The False Door

by Brett King

  Tough price to pay to become a legend.

  Ninety-five years later, the catacombs were opened for the first time to the public. It remained a popular tourist destination ever since.

  Walking through the entrance, Brynstone thought about the entries in McHardy’s notebook. He had listed four helmet pieces, including the facemask, the left and right cheek guards, and the right skull piece from the Prague museum. What McHardy didn’t realize is that Edgar Wurm had collected the remaining two pieces.

  In their last phone call, Wurm reported that he had acquired the left skull piece from Barcelona. It told how the Black Chrism had been used to resurrect Quintus and how the Roman soldier had killed Joseph of Arimathea to save the man’s grandson, Nathan. There was more to the story.

  Back in February, when Wurm had shown up in Central Park as Brynstone played with his daughter, it had been a shock to see him. Wurm explained later that the Linear A code on the neck guard mentioned a string of homicides dating back to the first century. Starting with Saint Lazarus, all of the people brought back with the Black or White Chrisms had later become murder victims. The killer had tracked each person, stalking them from as far as Jericho to the ancient Greek city of Pergamon.

  Wurm had two pieces. Brynstone and his team had four. Would it be enough to find the formula to create the Black Chrism? He had signed on to this project to understand how the White Chrism had changed Shayna. Now he hoped it would bring her back to him.

  Inside the dusky catacomb, they found the central shaft where the celebrated but ill-fated donkey had made history with a dive of over sixty feet before striking bottom. The shaft had been constructed as two concentric cylinders. The outer section contained a spiral staircase that coiled around the inner section, the two separated by a curving wall.

  Window-like slits had been carved into the inner cylinder, giving a glimpse from the stairs at the shaft’s depth. Not flat like typical windowsills, the bottom frames of the windows angled toward the stairs. This ingenious design had allowed sunlight to filter from the top of the shaft onto the steps, lighting the way down to the tombs.

  The shaft was wide, measuring almost twenty feet in diameter. Two thousand years ago when Ra-Qedil was used for burials, corpses were tied to ropes and lowered down the central shaft. Brynstone imagined what it would be like to peek through a window as an Egyptian cadaver descended the shaft before burial.

  Ninety-nine curving steps later, the staircase brought them to a vestibule, an entrance hall where shell-shaped niches flanked each side. Each niche had a bench carved into rock where mourners found rest after a journey down the spiral staircase. McHardy plopped onto a bench, examining the map engraved on the inside of the bronze facemask. Brynstone had stored the rest of the helmet in his backpack.

  He led the way to a rotunda, a circular room with another shaft encircled by six pillars. Raja touched the wall and traced her fingers along veins in the sandstone that revealed different layers. Cori gazed up at the ceiling. In a concession to the modern era, electrical cords ran overhead to mounted lights, casting the stone in a soft glow.

  Along with Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China, Kom el Shoqafa was praised as one of the Seven Wonders of the Medieval World. A host of archaeologists over the decades had scoured the once-lost necropolis, looking for its secrets. Yet a century after its rediscovery, portions of the catacomb still had not been explored, and Brynstone hoped that something could still be found here that no scientist or grave robber had uncovered. He worked on a game plan in case they couldn’t find the missing chrism formula. No matter what happened, he needed to convince Nebola that they had found it.

  Time was running short. Brynstone had to do whatever he could to negotiate an exchange for Shayna.

  Chapter 41

  Alexandria

  1:59 a.m.

