Vespucci watched as Elara uncovered a map she’d sketched before their departure. “This is the path I followed before. It led me deep into the mountain. I was within sight of the queen’s nest before I was captured. Anything we encounter between here and there will be random patrols. Do not hesitate. If they are within your sight, attack. If you can hide, do so.”
“And if they sing?”
Elara retrieved two circular buds and handed them to Vespucci.
“Place these in your ears. They will block out all sound, so keep your eyes open.”
Vespucci nodded. Elara hated to think so much was relying on this man, but she had no choice but to work with him now.
At length they crept through the winding tunnels, staying mute as they stole past archways that forked in untold directions, into untold gloom. The torches that lit the way were few and far between, making the passageways even more treacherous.
After several dizzying turns, the roughly trodden path began to slope downward so steeply that Vespucci nearly stumbled off a crag before Elara grabbed him by the scruff and pulled him back. He nodded in thanks before continuing.
Thrice they managed to avoid patrols hastening by. Once a siren paused a dozen feet from the bolder they were hiding behind. It raised its snout, and its large, porous nostrils sniffed the air. Elara tightened her grip on her sword as the creature’s black eyes scanned the cavern. Mercifully, a call beckoned, and the siren trudged on. Once it was gone, Elara put a hand on Vespucci’s back and felt it wet with sweat. She might have felt pity for him then, but she kept remembering the look in Columbus’s eyes right before he stepped into the Void. Regret. Yes, he had betrayed her. He had failed to ask the Fates how to save her people. But with that one look, she knew he would have done it differently a second time around. What she wouldn’t give to have him by her side to find out.
At last, they came to a crossroads where four tunnels branched off in opposite directions. The most foreboding of them bore a set of narrow stairs descending deeper into the mountain. Vespucci stopped when he heard a sound coming from a tunnel. It sounded like moaning, though it was most likely the wind. Elara pushed him down the passageway until it opened into a cavern with a vast gorge. The source of the noise turned out to be a towering underground waterfall that cascaded from unseen heights down to a rock-filled river far below. In the middle of the gorge was a rope bridge. Two sirens stood guard on both sides.
Elara pulled Vespucci into a narrow fissure before pointing to the ornate archway on the opposite side of the bridge. He removed one earbud, and she whispered, “The nest lies just beyond.”
“Four guards, maybe more. How do we get past them?”
Elara looked around. Outside of the rope bridge, there was only one area where the two sides came close enough to cross. An outcropping just in front of the waterfalls.
“There,” she said.
Vespucci’s eyes ballooned. “Are you mad? We can’t—”
Elara wrapped a hand over his mouth and pulled him down as a patrol of sirens passed overhead. They were so close Vespucci could hear their razor-sharp talons scratching the rocks at their feet. The blood drained from his face.
Once clear, Elara crept along the outer rocks, closing in on the waterfall as its spray wet her face. When they reached the precipice’s edge, Elara determined the distance was farther than she’d judged. She strapped the sword to her back, steadied herself, and leaped. She landed hard on the other side, feeling the sting of rock bite into her chest, hips, and legs. Still, she made no sound. Once secure, she waved Vespucci across.
Vespucci stepped to the edge and looked down. A mistake. The cavity pulled him like a magnet, and he lurched back. He was about to slink away when he noticed the princess had nocked an arrow. It was turned to the side, but she was looking at him. Taking several deep breaths, he readied himself, closed his eyes, and jumped.
Vespucci landed hard just where Elara had, but his foot slipped on the wet rocks, and he started to fall. Elara grabbed him, his body twisted and the belt holding his sword fell. It slid through his fingers, clamoring loudly as it bounced off rocks until it mercifully splashed into the water below.
Elara winced as the sound echoed through the cavern. She knew Vespucci was in a precarious position, but she waited before pulling him up. A few seconds later, a flicker of light glowed above. Elara squatted down, forcing Vespucci to hold on for dear life as water sprayed over him.
