Well, shit. This wasn’t good.
A tear leaked from the corner of my eye, and I wiped it off with my left hand. My palm still throbbed. The mend spell was too limited to heal the damage of the deeper burns. Chewing my lip, I decided to cast a more significant healing spell while I sorted out what to do about my new scars.
Pinching my left pointer finger to get the blood flowing, I recited the incantation to cast a redemption spell. My right ring finger tingled as I finished the spell. The bone-deep ache of my palm ceased, and the skin there lost its charred hue as the heat of the burn evaporated with the spell, and my body healed itself.
I ran the fingers of my left hand across the ridged imprint on my palm and fingertips. I would be carrying around a permanent souvenir from this adventure it seemed. I also whispered a small plea to Gaia to help me when my trespass was discovered since I’d be carrying around the evidence of it.
At least I had the coin to show for all my trouble.
I put my things back in my backpack and hurried to the center mosaic. Laying the torch down to the side of the mosaic, I dug the coin out of my hip pocket and put it on the mosaic’s right eye socket.
Once again, it fit like it belonged there, but nothing happened.
“Gods’ damn it!” I swore aloud and stomped my feet.
Surely the flesh of my right hand was sacrifice enough to get a little success? I couldn’t go back empty-handed after all this. I scowled as I realized the irony. I’d never be empty-handed again.
I looked at the mosaic and rubbed my head in frustration. I had hoped that this was a puzzle I could solve. Maybe I was wrong.
Still, there was the slit in the mouth area that had held the broken sword. I opened my backpack again and took out both swords and examined them.
Would the sword I retrieved from the centurion work? I slid it down into the slot. The sword fit in the hole, but nothing happened. I looked at the broken sword and particularly at the glyph that had been secured to the hilt. Was that the key to this puzzle?
I pulled out my athame again and pried at the Mercury glyph on the broken sword. With a little effort, the glyph popped off. Now I needed something to secure it to the other sword. I looked around for something that would work.
“What in the bloody hell are you doing down here?” A man’s voice boomed behind me.
I just about jumped out of my skin. Whirling around, I saw Sevenoir coming down the main stairs behind me, the rabbit ears bouncing on his head.
“I have been looking for you for hours,” he yelled, his face red with fury, batting the giant spider web out of his way as he moved up the rubble-filled hall toward me. “What are you doing down here?”
My face went hot and my fingers cold as I struggled to come up with a plausible excuse for my trespass into the Londinium excavation. Finally, I decided the truth was my best defense and explained to him what had happened with Mama Abena, the Fallen King, and the tree in the Ealdwic Park.
“And so, when the energies led into the excavation, I just sort of followed.” I shrugged my shoulders and gestured at the halls around us.
Sevenoir looked torn about whether to believe my explanation or throttle me, although his face was a lighter pink shade now, rather than full-on magenta. “So, you’ve been exploring an ages’ old Roman Mithraeum that not only is an English Heritage-protected site but is also probably in imminent danger of caving in on your head? I can’t believe the door wasn’t locked.”
I flushed bright red, then decided to ignore the last part. “Well, when you put it that way,” I groused, pouting, before explaining further.
“I’ve been trying to solve the puzzle of the Sol Invictus mosaic.” I pointed to the tiles at my feet and showed him the Mercury glyph in my left hand, and explained my efforts to collect the golden coins so far. I went light on my description of the eerie darkness of the hall on the west side and the scarring burns I’d gotten traversing the flames on the east.
Sevenoir looked at the coins I’d laid there in the mosaic and scratched his forehead. “So you think by somehow affixing this glyph to the other sword you’ll be able to trigger whatever mechanism is in the mosaic?” he asked.
“Right,” I nodded. “And hopefully get these doors in front to open.”
“You have no idea what’s behind those doors.”
That was true, but I figured the statement was a trap. I hadn’t really thought about what I’d do if something dangerous were behind them, which he no doubt would take me to task for. I decided to punt with some distraction.
