Beneath the Hallowed Hill

For Aldrin

Prologue

Alexander Cagliostro balanced on the side of the yacht, then did a back roll and fell into the warm water. With a kick, he surfaced, tested the airflow in his special face mask, then took the extra air tanks from his assistant, Karl Mueller. He tied his on and looked around for Miriam. Another splash announced her arrival. He waited while she adjusted her own equipment, then motioned for them to submerge.

The turquoise waters of the Caribbean darkened to a royal blue as they swam toward the bottom. A yellow cloud of Spanish Hogfish turned as one and headed away from the two divers. When he could see the bottom clearly, Cagliostro leveled out and treaded water, quieting himself until he could feel the subtle currents of energy around him. Miriam floated a few feet below him, waiting. He dropped deeper into his finely tuned senses, feeling for the magnetic pull he knew would come. Two dolphins swam into view and circled the divers, keeping their distance. Cagliostro gathered his desire, holding it in check until it grew into an ache in his chest, then pushed it out into the water. He tracked the vibration as it radiated out, listening for the thought wave to strike its target and ping back to him like sonar. There was quiet, more quiet, and then he heard it. Southwest. He didn’t spare a glance for Miriam.

He angled down until he was about five feet from the ocean bottom and followed the contour of sand and rock, kicking up over a small hill, then down the other side into a valley. The ping grew stronger. The bottom flattened and he slowed, passing over a stand of pillar coral. It had to be here. Another ridge of rock rose on the other side of the valley. He swam over to it and found scroll marks on the edge of a perfect rectangle. This was no natural rock; it was part of a wall or building of some sort. He took out a compass, checked his tanks, and waited for Miriam. She swam up beside him.

“They’re here somewhere.” The face masks he commissioned allowed them to talk to each other.

“You’re certain?”

“As certain as I can be,” he snapped. “We’ll divide the valley between us. We’ve got just over two hours of air. You start here. This ridge is your western edge. That thick growth of sea fan one boundary and the rough rock the other. We’ll meet in the middle.”

Miriam nodded. She went back to the wall and started to swim over her territory. Cagliostro glided back to the other side of the valley, keeping his senses open as he passed over the relatively even sand. He felt it somewhere close, but now was not the time to get careless. He must be patient and follow protocol. He didn’t think anyone followed them, but if he just swam at random, they might run out of air and light, and then someone else better equipped might come down during the night and uncover it for their own lodge.

He reached the beginning of the valley and forced himself to swim the edge, even though he knew what he was looking for was more to the middle. He moved back and forth, studying the ocean floor for any clue—an edge showing, a shape hinted at by the slope of the sand. All the while his senses were as receptive as a satellite dish.

They swam back and forth for about half an hour, slowly but surely making their way closer to each other and toward the middle of the valley. Cagliostro caught a glint in the light-brown bottom and pointed his flashlight at it. The light bounced back at him from something barely concealed. He moved in closer, ran his hand over the sand…and found rock, smooth and straight. He took out a rubber-tipped shovel and started clearing the sand away. Miriam joined him. She traced the edge of the rock and started digging farther down with a similar implement.

The gleaming flank of a long crystal slowly revealed itself. Cagliostro moved with care and a suppressed urgency, as if he were undressing the most beautiful woman in the world. The straight facet angled deeper and he grunted in disappointment. They would have to bring in heavier equipment.

Cagliostro pulled off his glove and fished under his neckline for the chain he wore. With a tug, he brought out the crystal he took from the dead body of Paul Marchant in Egypt. Pulling it over his head, he looked up at Miriam.

“Ready,” came her clipped response.

Cagliostro quieted himself and created a sacred space around them. He began a chant in his mind, then dangled the small stone over the long stretch of crystal. He waited, continuing his inner song. Nothing. He focused again on the vowel sounds, pushing away other thoughts, relying now on years of honed discipline. After what seemed a millennium, Cagliostro felt a deepening in the floor of the valley, as if a storm were approaching. A flash of light traveled the length of the crystal. It lit the inside of the stone and sent rainbows dancing through the cracks that no doubt occurred when the crystal fell from the temple it was placed in so long ago.

Cagliostro kept up the pressure of his chant, but the crystal did not speak again. It lay dormant, as if one burst of light was all it could muster after all those centuries of silence. Finally, he relented. He took out his GPS and noted the exact coordinates, then set his equipment to measure their ascent. He motioned to Miriam, and the two started up. Cagliostro chaffed at the slow ascent.