Treasured Lies (4 page)

When Nox found the antique ring, it had been used to secure an ancient scroll. That scroll, and in particular what was written upon it, had been driving him for decades. And now as he lay in agony and apparent neglect, he directed his attention to the scroll and finding the Calimala treasure listed in great detail upon it. Sometimes, when a ray of light hit the ring in a certain way, the three red jewels in the lid glowed. Almost as if they were reaching out to him, trying to tell him to have faith. But right now, in this dingy room it was lifeless. A perfect reflection of the gloomy darkness trying to engulf his spirit.

An unusual noise caught his attention. A low hum like a nesting wasp. But it wasn't a wasp, it was too consistent and gradually growing louder. It was an engine. Not as heavy as a car engine, but something smaller, like a motorbike or scooter. As he drilled in on the noise, he knew it was drawing closer. His breath shot in and out in frantic gasps as relief mingled with a fresh sense of panic.

‘Help.' His voice was nothing more than a broken whisper. He rolled his tongue around his mouth, trying to produce moisture.

‘Help me.'

The noise was louder now, but it was still some distance away. When the noise stopped his mind raced over dozens of questions, none of them easy to answer. Fear shattered like tumbling rocks in his stomach. He heard a series of thumping noises followed by a scraping noise akin to something being dragged over rocks. That soon stopped and was replaced with sounds of footsteps crunching on what must be gravel.

His breath snagged in his throat as he stared at the gap under the door, both dreading and equally desperate to see who was about to step through it.

It was a long time before two feet stepped up to the gap. He could just make out their shape in the glare, dirty, bare and very flat. Even from this distance he could see how long the toenails were. The feet stayed in that same spot for a long time. Too long, in fact, and Nox wondered what the hell the person could be doing. Why weren't they coming in?

‘Help me.'

When the door opened, he squinted against the glare and the figure that stepped into the doorway was nothing more than a black silhouette.

Nox's blood drained, leaving a hollow prickle on his skin as the person walked into the room with a lopsided gait. Nox noticed a long mop of hair and for a fleeting second he thought it may be a woman. But the boxy figure said otherwise. As the man walked across the small divide, Nox took in his appearance; hunched over back, lopsided shoulders and long hair as bedraggled and frizzy as the matching beard. The person now stood right before him and Nox could do nothing but stare at the redness of the stranger's cheeks. Weathered, sunburnt, diseased, whatever it was, the skin on his face looked painful. As Nox stared wide-eyed at the hideous face, he wondered if this man had experienced the same torture he had.

There was a second person now and Nox blinked against the glare. Either they were identical twins or he was hallucinating.

‘Who are you?'

‘Гεια σας μπoρoύμε να σας βoηθήσoυμε.'

Whatever the man had said was impossible to decipher, not just the language, but the way he said it. It was a shattered whisper, as if talking was difficult. The wave of fear Nox had been riding earlier hit a new high.

But when Nox spied what the second man was holding he screamed. The loudest scream his tortured throat could manage.

Chapter 6

Rosalina was exhausted. Scuba diving day after day was physically draining, and her hair and skin were paying the price too. The dryness wasn't something she was used to, but there was nothing she could do to repair it at the moment, not with the constant salt water contact. She prayed that the visiting doctor this afternoon would give Jimmy the go ahead to get back into the water. Not only to save her own sanity, but if she had to listen to him grumble one more time about not being able to dive, she'd probably throw him overboard herself. He was like a caged gorilla and his steely gaze convinced her he was trying his hardest not to rattle the bars. She couldn't wait to see him free again.

Jimmy's jealousy was justified. In just two weeks they'd removed thirty-eight items from their watery grave. It really was a treasure hunter's dream. And the pristine condition in which the items had been preserved was a miracle. For seven centuries they'd been exposed to the elements and yet some of the pieces, especially the smooth gold ones, looked like they'd been tossed overboard yesterday.

Alessandro, on the other hand, was like a ferret on speed. He couldn't keep still, fidgeted constantly and babbled nearly nonstop. It was a world away from the Alessandro she'd known back home in Italy. Before they went on this treasure hunt, nearly all Alessandro's knowledge about history came from books. Now he was literally making history.

