He wasn’t exactly thrilled himself.
Roland waded next to Gray. “From Petronio Jaramillo’s account of his journey to the lost library, he claimed he did have to swim underwater to reach it.”
Seichan waved them onward. “Enough talk. The only way we’ll know if anything is actually down there is to just go look.”
He heard the clear skepticism in her voice. And she was right. This might all be a wild-goose chase, but the only way they would know was to do what she suggested.
Just go look.
Gray pushed into the tunnel, half swimming along the passageway. The air inside was dank, smelling of wet rock and moss. The beam of his flashlight illuminated some distance down the passageway and shone far into the crystal-clear waters, making it appear as if he floated in glass.
Murmurs rose behind him as they proceeded single file, with Seichan bringing up the rear.
“The walls,” Lena whispered to Roland. “They look too smooth to be natural.”
Gray ran his fingertips along the roof, realizing she was right. The passageway also ran too straight. They continued in silence, mostly because the water soon rose above their lips. Gray kept his nose high, breathing hard through his nostrils, feeling a panicky edge of claustrophobia set in. From the harsh noises behind him, he wasn’t the only one.
Then as he took another step forward, the floor vanished under his boot. Caught by surprise, his head slipped underwater. His flashlight came with him. The beam revealed a set of steps leading down from here.
He twisted and rose back to the surface, careful not to hit his head. He lifted his lips high enough to speak. “Stairs,” he gasped out. “Everyone stay here. I’m going to swim down and see if there’s any way forward.”
“Be careful,” Lena managed to sputter out.
Gray intended to do just that. He chided himself for not thinking of renting scuba gear in Cuenca. Then again, who knew if there were any dive shops in that remote mountain village? Either way, if this was as far as they could go unequipped, they could always return tomorrow with proper gear.
Still, a sense of urgency nagged at him. He wanted to blame it on the long plane ride getting here, but he knew it was more than that. Trusting his gut, he took a deep lungful of air and dove underwater.
Kicking hard, he followed the beam of his flashlight down the steep stairs. Silt disturbed by his passage wafted around him, clouding the clear waters. As pressure built in his ears, he finally reached the bottom of the stairs and discovered another dark passageway extending ahead.
He paused, debating whether to continue or turn back.
Clenching his jaws, he pushed off the last step and swam ahead, both drawn forward by the mystery and impelled by the tension behind him. Small chambers opened to either side. The sweep of his lights revealed obscure objects buried in silt and caked with algae. With no breath for sightseeing, he forged on without stopping.
Still, the rooms were clear evidence of prior habitation.
At last the passageway ended at another stair, this one rising in a tight spiral.
He cast his beam up, his lungs aching for air. He knew he was at the point of no return. Literally. He had enough breath to make it back to the others—or he could take his chances and continue forward.
He remembered Roland’s account of Jaramillo’s story. The man had claimed there was a way through, but that was decades ago, when Jaramillo was a boy. Still, there was no telling if this subterranean system had flooded more thoroughly over the passing years . . . or if these tunnels were even the same ones traversed by the young Jaramillo.
Gray shoved aside these doubts, trusting another’s advice instead.
Seichan’s words echoed in his head.
Just go look.
12:54 A.M.
Seichan slid past Roland and Lena, scraping along the walls to reach the front of the line. She pointed her flashlight down into the depths. Clouds of silt blocked the beam, hiding even the top step of the flooded stairs.
He’s been gone too long.
Over the years, Seichan had been given ample evidence of Gray’s competence, of his ability to survive the direst situations. But at this moment she was sure he was dead—not because of any failing of his, but because she didn’t deserve the happiness she had found with him. Prior to meeting him, her life had been a solitary one, free of attachments. Though it was rife with bloodshed and terror, it had also made sense to her, requiring no moral ambiguity. Alone, it had been easy to armor herself against the world.
But that was no longer true—and she had conflicted feelings about it.
She sometimes found herself lying next to him in bed, watching him breathe, teetering between holding him tight in her arms to keep him safe and wanting to smother him with a pillow so she could be free.
In this moment, though, she had no moral ambiguity, only certainty and determination. She swept her flashlight through the murk, her heart pounding in her ears, knowing what she wanted.
Get your ass back here, Gray. Don’t you leave me.
As if summoned by this thought, the clouds of silt blew thicker toward her. Then a glowing shape dove up. She fell back, giving him room.
Gray surfaced, raising his lips and nose to the tunnel roof. He sucked in great gulps of air. She grabbed him—not caring if he was still out of breath—and pulled those cold lips to hers and kissed him deeply.
He initially stiffened, surprised—then scooped an arm around her and drew her closer. When he pulled back, his eyes glinted with amusement.
“So you were worried?” he teased.
She pushed him away. “Only because I goddamn well know you couldn’t have held your breath for that long. You must’ve found something.”
Lena spoke up behind her. “What did you find?”
Gray grinned back at the woman. “I hope you’re a strong swimmer.”
1:08 A.M.
How much farther?
With her lungs screaming for air, Lena followed at Roland’s heels, her gaze fixed to the glow of Gray’s flashlight ahead. The man led them up a spiral staircase that seemed to go on forever. She began to dribble bubbles from her lips to ease the strain in her chest, to fool her body into thinking she was about to take a breath.