When the torchbearer neared, Elara released Vespucci’s hand and quietly drew her sword. The waterfall grew brighter as the torchbearer reached the edge of the cavern. Elara could see the creature’s shadow stretching over the rock, its head craning in both directions before it turned back. Then Vespucci’s foot slipped, and he let out a huff as he struggled to hold on. The light above Elara swung around and she thrust her sword up as hard as she could. She felt it slide into flesh, the body go ridged. Then she pulled and flung the creature over the rock and down into the depths.
Once in the passageway, Elara wiped the black blood from her sword. Vespucci plopped down behind her, ghostly white, shivering, less from the water than adrenaline.
“It won’t be long before others come looking,” Vespucci said. “Perhaps we should—”
He never finished the thought. A thud preceded his eyes rolling back. He fell, revealing a siren with a gnarled club behind him. The creature opened its mouth to release a warning. Elara was too far away to stop it, but she charged anyway. She’d taken two steps when something whistled past her ear. An arrow pierced the siren’s throat. As it gurgled, Elara cut its head off with her sword. Only then did she spin to see a silhouette step into the passageway.
“Why, Princess,” a familiar voice said. “We keep meeting in the oddest of places.”
Columbus stepped into the light. Elara was too stunned to move.
“How?” she gasped. “I saw—”
“In a realm of magic, anything is possible.”
She ran into his arms. She thought it might be some cruel joke of the Gods. And yet he felt real. His arms felt real. He definitely smelled real. Real bad.
“I thought you had died,” she whispered into his ear.
“I might still…can’t breathe.”
She released him and stepped back awkwardly.
“Better,” Columbus said, his familiar grin returning. “Logistically speaking. There are some scenarios in which a royal confluence can be quite welcoming.”
She nearly laughed. Even here in the depths of foulness, looking as if the Gods themselves had trampled him, he still made jokes. He would never change.
“Royal confluence? That’s a rather unsavory description. And, inaccurate, considering only one of us is royal.”
“A royal pain in the derriere, you mean.”
“Don’t take it personally. You have your charms.”
“Well, as much as I would love to continue this, my duplicitous colleague was right about one thing. We need to keep moving. Give me a hand.”
Together, Elara and Columbus lifted the dead siren and rolled her over the edge.
“What do we do with him?” Elara said of Vespucci. Columbus looked back to the edge, hopeful. Elara shook her head.
“Fine,” Columbus said. “I suspect the underside of a dark rock would be a comfort to him right about now.”
Together, they picked up Vespucci and carried him to a dark crevice. Before leaving, Elara retrieved the sound-defeating buds from Vespucci’s ears and offered them to Columbus.
“What are these?” he asked.
“They shield the wearer against sound. Even the sirens’ song can’t penetrate.”
“These are worth their weight in gold.”
“I wouldn’t go that far—”
“In Europe alone, there must be tens of thousands of fathers and husbands who would pay any price for these.”
“May we?” she hissed, pulling him down the passageway. “There is still a checkpoint to get through.”
�
�Actually, I found another way.”
He led her to a ridge, fifteen or twenty feet above the archway where a series of shield-sized holes vented smoke. Columbus clasped his hands and boosted Elara up, following close behind. The shaft sloped downward a spell before it began to narrow, forcing the pair to shimmy the rest of the way on their bellies. Eventually, Elara spilled into a narrow cleft behind a steep embankment. The air was stifling. A warbling chant echoed from the other side.
As cautiously as they could, Columbus and Elara crept up the embankment and looked to see what was on the other side.
Through a smoky pall they found the siren kingdom, laid out chaotically with no discernible order. To the right, a sweltering forge belched fire and smoke as a half-dozen sirens worked their metal offerings with hammer and anvil, crafting weapons Elara found all too recognizable.
In the center of the cavern was a web of thatched roosts where the elder sirens doted over the fledgling newborns, each trilling away, maws opened as worms, grubs, larvae, and other things of disgust slid down their gullets. Their constant, high-pitched chittering was like a sword to the brain.