  As McHardy puzzled over the site map on the mask, Brynstone peered inside a rectangular hall adjacent to the rotunda. A couple thousand years ago, people would congregate in this room to memorialize and celebrate the life of the departed. Known as a triclinium, a word meaning three couches, the banquet hall featured three benches carved from stone in a U-shaped formation. Back in the day, the benches were draped in elegant cushions and the hall was embellished with flat pillars and a high ceiling, inviting an open-air atmosphere. The walls were painted with red lines that gave the appearance of slabs, making it look like the room had been built rather than carved from sandstone. Giuseppe Botti led an 1892 excavation that revealed how people had gathered here for big funeral dinners. Family and friends brought down tall twin-handled jars brimming with wine as well as grilled meat and fish in terra-cotta pots. The parties must have been epic, because archaeologists discovered hundreds of broken plates and potsherds littering the floor. The finding inspired a new name for the ancient catacombs: Kom el Shoqafa, or Mound of Shards.

  He found Cori and Raja outside the triclinium. They were giggling, the two getting along better than ever.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Our names.”

  “What?”

  “All the alliteration,” Cori said. “I mean, it just hit us that our names start with matching consonants. You know, Cori Cassidy. Rashmi Raja. Math McHardy.”

  “If you wanna join the club,” Raja added, “better change your name to Bradley Brynstone.”

  He allowed a faint smile to flit across his face. “Nah. Doesn’t roll off the tongue.”

  “Okay,” Cori said. “How about Bartholomew J. Brynstone?”

  “Not the image I’m shooting for. Let’s search this place.”

  He ran his hand along the wall as McHardy stayed focused on the site map. Taking a look around the room, they discovered a breach in the original wall of the rotunda that opened into darkness.

  Raja was the first to enter. Brynstone and Cori followed.

  Within the walls, they found a second network of tombs. Like almost everything else down here, this chamber was a mystery. Back at the hotel, they had researched the place and had learned that in 215 CE, a Roman emperor named Caracalla ordered the massacre of young Christians. In a strange twist, the men were buried along with their horses in a bricked underground chamber. Known as the Hall of Caracalla, the main room featured a stone altar with faded paintings of mythical scenes. That’s where they were at now.

  The place was interesting, but he guessed it wasn’t their destination. If they were right about the map, the answer to finding the chrism formula wasn’t in the Hall of Caracalla.

  They returned to the rotunda. No longer resting on the bench, McHardy had wandered over near the wall, staring at the shadows.

  “See something?” Cori asked in a hushed voice.

  “Movement.” He pointed toward the corner. “Over there.”

  “What was it?”

  “Wee beasties. Two or three of them.”

  Brynstone nodded. “Beetles. Saw one on the stairs coming down here.”

  Raja shivered. “Insects give me the crawlies.”

  McHardy looked to his left. “Let’s try this way, shall we?”

  “Do you know what we are looking for?” Cori asked.

  “The map tells us to search for a place ‘where the terrible sister soars above the serpent king.’ Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Brynstone usually worked alone, but he liked the energy in this group. Funny how their relationship had evolved from bitter competition into a budding mutual respect.

  They followed McHardy down a grand staircase that split into two narrow flights of stairs, each leading to a second level. Historians and archaeologists believed the catacombs had originally housed the remains of a single wealthy family. Later, in the second century, its doors may have been opened to additional families. Like a modern cemetery, others in later years could entomb their dead in the catacombs for a fee.

  Exploring the chamber, they c
ame to the bottom of the divided staircase. The façade of the main burial chamber greeted them with characters and symbols from Egyptian and Greco-Roman mythology. On opposite sides of twin composite columns, the front wall featured a carving of Medusa’s face, her gaze so fierce it could turn about anything to stone.

  “I believe we found our terrible sister,” McHardy said.

  Brynstone agreed. Greek mythology recorded that Medusa was a hideous monster called a Gorgon. Her two sisters, Stheno and Euryale, shared her scary monster genes, except they held a huge advantage. Unlike Medusa, her sisters were immortal. That was her big downfall when a guy named Perseus showed up to slay her.

  For centuries, artists had carved Medusa’s face on pendants and coins as well as on the walls of temples and tombs. Known as a Gorgoneion, the symbol grew in popularity. It would have been a common sight if you had lived in parts of the ancient world. People at the time believed Medusa’s terrible features and snakelike tangles of hair could ward off evil.

