I note they all lead in the same direction – towards the centre of the island.

  Taking out Matt’s journal, I flick to the page with Loch Lomond and Inchlonaig. I begin to decipher more of the page as I walk. It’s difficult. My brother’s encryptions were never easy to translate, especially in the gloom and when I’m trying to keep my footing. Amongst the letters, numbers, and symbols, I start to spot patterns. The words, HEART, BEEHIVE, WATER, and COIN rise from the maze. Seeing the word WATER sends a cold knot through my stomach and I dread to think what Matt meant by it.

  The last word is different, a solitary symbol, a bird with outstretched wings. I’ve never seen that symbol before in Matt’s writings, no clue as to what it means. Apart from that, there is little else; no clues as to the exact route or caverns Matt used. I will need to find him the old-fashioned way – by looking.

  I hear the movement of branches in the darkness, something big forcing its way past trees and bushes. At first I think I was mistaken earlier, and it’s part of the team Mike helped transport to the island. I duck down behind a fallen tree trunk, listening intently. I sigh with relief when I hear the sniffing of an animal, but then I’m gripped by new fear, remembering Gillian’s warning of the monster of the loch. A story that sounds childish in the cold light of day, but not now, not in the dark when you’re all alone.

  Backing away, it comes closer and at speed until it’s almost on me. I draw back my flashlight, ready to use it as a make-shift weapon. Horns burst through the bushes and I fall back, yelling out in warning, trying in vain to scare off the terrible beast. Laughter escapes my lips as a rough tongue licks my face. The terrible horns were not horns at all but antlers. The monster was no terror, but a deer – a really friendly one at that. I stroke the animal’s soft fur, surprised by the domesticity of the creature.

  ‘Jeez, you gave me a fright!’

  Our friendly moment is broken by the sound of an immense roar, horrific and bestial, from the far side of the island. The deer bolts, disappearing into the darkness as quick as it can run. I wait in silence, watching and listening. When I hear it again, I’m certain it’s closer. I force myself up and run at full speed, following the tracks until I enter a clearing and almost fall down into the vast crater at its centre.

  I am barely breathing. I listen intently but hear nothing. Calming, I begin to take in my surroundings, and the strange crater. The ground has been dug up to expose the entrance to the caverns below. Above the space are two entwined trees, the bulk of their branches wrapping together to form a heart shape. Maybe that’s what Matt meant in his journal by the message, BENEATH THE HEART.

  Around me, I see where men and machines have made their impact, clawing open the entrance to the caverns below and clearing the surrounding area. It looks ugly – hardly as if much archaeological care has been taken. There are hundreds of footprints, tyre marks and abandoned empty crates. Some of the equipment; ropes, helmets, and all manner of kits have been left behind too. Whoever those people were, they left in a hurry.

  Peering over the edge and into the darkness of the cavern, the flashlight penetrates the gloom. I look over the discarded equipment and break open a crate marked CHEMSTICKS. Inside are dozens of translucent plastic tubes, filled with fluids that when mixed by the cracking of the tubes, creates glowing light. In short, they are large glowsticks, not much different to those used in bars and clubs, not that I am supposed to know about that at my age. I stuff a dozen into my rucksack and crack another handful, throwing them into the cavern.

  Green, red, and blue lights shine from the tubes, giving the strange effect of a disco roughly a hundred feet down, the same as a ten storey building. It’s alarmingly deep and I find no proper abseiling gear amongst the abandoned equipment, but the lengths of rope I discover should do the job well enough. I take out my climbing gloves, enjoying a moment of smug satisfaction at my own excellent planning, before making one last sweep of my surroundings with the flashlight. I see nothing and hear no more of the monstrous roars from before. Tucking the flashlight into a pouch on my rucksack, and gripping the rope with both hands, I run and jump down into the cavern.

  The air whips past me, the sound deafening as I fall and my stomach lurching as the ground rapidly approaches. I can only pray that I haven’t misjudged the length of the rope. Thankfully, fear of falling is not on my list of phobias. In fact, I have to admit, I enjoy the ride. I come to a sudden stop mere inches from the bottom. Mission Impossible indeed. I smile. Reckless as always, as others would tell me. Anything to get the adrenaline pumping, my reply.

  I lower myself to the uneven rock floor and untie the rope from around my waist. The chemsticks bathe the cavern in their luminous light but they no longer look like a disco. They have taken on an ominous light, the reds making my surroundings demonic and hellish. All kinds of equipment is scattered around me. I have no idea what much of it is or what it might do, but it’s more evidence that my predecessors left in a hurry.

