“About time.”
Working a large hole from the crack, they wrenched a number of loose stones out of the way and created a space large enough to crawl through. Hawke peered inside with his Maglite and swept the beam up a long dark tunnel.
“What do you see?” Ryan asked.
“Funnily enough, a Greek bistro specializing in Mussels Saganaki.”
Zeke’s eyebrows rose an inch. “No kidding?”
“Sorry.” Hawke emerged from the hole. “It’s just a dark tunnel covered in cobwebs.”
Zeke waggled his finger in his face. “I thought as much, you old kidder.”
“What are you waiting for, you big girls?”
Hawke turned to see Lea already halfway through the hole. “You heard the lady. Will all big girls please step this way.”
“After you, boy,” Scarlet said with a smirk.
“Thanks, C.”
“Cheeky bastard.”
The dry and dusty tunnel descended deep inside the heart of the mountain. Narrow and oppressive, small holes carved into the stone walls at head-height had held candles to light the way in busier times. Today they were empty and the team used their flashlights to see through the dark.
The tunnel soon levelled out and they found themselves standing in a small antechamber. With a roll-up cigarette hanging off his lip, tip smouldering in the darkness, Reaper raised his glowstick and lit the chamber’s rough rocky walls a warm amber color. “No doors.”
The others joined him, sweeping flashlights over the walls, ceiling and floor in search of some kind of exit to the next level. Hawke saw a frieze running around the top of the chamber full of tiny, intricate hieroglyphics and what looked like a long crack running down the center of the ceiling.
Looking over at Reaper, he gave his old friend a desolate smile. “No doors.”
Lea pursed her lips and checked her watch. “Dimitrov and his men won’t be much longer before they’re down here. I hope Jack and Kolya are all right.”
“They’ll be fine,” Hawke said. “And we need to get on. Time’s running out.”
He walked over to the corner where the crack was at its widest and shone his flashlight beam into it. Any hopes he’d held that it might reveal a mysterious source of light or a trace of some water were quickly dashed. “Nothing.”
Behind him, Ryan had dropped to his knees and was sweeping dust and dirt away from the floor tiles with the heels of his hands. “Maybe one of these tiles is loose.”
Hawke crouched down and followed suit. “Come on everyone, get digging.”
Fighting to be the first to make the discovery, the team dug quickly, running their fingertips around the edges of the tiles and searching for any sign of a loose tile. Lexi won the race when she called out from the south end of the antechamber.
“I’m through!”
Before the others could walk over to her, she had already pulled the tile from the floor and was peering down inside the hole. When she pulled herself back up, she was smiling from ear to ear. “Looks like I found the tomb, bitches.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Hawke broke open a glowstick and dropped it down to the floor. Looking back up at his team he nodded appreciatively. “At least there’s no snakes.”
“Good for you Indy,” Lea said.
Ryan peered down inside. “But it’s definitely Orpheus’s mausoleum, or at least another antechamber to it.”
Without speaking further, Hawke secured a nylon climbing rope and rappelled down into the amber glow below. He landed with a thud on the mausoleum’s smooth, tiled floor and pulled the Maglite from his belt. After sweeping his flashlight around the chamber, he craned his neck up and called out to the rest of the team. Seeing Lea already halfway down the rope and Scarlet right behind her, he couldn’t help but smile. “I was going to give the all clear, but I can see there’s no need.”
“Someone’s got to keep you out of trouble, Josiah.”
“Fair enough,” he called back. “Reap, you stay up there and keep a look out for Jack.”
“Pas de problème. Gives me time for a smoke.”
Landing beside him, Lea shone her flashlight around the tomb. “No sarcophagus.”
“No.”
“What do you mean?” Scarlet touched down behind them and pulled a Maglite from her belt. “I broke a nail coming down that bloody rope so this had better be worth it.”
As Ryan and Lexi joined them, Hawke gave Scarlet a withering glance. “Can we get on?”
“Lead the way, maestro.”
“What do you make of it, Ryan?” Hawke asked.
“This looks way older than a regular tomb from the classical Greek period,” he said distractedly. “The design of the whole place more closely resembles the tholos or beehive tomb layout developed during the Mycenaean Era, but not exactly. There are important differences and if you ask me this style came first.”
After a long silence, Scarlet said what had to be said. “All right, I’ll ask. Why?”
“Because it’s simpler and yet makes use of the same strange material we found in the Citadel. If it was built after the tholos design, we’d be seeing more intricate corbelled vaults and ashlar masonry, but as you can see, none of that can be found here.”
“Saved me having to say it.” Lexi shrugged leather jacket-clad shoulders.
Ryan gave her a look. “You’re more than welcome.”
Lea smiled. “So when were these tholoses built?”
Ryan sighed. “The tholoi,” he emphasised, “really took off after around 1500 BC with the design quickly spreading all over the Mycenaean homelands. This is way older than that. In my opinion this is another example of the architecture belonging to the world that existed before our world.”
A longer silence followed.
“And of course, the final resting place of old Orpheus,” Zeke said. “Right?”
Ryan nodded. “The ancient Greeks believed that the dead had to be remembered for them to go on existing in the afterlife. To forget them was to kill them. Every anniversary of the death of a loved one, relatives would visit the mausoleum and speak their name out loud to ensure their continued existence. Neat, eh?”
“Sounds creepy to me,” Kamala said.
“Not me,” Lea said quietly. “I like it. I like that idea. I talk to my dad all the time, so I don’t see the difference.”
Kamala turned to Ryan. “Tell me again why there’s so little evidence of this ancient civilization.”
“The flood,” he said flatly.
“Huh?”
“The great flood. There’s one in the folklore of practically every culture on earth so there’s no doubt it happened. It covered most of the earth. That’s why there’s no evidence of the ancient culture.”
“I see.” She didn’t sound persuaded.
Hawke broke the tension. “Anyway, what have we got so far?”
Lea said, “Still no sign of any sarcophagus but there’s a pile of stones over in the corner and what looks like an altar against the far wall.”
“It’s an altar, all right,” Ryan said, approaching the exquisite marblework. “And a pretty bloody amazing one at that — especially these carvings along the top. It’s the best rendering of Orpheus and Eurydice I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s the certainly the best one I’ve ever seen,” Lexi said.
Hawke angled his flashlight downwards. “I’m more interested in what’s at the base, mate.”
Ryan saw it too. “Curious.”
They were looking at a raised pool built into the marble floor, half-filled with smooth, cool water.
“For drinking?” Lea asked.
Hawke shook his head. “I wouldn’t.”
“Me neither,” Cairo said.