by Darrell Pitt
He was too late. The thief leapt to the next chamber, carrying him out of sight.
No!
The man’s elevator was heading up while Jack’s was heading down.
Jack glanced behind him. There was no time to think. He took a running jump, leapt to the elevator behind him and the one beyond. The elevator zoomed up.
He peered over the side, his heart pounding like a bass drum. He was high up now, a hundred feet from the bottom. The thief was three elevators across and waiting for the one next to him to descend.
Jack took a single ragged breath and ran. Jumped. Crossed two elevators and hit the third one—hard, twisting his ankle. The pain was terrible, but Jack now found himself face to face with the man.
‘Infidel! You will never find Atlantis.’
‘I don’t care about Atlantis!’ Jack cried. ‘You poisoned my friend. I want the antidote.’
‘Never!’
The man sunk a fist into Jack’s stomach, winding him, and followed it with a blinding jab. Jack saw stars.
‘The location of New Atlantis has remained a secret for centuries,’ he heard the man say. ‘Did you really think you would find it?’
‘I just want a cure for my friend,’ Jack grunted.
‘Your friend will sleep forever—as will you.’
I was stupid, Jack thought. I should have waited for the others. And now Gloria will be lost.
The man tipped Jack over the side. Jack grabbed the edge, held on tight. He looked up, silently imploring the man. But the eyes staring back were cold.
‘Goodbye, boy.’
He brought his heel down onto Jack’s fingers.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Craaack!
A shot rang out, cutting across the sound of machinery.
‘No,’ the thief gasped.
He staggered backwards. Blood began to dribble from the hole in the middle of his chest. He took another faltering step before plunging off the elevator.
Someone jumped onto the roof and reached for Jack.
‘Hang on,’ Scarlet cried. ‘I’ve got you.’
She was just in time. Jack was ready to fade into unconsciousness. When the elevator slid to a halt, the trapdoor opened and Mr Doyle appeared, grabbing Jack’s other hand.
‘Are you all right, my boy?’
Jack could not reply. Everything turned to shadows as he was manhandled through the trapdoor and onto a stretcher. Racks of men’s clothing flashed by, then there was darkness.
When he next woke, Jack found himself in a small gas-lit room. He gingerly felt his face. He had bruises everywhere and his jaw was swollen. Where was he?
‘My boy?’
Mr Doyle was sitting in the shadows.
‘You must stay in bed,’ he said when Jack struggled to sit up. ‘Doctor’s orders.’
‘Where am I?’ Jack croaked. ‘What time is it?’
‘You’re in hospital and it is morning.’
‘The Broken Sun,’ Jack said. ‘And Gloria—’
‘We have retrieved the Broken Sun,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘There was a bag secreted in an alcove in the elevator shaft. It appears the thief was using the area as some kind of home.’
The door eased open.
‘Jack?’ Scarlet appeared. ‘Are you all right?’
Bursting into tears, she hugged him tightly. It hurt, but it was worth it. Almost.
‘Did you really jump from that elevator?’ Jack asked her. ‘Or did I just imagine that?’
‘She did,’ Mr Doyle said, frowning. ‘If I’d known she was going to do that, I wouldn’t have allowed her through the trapdoor.’
‘It’s a good thing she did,’ Jack said. ‘I couldn’t hold on any longer.’ He turned back to Scarlet. ‘Bubbly Blinkingbutt would be proud.’
‘Brinkie Buckeridge,’ she said. ‘And you’re welcome.’
‘And Gloria,’ he said. ‘Is she…?’
‘Unconscious.’ The detective let out a deep sigh. ‘Asleep in the same manner as Professor Clarke.’
‘I have to see her.’
‘You must rest.’
‘No.’
Mr Doyle gave in, helping Jack out the door. They all weaved up a flight of stairs to the next floor where Mr Doyle opened a door to reveal Gloria on a bed, staring up at the ceiling, her eyes half-open.
She looked like something dead.
Jack took her hand and tried to speak. ‘We’re here,’ he finally said, his voice cracking. ‘Mr Doyle, Scarlet and I are here.’
He started crying. He could not help it. After a time, he turned to Mr Doyle and said, ‘Is she going to be all right?’
‘The doctors have not been able to wake her,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘But we must do what we can. We must focus on the future.’
‘What future? If we don’t find a cure then Gloria’s going to…’
He could not say it.
Then Gloria’s going to die.
The tears began again. Scarlet’s eyes were leaking too. The detective led them from the room. ‘Have you ever known me to give up?’ he asked.
Jack shook his head.
‘Then I am certainly not giving up on Gloria,’ he said. ‘I will do everything in my power to find a cure. I have another friend at the British Museum, an expert in botany. He may be able to identify the thorn.’
