The Oracle's Message (9 page)

“What is this place?”

They were in a large, open circular room. Marble columns dominated the scene and huge blocks of the stone had been scattered about the room. It was as if they had walked into a temple after an earthquake.

Hans and the rest of the team climbed out of the tunnel and gasped at the sight. Spier and Roux, meanwhile, seemed to have found some common ground and were talking animatedly about the discovery.

Spier glanced over at Annja. “You still think the theory of a lost civilization is absurd?”

Annja shrugged. “I don’t know what to think just yet. We haven’t even explored the rest of this place.”

Roux sniffed. “I told you she wouldn’t be convinced. Annja’s one of those types who often refuses to admit the truth even when it’s staring her in the face.”

“That’s enough, Roux,” Annja said. “Let’s stow our gear and see what we can find.”

They all took off their tanks and rigs. Annja pointed a finger at Roux. “I hope you’re planning on finding a way to refill our tanks. Otherwise, you’ll need to figure out how you’re going to get us all home again.”

Roux waved his hand. “It won’t be a problem.”

“It won’t be? How do you figure that?”

Roux was clearly more interested in exploring the ruins than thinking about getting them out safely. “Annja, if worse comes to worst, I’ll simply swim back with all the tanks, use what air is left in them to breathe and then refill them once I get there. Then I’ll come back down here and we all swim out again.”

“You’ll do that?”

“You don’t trust me, Annja?”

She smiled. “Let’s just say I might feel a bit better if someone else did it.”

Roux nodded. “Fine, fine. Whatever. Now that that’s settled, can we please get going? I’m dying to see what we’ve got here.”

“As am I,” Spier said. “I wish I’d thought to bring along a camera. But I didn’t think we’d find something like this.” He looked at Annja. “How did you ever spot it?”

“Oh,” Annja said, casting a sideways glance at Roux. “I just happened upon it. It looked like someone else might have found the entrance to the tunnel, but for some reason stopped working on it.”

Roux nodded. “Perhaps he got interrupted and was unable to finish.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, no matter,” Spier said. “We’re here now and that’s all that matters. The pearl must certainly be around somewhere.”

Hans came up behind Annja. “You all right?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’m anxious to see this place. I can’t tell if we’re still underwater or what.”

“Does it make a difference?”

“Yes, actually. If we’re only in a giant air pocket, then we’ll need to be careful. Any sort of shift could bring the entire thing down on us. And we wouldn’t have any of our gear with us to get out of here. That tunnel’s too far to swim in one go. Even at top speed, you’d need at least ten minutes of air to reach the reef again and then up to the boat.”

“We’ll be okay,” Hans said. “I promise you.”

She looked at him. “Thanks.”

Roux coughed. “Let’s get going.”

They followed Roux and Spier out of the room and up some intricately carved steps. Along the walls they spotted friezes showing people engaged in hunting and sports. They looked human enough, so Annja at least felt comfortable thinking they must have been related to modern people.

Roux ran his hands over the friezes. “Incredible workmanship. The level of detail here is astounding. Almost as if they had been etched with some type of computer-graphic tool.”

“That would be impossible,” Annja said.

Roux sighed. “You still cling to that assumption despite what you see before you? Really?”

“I haven’t decided anything yet, but even if this is some sort of lost civilization, then I doubt very much they had computers.”

Spier smiled. “You may be right, but you can’t discount the level of craftsmanship.”

“I don’t,” Annja said. “It’s remarkable.” She followed them up the steps and then into another antechamber. The interior walls were all an alabaster white. If you could have designed something to look like an ancient civilization, Annja thought, then this would certainly fit the bill.

A wide corridor stretched before them and Annja wondered what might lie down its length. She also couldn’t figure out where the ambient light was coming from. As far as she could see, there were no windows.

“How is it that we have light here?” she asked. “Do you see any windows? Any source of light at all?”

Spier frowned. “An intriguing question.”

Roux glanced about them. “Perhaps the stone itself radiates some sort of light?”

“The stone seems to be marble, though,” Annja said. “I’ve never heard of marble giving off light.”

“Nor I,” Roux said. He pointed up near the cavernous ceiling. “Perhaps there’s some sort of recessed lighting up where we can’t see? It seems rather uniform throughout this entire structure.”

Annja shrugged. “Something to keep in mind, I guess.”

They moved on, entering the long tunnel, which wound its way along and descended something like a reclining snake. As they walked the corridor, their footfalls seemed to echo about them.

Spier and Roux stopped frequently, exchanging opinions about the nature of construction and the geologic qualities of the marble.

“Never seen anything like it,” Roux said.

“A remarkable strain of stone,” Spier concluded.

At the end of the tunnel, they stepped out into another chamber, this one complete with a marble altar of some sort situated above them, accessible by a circular set of steps.

