“But not really.”
“No, not really. Probably not really.” She tried to shrug, but the tunnel was too narrow. “No one can be sure. Welcome to archeology.”
They inched along the dark tunnel for another minute.
“Does it actually stay this narrow the whole way?” Ash asked. “Because I’m thinking about getting claustrophobic.”
“Look up,” M told him. “There’s plenty of room above us. Focus on that.” She looked toward the ceiling to point her lamp up. The top of the tunnel could barely be seen. “It’s eight feet high. Apparently, whoever made this place was super skinny and really tall. Maybe the sibyl was a supermodel.”
Ash took a deep breath, and coughed. “You’re right, that does help. The fumes don’t, though.”
“Sulfur,” M said. “That’s probably why they don’t want people in here.”
They went on in silence. The tunnel sloped at a gentle pace, but always downward, deeper into the rock. There were alcoves carved into the walls every twenty feet or so meant to hold candles or oil lamps. M found herself thinking about the workmanship of it, how smooth the walls were, how perfect the arches of the alcoves. It was solid rock, tufa. Carving out this tunnel wouldn’t have been easy … so why do it? Had there really been some kind of priestess living here, pretending to tell the future?
“Here,” she said, stopping. “The tunnel splits.” She used the slightly wider area to shake out the tension in her shoulders, and Ash let out a groan as he straightened himself after walking sideways for so long. He tossed his pack of spelunking gear onto the stone floor and flexed his fingers. “Have you been dragging that this whole time?” M asked.
“I had no choice. I couldn’t fit through with it on my back,” he said. “I’m lucky I didn’t have it on when we came in or we’d both be trapped, with me jammed between the walls.”
He cracked his neck. Then he squatted and began rooting around in his pack, nearly knocking M over in the small space.
“Pro tip: put your head lamp on before you go into a dark cave,” she said, shoving him.
“Somebody forgot to tell me it was going to be like going through the birth canal the whole way and I wouldn’t have room to get my equipment,” he pointed out.
M turned away, purposely leaving him to root around in total darkness. She shone her light into the tunnels ahead. On the left, the narrow hall continued at the same slight downward slope. But on the right, the second tunnel took a sharp turn downward at a much steeper angle.
“Which way?” Ash asked, turning on his head lamp.
M’s gaze raked over the dusty walls, the nearest alcoves, the blank rock on all sides. There was nothing in the tunnel on the left. “Down.”
This passage wasn’t as narrow, and they were able to go much faster. The alcoves in the walls were more closely placed here, and the thick smell of sulfur stronger. M had forgotten her anxiety by now. She always did on a dig. There was so much to wonder at that she had no time for worry.
From the sound of Ash’s strained breathing, he didn’t feel the same. Still, he was right behind her and not complaining. She’d met a lot of archeology grunts who wouldn’t have held up as long.
M could hear the water now, and her mind was spinning. Where was she supposed to look for the artifact piece? Dad had been convinced his translation was correct. But now that she was here, deep underground in what was clearly a Roman structure, she couldn’t help feeling how wrong it all seemed. A Set animal from ancient Egypt wouldn’t be found here. It was the wrong civilization, the wrong time period, even the wrong mythology.
“I hear something,” Ash whispered, close at her back.
M nodded. “Keep going.”
A bend in the wall hid what was next. M stopped briefly to wipe the sweat off her brow. Ash’s face was dirty, his expensive T-shirt stained with sweat. She found herself weirdly thinking it was a good look on him. His eyes were lively. Excited, even.
“You want to go first?” she asked.
He didn’t hesitate. He stepped around the bend and disappeared into the darkness. M followed.
It was a small room, but it felt like a huge cavern after the narrow tunnel system. The sulfur smell reached a new pungency here, and the heat was almost unbearable. Across from the entrance, bubbling and popping, hissing with steam, ran an underground stream.
“What is that?” Ash asked.
“That,” M told him, “is the River Styx.”
