Tomb of the First Priest: A Lost Origins Novel

by A D Davies

  They talked and made hand gestures, understood names like Jesus and Thomas, but it was Bridget who made the breakthrough. With an iPad.

  She produced the retina screen and laid it before them, showing a page from Thomas’s manuscript. One of the women audibly gasped. The man moved his head closer and then away. Bridget demonstrated how to pinch the screen to zoom in and out and tapped it to turn the page. Either they were not as tech deficient as they pretended, or they were fast learners, as the man was soon flipping between images like a teenager. He rested on one in particular, his eyes ablaze with interest.

  Toby craned his neck.

  The male elder stopped on a photo of the Aradia bangle, one taken on a plain background before they encountered Jules. He wrapped his hand around his wrist, a question mark in his expression. Bridget shook her head and pointed in the direction of the hill.

  All three lowered their heads and brought their hands together in prayer. In unison, they returned to their previous position.

  Toby checked on the team; Charlie, Harpal, and Dan were hanging back, letting Toby and Bridget do their thing. Which, hopefully, they had communicated accurately: the bangles were on their way back to the tomb, they were in the possession of the people who had mined the paths, and Toby and Bridget were on the elders’ side.

  The elders stood and walked past them, paused until Toby moved forward, and then resumed their path to the outdoors.

  The crowd understandably remained in place, a half-moon of bodies around the entrance, parting as the head of the congregation called out words the westerners couldn’t hope to catch. Only Bridget grasped some of it.

  “I can’t understand exactly what they’re saying,” she told the team, “but intonation is important in this language. He’s scared. Really scared. Like end-of-the-world frightened. But he’s reassuring them. Kinda. When he points at us, he’s being positive. And I think... I think he’s saying we’ll help them.”

  “Great,” Dan said. “Nothing like working under pressure.”

  The elders congregated at the well. Although they lacked electricity, they did not want for food or other commodities, such as paper and charcoal, the latter of which a ten-year-old girl duly delivered to the male elder. Using the well cover as a table, he sketched hurriedly on the sheet as large as a newspaper. It was clearly a map: a river, a series of paths, some straight, others less so. Boxes along the way... rooms perhaps?

  Toby examined it and pointed at the depiction of a river. Shrugged. Which river?

  The elders lifted the wooden cover from the well, leaned it against the side, and all three pointed down into its depths. Then the man traced his finger from there, along the ground, until he was pointing up into the foothills.

  Harpal covered his mouth, a spy avoiding lip-reading eavesdroppers. “I am not liking the look of this.”

  Dan retrieved everything he could carry from the helo and set up the rappelling gear and flashlights while Harpal inventoried: a couple of flares, electronics, satellite comms, digging equipment, fine-detail tools including picks and brushes. No firearms. It was one of the things the air base had been strict about. No Americans handling unauthorized weapons.

  At first Dan felt had been insulted, but when he considered it properly, he knew he’d never have allowed a Pakistani “freelance archeologist” to roam around a US military base in with access to a firearm.

  While the crowd had thinned somewhat at the behest of the elders, a sizable audience watched as LORI decked themselves out, then Dan and Harpal perched themselves on the well’s lip, ropes integrated to the helicopter’s winch. They were to be the advance party to test how efficiently Charlie’s sat-comms worked that deep, and if all was clear, the women would follow, leaving Toby up top to coordinate. And to do what went unspoken: survive if the others did not.

  Plus, he was the least physically able and reluctantly accepted that he’d slow them down.

  The pair kicked off and dropped vertically at a steady pace, descending manually, using harnesses and belay grips rather than the mechanical pulleys on the chopper; they would only be used for a swift evac.

  Although each member of the team brought a specialty, other skills bridged those competencies into universally essential training for all, rappelling being one. Others ranged from the simplicity of digging a hole with care to setting a small charge and—with so many shipwrecks and sunken cities dwelling underwater—the highly complex ability of scuba diving. Even Toby was adept at rappelling and swimming. To a point.