‘I doubt it,’ Phoebe Carfax said, appearing in the hallway. ‘But I may be able to help you. There are many ancient legends concerning Atlantis. One of them refers to a plant known as the Sleeping Death.’
‘I’m not sure legends and myths will help us,’ Mr Doyle said tightly.
Phoebe ignored him. ‘The Sleeping Death produces a purple thorn. If stabbed, a person lapses into a sleep from which they may never recover.’ She held up her hand as Scarlet sobbed. ‘But the same plant also provides an antidote. Its ivory-coloured leaves, when ingested, are said to wake the sleeper.’
‘So the same plant is both the poison,’ Jack said, working through this revelation aloud, ‘and the cure?’
‘Exactly.’
They returned to Bee Street. Jack and Scarlet wanted to go with Mr Doyle to the British Museum, but the detective insisted they remain at the apartment. The pieces of the Broken Sun were hidden in the safe.
Jack, Scarlet and Phoebe made certain every window and door was locked. Jack settled at a small desk in the corner of the living room and tried to resume work on a jigsaw puzzle of Salvador Dalí’s painting, The Persistence of Memory. Phoebe leafed through books in the library while Scarlet reread one of her Brinkie Buckeridge novels.
Jack stared sightlessly at the puzzle and tried to reconstruct the events of the last few days. Phillip Doyle’s watch. Elevators. The Broken Sun. Black-haired assailants. None of it made any sense.
He lifted his head. He’d fallen asleep. Pieces of puzzle were stuck to his face. He pried them off, blearily looking about. Judging by the light, most of the day h
ad passed. Voices were coming from the sitting room. He entered and could immediately tell that the detective had not been successful.
‘The man I met with was one of the top experts in his field,’ Mr Doyle was saying when Jack walked in. ‘He said the thorn was from Rosaceae—the rose family—but he had never seen one like it.’
‘Then what will we do?’ Scarlet asked. ‘We can’t find the cure if we can’t find the plant.’
Mr Doyle nodded glumly. ‘I also visited a doctor friend of mine and described the situation,’ he continued. ‘He likened the effects to the paralysis caused by some snake bites that leave the victim aware of their surroundings, unable to communicate with those around them.’
‘So Gloria and Professor Clarke are conscious,’ Scarlet said, horrified. ‘But unable to move?’
‘What will we do?’ Jack asked.
‘We can do something,’ Phoebe said, her eyes shrewd. ‘There is a way we can locate a cure.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘It is very simple,’ Phoebe said. ‘We must find New Atlantis.’
Mr Doyle scowled. ‘You’re suggesting we find a mythical city that has been missing for ten thousand years?’
‘I am.’
‘And you believe we can succeed where so many others have failed?’
‘They did not have the Broken Sun,’ Phoebe pointed out. ‘We do. And we have evidence that New Atlantis exists.’
‘You are referring to…?’
‘The thorn.’
‘I have solved many baffling mysteries,’ Mr Doyle murmured. ‘But this is one of the strangest.’
‘Strange is the name of the game,’ Jack said. ‘You told me that once.’
‘I did.’ Mr Doyle nodded. ‘All right, we have a hypothesis. Now we need to test it.’
‘The best way to do that is to crack the code of the Broken Sun,’ Phoebe said.
Mr Doyle sighed. ‘At least that may move us forward,’ he said. ‘I’ll retrieve it from the safe.’
Minutes later they were in the dining room with the three cylindrical pieces spread over the table. But when they tried them together, the ends would not fit.
Scarlet picked up a piece and tried rattling it while Mr Doyle examined another piece, holding it up like a telescope.
‘Have you been able to decipher any of the letters?’ Jack asked Phoebe. ‘They’re all Greek to me.’
‘I wish they were Greek,’ Phoebe responded. ‘It would be easier to understand. The only characters I can see on here are in Ancient Sumerian. And they appear to be numbers.’
‘Hmm,’ Mr Doyle grunted. ‘It’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without the original picture.’
‘This will sound strange,’ Scarlet said, examining one of the panels. ‘But this looks like the bottom of India.’
‘What?’ Phoebe asked. She examined the artefact. ‘I think you’re right. And that could be Sri Lanka. And Italy.’
They all grouped around the cylinders to examine them again in earnest, searching for sections that resembled parts of the world. Several more were found, but after two hours they sat back in frustration.
‘It would seem that sections of the world map have been placed onto the metal dials,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘But there’s no clear way to tell how they fit together.’
‘Maybe it’s been damaged,’ said Scarlet.
‘It doesn’t appear damaged,’ Phoebe said. ‘But we’re obviously missing a vital piece of the puzzle.’ She sighed. ‘We need a new perspective on this. What’s the best way to do that?’