CHAPTER 5
The water stank. Sulfurous steam rose to the stone ceiling and then dripped back down in tiny, rank droplets. M stood on the small landing that stretched out over the river, pointing her lamp toward the depths.
“I thought it was a myth. The river you cross to get to the underworld, yes?” Ash said. “There’s a ferryman and you have to pay him…”
“Which is why a lot of ancient Greeks and Romans were buried with a coin in their mouths.” M squinted at the landing. There was an iron ring driven into the rock, and the tattered remains of a rope. Nothing more than a few threads, really, but she knew what it had been. “Someone tied a boat here once.”
She didn’t think it had been Charon, the ferryman of myth. Hopefully it had been one of Ash’s cultish ancestors, using a boat to hide a piece of the Set artifact someplace downstream. Just seeing evidence that someone had been here made her more hopeful.
“I don’t see a ferryman,” Ash said.
“That is a myth,” M told him. “But all myths—”
“—are true,” he cut in. “And all myths are false.”
M’s heart gave a strange, painful thunk as her father’s words left Ash’s lips. That was one of Dad’s favorite lines. It had been the original first line of his article about the map until his editor had changed it. She raised her eyes to Ash’s.
“I listened when your father spoke,” he said softly. “Did you think I didn’t?”
I thought you were lying about even knowing him, she thought, only just realizing it was true. She hadn’t believed a word he said. She hadn’t admitted it to herself, but she’d been far too scared to trust Ash. She’d come along on this crazy quest just in case. Just in case Dad was alive, just in case Ash wasn’t a con man, just in case the impossible could happen and someone you loved could come back from the dead. But she hadn’t truly thought any of it was real. Until now.
“Which part of this one is true?” he asked, oblivious to the emotions running rampant through her. “Not Aeneas, you already mocked me for believing in him.”
“Not—” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat. “Not the underworld, either. If you cross this stream you’ll find another tunnel up and a chamber likely used for rituals.”
“Do you think the Set piece is hidden there?” he asked, his voice quiet.
M forced her mind away from her father. If Dad was really, truly alive, she needed to have laser focus to get him back. They were here to find the artifact.
“No,” she said. “The chamber has been clear for decades and nobody found anything Egyptian there. If they had, this place would be a tourist attraction, not an abandoned maze.” That much was true. If they were looking for something purposely hidden, she had to think like a hider.
The Styx flowed sideways through the small chamber. If you crossed it, there was a room on the other side. But where did it flow from? And where did it flow to? She pulled out her flashlight and pointed it upstream, where the river flowed from a hole in the rock not much higher than the water. Then she looked downstream, where it disappeared into another hole, this one a few feet taller.
“That way,” she said, dumping her pack on the ground.
In a few minutes, they’d put on their spelunking gear. Ash seemed nervous.
“First time cave diving?” M asked, lowering herself into the stream.
“First time doing it in any official way,” he admitted. “I’ve gone swimming in strange places on a few occasions. Accidentally.”
M raised an eyebrow
, but further questions would have to wait. The current was stronger than it looked.
“This is really hot,” Ash gasped.
“Yeah. Nearby volcano, remember? Let’s just hope it doesn’t reach boiling point.” She stuck her snorkel in her mouth and let the stream take her through the exit hole. Maybe we should’ve gotten scuba gear, she thought as she went under. The stone roof was inches above her here, and water filled the snorkel. M felt a flash of panic, then anger. How could she be stupid enough to come unprepared? She’d known there was water. It should’ve been obvious that the entire cave might be filled. It was completely unlike her to do something this dumb.
She tilted her head up so the lamp would show the ceiling. It was close enough to make her eyes cross trying to focus on it.
Then it vanished.
Instantly M blew out the snorkel and sucked in a lungful of air. She reached for Ash, hauling him to the surface. He sputtered, then shook her off, treading water. Their lamps hit on a ceiling about five feet above them here, and the river widened. Seconds later M felt her feet scrape ground.