  Beneath Medusa’s face, two massive serpents were carved in relief on the wall. Coiling along the side of the columns, both snakes wore crowns. The serpents resembled a basilisk, a mythical creature renowned as the “king of the serpents.” An ancient writer named Pliny had claimed that the basilisk sported a crown-like spot on its head, similar to a king cobra. Like Medusa, the creature could kill with a single withering look.

  Brynstone and the others wandered into the main burial area. Kom el Shoqafa was a necropolis, literally a “city of the dead,” and this room felt like it. McHardy called aloud the names of objects and carvings described in the helmet’s code. Running around like kids on a scavenger hunt, they searched the chamber, exploring symbols embedded in the columns, walls, and ceiling.

  Four pillars carried the load of the vaulted roof. Around those pillars, they found three recesses in the burial chamber, each containing a sarcophagus. Large blocks of stone were decorated with additional Gorgoneion as well as the image of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. On the wall above the sarcophagi, an image portrayed a mummy posed on a funerary bed.

  They returned to the room with Medusa and the serpents emblazoned on the walls. A third level was visible beneath this one, but it was flooded. Long before the public opening in 1995, subsoil water had been discovered here on the second level and had been pumped out along with dirt, mud, and other debris. A disturbing thought suddenly occurred to Brynstone. What if water had washed over the treasure they were searching for? If so, the chrism formula would be ruined.

  He also knew there was a chance that grave robbers had stolen it centuries before Brynstone was even born.

  The divided staircase branched off to doorways on the left and right. Slipping through one doorway, they found that the second level contained carved box-shaped niches called loculi that were designed for sarcophagus burials. McHardy insisted that they had to pass a number of loculi before taking a right turn.

  Near one corner, carpenters had loaded a table with power tools. A crossed network of wooden planks ran the length of the floor in many areas. Brynstone wondered if the construction project involved replacing the plank system with a more reliable floor design.

  “I’m not certain this looks promising,” McHardy called, following Brynstone.

  “What are we looking for on this level?” Cori called.

  Balancing on a plank, the professor consulted the facemask map. “We need to search the loculi along this wall. Look for one at the end. In the corner, I think.”

  Two tiers of loculi lined the U-shaped corridor. In its day, the catacombs boasted more than three hundred bodies, each entombed in oversized cubbyholes. It was like a body storage facility in a morgue, only bigger and without drawers. In this section, the walls and ceiling were rough-hewn and featured fewer carvings and paintings.

  “What are we searching for?” Raja asked.

  “All it says is that the ‘truth will be revealed,’” McHardy said.

  Moving away from the others, Brynstone walked along a row of loculi. He had to see what was back here. He rounded a corner and found nothing more than a flat stone wall.

  Dead end.

  He headed back to join the others.

  Several loculi were positioned along the north corner. As McHardy studied the facemask, Raja leaned into one, shining her flashlight along the side.

  Crouching, Brynstone climbed inside another while Cori moved into a third loculus. He searched the cramped area, imagining a corpse resting in this space a couple thousand years ago. It was claustrophobic back here, walled in with stone all around.

  “John,” Cori called. “Check this out.”

  He pulled himself out from the coffin-shaped cell, then moved over to peek inside her loculus. The bottoms of her shoes pointed at him. He could see the edge of her face where she had holed herself at the end. This cubby was deeper than the one he had explored.

  “Come here,” she said, beckoning to him.

  Brynstone eased into the recess, dragging his backpack with him. He squeezed behind her, the fit tight with their bodies pressed together. As he crawled to her, Cori ran her hand along the right wall of the cell.

  “Give me your hand.”

  He reached around her slender shoulder. She rested her head on his left arm, already pressed against the floor. She took his right wrist, her skin fair in contrast with his as she directed the palm of his hand along the rough surface. His fingers touched a thin seam in the rock wall.