Then Roland shifted to the side, coming to a stop above her. She shot past him and her head burst out of the water and into open air. She took several desperate breaths.
Thank God . . .
Seichan surfaced next to her. She exhaled one hard breath, looking little bothered by the long swim.
Irritated, Lena turned away and did her best to gain her bearings.
They had risen into a flooded chamber. The stone ceiling stretched a yard above their heads. After the confines of the tunnel, the extra room and breathing space felt cavernous in comparison. A wide set of stairs climbed out of the water ahead of her.
Gray held his flashlight high as he kicked toward the steps.
Lena followed with the others.
Once there, Roland helped her climb out of the pool and onto the stairs. He craned around. “It’s warmer in here,” he noted.
She realized he was right. Even soaked to the skin, she felt the warmth and humidity of the place, more like what she had expected to find in a jungle rain forest. There was also a distinctly sulfurous scent to the air.
“A sign of geothermal activity,” Gray explained, glancing over to Roland. “Didn’t you mention this region of the Andes was unusually volcanic?”
“That’s right. It’s why the soil here is so rich.”
Seichan shook excess water from her clothes and limbs. “No wonder whoever built this place chose these tunnels. Comes with built-in heat.”
Lena pointed to the steps. “Where do these lead?”
“Come see.” Gray set off again. “I explored only as far as the top of this staircase. To make sure it wasn’t merely a dead end.”
Roland clicked on his flashlight to better illuminate their way up. The stairs ended at a wid
e landing. As she reached the top, she halted next to Roland, who had frozen in midstep.
The beam of his flashlight blazed across an archway ahead, framing a long hall. The arch was made of gold, sculpted into an elaborate scaffolding of bones and skulls, all appearing to be human. Over time, the humidity and sulfur had left a darker tarnish in the sculpture’s deeper crevices, but the bulk of gold remained brilliant.
“Amazing,” Roland sighed out.
And macabre, she added. No wonder the natives who stumbled upon this place deemed it to be dangerous, especially with the stench of brimstone in the air.
Lena felt a shiver of trepidation as she crossed under the archway.
The others seemed to have no such qualms. Gray led them forward, casting the beam of his flashlight down the long hall. The passageway hewn from the rock was wide and tall enough that a pair of elephants could have marched down its length side by side.
“Look at the walls.” Roland washed his light from roof to floor. “They’re covered in writing.”
Lena drifted closer, studying the rows of script. With only a cursory glance, she recognized Sumerian writing, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mayan glyphs, and strings of Greek letters. The languages were stacked one upon the other, rising all the way up the wall and down the length of the hall.
“It’s like what we saw in the Chapel of Saint Eustace,” Roland said.
Lena remembered the writing that Father Kircher had inscribed on its walls and what it represented.
The history of the written word . . .
She crouched and studied the bottommost row of writing—which was clearly the oldest. Here were the same sticklike characters she had seen inscribed on the standing stones in the cloud forest. She ran her fingertips along a few of those lines.
Am I looking at the very first written language?
She stood and stared at the others. “This must be some sort of record of the evolution of language.”
“I think you’re right.” Roland set off down the hall, his gaze continuing to sweep everywhere. “And I wager Father Kircher got his idea about how to decorate his chapel from this place . . . which suggests Nicolas Steno must’ve walked this same hall and returned to tell his friend about it.”
Gray searched the walls. “This certainly validates Father Crespi’s claims. There’s no doubt that these ancient builders had communication with the rest of the world.”
Lena stared ahead, trying to picture what might lie beyond the reach of their lights, remembering the stories of a vast cavern system buried under the Andes, spreading far and wide under the continent. She sensed this was only one entrance to this place. According to the natives, Father Crespi’s artifacts had come from throughout the surrounding jungle and rain forest, pulled from caverns, tunnels, and vine-covered ruins.
Seichan pointed. “Looks like the tunnel comes to an end up there.”
They continued forward and discovered another set of stairs—spiraling down and away. They stopped and gathered at the top.
Roland sighed. “Let’s hope this doesn’t take us back into another flooded section.”
“Only one way to find out.” Gray headed down, leading them around and around.
Lena held her breath, expecting with every turn to find a black pool of water reflecting back their light. But as they continued to wind down, the stairs remained dry.
Roland voiced a significant concern. “Surely we must be well under the water table by now.”
The thought drew a shiver from her.
Gray touched the walls. “This region of the structure must be sealed off from the surrounding floodwaters.”
Lena found little consolation from this observation.
Finally the stairs ended and dumped into a circular room. It was as tall as the previous hall and wide enough that the beams of their lights barely illuminated the far side.
Seichan proved to have sharper eyes than hers. “Looks like another set of stairs lead out of here.” She glanced to Gray. “Going even farther down.”
Lena barely gave that shadowy side a glance. Neither did Roland, who cast Lena a look with his eyebrows held high. He crossed with her along the curving wall, which was cut and notched into thousands of small niches. The spaces sheltered sculptures of various animals, from as small as her thumb to as large as a full-size horse.