She got her footing and stopped in waist-high water.
“It’s more like a lake here,” Ash said, pulling off the snorkel.
M nodded. “There’s a beach thingy.” She waded out onto a stretch of rock at the edge of the water. The air felt cool, though it had to be at least a hundred degrees. Anything after that scorching water was a relief.
“You need to visit more beaches,” Ash commented, tossing his water-laden pack onto the ground beside her.
“I said thingy,” M pointed out. She took her pack off and shook it to get some of the heavy water out. She pulled the small flashlight from her pocket and switched it on. “It isn’t a lake. It’s more like a braided river. It splits here.” She bounced the beam of light over the shallow streams that crisscrossed the ground, each carving its own path across the rock. The main river rushed on behind them, but three separate rivulets ran off about ten yards from where they stood, heading into the darkness of the cavern.
“This part isn’t carved. It’s natural,” Ash said. “Are you sure we came the right way?”
Nope. M glanced around, desperately searching for a clue. Finally she noticed another iron ring, this one half buried in the wall of the cave. “Yes. See? There’s a hook to hold a lantern.” She grabbed her pack and waded across one of the smaller streams to get a closer look. The cavern was natural, but it had been visited before. Along this particular wall she counted three fissures, and one of the rivulets went into each opening.
“Are we supposed to explore them all? How do we know there’s anything other than water on the inside?” Ash asked, following her gaze. “I don’t want to go through that again.”
M watched the running water, hoping for an idea. Nothing came.
“Are you sure there wasn’t anything else to the translation?” Ash pressed. “Some other hint?”
“Tree thief,” M murmured, her hand going to her jacket pocket. It hadn’t been meant as a hint, but it might work just the same. She pulled out the good-luck sprig of mistletoe and held it up.
“What exactly are you doing?” Ash asked.
“Making an offer of the golden bough. Maybe Proserpina will help us.” M waded back to the main river, stopping at the place where the three streams split off. She dropped the branch into the water. It danced and spun for a moment, caught in the conflux. Then, slowly, it drifted off into the rivulet on the left. M pointed her light at it as it gained speed.
Suddenly the branch took a turn into a tiny, narrow channel they hadn’t noticed in the darkness. The mistletoe inched lazily along in a small trickle of water at the bottom, making its way across the cavern. M hurried after it, but the little branch disappeared before she could reach it.
“What happened to it?” Ash asked.
M crouched down and turned so her head lamp would illuminate the situation. “The wall doesn’t go all the way to the ground over here. There’s kind of a ledge, an overhang a few feet above the water. The water flows under, but I can’t see what’s on the other side. If there is another side.”
“Lovely,” Ash muttered.
“There’s room for us to squeeze through,” M said. “If we’re following the mistletoe.” She didn’t really think the little branch had any power, of course, but this was the best hidden riverbed. And the overhang hadn’t always been so high off the ground—the edges were straight. Carved by a human, not by the water.
“We’re going through blind?” Ash asked, incredulous.
Without answering, M began to shimmy underneath the overhang, trying not to think of the weight of the rock above her. Her head was pointed in, following the path of the mistletoe, but she couldn’t turn. The space was too tight. A rope around her waist was attached to her pack, pulling it behind her. There wasn’t enough room to crawl, so she had to drag herself bit by bit. Even when she was completely underneath the overhang, her head lamp still didn’t show anything on the other side except darkness. Would she even be able to get back out if she needed to? It would be harder to move backward. Had Ash been sensible enough to wait, or was he jammed behind her?
When your brain is anxious, give it something to do, M thought, one of Dad’s favorites. She thought about the map. There wasn’t a decryption code. She’d been so busy trying to process everything that she’d let herself have doubts. She’d even taken the scroll out to study it, which was dangerous—any contact or exposure to air was dangerous for such old paper. That was stupid. I know every millimeter of that scroll, every glyph on it, every inkblot and tear.
There was no decryption code.