“The lingering caretaker familiars down here have all been docile and benign,” I explained. “They’ve ignored me the whole time.”
Sevenoir grunted skeptically at that. He tapped his chin, thinking.
Why was he down here looking for me anyway? He’d been looking for me for hours? Why? Figuring this might be a good time to go on the offensive, I asked him.
“Just trying to keep you out of trouble.” Sevenoir cracked his knuckles and ground his teeth. “I saw you head off at a trot from Ealdwic Park down Warlock Close and figured I better check out what you were up to. It never occurred to me you’d break into a dig and go skulking around in the dirt and rocks. I spent hours chasing up and down the sewer tunnels looking for you.”
He took the bunny ears off his head and shook the dirt and spider webs out of them with disgust before placing them back on his head.
“So will you help me?” I asked.
“Help you? Get further into trouble?” he snorted with derision.
My heart fell.
It must have shown on my face, because, rolling his eyes, Sevenoir waved a dismissive hand at me. “Let’s see what you’ve got there.”
As I explained what I was trying to do, Sevenoir examined the glyph and the broken blade, then held out his hand for the other ancient gladius I’d retrieved from the remains of the centurion. He produced a leather thong from around his neck, and after removing the Saint Jude medal from it, handed the blade and glyph back to me with the makeshift strap.
I looked at him with a raised eyebrow as he tucked the medal into his jeans’ pocket.
“Saint Jude,” he quipped. “Patron Saint of Lost Causes.”
Ah.
“Should have left it on,” I responded, dryly. “I could use the help.”
Taking the leather thong, I wrapped the Mercury glyph to the gladius hilt tightly, then carefully slid the sword into the mouth socket of the tile face, completing the image. With a deep rumble, the stone doors in front of the mosaic slipped open, revealing a torch-lit chamber and a fire team of three more dead centurions inside and a stone marker beyond their bodies.
“Well then,” Sevenoir said. “This was unexpected.”
Our previous argument forgotten, we both stepped forward into the room, avoiding the centurion corpses, to the stone pedestal. It appeared to be engraved with something.
Oh great. More Latin.
I tried reading the engraving aloud: “Consequuntur Veneris Alter, Alter Mercurii Cursus, in Infimoque Orbe Luna Radiis Solis Accensa Convertitur.”
Nothing happened.
I sighed loudly. This was the end of the road, apparently, until I could get to the Temple Library.
“Your accent is atrocious. However do you manage spell work?” Sevenoir sniped at me.
“It hardly matters,” I mumbled, “since I don’t know what it says.”
Sevenoir scowled at me. “It says, ‘Him, as his companions, Venus and Mercury follow on their different courses; and in a sphere still lower the moon revolves, lighted by the rays of the sun.’”
He looked at me in inquiry to see if I recognized the quote. I didn’t.
As if accepting the inevitable, he sighed heavily and added, “It’s from the Somnium Sciponis, the story of Scipio’s dream of the music of the spheres in Cicero’s De Republica and it describes the Roman views on cosmology.”
Sevenoir pointed at the inscription. “Look here, it’s missing
the first part: ‘Deinde subter mediam fere regionem sol obtinet, dux et princeps et moderator luminum reliquorum, mens mundi et temperatio, tanta magnitudine, ut cuncta sua luce lustret et compleat.”
At my blank look, he rolled his eyes and continued. “That means ‘Beneath this, the Sun holds nearly the midway space, leader, prince, and ruler of the other lights, the mind and regulating power of the universe, so vast as to illuminate and flood all things with his light.’”
I stared at him, my mouth hanging open.
“Didn’t you have to read Cicero in that prep school of yours?”
“Not in the original Latin! And I certainly didn’t memorize it. I haven’t read it since I was 14.”
He arched his eyebrows in a manner that showed me exactly what he thought of that.
I thought furiously, attempting to recover. “Still, it’s about the sun, Sol Invictus, just like the name on the mosaic.”
