Quest

Chapter 11

Dane parked the car in front of a modest, two-story, detached brick house in Blackheath, a suburb southeast of London. Despite the pleasant surroundings, he couldn’t help looking up and down the street, searching for potential danger, wondering if the guys who attacked them at the naval library would track them down again. He’d given the name and address of the man with whom he’d fought to his friend Jimmy, in hopes he could shed some light on exactly who these people were of whom they’d run afoul.

A tiny man with a shock of unkempt white hair answered the door. He eyed them through thick glasses that gave him the appearance of a snowy owl.

“Mister Maddock and party, I presume?” If his body was small, his voice was huge. He could have done voice-overs for NFL films.

“Yes. Thank you for seeing us, Mister Wainwright.” They shook hands, and Dane introduced Bones and Kaylin.

“Bloody hell,” Wainwright said, craning his neck to look up at Bones, “are all American Natives your size?”

“They wish. My mother just fed me good.”

“Fifteen stone, I’ll wager.” Wainwright cupped his chin, looking Bones up and down with a critical eye.

“Dude, I haven’t been stoned since I was a teenager.”

Wainwright did a double-take, laughed and ushered them into a living room overflowing with books. Every wall was lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves, with volumes stacked two deep and tucked into every open space: aging hardcovers, old pulp novels, and textbooks of varying age and subject. Four overstuffed chairs circled a round table, also stacked with books. Books were even piled haphazardly in the corners, and a basket stuffed full of newspapers, magazines, and mystery novels sat next to one of the chairs. He urged them to make themselves comfortable, and returned a few minutes later with hot tea, sandwiches cut in small triangles, apple slices, and sugar cookies.

“Hold this, young man.” He handed Dane the tray, then bent down and cleared the coffee table of books with one sweep of his arm. “Ordinarily I would not treat books so,” he said, placing the tray on the table and pouring a cup of tea for each of them, “but they are romance novels my late wife’s sister thought I would enjoy reading. Perish the thought! If I want pornography, I shall search for it on the internet.”

Bones choked on his tea, and Kaylin’s eyes were suddenly wide as saucers at the comment. Dane merely grinned and nodded.

“You have quite an impressive library,” Dane said, looking around the room.

“Thank you. I fear this is, as they say, only the tip of the iceberg. All of my rooms, save the kitchen and bath, are in a similar state. I have always had a fascination, and perhaps an obsession, with books.”

“You know, I’ll bet you could put all of these on one e-reader.” Bones cocked his head, as if performing the calculations in his head. Kaylin frowned and nudged Bones’s leg with her toe, but Wainwright laughed.

“I have one of those as well. Most of my books, however, are too old and obscure to be available electronically. If you would like to scan them for me, I’m certain it would not take you more than a few decades.”

“You don’t want Bones touching your electronics.” Dane took a bite of a sandwich and forced down a grimace. It tasted like cream cheese and cucumber, or something like that.

“I scanned my butt once and emailed it to Playgirl. They didn’t write back, though.” Bones stuffed two of the small sandwiches into his mouth at once.

“I’m sorry, Mister Wainwright.” Kaylin laid a hand on the man’s arm. “We are not as crazy as we must seem. Well, Dane and I aren’t.”

“Nonsense. It is a delight to have young people in the house. I was a university professor for many years, and I miss the absurd humor of youth.”

Dane couldn’t remember the last time he’d been categorized as young, much less youthful, but he’d take it. “The reason we are here is actually in regard to a book. One that belonged to Percy Fawcett.”

Wainwright gave him a shrewd look. “What book might that be?”

“A copy of The Lost World. A personal copy in which he took notes. It was supposedly one of his most treasured personal possessions.”

“I see.” The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Wainwright sat up straighter, his posture stiff. “May I ask why you are interested in this book?”

Dane sensed he would have to tread carefully. His instinct also told him that anything short of the truth would not suffice. Wainwright impressed him as a sensible, perceptive man.

“We are searching for a friend who disappeared in the Amazon. From what we have learned so far, we believe he was on the trail of Fawcett’s final expedition, and we think he found information in this book that guided him on his search.”

“He has been missing for some time now.” Kaylin sat her cup on the table and folded her hands together in a supplicating gesture. “He is not some crackpot — he is a college professor, like you were. We need to find him.”