Elara couldn’t pull her eyes away until Columbus nudged her and nodded to their left. There, atop a series of jagged stone steps sat a throne made of roots and bones. And on that throne sat the Siren Queen. She was larger than any of her brood, with a long torso and saggy white breasts, sporadic tufts of unruly feathers, and talons that glistened in the torchlight. Worst of all were the queen’s large black eyes that scrutinized everything in her dominion.
Elara counted enemies holding weapons. Bows. Cudgels. Swords. A dozen at least. And those were the ones she could see. Too many for a surprise attack.
On the ground to the queen’s left sat an octet of colorfully feathered sirens chanting outside a stone archway, seemingly lost in trance. Those guttural tones filled the cavern, pulsing as the volume increased and receded. It was hypnotic. Elara hadn’t even realized her eyes were glazing over until Columbus shook her. It seemed women were not totally immune to the siren song. Columbus held her attention by pointing out the familiar symbols graved into both sides of the archway, leading to a single symbol on top—the egg.
That was their destination.
Suddenly, Columbus put a hand to his chest and looked around nervously. At the same time, Elara heard something and her head snapped to the right. A fledgling siren had waddled up through some unseen pass. It was small, less than half the height of the adults, but when its small black eyes locked onto the strangers, it staggered to a halt, and both Columbus and Elara knew they were in trouble. The creature’s head canted, a thin chirrup issuing from its beak.
Elara glanced to the bow and then to Columbus. He nodded ever so slightly. The small siren chirruped again. Elara’s hand inched back and carefully drew an arrow from her quiver. She nocked it, took aim, and drew the string back. She didn’t fire.
“Do it,” Columbus hissed.
Elara knew what hinged on this moment. She understood the stakes. But for some reason her grip on the string remained taut. She had never seen a young siren before. She looked into its black eyes, expecting to find hate and fury, only to see herself instead. Is this what the enemy looks like? Is this what it takes to win? Butchering their young? Any other day of her life, she would have slain the creature without hesitation, but something in her refused to follow through. She heard Columbus’s plea; she knew the chant was playing with her mind, but in her heart, she knew this was wrong. She lowered her bow.
Maybe it was the movement that did it or the eventual realization that there was a threat in its midst, but all at once the fledgling siren began its retreat, issuing a series of shrieks that filled the cavern. Columbus looked over the rise. The chanting stopped, replaced by more shrieks. The sirens were on the move.
Elara turned, finding no recrimination in Columbus’s eyes. “What now?”
Columbus plucked one of the earbuds out. “Be ready,” he said, scrambling to figure out a method of escape. “We can hold here, but not for long. How many arrows—”
He never finished his sentence. The siren song flooded the cavern in unison. Columbus’s eyes glazed over. Elara caught him as he fell, the ear bud falling from his hand. She slapped a hand over his naked ear while searching for the sound suppressor with her other.
For Columbus, everything took on a dreamlike quality. He tried to imagine his consciousness as a fixed state—something he could grab on to—but he was rapidly being pulled into a tidal wave that threatened to consume him.
That’s when the spotted eldock’s voice sounded in his head.
Call to them, children of Poseidon.
Columbus’s mind felt like it was mired in treacle. What did the voice mean? He ground his teeth, tasted a splash of copper in his mouth. The pain brought him out of the fog, but only barely. Looking to his right, Columbus saw torchlight growing behind the rocks. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t obey. When the first shadow appeared, Elara fired an arrow. A screech issued in response. Elara grabbed him and turned for the ventilation holes, only to see shadows moving within them too. They were trapped.
Summon them, as you once did.
The voice was weaker than Columbus remembered. Was it because they were underground? Far away from the sea? What did it mean? Columbus had never summoned the sirens, had he? Why would he want to? They’d been intent on killing him since he entered Atlantis. First, under this very mountain. Then again… Wait, Columbus thought. The second time was at the Isle of Illumination. But the sirens weren’t summoned there. They had attacked on their own. Or did they? The truth was that they only responded when their space had been violated.