“It’s like the gallery we discovered in Croatia,” Roland said.
She nodded dully. “Only that was a fraction of this size.”
Curiosity and awe drew her forward. She spotted animals representing every facet of life, from every corner of the world. Beetles with iridescent shields of crystal, golden-legged centipedes, crocodiles encrusted with emeralds, monkeys furred with filigrees of copper strands, bison and deer sprouting horns of ivory, scorpions armored in plates of black iron.
The upper levels were dominated by multitudes of birds, all feathered with crystal shards in a kaleidoscope of hues: hawks, sparrows, eagles, pelicans, hummingbirds. Some rested in nests or perched on golden boughs. Others inexplicably hung in midflight within their niches.
On the lowest tiers, life from under the sea or underground was captured in the finest details: porcelain fish, chains of ants, copper-colored lobsters, silver worms burrowing through spheres of quartz, and on and on.
Her gaze whirled at the overwhelming abundance.
“It’s a record of life on the planet,” Roland said, clearly awestruck. He pointed toward a hippopotamus sculpted of gold with black diamonds for eyes. “Including many that aren’t indigenous to this continent.”
“I think it’s also a record of art,” Lena added. “The skill to sculpt this garden of life demonstrates hundreds of techniques, encompassing artistic practices from across many cultures. From the smelting of various metals, to the cutting of crystals and gems, to the working of enamels and porcelains.”
Lena swept her arm to cover the room. “In many ways, this represents the evolution of knowledge as thoroughly as the hall of writing above.”
By now, they had circled the room and reached the set of far stairs. These steps led straight down instead of corkscrewing. Even from the landing, the beam of Roland’s flashlight reflected off the surfaces of whatever lay below.
“More gold,” Gray noted.
Lena needed no urging to head down, drawn not by the promise of treasure, but by the curiosity of what would be revealed next. The stairs were wide enough for them to proceed shoulder to shoulder. Breaths were held as the view into the next chamber opened up.
As they reached the bottom, Roland made the sign of the cross, then touched Lena’s arm. “We’ve been here before.”
1:33 A.M.
Afraid to enter, Roland kept to the edge and shone his light around the room. The space was the same size and shape as the gallery above, but here every surface—floor, walls, ceiling—was covered in beaten gold and decorated with elaborate mosaics of crystalline tiles. It was like stepping into an illuminated medieval manuscript. Even the motifs were similarly Gothic with the rendering of people and animals in a stylized, stiff form, all set amid elaborate whorls of vines, trees, and bushes.
Still, there was a distinctly familiar element to it all.
Lena understood, too. “It’s like someone took those cave paintings in Croatia and replicated them in gold and jewels.”
He nodded and followed her as she entered with the others.
The walls showed a riotous display of life cavorting around them: lions, herds of deer and bison, galloping horses, even a cave bear rearing up on its hind legs. But here, set among the animals, were smaller figures, clearly men and women.
Roland stepped closer, examining the features of one, composed of tiles no larger than the nail of his pinkie. He hovered a finger along a prominent brow and glanced to Lena for confirmation.
“I think it’s supposed to represent one of the Neanderthal hybrids, like Kircher’s Eve,” she whispered. “From the way they’re depicted here, it’s like these people are tryin
g to protect or preserve the animals. But I think the art is meant to be more metaphorical.”
Gray joined her. “How do you mean?”
“I think it’s showing these people defending life in all its forms, perhaps as guardians of the future.”
“Like the Watchers described in ancient texts,” Roland realized.
“Or Plato’s Atlanteans,” Lena added.
“And they went by other names, too,” he said and continued as the others all looked at him. “When I was reading about Crespi’s belief in a lost civilization in Ecuador, I came across references to the Theosophical Society, which was founded in the late nineteenth century. They believed that a small group, what they called the Brotherhood of Saints, were the secret driving force behind mankind’s development, by guarding and disseminating knowledge.” He nodded to Lena. “Much like your own hypothesis of ancient teachers rising from the hybridization of Neanderthals and early man.”
Seichan stood a few yards away, her face lifted high. “Watchers, Atlanteans, Saints, or whatever you want to call them . . . If these are guardians, then it’s easy enough to tell what they were guarding against.”
Roland understood. He craned his neck and stared beyond the animals and their handful of defenders—to the figures that loomed menacingly above. Back in Croatia, these figures had been ominous shadows cast by sculpted stalagmites. But here the enemy was depicted in as much detail as the beasts and their guardians.
He shifted his light to better illuminate those figures. They were shaggy-headed and giant-boned. Under craggy brows, their eyes shone with a fiery bloodlust. They attacked the animals around them with clubs and crude spears. But Seichan had stopped at the most gruesome portrayal: a pair of giants ripping apart a child, tearing the little one limb from limb.
“What are they supposed to be?” Gray asked.
“I don’t know.” Roland frowned. “Maybe these creatures were meant to be metaphorical, too. Some portrayal of the brutality of ignorance, illustrating what these guardians were defending against.”
Lena shook her head. “No. The detail and conformation of these large figures are too accurate. Look at their faces, the rendering of their limbs. I think this was a real enemy.”