“I wonder what the altar was for,” Annja said. She’d seen a few altars in her time and most of them had meant some sort of sacrifices had taken place.

“Who knows what gods and goddesses these people may have worshipped,” Spier said.

Hans and the rest of the divers had remained pretty quiet during the exploration. Annja caught up with him.

“You guys all right?”

He nodded. “Why?”

“You’re not talking very much.”

He grinned. “I think we’re mostly just curious. We’re waiting to see what the experts have to say about things before we contribute to the conversation.”

“Is that it?”

He smiled. “Of course.”

“Well, say something so I don’t think I’m trapped with Spier and Roux over there, okay? That would not be a good thing.”

“Herr Spier is a good man,” Hans said. “A little crazy sometimes, but who isn’t a little crazy by the time they reach eighty?”

“I don’t know,” Annja said. “I’m not there yet. But with a little luck I might make it someday.”

Roux had already climbed the stairs and was examining the altar. Spier joined him and they ruminated over the carvings in the smooth surface. Annja went to investigate the carvings herself.

From what she could see, more people were depicted offering sacrifices to one god who appeared to have long flowing hair and horns. She frowned. It was an odd depiction of a god, unlike any she’d come across before, but then again, most of the races she’d researched in the past had their own strange ideas about what deities looked like.

“A sacrificial altar,” Roux said. “Makes me wonder how many people may have lost their lives on this very slab.” Annja continued to examine it and shook her head. “I don’t think very many at all.”

Spier looked up. “Why do you say that?”

Annja pointed. “There’s no trough.”

“Trough?” Hans asked.

“For the blood,” Annja said. “Most altars have some sort of capacity for catching the blood that inevitably gets spilled and collecting it in some fashion. The blood is often more important than the act itself.”

“Not all altars had such a device,” Roux said.

Annja shrugged. “I don’t see any stains, either.”

“Bloodstains?” Spier asked.

“Exactly,” Annja said. “Blood stains stone, after all. Shouldn’t we see some sort of evidence of the sacrifices here?”

“Not necessarily,” Roux said. “Maybe this race was meticulous in the cleanup after a sacrifice.”

“Perhaps,” Annja said. But she wasn’t convinced. Something struck her as odd about the entire setup.

Roux and Spier didn’t seem bothered by it, however. They ran all over the room comparing notes like a couple of schoolboys eager to discuss the latest action flick.

Annja wandered back down the altar steps and raced her way around the periphery of the room. The walls were all polished smooth. The stone felt cool to the touch. And again, there was enough ambient light to see extremely well.

But where did it come from?

She looked up at the conical ceiling above them. She could see it was equally light up there, but a lip of stone blocked her view so she couldn’t tell if there might be recessed lighting, after all.

“I wish I could get up there,” she said.

Hans glanced up. “A ladder would help, if we had one.”

Annja nodded. “No matter. I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually.” She looked around the room. Aside from the entrance, there seemed no other way out of the chamber.

That struck her as odd, too.

“Only one way in or out,” she said to herself. “But why?”

“Maybe the people they brought here never came out alive afterward,” Roux said. “Is it that important?”

“It could be,” Annja said. She climbed the stairs that led to the altar again and examined the slab that would have supposedly seen victims lie on it. She ran her hands over it and, again, the stone felt totally smooth.

“No sign of a knife blade flecking bits of stone off this,” she mused. She leaned against the slab and tried shoving it aside.

Hans saw what she was doing. “Annja?”

“Give me a hand with this, would you?”

He rushed up the steps and got behind the slab. “Do you think it will really move?”

“I don’t know. But I feel like we’re being fooled here.”

Spier heard her. “Fooled? How so?”

Annja gestured around them. “This looks compelling. It feels compelling. But something doesn’t add up. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe I can’t. I just feel like we’re missing something. And it could be important.”

Roux sighed. “I think we’re seeing what we need to see.”

Annja glanced at Hans. “You ready?”

“Sure.”

They put their strength into it and Annja grunted as they pushed.

The slab moved slightly.

“Ah!”

Annja looked at Hans. “We need more help here.”

Hans called Mueller and Gottlieb over. The three men squatted and braced themselves as they shoved the top slab of the altar. There was a vague hissing sound and the slab slid away as if on a hinge.

“She was right,” Spier said.

Roux frowned. “Lucky, more likely.”

Annja peered into the opening. A set of stairs led down into a dark tunnel. She glanced up at Roux. “Still got your flashlight?”

He hefted it. “Right here.”

“Then I think you should take the lead on this.” Annja smiled. “It looks like we’re going down again.”

Roux climbed over the edge of the slab and dropped down onto the stairs. Looking back up, he grinned at Annja. “You have to admit, this is incredibly fun stuff.”