He nodded in agreement.
We both looked further down the narrow passageway, which was lined with columns. On each column was a sconce, most of which were burning with lit torches, affording visibility. Some of the columns were knocked askew, and others were broken, having suffered the same degradations of the passing of millennia as the rest of the temple.
In the middle of the pairs of columns sat big bronze braziers, which were still full of wood, ready to be lit. Whatever this room’s purpose was, it absolutely held the semblance of ritual space. I quickly counted the braziers. There were six of them.
At the end of the space was another set of closed stone doors. Sevenoir and I walked the length of the room to get closer. The doors, we could see as we approached, were engraved with a round image of the Earth as viewed from space, showing clearly the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, albeit in inaccurate ancient proportion.
“Interesting,” Sevenoir commented. “In the ancient view, astronomy and astrology were geocentric, not heliocentric. There were seven classical planetary bodies; in order from the Earth, those were the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.”
“So if the image on the doors is Earth,” I said, pointing to the engraving, “would the braziers represent the planets?”
I stopped with disappointment as I realized the problem with that. “But, there are only six of them.”
“Perhaps the pedestal is meant to represent Saturn,” he said. “It was a marker put here to signify order, to create the pattern that represents the structure symbolically. Certainly, the inscription is well suited to that.”
“So we have braziers which burn, and an inscription that indicates an order for the placement of the braziers,” I concluded. “Shall we light them up?”
Sevenoir’s eyebrows lowered, and I could see him struggling against the desire to go forward and solve the puzzle. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
I laughed with glee and ran all the way back to the mosaic to grab the torch where I’d left it.
“One thing that bothers me,” he said, as I returned with the lit torch. “The ancient Romans believed the Earth didn’t move, and yet this is clearly a doorway, liminal space to something deeper inside. A sort of Earthgate.”
“But what is deeper inside the Earth?” I asked.
“I think I might know,” Sevenoir got a glint in his eye and motioned me to get started. “You’ll want to start with Venus. It was the first mentioned in the inscription and would be the third planet from the Earth.”
I counted back three braziers from the doors and put the flaming torch to the ancient wood. It caught fire with a whoosh.
“Now Mercury,” Sevenoir said. “Come back this direction one brazier.”
I lit that and looked at him for the next step.
“OK, now the last planet mentioned in the inscription, the Moon. This one, right in front of me,” he advised, pointing.
I lit the brazier as instructed and waited.
Nothing happened.
“Ugh. We’re so close. I just know it,” I cried. “Wait, you said there was a missing part to the inscription, and it was all about the sun. Also, this temple is dedicated to Sol Invictus!”
He nodded at me, pleased. “I think you’re right. Light up the fourth brazier to represent the sun.”
I walked swiftly down the passageway to the fourth brazier and lit it. The flames leaped, and behind me, I could hear stone scraping across the floor. Sevenoir jumped out of the way as the doors flung wide.
“Ha!” he crowed as he looked inside.
Beyond the stone doors lay a chamber, the walls and floor once again constructed of stone. At the back of the chamber was a small raised dais, steps leading to it on all sides. At the top of the dais, I could see the telltale roots and leaves framing a golden Agartha portal.
“That is what lies deep within the Earth,” Sevenoir said with satisfaction, pointing at the portal. “Agartha. We’ve found an Earthgate to Agartha.”
Next to the portal stood an ancient rusted custodian, a giant mechanical robot similar to what I’d seen standing sentry in Agartha on my way to London. This one, however, didn’t look like it had moved in years.
“Could it be this temple was built here to protect the portal?” I said, wonder in my voice. “Who else knows about this?”
“At a guess,” he answered. “No one has been in here in two millennia besides us. Let’s hope Dame Julia takes that into account when she takes her riding crop to our hides for being down here in the Mithraeum.”
We stepped into the room, marveling at the glowing portal.