  “Feel it?” she asked. “I thought it was a simple crack in the wall. It’s not.”

  She was right. The line was too uniform. Her hand drifted from his wrist. He traced his fingers along the seam, running from the back corner about two feet toward the opening. The seam was a couple inches above the bottom of the loculus. At the back corner, it made a ninety-degree turn and ran up another two feet.

  “What are you guys doing in there?” Raja called from the opening at the far end.

  “Cori discovered something,” he said, her blonde hair touching his lip. “Crack in the side of the stone, but it’s uniform and straight. Must be man-made.”

  He explored the stone again. It made a full square in the right side of the loculus wall. Interesting. The upper part of the seam was much wider. It made a perfect fit for a fingerhold. That gave him an idea.

  “I want to try something. Can you squeeze out for a minute?”

  “Sure thing,” Cori answered. “Give me a second.”

  She curled around, her butt sliding along his leg as she scooted toward the opening. She stayed down there without crawling out.

  He repositioned his weight. With eight fingers in the upper groove, he pulled. The stone gave a little. He pulled harder, the square stone coming loose as it tilted toward him, like a cabinet door opening from the top edge down. As it slid out, dirt swirled into the air, blasting dust into his face. He coughed twice, but the discovery was worth it. The inch-thick slab of stone had been cut to fit like a small hidden door.

  Brynstone eased out the stone square, pulling it inside the loculus. Getting it out of the way, he perched on his elbows and peered through the opening. His flashlight beam cut into the dusty blackness, revealing a secret corridor that ran parallel to the right side of the main tomb.

  “Nice job,” Cori called, crawling back toward him.

  “You get the credit. You discovered it.”

  “Can you squeeze in there?”

  “Think so.”

  Brynstone hunkered over the square stone. He snaked into the opening headfirst, his hands outstretched as he reached to the floor. His fingers dipped down into mud as he pulled himself into the corridor. Standing now, he looked around, using the flashlight to splash light on the coarse walls.

  Behind him, Cori’s face appeared in the square opening.

  “So, what’s back here?”

  “Narrow corridor
. Hand me the backpack.”

  She fed it through the opening. She began wriggling through the hole.

  “Muddy back here,” he warned.

  “Doesn’t bother me.” She held out her hand. He helped her land on her feet, touching down in the mud. Her expression twisted into revulsion as she glanced down at her splattered shoes.

  “Warned you.”

  “It’s okay,” Cori assured him. “I’m cool getting a little muddy for this.”

  “Not sure Rashmi will agree.”

  Anyone who explored Kom el Shoqafa could tell you that you leave with sand in your hair. Back in the banquet hall, he had seen Raja shaking her head and trying to brush it out. Looked like it was driving her batshit crazy. If she hated the sand, would she be up for mud?

  He stuck his head back inside the loculus. To his surprise, he found Raja tunneling toward him. She fixed her gaze on him as she crawled forward on her forearms. He backed away as she made it to the opening.

  “Hate mud,” she sighed, “but I’m not sitting around while you two grab all the glory.”

  Raja crawled out, her slinky body touching down. She forced a smile, a bad attempt at hiding her disgust about the mud.

  “McHardy,” he called down the loculus. “What are we looking for?”

  “Can’t be certain, John. Doesn’t make perfect sense. It appears you have to slide something.”

  Brynstone and the women moved along the wall, their feet squishing with each step. Their flashlight beams spiraled in crossing paths along the corridor. The walls looked rough and uneven, almost as if workers had rushed without finishing the job. There were no paintings. No etchings. No carvings or statues of any kind. The walls curved like a tunnel. The ceiling dropped low to four feet in some spots before rising a few feet higher toward the end.

  “What now?” Cori asked.

  Brynstone didn’t have an answer. Cori had discovered a secret panel, so it didn’t make sense it would lead to nothing. Thinking about it, he handed her the flashlight.