  A cool breeze signaled the water source’s proximity. The rough-hewn stone ended, replaced by natural formations, a fissure through which the pair passed easily into a cave pocket less than six feet high. Dan switched on the flashlight atop his head and activated the low-light camera on his chest. As soon as he did, Toby commented through his earpiece, “Receiving loud and clear.”

  “Copy that,” Dan answered.

  The river flowing beneath was four feet wide but pooled somewhat because of the narrowing of its bed, making it easy to access using a simple bucket and rope. They swung to reach the bank and dropped glow sticks to provide consistent light. Harpal set a relay pod, which took comms from their subvocal kit via their sat-phones and transmitted the signal up into the open.

  Modified army tech.

  Dan said, “Okay, ladies, you’re up.”

  Normally, Charlie managed the ops remotely, but she insisted on coming today since the comms kit was running off her prototype pods. Plus, her affinity with engineering had proved essential in the past; these ancient people sure knew how to seal their rooms, and a deep understanding of pulleys and levers might be their only way in.

  The women descended, disengaged, and gazed around.

  “It’s an underground river,” Charlie said.

  “We need to head that way.” Dan pointed up the passage into darkness. “We don’t know what’s up there, so I’ll lead.” A compact metal pickax snapped open in his hand, an ice climber’s tool. “I’m scouting ahead, twenty feet. If I say run, you run. Toby is manning the winch. It’ll pull you back up quickly.”

  “What about me?” Harpal said.

  “If I have to hold anyone off, they’ll need you to fly them out. Fast. And don’t come back for me. Clear?”

  No one spoke.

  “These guys mean business,” Dan emphasized. “If I meet ’em, I’m dead. If you try to help, you’re dead too. Which is pointless. So don’t get dead. Understand?”

  Nods this time.

  “Good.” And Dan strode off ahead, hunched under the ceiling, feet sure and steady on the trail.

  Toby wasn’t an invalid, but he had no choice when speed was of the essence. His role was an intellectual one, with a soupçon of subterfuge thrown in alongside a scoop of diplomacy as required. Today, the waiting was especially difficult.

  There was little conversation from below, so all he could do was perch on the helicopter floor beside a winch normally employed in the fast evac of soldiers. Legs dangling over the side, he propped an iPad in shadow, featuring the shaky image from the GoPro mounted on Dan’s chest.

  More rock.

  A flash of river.

  A grunt as Dan found more solid footing.

  “Hiya,” came a woman’s voice. Next to Toby, not in the earpiece.

  It was a girl of maybe fourteen, wearing a black robe with no Roman collar. Her long black hair was braided, and she wore a stud in one ear. She presented a narrow, weathered book to Toby, hands out flat, head bowed.

  Toby glanced around; the three elders stood back near the church, observing.

  He accepted the book, and the girl lowered her hands, turned, and retreated to the three adults.

  It was old but not ancient. A couple hundred years at most. Leather bound with indentations where the writing no doubt once lay. A few flecks of gold leaf caught the sun, but little else was visible.

  He opened the first page, yellowed with age.

  Illustrated.

  Like
a children’s book, each page featured three or four lines of writing beneath a black-and-white sketch of events. There were ten pages in total, etched with a careful but not artistic hand.

  Toby recognized the landscape. The hill before him was drawn more conical than it currently appeared.

  A wise-looking man preaching to a crowd adorned the next page.

  Water slewed through a valley.

  Rain. People fleeing under the deluge.

  A mountain breaking in half, the top almost amusingly snapped as if on a hinge.

  Several scenes of badly drawn people running.

  Then destruction: houses burning, crops turned, the conical hill smashed.

  Finally, a rendering of the landscape as it now stood: the village at the foot of a shapeless mound, overlooking a deep valley, and only a narrow path in and another out.

  It was the history of this settlement: a once-vital place of worship hit by natural disaster and rebuilt as best they could.