  Looking to the walls, it’s clear now what A
bbey meant by honeycomb, and also the meaning of Matt’s note, BEEHIVE. Across the walls are hundreds of tunnels, some barely wide enough for a rabbit to fit down, whereas many others a fully grown man could squeeze into. It’s clear from the markings on the walls and the outlay of the remaining tools which of the tunnels have been searched, but there are many remaining.

  Taking out Matt’s journal, I scan the page again, focusing on the line that mentions BEEHIVE. The letters, symbols, and numbers give nothing else to me, no clues as to which route Matt used, just useless information about the structure of the cavern, the composition of the walls, moisture levels and such. None of it helps me find my brother.

  ‘C’mon, Matt. I know you’d have left a sign,’ I whisper. I peer into a few of the tunnels with the flashlight. ‘Stop hiding from me. Hiding… a hidden message…’

  I remember the black lightbulb and Matt’s way of masking things in plain sight. Taking the bulb from my rucksack, I screw it into the flashlight.

  ‘Show me the way, Matt,’ I say, a grin growing across my face as I sweep the light across the cavern in the slowly dimming light of the chemsticks.

  There it is, on the far side, glowing luminously, UV paint marking an X at the base of one of the tunnels.

  ‘X marks the spot. Very cheesy, Matt.’ I laugh. He knew I would come for him.

  Using the tunnels below for footing, I climb up to the marked entrance. Unhooking the straps of the rucksack, I push it into the tunnel, knowing I can’t fit inside with it on my back. I draw a smaller torch from the pack before heaving myself up and into the tunnel after it, the space tight but just big enough.

  ‘I hope you haven’t put on weight, Matt,’ I say, struggling on.

  It’s slow going and my hands and knees hurt after only a few minutes of crawling in the stone tunnel. Pushing my rucksack before me is burning my arms. I’m already covered in cuts and scrapes where the harsh rock walls have caught my arms and legs. Spiders bigger than my fist scuttle across their broken webs.

  After what I guess must have been an hour, which has nearly broken me, my rucksack suddenly falls away from my grasp. I leap forward, leaning over the sudden end of the tunnel, and grab onto one of the straps just before it’s out of my reach and lost to the sudden cliff edge.

  ‘Nearly,’ I say, pulling the rucksack back to me. ‘Woah!’

  Beneath me there is an abrupt drop that ends roughly eighty feet down. At the bottom is a flowing river, cutting the vast cavern into two. My torch provides the only illumination and it falls on the far wall across the river. At the very back of the cavern, right in the centre, chiselled into the rock is an eagle, much like that from my brother’s journal.

  ‘MATT!’ I call. My echo is the only reply. I shout a few more times but hear nothing except the running river. With no clear way across, my heartbeat begins to increase. All that crawling for nothing – and yet, Matt had found a way.

  ‘One step at a time,’ I tell myself, peering directly down to the rocks below me.

  I look outside the tunnel for a foothold to begin my climb down but I am surprised to find to the right of me is a rope. It is secured to the wall by a piton hammered into the rock. Matt must have used it in his descent, but there is no sign of a harness. Cracking three more chemsticks, I drop them to the cavern floor below. At least I’ll not have to wrestle a torch as I’m swinging from the rope.

  ‘No worries,’ I say to myself as I grip onto the rope tightly and swing my legs around so that I can place my boots against the wall. ‘Matt would’ve hated this.’

  We all have our demons. Mine is water and his is heights. How had he managed to climb down from the tunnel? My brother was supposed to have spent his days in a stuffy office, not abseiling down rock faces.

  Loosening my grip, I begin to rappel down. My gloves quickly begin to heat up with the friction. Once down, I stretch out, glad to be free of the tunnel and on solid ground again. Above me, bats hang from the ceiling. Some are flying across the cave, swooping down before rising and returning to their perches.

  The hidden cave, the bats… I can’t help myself.

  ‘I. Am. Batman,’ I say loudly in a deep, menacing voice that echoes throughout the cavern. My dramatics disturb a few more of the bats.

  Turning towards the eagle, I cross the rocks towards the river’s edge, despite wanting to go anywhere but near the water. I struggle for footing; the rocks are slick with the river water which travels at a surprising speed. Taking deep breaths to try and banish the rising fear, I force my legs on, determined to get the ordeal over.

  I run from rock to rock and leap across the river to the far bank, landing hard on the far side and rolling with my momentum. I stop, teetering at the edge of a crevice. I didn’t see it before, and if I’d rolled another metre, I would’ve fallen into the dark water below.

  Dusting myself down, I stand, peering over the edge and feeling my hands tremor and heartbeat quicken as I see the water crash into the rocks beneath me. Across the chasm is the only way to reach the eagle wall. The gap is almost ten feet wide.

  ‘Matt, you had better be in here!’ I shout before whispering to all the deities that might be listening. ‘Please don’t let me fall.’

