The Bone House (44 page)
He raised his head to look around. A vista of fine white sand stretched away on either side as far as he could see: a perfect beach washed by the cool waters of a turquoise ocean. The sun was warm on his back and the air balmy; a gentle seaward breeze wafted over him. Before him lay a land of shining green and gold—the deep, vivid emerald greens of the tropics and the bright yellows of exotic flowers in reckless profusion. Giant ferns and date palms poked above the verdure, spreading into a sky so blue it sent an ache through Kit to see it.
This is heaven
, he thought. Or, at least, someone’s idea of paradise.
Gathering his feet under him, Kit stood and, without any particular aim, began to walk up the sloping strand towards the forest. As he stepped from the sandy verge onto soft grass, he saw that his feet were on a well-trod path. It felt good to move under his own power again, so Kit followed the trail as it wound its way into the jungle. The farther he went, the more luxurious the foliage became—extravagant in the variety of colours and shapes, all different, all delightful to the eye. Trees with leaves shaped like pale lime-coloured stars, like rusty fans, like golden feathers; fronds like sawtooth blades, like delicate lace; flowers like drifts of jewels, like multicoloured clouds, like frieze works splashed with an exuberant painter’s brush, and more. Many of the trees, shrubs, and plants bore fruit—in globes, in clusters, in clutches and bunches and bundles—all in riotous abundance. Everything he saw was so intensely real, so manifestly present, it seemed to vibrate, to palpitate with the animating force of life, a force so strong it leaked, shimmering into the very air he breathed. The entire forest resonated to a sound Kit could not hear, a sound just beyond the threshold of hearing, like the final triumphant chord of a symphony—only he had entered the concert hall too late to hear the music. Still, the majestic waves of what must have been a glorious sound lingered, trembling in the air.
The farther he walked, the higher grew the trees. He passed through sun-dappled shade and cool shadow, content to follow the path wherever it led until the trees thinned abruptly and he found himself standing in a wide clearing before a lake of what looked like . . . glass? Crystal?
No, not glass—but not water either. Intrigued, Kit stepped closer and knelt down to examine it more closely. Translucent, glimmering, fluid, yet giving off a faint milky glow: a pool of liquid light. As impossible as that might have been anywhere else, here, in this place, it felt natural and right.
Kit reached out a hand to touch the gently gleaming substance and, just as his fingers were about to dip beneath the surface, he heard a rustling in the nearby leaves and branches. Pulling back his hand, he shrank away from the edge of the pool to watch. The foliage on the bank of the pond shuddered and thrashed; a moment later the fronds of the tree ferns parted and out stepped a man of middle height and compact frame, dark hair and eyes, the shadow of a beard on his jaw; he was dressed in a loose white shirt and dark trousers, boots and belt. All this Kit noticed as a sort of afterthought, because his attention was wholly absorbed in the burden the man carried: the limp and lifeless body of a young woman with long black hair and an oval face and almond eyes.
Kit’s first thought was that the woman was asleep. She was dressed in a long gown of thin white stuff, crushed and rumpled, and stained at the neck and under the arms as if sweat had dried there over time. Then Kit observed the ghastly tinge of the woman’s flesh: ashen and waxy, the sick pallor of the grave. No living human had flesh like that. At a glance, Kit knew that she was dead.
The man, his face set in a grimace of determination, tightened his grip on the body in his arms—as if gathering his strength for a superhuman effort—then, steadying himself, the man took a purposeful stride towards the pool of liquid light. His first step took him to the brink, his next step carried him into the pond and up to his shins; another stride and he was in to his knees. The opalescent liquid swirled around him, thick and glutinous as honey, radiance scattering in waves across the surface disturbed by the man’s measured plunge into the pool. The dark-haired fellow waded farther, sinking deeper into the strange liquid now lapping around his shoulders, swallowing the corpse he clutched so tightly in his arms.