‘What about examining the panels with our goggles?’ Jack suggested.
‘A closer magnification,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘That’s an excellent idea.’
Jack found sets of goggles for everyone. Another hour passed and Jack placed his piece down, scratching his head.
‘I’m going cross-eyed,’ Scarlet said. ‘There are pieces of maps, but also stars, waves and odd letters. None of it makes any sense.’
‘We may be over-thinking this,’ Phoebe said.
‘What do you mean?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘Maybe there’s another question we should be asking ourselves. Why, for example, are there twenty-seven dials?’
‘Twenty-seven,’ Jack mused. ‘What’s so important about that number?’
‘There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘And twenty-seven letters in the Hebrew alphabet.’
‘There are twenty-seven channels of communication with God in the Kabbalah,’ Phoebe said.
‘And twenty-seven bones in the human hand,’ Scarlet added.
Jack said, ‘And twenty-seven is…Well, it’s bigger than twenty-six and less than twenty-eight.’
‘Mozart wrote twenty-seven concertos for piano and orchestra,’ Scarlet pointed out. ‘The second movement of Number Twenty in D minor is definitely the best.’
‘No doubt about that,’ Jack sighed.
Phoebe’s eyes were shining. ‘That number may help us a great deal,’ she said, spinning the dials on a piece of the Broken Sun. ‘There is a blank square on every single dial. What if most of these must be made to line up, with only the number twenty-seven showing?’
‘But there aren’t any numbers on the Broken Sun,’ Scarlet said.
‘There are,’ Phoebe said, pointing at a double arrow shape on one of the dials. She snatched up another piece and spun it around to an inscription in the shape of a shield. ‘These are in Ancient Sumerian.’
Phoebe carefully turned each of the dials so that only the numbers representing two and seven were showing. Then she fit the sections together with the shorter piece in the middle. It snapped into a single shaft.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Phoebe gasped. ‘It’s actually…’
Before she could continue, something clicked within the device. Phoebe put it down as it unfurled into a large sheet of metal, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon and spreading its wings.
‘Incredible,’ Mr Doyle said.
‘Good heavens,’ Scarlet said.
‘Bazookas,’ Jack said, frowning. ‘What does it mean?’
‘I…I’m not sure,’ Phoebe said. She picked up the metal sheet and turned it over. The dials were now a straight strip. ‘I think each of them moves.’
They did. A single support ran across the back, but the strips could slide, lining the symbols up for any number of combinations.
‘We seem to have moved ahead,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘But we still have some way to go.’
‘So it would seem,’ Phoebe said.
‘Be kind to yourself,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘You’ve done better than anyone else in thousands of years.’
‘But what do we do now?’
Jack touched the strips of metal. ‘Some are locked in place.’
Phoebe tried moving them. ‘You’re right.’
‘How many of them move?’ Scarlet asked.
Jack tried them. ‘N
ine.’
‘Is there a commonality between the pieces that move?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘They do have something in common,’ Phoebe said. ‘They all have a star on them!’
‘I believe you’re correct,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘Do any of the legends regarding New Atlantis refer to stars?’
‘Not directly,’ Phoebe said. ‘But the ancients were certainly interested in the constellations. Astronomy was quite advanced for its time.’
‘I don’t know anything about stars,’ Jack said. ‘Except that our sun is one of them.’
‘The sun just happens to be the star closest to Earth,’ Mr Doyle said.
Phoebe explained. ‘Ancient civilisations created pictures from them—the constellations—Leo, Gemini and so forth. Most originated with the ancient Greeks.’
‘What about the pictures the stars create?’ Mr Doyle asked. ‘A lion. A scorpion. Twins…’
‘The only legend that relates directly to the Broken Sun is that of Jason and the Argonauts. He was a hero of ancient Greek myth who searched for the Golden Fleece.’ Phoebe paused. ‘There’s a story that Jason’s hand will lead to his eternal twin. And his twin will lead to New Atlantis.’
‘Is there a constellation for Jason?’ Jack asked.
‘No,’ Phoebe said. ‘But it is a legend that has always baffled Atlantis historians.’ She frowned. ‘Not all the constellations have survived. In fact… Ignatius, do you have a book of the skies?’
Within minutes she was leafing through a dusty tome.
‘I thought so,’ she cried. ‘There was a constellation relating to Jason. It was Argo Navis.’
‘Argo Navis?’ Jack repeated the strange words.
‘It was named after the ship used by Jason on his quest—the Argo. The constellation was enormous and it’s the only one not to survive from Ptolemy’s time. It was later broken up into four smaller constellations, each referring to a part of a ship,’ Phoebe said.
‘Keels have steered ships for centuries,’ Mr Doyle said.
