The History Keepers Circus Maximus (14 page)

‘If it was a ghost,’ Charlie pointed out, pulling him on, ‘you probably wouldn’t hear it coming.’

‘Thanks,’ Nathan snorted. ‘You really know how to put a man at his ease.’

Finally they emerged from under the trees and rounded a rocky peak. Gradually the terrain flattened out. It was an even more unsettling place than the forest. An otherworldly stillness hung in the air; the soil was black and dry, and giant boulders of pumice lay strewn about amongst gnarled, dead trees. Nathan became even more jittery, and when the temple finally loomed up ahead – two crumbling, lopsided columns framing a dark opening – the blood drained from his face entirely.

‘This has got to be some kind of mistake . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Why don’t we check Topaz’s coordinates again?’

Charlie ignored him and headed for the doorway. A flight of cracked stone steps descended into darkness.

Nathan kept his distance. ‘Well, what can you see?’ he asked nervously.

‘
Ssh
,’ Charlie ordered. ‘I can hear something . . .’ He listened intently. ‘Something . . . or
someone
.’

‘Who?’ Nathan gulped. ‘What can you hear?’

Charlie continued in a low whisper, ‘Lost souls . . . I can hear them calling. They’re saying . . .’

‘What are they saying?’

‘
A man approaches who poses danger to all; a man of strong physique, of limitless vanity
.’

Nathan screwed up his face, listening for the voices, but heard nothing but the wind swirling out of the dark opening.

‘
A man who thinks that ultramarine makes his eyes really pop. Bring us the head of Nathan Wylder
—’

‘Shut up, Charlie, just shut up! That’s an order. We all have our little foibles. You don’t like goat’s cheese or unpunctuality, so please respect my one tiny little phobia.’

‘Look, why don’t we all go in together?’ Jake suggested, trying to suppress a smile. ‘I’ll take your arm if you like.’ If he was honest, Jake was frightened too – the whistling of that wind did sound ghostly – but he felt that they would get on quicker if he appeared as unbothered as Charlie. Under any other circumstance Nathan would never have accepted Jake’s offer, but now he took his hand and squeezed it tight.

Charlie grabbed a fire torch from his holdall, lit it and set off.

‘I’ll take that, thank you very much.’ Nathan swiped the light and followed closely behind, with Jake at his side.

Grit crunched underfoot as they went down the steps. The air became colder as they proceeded further into the mountainside, and the faint breeze continued to whistle eerily. Finally they found themselves in a chamber and looked around. It was not a sight to put Nathan at his ease. Even Charlie found his heart beating fast.

It was unexpectedly large – like a crypt under a big church – paved with great slabs of ancient black stone, with a ceiling that disappeared into the gloom above. At the far end, dominating the space and ominously watching any intruder, was a great statue on a pedestal.

‘Our friend Proserpina, I take it,’ Charlie said, adjusting his spectacles.

She was much larger than life size – a scowling warrior goddess, seated, but with clawed hands outstretched as if she were about to tear her enemies apart.

Nathan was standing like a statue himself, clutching Jake’s hand in a painful grip. Jake loosened his fingers a little before examining the rest
of the room: set in recesses in the walls stood four much smaller statues, looking frail compared to the menacing goddess. Two lamps hung, unlit, from the ceiling, but otherwise the chamber was bare. There was a scurrying sound, and it was Jake’s turn to freeze as a rat darted along the wall.

‘I hate those creatures,’ he muttered under his breath as he joined Charlie in front of the statue.

‘This must be an antechamber,’ Charlie said, watching the rat disappear through a hole in the corner. ‘
Follow the shadow’s hands
 . . .’ he mused, peering at the goddess. ‘Here – give me a leg up.’

Jake obliged, cupping his palms together and helping Charlie up onto the pedestal so that he was on a level with the statue’s eyes. Carefully he examined Proserpina’s fearsome hands to see if there was any movement in them. ‘The hands must be the key – to let us in somewhere.’

Nathan tentatively advanced towards one of the smaller statues. He held up the torch and examined it in detail, his face wrinkling in disgust. Finely carved from stone, it looked like an emaciated corpse in a ghostly gown, with its head hanging down at an angle and stone worms crawling out of its eye sockets. As he looked closer, the head
suddenly shot up and glared back at him. Nathan screamed, the torch went flying, and the whole room was plunged in darkness.