“What is his name?” Wainwright still eyed them with suspicion.

“Thomas Thornton.” Kaylin took a photograph from her purse and handed it to Wainwright, who looked at it for a long moment, and then seemed to sag.

“I warned the lad. He was here, I don’t recall for certain, perhaps a year ago, if that. I let him look at the book, and told him what I know, and what I suspect about my granduncle’s final expedition. I’m sorry. I tried to dissuade him. Truly I did.”

“Thomas was here!” Kaylin’s face and voice were filled with hope. “Did he show you this picture, or a picture like it?” She handed him the image of the Fawcett painting.

“Ah! The portrait that hangs in the Institute. No, he did not show this to me, though I am familiar with it. It is, in fact, the final portrait Fawcett commissioned of himself.”

“Thomas left this for us as a clue to his whereabouts,” Dane said.

“Did he? Well, it certainly ties several things together. Fawcett, The Lost World, the island, Quest, and, of course, the amphorae.” Three seconds’ tantalizing silence followed the statement. Dane’s heart raced, and he found himself inching forward in his seat, as if the old man’s words would reach him sooner. Finally, Wainwright shook his head and continued.

“I fear Fawcett was losing his mind prior to his final expedition. The story has been passed down through the generations of my family. It is said that he paced the floor, muttering to himself about something he lost on the shipwreck. He spent long hours poring over his copy of The Lost World, works of ancient history, and the Bible.”

“The Bible?” Dane was puzzled. “What was the connection there?”

“No one knows. At any rate, something happened on his next-to-last expedition into the Amazon that made Fawcett more certain than ever that the lost city of Z was real, and that its inhabitants were descended from the ancient Greeks. Hence the portrait he had commissioned and donated to the Institute just before his departure. He knew he could not make public what he believed about Z. He was already a subject of some skepticism because of his beliefs. To share the conclusion he had come to would have held him up to public ridicule.”

“But if this portrait represents what he thought he was going to find,” Bones began, a look of deep concentration on his face, “he could come back later and tell the world, ‘See, I knew it all along. In your face!’”

“That is one way of saying it.” Wainwright smiled. “Fawcett was a proud man, and it would have been important to him to prove that he had not simply stumbled upon the lost city by happenstance, but had set out to reach it, already knowing it was there.”

“What exactly happened on the previous expedition that affected him so?” The familiar feeling of anticipation that always came when he was on the verge of a breakthrough, surged through Dane. Bones and Kaylin also sat in rapt silence, waiting for the answer.

Wainwright, clearly enjoying his captive audience, took a sip of tea, and carefully placed his cup and saucer atop a stack of books before beginning his tale.

“Understand, what I am about to tell you is conjecture, partly supported by cryptic phrases jotted in the margins of Fawcett’s copy of The Lost World, and partly based on family legend of the things he supposedly said during his final months at home.”

Dane nodded, and Wainwright continued. “Fawcett was just completing an extended trek through the Amazon. Supplies and morale were low, and he and his party were making their way out of the jungle, when a young man stumbled into their camp one evening. He was in bad shape: weak from hunger and dehydration, eaten up by insects, and nursing old wounds. He looked, according to Fawcett, decidedly Mediterranean, and he spoke an odd language, containing enough words familiar to Fawcett and his native guides that they could piece together bits of his story. Some of his words, however, sounded Semitic to Fawcett. He recorded a few of the words, spelling them phonetically, and eventually concluded they were Punic.”

“You lost me there,” Bones said.

“Punic was the language of Carthage,” Dane said.

“Oh yeah! Hannibal and the war elephants. Cool!”

“They were descended from the Phoenicians,” Dane said, “the first great sailors in the ancient world. Some say the Phoenicians reached the New World centuries before Christ.” Dane wondered if this could possibly be true, or had Fawcett fallen prey to hope and wishful thinking?

“Precisely.” Wainwright took another sip of tea. “From what they could gather from the young man’s ravings, he and a young woman had fled their home, a place he called ‘Keff Sess.’ You have, I presume, heard the legend of Kephises?”

Dane nodded and motioned for him to continue.