Each item represented a puzzle. And Alessandro was the master at solving them. The ancient diary they'd secretly squirrelled from the Church of St Apostoli helped, as did Wade's extensive research notes. Alessandro was applying his vast research skills to providing a detailed manifest of the haul. It was already impossible to guess what the treasure would be worth. And there was still so much more to find. When they were ready, they'd have an incredible showcase for a museum.

Rosalina popped her regulator in her mouth, stepped overboard into the ocean, and when she resurfaced she signalled okay. Archer was quickly at her side and seconds later they were descending to the ocean floor. Archer had decided they'd explored section four thoroughly enough to move onto the fifth square they'd marked out. With their metal detectors sweeping in a synchronised arc before them, they swam along hand in hand. She giggled at the small stingrays, camouflaged within the sand that popped up as she came near and scooted off like frisbees.

The ocean floor abruptly dropped away and the change in the terrain was striking. A large collection of moss-covered boulders littered the canyon and the marine life increased dramatically. Fish of all shapes, sizes and colours darted away from her as she advanced. She made the mistake of getting too close to the coral wall and a blue eel with razor sharp teeth lunged at her. It was as abrupt as it was shocking, but she snatched her arm away just in time and the eel disappeared back into its hole as quickly as it had appeared. Unconsciously she flexed the fingers in her left hand at the brutal reminder of the last time she was bitten by an eel. The six puncture wounds in her hand were quick to heal, but she'd never forget the painful sting that lasted for weeks.

As she watched the eel disappear she noticed something strange about a large coral fan that swayed with the current. She pulled the plant aside and stared wide-eyed into a cave that was big enough for her to easily swim through. She'd seen caves in rock walls before, but none had been as big as this one looked; she couldn't even see where it ended. She unclipped her dive torch from her vest and shone it into the cavernous hole. A large crab scurried up the wall as her torch tracked its intended escape. Cobalt blue fish, with a yellow stripe that ran like a Mohawk down the length of their backbone, rubbed their bodies along the coral that lined the wall of the cave. As pieces of coral flaked off with their vigorous rubbing, a school of white fish ate in a feeding frenzy, snatching at the shrapnel that floated about as if it were their first meal of the day. Or maybe their last.

The entire cave was a beautiful kaleidoscope of colour and movement against a black backdrop and she panned the torch in a slow two-seventy degree turn to see it all. It was about four metres high and so deep she still couldn't see where it ended.

A section of the cave wall, devoid of any coral or plant life caught her attention, and her breath hitched as she realised what she was looking at. The cave wasn't a cave at all, it was the upturned hull of an enormous wooden boat. She froze at the sight and her skin tingled with excitement. It was several breaths later before she dragged her eyes away to go in search of Archer. As she eased backwards, a strange shape at the side of the entrance caught her attention. It was a statue, standing erect as if it had been placed there intentionally. It was an ugly thing, with the head of a monkey and an oversized round belly, but the details in its decoration were extraordinary. She went to examine it, but changed her mind at the last second, deciding to wait for Archer instead.

It annoyed her that he wasn't at her side, that's what a dive buddy was meant to do. She retreated from the cave and with her mind piecing together a safety lecture, she went in search of her fiancé. But when she found him and saw what he was digging from the sand, her anger quickly melted away. It was a cannon, black as chimney soot, smooth as molten metal, and still looking as powerful as it would have when it was first built.

She allowed Archer to show her what he had found. Even with the amount of gold and relics they'd already salvaged, she could tell this was his most exciting find. It must be a guy thing. A quick glance at her watch and she noted they still had twenty minutes left. She decided she'd let him have a few minutes before she dragged him to her cave.

The cannon was easily bigger than Archer and it would weigh a ton. How they'd get it aboard
Evangeline
was a mystery to her. No doubt Archer already had a plan. Rosalina helped Archer scoop the sand from the barrel of the cannon for five minutes. But soon she'd had enough of the digging and couldn't wait a moment more to show him what she'd found. He took some convincing though, she literally dug her gloved fingers into his arm to get his attention. In the end, she had to remove her regulator and mouth, ‘trust me' before he'd budge.