Columbus opened his eyes. Elara was shouting at him, firing a steady stream of arrows. He felt the sword in his hand—the urge to take it up. Instead, he dropped it, put both hands over his ears, and opened his mouth. The first note came out thin, shaky. Could he even recall the rest? Desperate, on the edge of blacking out, Columbus concentrated and tried again. The fog in his head receded momentarily, allowing him to whistle a second note and then a third. All at once, they began to flow, the whistling replicating the organ notes Elara and Nyx had played in the Tower of Illumination.
Elara continued firing arrows until the sirens halted, their eyes on this strange, blond-haired human male whistling the melody of the slaves over and over. He stood, those seven notes now filling the cavern until a blood-curdling screech echoed from down below. Columbus looked over the rise, right into the gaze of the Siren Queen. It waited as her warriors retreated, taking their place at her side. When Columbus stopped whistling, the nest was silent.
The Siren Queen looked abruptly to the Athenian archway, and the octet of sirens began chanting the same seven tones. The Siren Queen looked back up at Columbus.
“Come on,” he said to Elara.
They descended to the cavern floor through the hidden fissure. Elara kept her blade poised low, not that it would do much good here. A few of the sirens chittered as they passed. Most remained silent. All were ready to attack should their queen give the command.
Approaching the queen, both Columbus and Elara noticed her distended belly.
“She’s with child,” Elara whispered.
Columbus said nothing. When he reached the foot of the archway, the Siren Queen snapped her beak, and the chanting stopped. Those black eyes burrowed into Columbus, talons at her feet tickling the stones. She was waiting for something. For a reason Columbus could not quite understand, he dropped to a knee and lowered his head.
In response, the Siren Queen shrieked, snatched a torch from a sconce and passed through the archway. Columbus followed. When Elara moved to join them, the other sirens shrieked. Elara held up her hands.
“Looks like she wants you all to herself,” Elara said.
“Can you blame her?” Columbus smiled. Elara rolled her eyes.
Inside the archway, Columbus followed the hulking Siren Queen through a winding, rocky path to a second
cavern. A cool current of air brought the smell of moisture and a series of popping sounds beyond.
The Siren Queen halted before lifting her beak and releasing a singular, hypnotic note that reverberated through the cavern. Columbus’s knees felt momentarily weak. Then, blazers around the cavern sprang to life, illuminating not one, but three separate areas.
The first area featured a series of small columns that led to the second area, popping geysers. The third area was a rectangular pool of dark water at the foot of a giant nest made of roots and sticks.
“I take it I’m supposed to reach the nest?” Columbus asked. “Doesn’t appear too difficult.”
The Siren Queen shrieked before stepping to an ornately crafted chest, Poseidon’s Trident glimmering atop it. It opened with a creak, revealing a golden egg the size of a cannonball inside. The Siren Queen stepped back.
“Seems straightforward enough,” Columbus said before lifting the egg. It felt delicate in his hands. “When do we begin?”
The Siren Queen shrieked again. This one resembled a laugh. Then she turned the torch toward a hole in the rock wall. A flash of smoke preceded the line of fire that quickly began to run through another vast trough, moving hastily for the three tests.
A timed event. So be it.
Columbus hurtled down the stone steps toward the first obstacle, passing the flame that trilled along through a series of gates. With each step, the brittle egg shook in his hands. He would need to tread very carefully.
Arriving at the first obstacle, Columbus found the series of columns descended deep into a chasm, lost in mist some twenty or thirty feet below. He kicked a rock over the edge and waited to hear it land. It never did. With fifty columns placed at random intervals, Columbus would need to choose his path carefully. And keep his balance, of course. By no means a simple task, nor the most demanding.
He stepped onto the top of the first column only to feel a jolt and hear something crack far below him. The column started to topple, forcing him to leap back to the start as it plummeted into the mist.
Christopher Columbus and the Lost City of Atlantis Page 29