“The young woman was lost along the way, the victim of what the young man called ‘the Dead Warriors.’ He offered, as proof, fragments of pottery Fawcett believed were Mediterranean in origin, as well as some sort of plant material that the young man said had strange, mind-altering properties. He also gave Fawcett a map carved in stone. It was very old, and showed the path his ancestors had taken to Keff Sess. His home, he said, was ‘in the air,’ and could only be reached by taking a secret path — the Path of Five Steps. These steps, Fawcett wrote in his copy of The Lost World.”

“What about the map?” All thoughts of rescuing Thomas were forgotten. In his mind, Dane was already trekking through the Amazon, following Fawcett’s last journey.

“Lost when Quest sank, along with the only copy Fawcett made of it. The pottery and the strange plant material were lost as well. Only The Lost World was saved.”

“So, when he went on his final expedition, what did he do? Just go by memory?” Bones asked.

“It is odd, that. After the shipwreck and the loss of his maps, he grew paranoid. He claimed to have made a map from memory shortly after the wreck, and he said he put it where no one could get to it. When he set off on his final expedition, he left his book behind, presumably after copying the five steps, and whatever other information he needed. And, as the story goes, he was never heard from again.” Wainwright folded his hands in his lap and gave them a small, sad smile.

“Why has none of this ever been made public?” Kaylin asked. “It could have shed light on Fawcett’s final expedition.”

“My dear, you can’t possibly believe the story to be true. Fawcett had clearly let his dream of finding Z overcome his good sense. To his mind, the raving young man’s Kephises was his fabled city of Z. He was already believed to be… eccentric. The family could not reveal the story of his last months to the rest of the world. It would have sullied his memory and cast a shadow over all the good work he did in his life. He was perhaps the most important explorer of the twentieth century.” Wainwright sat up a little straighter as he spoke the last. “He did not deserve to be remembered as a fool who believed in myth and superstition.”

“But, couldn’t the family have used the information to search for Fawcett?” Kaylin persisted.

“If the map had been available, perhaps, but all the family had were the five steps. As it stands, many have searched for him and failed.”

“Mister Wainwright,” Dane began, “could we please see the book?”

“Young man, you seem a sensible sort. Don’t tell me you would actually set off on this fool’s errand.”

Dane had seen enough strange things in his life that he had little trouble believing Fawcett’s tale, though he sensed this was not what Wainwright wanted to hear.

“We aren’t looking for the lost city; we’re looking for Thomas. If he believed in the lost city, maybe there’s something in the book that will help us find him.”

Wainwright stared at him, and finally, hung his head. His voice was rough with regret. “How can I possibly show it to you after what happened to your friend? I fear I encouraged him by letting him read it, and now he is gone.”

“Bones and I are highly capable. We have spent more than our share of time in hostile environments and dangerous situations. I assure you, we are also going into this with eyes wide open. You have made it clear to us that this is, in your opinion, a wild goose chase, and a potentially deadly one. To us, this is a rescue mission, not an adventure, and we need your help.”

The old man took his time considering Dane’s request. He sipped his tea and stared into the distance. Finally, he nodded. “Very well. As long as we are clear that I am actively discouraging you from this quest. Make no mistake, that’s what it will be. I can see it in your eyes. You have the same spirit that my ancestor had. You might begin by searching for your friend, but sooner or later, the longing will overcome you, and you will not be able to rest until you have solved the mystery, or at least tried. Don’t try to deny it.” He held up a liver-spotted hand. “I would have no lies between us.” He eased himself out of the chair and shuffled off into the adjoining room, returning a few minutes later with a tiny flash drive, which he handed to Dane.

“After your friend visited me, I worried that the story might get out, and what it would do to Fawcett’s legacy if it did. I have not decided what should become of it after my passing, but it is in a safe deposit box for the time being. I have scanned all the pages with his notes on them. I trust that you will do me the courtesy of not sharing these with the world.”

“You can count on us.” Dane tucked the flash drive in his pocket and shook hands with Wainwright. “I should warn you. Someone else is on the trail of Fawcett’s last expedition, and they could be dangerous.”

“I will take all necessary precautions,” he said. “I have considered taking a holiday outside the country. Perhaps now would be a good time.”

They all thanked him profusely and bade him goodbye. As they piled into the car and drove away, a sense of excitement filled the air.

“So, what next?” Bones asked.

“First of all, we give Jimmy some more homework. We need him to see what he can do to help us pinpoint Quest’s location.” He grinned. “We are going to find a lost shipwreck.”