  From the air, they’d seen other paths—down the drop-off into the valley ahead and around the paddy fields and crop terraces—presumably installed long after events depicted in the book.

  A single word from Dan snapped him out of his reverie: “Hold.”

  Harpal appreciated Dan’s commitment. It was, after all, his responsibility to look after them in aggressive situations. That was pretty much his job description as it would appear in a wanted ad: Keep a team of freelance archeologists safe when they dive into situations they are clearly ill equipped to survive. The “man-at-arms” as Toby labeled the role.

  Harpal was handy in a brawl, as were most in his former profession, but he wasn’t at Dan’s level. That guy could read a fight and know whether it was worth digging in or if they should retreat. Phil Locke had been that way, too, although his confidence had turned to cockiness near the end, which is why he was now the stay-at-home dad to Charlie’s breadwinner; it was why he’d likely never walk again.

  That lesson was sufficient for LORI to understand they were not indestructible no matter how good their military adviser proved.

  Mortality is a tough lesson to learn.

  So no one was comfortable with Dan plowing on alone. From their observations in Mumbai, it was clear Valerio was using militia from the Ladoh region as mercenary muscle. Harpal doubted Dan would have much of a problem fending off one or two of them. More was debatable. Harpal should be up there too.

  Bridget and Charlie kept their flashlights aimed ahead, and Harpal positioned his toward the river—more of a stream at this level. He brought up the rear as ordered, so shining to the front would just cast long shadows on Bridget and Charlie’s path.

  After twenty minutes of ascent, maintaining a brisk pace, they were clambering over the route like children exploring rock pools at the beach. The flow grew louder, an echo twisting through the passage.

  “Hold,” came Dan’s command.

  “What’s going on?” Toby’s voice resounded clearly, Charlie’s booster relays working nicely. “What can you see? The picture isn’t steady.”

  Harpal felt sorry for Toby. This would be killing him.

  “It’s... a flat surface,” Dan said. “A path. Looks man-made.”

  “Your torch is dazzling me,” Toby complained.

  “Sorry.”

  “Is it safe?” Harpal asked.

  A pause. Then, “Yeah, bring ’em up.”

  Bridget and Charlie pressed ahead, carefully scaling the strewn route until they met with Dan at a modest waterfall arcing from a tributary twenty feet over their heads. It formed a pool that fed the river they had just followed.

  Standing to the side, Dan pointed behind the arc of water. “In here.”

  Taking care on the wet approach, they were all dampened by the spray, a freezing drizzle as they ventured inside what appeared at first to be a natural opening into another cave system. Dan had tossed several glow sticks ahead to illuminate what he found: a rounded passageway with a flat, smooth floor, almost polished in its geometry. Bridget was drawn to the walls where markings showed up faintly.

  “The water’s diluted the colors,” she said, but shook off the disappointment by skittering farther in.

  Dan rushed to keep ahead of her, but she remained transfixed as she found intact writing.

  At least Harpal assumed it was writing.

  Like hieroglyphics, only less clearly defined as actual figures. No birds, cats, or strange-headed men. He concentrated on his position at the rear.

  Harpal accepted he’d overstepped his ability back in Rome, so he was determined to follow orders to the letter this time. At least in Rome they had some idea of their surroundings, a layout of the streets. Even with the hastily drawn map in Dan’s possession, a lot of this was guesswork.

  “Dan, hold still,” Toby said. “There, right there.”

  Dan positioned his chest-cam to let Toby view the wall.

  “I’ve never seen this before.” Bridget ran her hand over the figures. “Carved and painted.”

  “Why would they do that?” Harpal asked.

  Charlie brushed her fingertips over the same section. “Guess? So future generations could copy it. Keep it alive. Write over it. Even if they don’t understand it.”

  Toby couldn’t help butting in. “What does it say?”

  “I couldn’t begin to tell you.” Bridget squinted at a cluster of similar etchings. “I don’t even know if it’s left to right or right to left. I don’t think it’s up-and-down, but...” She petered out, focused on a repeat of those first interesting figures. “A story, I think. Or instructions. This way.”