Another step, and the man and dead woman sank beneath the surface without a sound. Kit watched the place where they had disappeared; it was marked by rings of shimmering light. These rings spread in waves across the pool and were soon lapping at Kit’s feet. But something else was happening: the place where the couple had sunk from view was now glowing with a rosy golden hue. This luminescence grew and spread until the entire pond was the colour of heated bronze glowing fresh from the crucible.
Kit watched, fascinated, as a dome of light appeared, a great bubble rising from the liquid light. In the centre of this dome emerged the head and shoulders of the man, rising once more. He still clutched the body of the woman close to his chest, but where before she had been a limp dead weight in his arms, now she clung to him, her arms clasped around his neck. Her face was buried in the hollow of his throat as he carried her alive from the pool; her skin, gleaming with the sheen of living light, no longer bore the taint of the grave.
Kit would have stayed to see the couple reunited, but the tenderness with which the man knelt to lay his lady down and cupped a hand to her face gave Kit to know that this moment was for the two of them alone. He backed away from the edge of the pool and, as he turned to leave, cast a last backwards glance across the pond to see that the man, standing once more, had removed his shirt to make a pillow for the young woman’s head. The man’s torso was tattooed with a spray of tiny blue symbols—dozens of them—symbols he had seen before.
“The Man Who Is Map,” breathed Kit. “At the Well of Souls.”
H
e waited until after dark and then, to be certain that he had not been followed, Charles Flinders-Petrie approached the Sacred Way by a torturously circuitous, wandering route, doubling back time and again until he could put his mind at rest. The last passage had been fraught, and he feared he had alerted his enemies. But it seemed that he had given them the slip, if only for a little while. That was all he would need. A few more crossings and it would be finished: the map would disappear forever.
Then let them do their worst. Nothing would make him talk. He would die first. The thought of taking his secrets to the grave made him smile.
Now to the business at hand—the reason he had come to Etruria. Although he had never met the king of Velathri, he had heard the name Turms since boyhood, and had longed to meet the royal sage and seer. It would not happen now, but Charles was glad to be here just the same. The funeral of the king lasted most of the day, and he had arrived in time to witness the procession, standing reverently among the grieving subjects. As a representative of his family, it was right to acknowledge the passing of a longtime friend of his father and grandfather. Charles congratulated himself on correctly navigating the ley and calibrating the time of his arrival. True, it would have been better if he had managed to reach his destination while Turms was still alive, but as things stood he considered it a singular victory. The tomb was unsealed and would remain so for another seven days in order to allow mourners to place their gifts and remembrances in the chamber. Having dressed in the style of a rural labourer of the day, Charles did not expect to be challenged by the soldiers guarding the tomb. As far as anyone was concerned, he was merely one more rural peasant come to pay his humble respects. His modest stature and unremarkable features, together with his wholly unassuming demeanour, often made it possible for him to move unseen through the various worlds he visited. Also, he had found that few in authority paid much attention to those they considered beneath them. So, to accentuate his lowly state, he had cut his hair short and allowed his beard to go unshaved a few days, giving himself a more grizzled, rustic guise.
If fortune favoured him tonight, he would pass unnoticed once more. Charles hoped he would not have to speak to the guards or, worse, bribe them to let him into the tomb.
Bearing a cluster of grapes in one hand and pressing the bundle containing his grave gift to his chest, Charles descended the long staircase leading to the sunken road cut deep into tufa stone beneath the surface of the surrounding landscape. He walked along, his way lit intermittently by torches, advancing from one pool of light to the next, until he arrived at the place where an iron brazier had been set up outside an elaborately carved doorway. The tomb had been whitewashed and painted red, green, and gold, designating a royal burial. The doorway was festooned with white flowers, and little red pennons had been strung from the top of the high banks of tufa at the top of the Sacred Way.