Annja nodded. “Just get going. I want to see where this leads.”

The stairway corkscrewed down to another floor, depositing them all into a much smaller room. It was darker than where they’d come from and they were forced to rely on Roux’s flashlight in order to see.

“There are sconces on the wall,” Annja said. “But no torches anywhere.”

“One floor has its own light source—as yet undetermined—and the next floor has to rely on torches?” Roux shook his head. “Mystifying.”

“Not necessarily,” Spier said. “What if the floor we just came from was more for the aristocracy and this one is for the servants? Perhaps they don’t get the nice things that their bosses get.”

“Or perhaps the upper floor is meant to be a sham,” Annja said.

“Meaning what?” Hans asked. “This is not real?”

“Seems real enough,” Mueller said.

“It’s meant to look real,” Annja said. “And probably display all sorts of power and wealth. But what if they received visitors on the upper floor, but in reality they lived down here? They concealed their weakness, in other words.”

Roux shook his head. “I don’t know. The more we explore, the less certain I am of anything.”

He flashed his light on a round portal leading out of the room and they passed through it. Roux’s light bounced along the smooth walls, still made of marble, and then gradually wound around to a blocked passage, completely caved in.

“More evidence of some sort of disaster,” Spier said.

They progressed in single file, with Roux on point. Spier trailed him and then Annja, followed by Hans and the rest of the team.

Annja’s mind raced. She couldn’t imagine they were still within the confines of the coral reef. The structure they were in was far too large. What if the reef wasn’t at the bottom of the seafloor, the way it appeared, but rather was the top of the structure they were in? That would account for the way they’d descended when they first entered the tunnel, only to have to then climb once they were inside the structure.

Was it possible, therefore, that this massive building had simply slipped into the sea? And over the years, the coral reef had simply enveloped the topmost portion?

If that was the case, that would mean they were buried beneath the sand of the seafloor at that moment.

But how was it that the corridors weren’t flooded? What kept the ocean at bay and enabled them to breathe what tasted like fresh air?

“Look at this,” Roux’s light played over a massive painting of people charging into a terrifically violent battle scene. But they carried weapons that Annja had never seen before.

Spier peered closer at the painting. “It’s incredible. They look Asian, but what are they wielding to fight with?”

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Roux said.

Annja glanced at Hans and could see the mixture of curiosity and excitement on his face. But there was something else there, as well.

Fear.

“Are you okay?”

He looked around. “I may be overreacting, Annja. But I have the distinct impression that we are being watched.”

“How long have you thought that?”

“Since we came up out of the tunnel.”

Annja frowned. “That long?”

Hans nodded. “It has grown in intensity. Once you discovered the way down to this floor, it seemed to be more apparent.”

Annja nodded. She suddenly felt uneasy. But was it legitimate? They were in the darkness and that could affect a person’s sensitivity and paranoia level. Annja had been in many dark places before where she had felt like people were watching when they hadn’t been.

“Let me know if you start to feel worse,” she said quietly.

Annja moved back to the painting and studied it. There was an obvious leader riding in what looked to be a type of chariot. The wheels themselves looked as though they’d been hewn from the same marble that surrounded them now. Stone wheels? Not exactly the easiest or best source for transportation.

The leader of the warriors was a male with a youthful appearance. His long wavy dark hair stood out in stark contrast to his pale skin. In his hand he wielded a triple-barbed spear that looked more like it belonged to the god Neptune than a mere mortal. Swirling around him were his warriors, scores of men brandishing a host of strange-looking weapons.

Their foes across the expanse of the painting were darker-skinned Asians, wielding their own terrible weaponry. They were led by a woman with blond hair and Asian features.

In the middle of the painting, a horrific scene of carnage unfolded as people were speared, mutilated and torn asunder in garishly recreated colors.

“It’s excruciatingly violent,” Annja said. “This battle scene, I mean.”

Roux glanced at her. “You know how combat is, Annja. This is merely an authentic representation of it, it would appear.”

Spier nodded grimly. “I can’t decide what to make of the location they seem to be fighting in. Those trees don’t look like any trees I know of.”

Annja peered closer. Spier was right. The trees, such as they were, looked more like tall ferns without the benefit of any bark. Spindly tendrils that reminded Annja of sea grass were covered in blood and gore.

Roux chuckled. “Perhaps they were waging this war underwater.”

“That would mean they would be able to breathe in the ocean,” Spier said. “I don’t see any gill slits on their necks.”

Annja perked up. “Maybe they didn’t need gills at all.”

“How else would they be able to extract oxygen from the surrounding sea?” Spier asked.

“The U.S. government and a few others have conducted experiments on special-operations soldiers in the past decade or so where they have tested a means of enabling soldiers to breathe underwater. From what I’ve heard, it’s a horrifyingly brutal process, but there have been some successes with it.”

