The passageway dropped straight down for twenty feet, then made a sharp right angle and, as Tam had said, led west, back toward Tintagel Island. They swam through the featureless tunnel until it took a sharp bend upward and then, thirty feet up, they broke the surface and emerged in an underground cave, facing two stone doors.
Each had a circle and cross stone where a doorknob should be, and each depicted a scene from Jesus’ life. The door on the left showed a Nativity scene. The door on the right showed Jesus struggling to carry the cross to his crucifixion.
“I know which one looks like sorrow,” Bones said.
Dane contemplated the doors. What was it about the Way of Sorrows that rang a bell? He had it!
“The Way of Sorrows is another name for the stations of the cross. We’re looking for scenes of Jesus on his way to the crucifixion. It’s the one on the right.”
He spun the Templar cross and the door opened on a passage that led up and curved to the left. He shone his light inside, looking for signs of danger, but finding none. Holding his breath, he led moved into the passageway and followed it up into the heart of the island.
They continued on until they’d passed through six sets of doors, each juxtaposing a triumphant event of Jesus’ life with one of his road to Calvary, and every subsequent passage winding higher and higher. He wondered what lay behind the other doors, but didn’t really want to find out.
At the seventh set of doors, they faced their first real conundrum. The doors were identical. Each showed the entombment of Jesus, with seven people, four male and three female, carrying him toward the tomb, which lay in the background on the left. In the background, on the right side of the picture, stood Calvary, with its empty crosses looking down on the scene.
“Any ideas?” Bones was looking at the doors like they’d insulted his mom.
“Take a closer look,” Dane said. “See if anything’s different.”
“Man, that’s too much like those stupid puzzles in the newspaper. I vote for the door on the right.”
“Fine. You can go first.” Dane grinned and pushed his friend aside as he moved in for a closer look. They spent five frustrating minutes gazing at the two doors. The images seemed to meld together until he couldn’t separate them in his mind. Finally, he rubbed his eyes in frustration and backed up to look at it from a distance.
And then he saw it.
“Bones, come back here and take a look.” When Bones joined him, he pointed to the crosses atop Calvary. “What do you see?”
Bones stared blankly at the doors, and then his eyes widened. “The crosses on the right are Templar crosses. How did we miss it?” He moved forward a few steps. “You have to be in just the right place to see the subtle differences. I wonder…” He walked up to stand between the doors and rubbed an identical spot on each with the tips of his index and middle fingers.
“Bones, those aren’t boobs.”
“Check out the stone that blocks the tomb. It’s too small to see, but I can feel a cross carved in the one on the right.”
“Just like the stones that have gotten us into the treasure chambers.” Dane nodded approvingly. “You want to do the honors?”
Bones grinned and opened the door on the right. It slid back to reveal another chamber. In its center stood a three foot tall block of stone, and protruding from its center…
“Holy crap!” Bones exclaimed.
Even though it had been what he’d expected to find, the sight of a sword embedded in a stone took Dane’s breath away. He entered the room, feeling like he was in a dream, and stopped in front of the sword.
“Excalibur.” He spoke the word reverentially. From the moment Avery told them they’d found Arthur’s dagger, he’d known they were on a path that would lead to the legendary sword, but the reality was still more than he could comprehend. Arthur had lived, had borne this sword, and, apparently, had drawn it from a stone.
Much of the sword was buried in a three foot-high block of stone, but he could see enough of the blade to know it was made of the same metal as the spear and dagger, while the hilt was made of the same white stone that gave them their power.
“Well, who’s worthy to draw the sword?” Bones asked with a sly smile.
“You first.”
Bones reached out, took hold of the handle, and pulled. It didn’t give an inch.
“Fine,” Bones sighed. “Your turn.”
Dane gave him a knowing look and aimed the beam of his flashlight onto the white stone hilt. Lights immediately began to swirl in its depths, reminding Dane of a line from Tennyson’s “Morte d’Arthur.”
“And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt, for all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks.” The stone pulsed faster and faster until it finally shone with a steady light.
“Here goes nothing.” Dane pressed the stone, and flickers of light began to dance along the flat of the blade and run up and down the fuller. The edge shone a bright blue, and the light seemed to run up one side and down the other.
He took Excalibur in his hand and pulled. The blade slid free easily. He knew he should shut it down right then and head back to the boat, but the little boy inside of him, the one that, in his youth, had daydreamed of being a Knight of the Round Table, wouldn’t let him.
“Stand back,” he told Bones. “I want to try something.” He took aim, raised the sword, and brought it down at an angle. Excalibur sheared the corner off of the stone like the proverbial hot knife through melted butter.
“Sweet! My turn.” Bones looked like a kid on Christmas morning as he sliced two more corners off the stone. Then his expression grew sober and he shut pressed the pommel. As the lights in the blade faded and died, he handed the sword back to Dane. “This is serious stuff, you know.”
“I know.” Dane had pondered the implications of their discoveries many times. The weapons might be ancient, but they represented an advanced, maybe even unearthly, technology.
“A cloaking device. A weapon that turns a little bit of light into a powerful electrical weapon. Now a sword that can cut through stone.” Bones shook his head.
“And none of them require a power supply,” Dane added. “Just solar energy, or even a little bit of artificial light. If scientist can unlock the technology, they could do incredible things.”
“Or incredibly terrible things.” Bones rubbed his chin and stared down at the ground. “Tam’s going to want to turn them over to the government, you know.”
Dane nodded. “Better that than the Dominion getting its hands on them.”
“I guess. Let’s take some pictures and get out of here.”
While Bones made a photographic record of the chamber, Dane finally took the time to look around. It did not differ in any significant way from those chambers on the other side of the Atlantic: circular with Templar symbols carved in the walls, the double-band of code winding down the walls, and a wedge-shaped image up above.
Dane took a last look at the stone where Excalibur had been embedded minutes before, still amazed and intrigued by what they’d found. He stowed the sword in a bag Tam had provided, slung it over his shoulder, and began the trek back to the outside world.
Back on the surface, he radioed Tam to pick them up.
“Three down,” Bones said. “I wonder what Jimmy has come up with. This kind of feels like it should be the end of the line, you know? Arthur only had three legendary weapons.”
Before Dane could answer, their cruiser appeared around the tip of the peninsula, and shots rang out from up above. He turned and saw that two men had taken up positions on the cliffs below Tintagel and were firing on their cruiser. Nearby, a sleek-looking boat bobbed in the surface. He and Bones had been so dizzy with success that they’d ignored what was right in front of their faces.