Had Dad really thought there was? Or was he buying himself time? Was it his way of telling her there was a problem he couldn’t solve?
The fingers on her outstretched hand felt a breeze. M’s whole body relaxed. There was new air in front her. She wouldn’t die wedged beneath this overhang. Soon her whole body was out of the tiny space, and she had room to sit up and stretch. Ash was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m through!” she called. “It’s about ten feet. You’ll have to suck it in if you want to fit.”
“Not bloody funny,” he called. She heard him moving around, starting his journey through.
She turned her attention to the new cave. It was narrower than the cavern they’d just come through, but longer. And louder. M pulled out her flashlight and shone it around. The trickle of water she’d followed in widened into a creek a few paces away. But that wasn’t where the noise came from.
All through the room—more of a hallway, M could see now—were other slots in the walls like the one she had crawled through. And each one issued another stream of water. Some were near the ground, like hers. Others were high up, creating mini-waterfalls. There were small rivulets and gushing streams, all coming together into a river near the other end of the long room.
“A little help?” Ash called from behind her.
She stumbled over to him, pulling on his arm to help him squirm free of the overhanging rock. “It’s an antechamber.”
He blinked, uncomprehending.
“A hallway leading somewhere! Look! That little trickle turns into a river and there are a bunch of others, too. They’re all going that way.” M didn’t give him time to get his bearings. “It’s clearly ritualistic, maybe even entirely manmade. See?”
She went over to the wall and placed her flashlight standing up in an alcove carved into the rock. “Picture oil lamps in all of these alcoves,” she said. “They’re all over the walls, each near one of the water outlets. It would be beautiful. And weird-looking. Otherworldly. And do you hear the noise?”
“Water?”
“Different water sounds! Drips and roars and bubbles all at once. Like voices. You hear it?”
Ash frowned. “I suppose. Some are howls, others are whispers.”
“Exactly! The myth says the sibyl’s cave has a hundred mouths. Each mouth was supposed to have a voice the sybil could u
nderstand. This is the cave.”
“So we’re in the right place.” His eyes shone.
“Yes!” she answered gleefully, fighting the urge to hug him; it was hard to remember he was the enemy right now. “Let’s go.”
She swung her pack onto her shoulders, grabbed her flashlight, and headed down the hall. The various sounds magnified, getting louder and louder as they approached the far end, the slots for water coming closer together now. By the time she spotted the arched doorway, the roar was loud enough that she had to shout, and the water was a river, wide enough that it filled nearly the entire cave, leaving only a small walkway alongside.
M shone her flashlight through the doorway. This was a little room, no more than ten feet wide. The alcoves for lamps were stacked on top of one another in vertical lines—she couldn’t tell if there were three or four alcoves in each wall because the ceiling was so high that her thin beam of light didn’t reach. The acoustics of the room amplified the already loud water, making it sound as though they were underneath a waterfall.
“This room seems awfully small after all that buildup,” Ash said, putting his mouth close—too close—to her ear to be heard over the roar.
“There would’ve been a chair here,” M told him, pointing with her light. “Right in the middle. The sibyl would sit where she could hear all the voices, and if you visited her, you’d come through the antechamber to see her enthroned under all these lamps.” She waved her light at the alcoves. “It’s basically just a throne room for her. I mean, not a literal throne because she’s not royalty, but it would have the same effect. The staging of it gives her authority so you believe what she says, that she speaks for the gods and tells the future.”
Ash looked at her intently, his eyes narrowing as he studied her face. “You don’t think she spoke to the gods, just that she had a terrific stage manager?”
“Well, yeah. Obviously,” M said. “Let’s look for your hidden artifact.”
“Right.” Ash immediately turned away and began searching the floor.
M shone her flashlight on the walls, studying the alcoves. If she were hiding something here, she’d put it up high, so you’d need a ladder to find it. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a ladder. And she didn’t know quite what she was looking for, either. A statue? A piece of rock?
I Do Not Trust You: A Novel Page 5