She led him back to the coral fan, tugged it aside, shone her torch into the large cave and panned it around, deliberately taking her time. Finally her torch beam lit up the wooden slats.

Even with the regulator in his mouth she heard him say, ‘Holy shit'.

The torch beam accentuated his golden-flecked eyes as he reached for her. They pushed off and glided over the cave threshold hand in hand. She tapped his arm as she played her torch over the statue at the edge of the cave. It was a bizarre sight, to see the monkey statue just sitting there. As they kicked towards it, she had to shove aside the notion that someone had actually put it there on purpose, as if guarding the treasure.

When Archer fell to his knees beside the statue, she suddenly regretted not having her underwater camera. In fact, she couldn't believe they hadn't taken hundreds of photographs already. She inwardly kicked herself and made a mental note for the camera to make the next dive. Instead, she tried to take in and memorise every aspect of this moment. Her breath was the only sound she could hear; she concentrated on it for a second, inhaling smooth and slow and then releasing a steady stream of silvery bubbles. Archer knelt beside the statue and a small puff of sand blossomed around his legs. He reached out to touch the statue. It may have been the distortion in the water but he seemed to be moving slowly. As if he too felt some reservation about the statue's positioning.

As Rosalina eased in for a closer look, she spotted what had captured Archer's attention so deeply. The body of the statue was decorated in Egyptian hieroglyphics. This was strange. All the Calimala treasure documented in the ancient diary was of European origin. She was fairly certain there was no mention of anything from Egypt. Rosalina frowned as she tried to picture how this item came to be here. Once again the idea that someone had placed it in this spot on purpose tumbled into her thoughts. But she quickly cast the foolish speculation aside. If someone had found this shipwreck before them, they would have taken everything, not left gold statues behind.

Archer trailed his fingers over a line below the monkey's head. The statue was at least a metre tall and with Archer kneeling beside it, he matched it at head height. With his hands on the monkey's cheeks now, she noticed his knuckles bulge and realised he was trying to twist it. It was only then that she noticed the head of the monkey had a rim to it, as if it would separate. Could there be things inside?

The head of the monkey didn't move, but the whole statue did. Archer tried to stop it but the weight must have been more than he could handle because it fell over, triggering a cloud of sand and particles. Rosalina matched Archer's efforts to fan the debris away.

When they could see again, Rosalina checked her watch. Five minutes to go. She turned her attention from the monkey statue to the rest of the cave. Her torch beam fell on a white object barely a metre away. She glided to it and it took all her concentration to keep breathing. The item was a heart-shaped box. White ceramic, decorated with blue flowers. The edges were trimmed with gold. She prised its gold claw feet from the sand and was surprised at how heavy it was. The box was as big as her outstretched hand. Rosalina pulled her neoprene glove off with her teeth and tucked it into her buoyancy vest pocket.

The clasp at the lower point of the heart shape was unlatched. She placed her torch on the sand, dropped to her knees to take in the beam of light, pinched the decorated gold clip between her fingers and lifted. The lid resisted, but only for the briefest of moments. She rolled the lid right back and once open she snatched up her torch to shine inside. A large bubble burst from her mouthpiece as she gasped.

Pearls of all shapes and sizes filled the heart-shaped box. Small ones, large ones, black, white, both smooth and irregular shaped. All retained a glorious lustrous shine. The only other two items in the box were gold clips, and that's when Rosalina realised she was looking at the remains of a pearl necklace. The threading had long ago disintegrated, but the pearls and gold clasps were in perfect condition.

With the lid open, she swam back over to Archer who was still trying to lift the monkey statue back upright. She touched his shoulder and held up the jewel box. He gave up his attempts on the statue and reached for the box. When he looked inside and frowned, she imitated placing a necklace around her neck and Archer nodded his understanding. With his index finger he twirled the pearls around in the box; maybe it was the filter of the water, or maybe it was his reverence, but he seemed to be mesmerised by them. When he handed it back to her he had a puzzling look on his face, one she couldn't understand. Something like this would normally result in a much more delightful reaction from him. She tucked the observation aside when he glanced at his watch. She wondered if he'd done that as a deliberate distraction. He was normally the last one checking the clock.