‘Hell’s bells! Nathan, what are you doing?’ Charlie’s voice shouted out.

‘It moved! The statue moved – it looked right at me!’ Nathan cried.

Jake had heard the torch drop and felt along the floor until he found it. He produced his flint lighter (ever since Nathan had given it to him on that dark night in sixteenth-century Venice he had never been without it) and re-lit it.

Nathan was cowering on the floor. ‘You see?’ he said, pointing at the statue. ‘It was looking down before.’

As much as Charlie wanted to scoff at Nathan’s silliness, he had to agree. ‘Unbelievably, you’re right . . .’ He looked around at the other effigies. ‘A moment ago all four of them were looking down; now only that one is.’ As they turned to look, there was a grinding of stone and this last figure also lifted its grisly head.

‘That’s it, we’re leaving,’ said Nathan emphatically. ‘There must be another way in to wherever we’re going.’

‘Just calm down!’ Charlie told him. ‘They’re obviously
intended
to scare people and stop them coming down here. That’s why it’s said to be haunted.’ To demonstrate his lack of concern, he went over and tapped one on its bony thigh. ‘You see, just stone. Far more importantly, we need to find out how we get beyond this chamber – so please, could everyone put their heads together and work out what is meant by
follow the shadow’s hand
.’

At this moment a long-lost memory surfaced in Jake’s mind: one evening, when there was a power cut in his house (his dad, in a doomed attempt to create a built-in wardrobe in the hall, had accidentally drilled into the main fuse box), they had lit candles in the kitchen and Jake and his brother had made shadow puppets on the wall.

He looked over to the statue of Proserpina with her hands outstretched, and then at the two bronze lamps hanging from the ceiling. He went over to one of these and raised the torch as if to light it. To everyone’s surprise, it ignited immediately. He went over and lit the other; this also lit up with a satisfying
whoomph
. Intrigued and perplexed, Charlie and Nathan stood watching as Jake went behind the statue and examined the back
wall. ‘There,’ he said. ‘
The shadow’s hand
.’

Nathan picked himself up, and he and Charlie went to look. They were astonished: the light from the lamps cast two sets of overlapping shadows, creating the image of a single large hand, its forefinger pointing at one brick in particular – one out of thousands that made up the back wall.

It seemed obvious now. Jake put his finger to the brick – it was spongy to the touch – and pressed hard. A moment later there was a deep rasping sound, and the entire middle section of wall rose up, gradually revealing a secret space beyond.

‘He’ll be putting us out of a job soon,’ said Charlie, giving Jake a clap on the back. Nathan was so impressed that for a moment he forgot all about his fear of ghosts.

Jake led the way in as Charlie wedged a stone in the opening so they wouldn’t be trapped inside. All three squinted into the gloom. It was roughly the width of a London Underground tunnel, and crisscrossed by a network of gossamer cobwebs. At the far end, standing in an indistinct pool of light, they saw a hunched figure.

‘That’s either another statue . . . or someone standing very still,’ Charlie whispered.

‘So kind of you to put me out of my misery,’ Nathan replied drily.

‘Come on – let’s go,’ said Jake, forging on. He felt he was tantalizingly close to Topaz and there was not a moment to lose.

‘Stop!’ Charlie suddenly shouted and pulled him back. ‘Look!’ He pointed to a shape protruding from the wall: a stone carving of a dog’s head with its mouth wide open for the kill.

‘There’s another one there,’ said Jake, making out an identical form on the opposite wall. ‘And there!’ He nodded at a third one jutting down from the ceiling.

Charlie understood immediately. ‘Of course – Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the underworld. And like the real thing, I have a feeling that this one is not exactly amiable. Look in its mouth there.’

Jake and Nathan peered up into the inky black cavity between the jaws of the dog on the left-hand wall, and could just make out, in the place of its tongue, the faint glint of an arrowhead.

Charlie removed his cape, bundled it up and carefully pitched it forward to a point directly between the three heads. There was a collective
twang
and a sudden rush of air. Three glints of light converged, and the balled-up cloak dropped to the ground – with three arrows sticking out of it. Charlie picked it up, removed the darts, tossed them to one side and shook it out: it had several holes in it now. ‘What do you reckon, Nathan? Fashionably distressed?’