  I back up as far as I can then break into a sprint, yelling as I leap. I’m flying, but not enough – I reach out frantically as I start to fall. My fingers grasp the far edge and it’s only thanks to the resistance of my gloves that I am able to cling on. The ledge begins to crumble away and my grip threatens to go with it.

  ‘Noooooo!’ I’m slipping towards the rushing water. If I don’t act now, I’m going to end up dead. With one last effort, I reach out and pull as hard as I can, dragging myself, struggling for purchase on the wall with my boots. I heave myself up and roll forward, lying there, arms aching, panting for breath, my whole body tired.

  ‘No worries,’ I mutter to myself, closing my eyes for a moment to thank all the gods I can remember.

  I rise to stand before the eagle. Taking out the flashlight with the black bulb, I shine it over the walls; sure enough, there is another X marking the spot, right across the wall. It has to be some sort of door; there is no other way to go on.

  I step forward and the ground beneath my foot suddenly shifts. Without warning, a spear rises from the stone floor. I’m only just quick enough to avoid it, the iron tip ripping through the edge of my boot. It is sharp, deadly. Recoiling, another spear rises, then another, one tearing the flesh of my left arm, and another catching my rucksack. It pierces something inside and I hear damaged metal and glass but can’t worry about that in this moment. Diving away from the wall, the spears only stop when I am at the edge of the crevice again.

  ‘Somebody didn’t want intruders,’ I tell myself, feeling blood run down my arm and to my fingertips. ‘Thanks for the warning, Matt!’

  I pull off my jacket, more annoyed that it has been torn than by the injury. I am always disappointed when something of my father’s is damaged. A crimson patch has already grown around the spear’s puncture, but there is nothing I can do about that now. Tearing off the sleeve of my shirt, I tie the material tightly around the wound at my arm. The cut is deep but doesn’t hinder my movement. The make-shift bandage stems the flow of escaping blood. I scrutinise the ground and see dozens of small circles, which have been revealed by my footsteps moving the dust-covered ground. Pressure triggers and spear traps.

  ‘Matt, how can you possibly be mixed up in all this?’

  Looking closer at the spears, I see they are ancient, the spearheads rusted but still sharp and deadly.

  ‘Great. I’m going to need another tetanus shot,’ I say, looking at the rusted iron and then to my wounded arm. ‘Matt, if you’re in here somewhere, I’m warning you, I’m not happy!’

  No reply. It’s then I notice other prints in the thick dust; a different tread to my own.

  ‘Matt’s route.’

  With the utmost care, I step into his prints. Some are very close to the triggers, others to
o close to the water’s edge for my comfort. Backing away from the crevice, I accidently catch one of the triggers with the toes of my boot, a spear rising and stabbing into the air an inch from my face. Too close. Far too close.

  Pushing on, I narrowly avoid two more of the traps before I reach Matt’s final steps. Face to face with the eagle, its intricate carving becomes more apparent. Below its wings, faded with time, are the letters SPQR.

  ‘Roman,’ I remember from some distant part of my memory, initials for a Latin phrase. ‘The Senate and People of Rome.’

  There are no further footprints. I push against the wall but it does nothing. I inspect the wall carefully, looking for another way through, but my eyes are again drawn to the lettering beneath the eagle. SPQR. The centre of the Q is deeper than the rest of the carving. I place my fingers inside, feeling for a mechanism of some kind.

  ‘C’mon. Matt managed to figure this out,’ I taunt myself.

  I look around, inspecting everything, even the floor and its triggers again. Then I spot something, a single, circular piece of metal not dissimilar to a coin. Leaning over, I stupidly reach down and pick it up. A spear rises from the floor, which narrowly misses my outstretched hand.

  ‘Nearly needed a change of underwear.’

  I run my fingers over the deep notches along its edging. Not a coin but a key. On one side, an eagle, an exact duplicate of the one on the wall. On the other, a faded stamp, ‘Property of the British Museum’. My hand trembles with excitement as I place the coin into the hole of the Q. It locks into place. Turning it causes the entire wall to shudder. It’s a door; I was right. I’d move back if I could but any step would set off more of the spears. The mechanism churns, ancient levers and cogs still working. I advance cautiously, the door still rising behind me. My sore arm is a warning not to be too foolhardy.

  I shout out my brother’s name, swinging the torch from side to side over the chamber. It is full of stone caskets; on top of each one is armour, weaponry, and coins, which I recognise as Roman. The caskets are not big enough to store bodies, more like large urns to contain ashes and possessions. Across the summit of each casket, chiselled into the stone, are Latin words and phrases; names and titles by my guess. Across every single one is the large carving of IX, the Roman numerals for nine.