“Are you suggesting that perhaps this race, or races, even had that ability?” Roux asked.

Annja pointed at the painting. “If they’re fighting in the ocean, then I’d have to imagine that would necessitate some type of breathing ability.”

Spier nodded. “She’s right.”

Roux played the flashlight around and away from the painting. More sconces sat in the walls, but there were no torches in them. He glanced back at Annja. “Of course, if they were able to live underwater, then why would they need torches? Why would this place be in the open air like this?”

“I have no idea,” Annja said. “I was merely offering up an opinion about the painting. Maybe we were looking at their ancestors? Maybe they made the move to dry land at some point in their history.”

“Only to once again slip back into the sea when the cataclysm came,” Spier said. “An interesting theory, Annja.”

“I don’t know if it’s much of a theory,” Annja said with a grin. “I’m trying to make sense of the situation just like you guys.”

Roux’s flashlight revealed another portal. This one wasn’t as smooth as the others and showed that part of it had crumbled away. Roux ran his hand over the broken portion and shook his head. “It certainly appears to be stone,” he said. “Marble, if I had to guess. It amazes me they were able to build such a place.”

“It’s no more incredible than what the early explorers must have imagined when they cast eyes upon the pyramids,” Spier said. “It perhaps only seems wondrous because we have no reference point for any of this.”

“Hopefully we’ll get some answers soon,” Roux said. “And I’d like to find the pearl, as well.”

Hans nudged Annja. “Do you remember what I told you?”

Annja nodded. “Is it worse now?”

Hans nodded. “And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“Heinkel is gone.”

Annja whirled around. “Roux, the light!”

“What?”

“Shine it back here, now!”

Roux did as she asked and Annja saw that it was true. Mueller, Gottlieb and Hans were with them, but Heinkel had vanished. “Where did he go?”

Hans shrugged. “We have no idea. We came down single file, but when we stopped at the painting, I think we were all amazed by it and we lost track of Heinkel. He was last in line.”

Spier called out to Heinkel but Annja put up a hand. “Stop shouting. It won’t do any good.”

“Why on earth not? One of my men is missing.”

Annja looked at Hans. “Would he go back without us?”

“Where? Back to the tunnel?”

“Yes.”

Hans frowned. “I doubt that. We have all been together for several years. Heinkel would not dare abandon his friends.”

Roux scratched his chin. “Which leaves what possibility?”

“He was taken,” Spier said quietly.

Annja nodded.

Hans eyed her thoughtfully. “You don’t seem surprised?”

“I don’t know what I am,” Annja said. “When you told me you felt as though we were being watched, I had to agree with you. I’ve felt it, too.”

Roux came closer. “Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure of anything, Roux. But I know when my instincts are telling me something. And they’re telling me something now.”

Roux gave her a searching look that seemed to ask if she could manifest the sword here. Annja shrugged. She didn’t see why not, but until she actually did it, there’d be no way to know for certain.

Spier stepped forward. “We should double back and try to find him. He could be injured.”

“He might be,” Annja said, “but I don’t think splitting our forces is a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because if we are about to be attacked, it would be better to have as many of us here to fight them off, don’t you think?”

Spier frowned. “I didn’t think we’d be in any danger.”

Hans reached down and unsheathed his diving knife. “We are armed at least.”

“Those knives may not do much,” Roux said. “Did you see what the weapons were in that painting?”

Hans shrugged. “Weapons don’t make the fighter, spirit does. And if they have harmed my friend, then they will know the fear of facing me in combat.”

Roux smiled. “All right, all right. I was just letting you know what you might be up against.”

Hans turned and spoke quietly to Mueller and Gottlieb, organizing them accordingly.

Annja whirled at a sound coming from down the corridor. “Did you hear that noise?”

“What noise?” Hans asked.

Spier nodded. “I did. It sounded like something metallic.”

Annja glanced at Hans. “If something strange happens in the next few minutes, I want you to promise that you won’t be upset with me, okay?”

“Why would I be upset with you?”

“Just promise.”

Hans looked puzzled. “All right, I promise.”

Annja nodded. She closed her eyes and saw the sword hovering in the otherwhere. It was ready to be summoned if she needed it.

She opened her eyes and saw Roux looking at her with an inquisitive expression. She nodded at him.

She’d be ready.

“There it is again,” Spier said.

Annja had heard it, as well.

“Definitely metallic.”

“Circle up,” Hans said quietly. The six of them formed a circle with their backs to one another so they could keep an eye on every approach. Annja wasn’t ready to face whomever this was head-on. Especially if Heinkel had been taken from behind.

More sounds came at them from down the corridor.

But this time it wasn’t metallic.

It was the sound of running feet.