Two guards stood either side of the door—yawning and leaning on their long lances—and three more sat on campstools across the narrow roadway. A table had been erected, and the remains of the funeral meal, as well as gifts of food and wine, were piled high in baskets along the walls and steps leading to the tomb. The guards gripped cups and had obviously been helping themselves to the wine, bread, and sweetmeats. Why not? There was no danger of thieves or grave robbers. Turms the Immortal was a just and revered king, well loved by the people; exceedingly long-lived, he had survived plague and drought and war—the banes of rulers in every age, and in every age the same. He had lived long enough to enjoy that rarest of elixirs: the loving acclaim of devoted subjects. Even among his enemies, the bellicose Latins, Turms the Immortal was renowned as a sage and seer of extraordinary powers. Any thief foolish enough to risk stealing from this tomb would be torn apart by the mob, so high was the esteem in which the late king was held. The presence of guards was a mere formality.
Rounding his shoulders and lowering his head, Charles affected a stoop and, for good measure, a slight limp, smiling obsequiously as he approached. The guards at the door gave him a cursory glance as he hobbled into view. Nodding and smiling, he bowed once, twice, three times—as one would to his betters—and stepped to the tomb entrance. As he mounted the steps, he heard one of the guards behind him speak out—a single word of command. He did not know what was said, but he halted nonetheless.
The soldier rose from his stool and moved unsteadily towards him. Charles turned as the guardsman confronted him; he raised a hand to his ear and touched it lightly with his finger as a deaf man might. The soldier spoke again and Charles, still smiling, shook his head. One of the standing guards spoke a word to his comrade and gestured with his lance for the visitor to enter. Charles stepped to the threshold, but the other soldier put a hand on his shoulder, turned him back around, and then, as if to assert his authority, took the bunch of grapes from his hand. Then, with a lift of his chin, he directed the old man to do what he had come to do.
Charles paused just inside the chamber as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The little light that entered the tomb came from the torches outside, and that was not much. Although every instinct screamed at him to hurry, he forced himself to wait until he could make out the mound of gifts and tributes heaped on and around the stone sarcophagus of King Turms. The marble casing itself was fairly plain: a large box with a slightly domed lid, the sides decorated with the name and title of the resident within and an oval lozenge containing a relief depicting a figure on a throne attended by winged figures in flowing robes. That was all.
Garlands of flowers had been draped over the sarcophagus, creating the fragrant atmosphere of a garden. Grave goods filled the corners and were heaped round about: plates and bowls and chalices in decorated ceramic and hammered silver, sealed amphorae filled with wine and beer, elaborately fashioned loaves of bread, baskets of grain, an olive tree in a pot, cured meat, figs in sweet liquor, spiced honey in jars, and other delicacies a hungry soul might fancy.
Charles stepped to the great white stone coffin, removing the short iron bar from the bundle he carried. With an efficiency born of practice, he jammed the tapered end of the tool into the crack where the lid joined base. He paused, listening to the half-drunk guards talking outside; when he was certain their attention was elsewhere, he leaned all his weight on the iron bar and succeeded in raising the heavy lid sufficiently to slip a second tool into the crack. Working quickly, he levered up the coffin top. The stone was heavy, and it took all his strength, but he managed to force a tiny gap—just enough to slide in the last item from his bundle: a thin scrap of parchment sealed between two flat pieces of olive wood.
He would have preferred better tools and more time to hide the item properly, but neither luxury was possible in the circumstance. He felt the placket drop into the coffin and, with a sigh of relief, gently lowered the lid back down and removed the tools, which he swiftly hid—one beneath a sack of barley, and the other in a basket of persimmons. Then, with a bow of respect to the dead occupant, the visitor exited the tomb.
As he emerged, one of the soldiers at the door insisted on giving him a perfunctory pat-down, although anyone could see well enough that he was not hiding anything stolen from the tomb in his thin tunic. The guard sent him on his way with a nod. He bowed again and hurried away, threading back along the sunken road.
“Three down,” Charles said to himself as he flitted like a shadow along the Sacred Way. “Two more to go.”
Just two more. He prayed for time—a little more time to complete his mission. Then let his enemies plot and rage. Come what may, Charles could face the future unafraid.