The rusted custodian, which had been slumped over, whined to a start and straightened up, its hinges squealing with disuse. It stepped forward, moved down the dais stairs, and began tromping towards us aggressively.
“Whaaaat?” I said, scrambling back, sudden fear making my voice rise an octave.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Sevenoir swore. “It has been here protecting the portal for 2,000 years and probably thinks we’re intruders.”
The custodian was at least 20 feet tall, so it closed the distance in remarkable time. We scattered as it pulled back its metal arm and took a swipe at us. On either side of the room were little alcoves filled with three columns each. I ducked behind the nearest column on one side of the room, as Sevenoir did the same on the other. I pulled my blood focus out of my backpack and quickly pricked my finger with my athame. Focusing my Will, I cast maleficium at the giant metal guardian.
My attacks bounced off of him harmlessly as he stomped across the room toward Sevenoir.
“I can’t seem to hit him,” I yelled at Sevenoir.
“He’s probably got some kind of protection subroutine,” Sevenoir yelled back. “All the Agartha custodians do.”
He pulled out his pistols and, leaning around a pillar, unloaded on the custodian. I ducked behind my pillar as the bullets ricocheted around the high-ceilinged room.
“Stop that!” I screamed, crouching for cover.
I heard a muffled grunt and a stomp as the custodian took a swing at him, having followed Sevenoir around his pillar.
“Run for the portal, Wedd,” he yelled.
I scrambled up and ran up the dais stairs toward the portal. As I came within five feet of the glowing circle, my body lifted off the ground, and my arms opened of their own accord. A golden glow suffused my body and I could see my anima draining off into the portal.
“What is happening?” I cried.
Sevenoir peeked around the pillar he was currently dodging behind to avoid the custodian.
“It looks like…” he grunted as the arm of the custodian slammed down on the pillar he was standing behind, shaking dust from the ceiling. “It looks like the well is using your anima to charge itself. Can you move away from it?”
Struggling because I was floating in midair immobilized like a little kid in a puffy snowsuit, I kicked my legs and upper body to attempt to move away from the portal. Slowly I made progress away, but I was a sitting duck if the custodian decided to take
a swing at me.
The noise stopped, and the custodian dropped again to its knees.
“It seems its motor has malfunctioned,” Sevenoir said with relief, as he jogged over from where he had been hiding. As he neared the portal, he too lifted off the ground.
“Shit.”
“Oh my gods…Were you not paying attention?” I growled at him, as I continued to struggle to the edge of the portal’s grasp.
“Well, I guess I’ll help play anima transistor too,” he said wryly.
With a screech, the custodian stood up again and turned toward us.
“Gods damn it!” I spat out the words, renewing my struggle to escape the pull of the portal.
With a big stomp, the custodian stepped forward and clattered across the room, its gears grinding and squealing, as it lurched into range. I struggled forward another inch and dropped to my feet on the stairs, as it pulled back its arm to swing at Sevenoir.
Not knowing what else to do, I ran over and kicked its metal leg with all my might, trying to draw its attention as Sevenoir struggled to free himself.
“Hey, you big lug! Come pick on me for a while.”
Whining, the custodian’s upper body swiveled toward me, changing the trajectory of its swing toward me. I ducked and ran back to the relative safety of the pillars, and began playing cat and mouse with the giant metal guardian, as it pursued me around them. It didn’t move particularly fast, but its legs were so long, it could cover a lot of ground with one stride. I did my best to make sure I stayed out of the range of its giant fists, as it swiped at me. One solid fist connected with a pillar with a crash. The pillar rocked, causing a small avalanche of dust and rocks.
I looked up with alarm. Fearful that repeated blows to the pillar would cause the ceiling to fall, I ran for the center of the room, baiting the custodian toward me, away from the pillars and away from Sevenoir, who was still pinned into donating his anima to the drained portal. He squirmed and struggled to get free, much like I had.
London Underground: An Unofficial Legend of The Secret World (Unofficial Legends of The Secret World Book 2) Page 11