  “One sec.” Charlie took another relay pod from her bag and set it near the entrance, striding past with a brief comment: “We’re going deeper. Might need more signal for Toby. He can’t miss this.”

  Dan proceeded ahead, again maintaining his scouting distance, an animated halo spearheading the route, the two women a ball of light, and Harpal the rear guard. Vigilant. Doing his bit.

  Dan’s next comment hit them through their earpieces but also down the hallway. “Ho-lee...”

  “You’re on holy ground,” Toby reminded him.

  “Tell me about it.”

  They all caught up to Dan, his jaw slack, a hand on his chest, staring into a rectangular hole cut into the rock.

  The hole was a doorway. Set in it, a wooden door faced them, held in place by only the sort of latch found on a countryside gate. Pitted and scarred, it displayed a crucifix, a simple cross of wood, darker than the door itself.

  Toby took a sip of water from the clay cup delivered by the same girl who brought and now retrieved the history book. Pulse quickening, he observed the door through Dan’s camera. It was hot in the helicopter even with every door open. The male elder—whose name, Toby had learned, was Dasya—had grown more curious and now inspected every seat, switch, and handle. Toby barely noticed the heat anymore.

  “Open it, then,” he said.

  “Umm... not worried about booby traps?” Dan asked.

  In a lesser situation, Toby would roll his eyes and express annoyance at the frivolous interpretation of the scene, but with time pressing, he swallowed, shored himself up mentally, and said, “In all my years in this game, I have never once encountered collapsing floors or pressure-triggered rockfalls when opening a simple door.”

  “Are you sure, Toby?” Harpal said.

  Toby checked his water. Almost empty. He’d need a refill but wasn’t sure how to ask politely for one.

  “Toby?” Dan said. “How sure are you?”

  Toby waved to get Dasya’s attention, and the man happily put down the headphones and climbed over the seat to view the screen. Dasya nodded with a smile.

  Toby mimed opening a door.

  Dasya nodded again and spread his hands depicting an invitation.

  Toby pointed at Dasya and then the screen, then shrugged, hoping it translated as, “Have you been there?”

  This time Dasya counted off his fingers, all
the way to eight.

  “Eight times?” Toby held up the screen again. “Here?”

  Dasya blinked rapidly and gestured with an open hand to the door on-screen, then placed his hands together as if in prayer.

  “Toby, we need a decision,” Dan said.

  “Go in. I think... I think it’s a sort of pilgrimage route. That’s how they knew the way. It’s safe.”

  A hand extended from behind the camera’s point of view and unhooked the latch. The crisscross of light beams blanched the low-light camera’s sensitive lens. All Toby could make out was a series of black-and-white blurs accompanied by astonished murmurs, and occasionally a stone chest or fresco might appear, but never for long enough to ascertain its provenance. “Settle down, let me see!”

  “Oh wow,” came Bridget’s voice. “I think we found it.”

  “Found it?” Toby said. “What does ‘it’ mean? ‘It’ doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “Here, Dan,” Charlie urged. “Show him this.”

  The screen calmed, Dan’s movements slowing as he swung around to where Charlie and Bridget faced away. He wandered forward, around the women, and aimed at a slab, four feet high, seven long, and four wide. On the slab lay a human figure, wrapped in cloth pulled tight to its body. On top of this, clutched to its chest by bound hands, was a book marked by the same cross that hung on the door.

  Dasya smiled. “Tamas.”

  Toby said, “Thomas?”

  Bridget sounded breathless, the wind knocked out of her. “The tomb of the first priest.”

  “Indeed.” Toby set the tablet on the seat beside him, heart fluttering, a little breathless. “You could be looking at the remains of Saint Thomas himself.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Valerio and Jules ventured deeper with only Horse for company. The mercs dawdled farther behind, which Jules continued to find odd, and he questioned it.