Nathan rolled his eyes. ‘I hate that look. I have not an iota of respect for it. I mean, honestly – randomly torn material? Where’s the craftsmanship?’

Once again Jake was forging on, his eyes fixed on the stooped, still figure at the end of the tunnel. He stopped just short of it. Charlie’s first guess was right: it was indeed a statue, but carved from wood, not stone. It reminded Jake of some ancient relic you might find in a cathedral – an old man with a haggard face just visible under his hood and cloak and a wizened hand reaching out, palm up. It stood – like a mast – in the centre of a small wooden boat, set across a channel that disappeared, at either end, into the mountain. In the shadows underneath lay pools of water.

‘That will be Charon then,’ said Charlie, increasingly impressed by the set-up. ‘The ferryman to the underworld. Our hosts, whoever they may be, are
certainly doing things thoroughly – although the River Styx has seen better days,’ he added with a nod towards the damp channel. ‘That’s perfect . . .’ He had spotted something else. ‘There’s a slot in the palm of his hand. You know how the legend goes, of course?’ he said, turning to Jake. ‘You have to pay the ferryman to take you across the Styx; otherwise you must wander in limbo for eternity.’

‘Limbo for eternity . . .’ mused Nathan. ‘Sounds a bit like that trip you once forced me to go on – the cuckoo clocks of Switzerland.’ Charlie ignored him, produced a single golden coin from his pocket and inserted it into the slot. ‘Wait!’ Nathan shouted. ‘Discussion first, please.’

‘Oops.’ Charlie shrugged as he opened his fingers and let go. The three of them heard the coin roll down inside the arm and land with a clink.

Nothing happened for a moment; then, gradually, they became aware of a distant rumble of water. It reverberated from deep within the mountain, quickly getting closer and louder. Finally it started to flow along the channel – just a trickle at first, then a stream, and soon a foaming torrent. Charon’s boat straightened and rose up from the bottom of the channel.

‘Quickly – all aboard!’ Charlie cried, jumping in. Jake followed excitedly, holding onto the rigid ferryman.

Nathan stood his ground, shaking his head. ‘It seems to have slipped your minds that I’m in charge here and we haven’t discussed this yet – who knows where that river might lead?’ But it was pointless putting up a fight – their course was inevitable. ‘Totally unprofessional . . .’ he grunted, running after them and leaping aboard as the boat took off down the tunnel.

The three of them yelled, half with fear and half with delight, as it careered this way and that, plunging down through the mountain, under the unflinching eye of the wooden ferryman. At one point the tunnel levelled out and they slowed, almost coming to a halt; then it fell away again, and they went plummeting down.

They held onto Charon, mouths open in a nonstop howl as they tore along the final stretch before emerging into the light, at which point they slowed down and stopped. They stepped off and climbed a small flight of steps to see where they were.

They had found themselves in paradise.

10 T
HE
H
YDRA
G
UARD

THE SUN CAST
a golden light over a steep, verdant valley that led to a cliff high above the sea. In the middle stood a group of fine-looking buildings, all connected by magnificent gardens filled with brightly coloured flowers, lawns, terraces, colonnaded walkways and fountains. Occupying the prime position, looking out over the sparkling ocean, was a striking villa of white marble, surrounded by tall palm trees.

The whole place swarmed with activity. A small army of youngsters – tanned, healthy-looking and as fit as Olympians – were training in different areas of the camp. In a circular sandpit, two young men were engaged in a swordfight. Even from a distance, Jake could see that this was no casual sparring contest: they looked and sounded as if they were
fighting to the death. In other areas, youths practised boxing, archery and Roman martial arts. Those who weren’t training sat on benches, watching attentively as they awaited their turn.

Further groups of attendants, workmen and gardeners – all wearing identical brown livery – busied themselves around the estate.

Jake, Nathan and Charlie, who had retreated into the shade between a cluster of trees and a small outbuilding, surveyed all this in silence. In vain, Jake had scanned the girls to see if Topaz was amongst them.

‘A holiday camp?’ Nathan drawled sarcastically as the vanquished gladiator was dragged limp and bloody from the sandpit.