Atlantis

CHAPTER 30

We were grieved to hear about Peter Howe.”

Maurice Hiebermeyer had clambered out of the helicopter and walked straight past the stone circle to put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. It was a moving gesture, evidence of a friendship that went beyond shared professional passion.

“We haven’t given up hope yet.”

Jack stood with Katya and Costas at the bottom of the steps that led up to the entrance into the volcano. They had spent a well-earned night on board Sea Venture and were now basking in the morning sun as it rose in the east behind the stone circle. The blue IMU overall concealed Jack’s freshly bandaged chest, but Costas’ face was a very visible reminder of what he had been through. Katya was still subdued and withdrawn.

“Warmest congratulations on your discovery. And on overcoming a few obstacles along the way.” James Dillen spoke as he shook hands with Jack. His gaze took in Katya and Costas.

Dillen was followed from the helicopter by Aysha Farouk, Hiebermeyer’s assistant who had first revealed the Atlantis papyrus in the desert and had now been invited to join them. Standing to one side was the genial figure of Efram Jacobovich, the billionaire software tycoon who had provided the endowment that made all their research possible.

To Jack the conference in the castle at Alexandria seemed a lifetime ago. Yet it had only been four days. And they were still one step away from their goal, from the fount of all that had driven the priests to preserve and covet their secret over so many generations.

Just as they were about to file up the rock-cut stairs, Mustafa Alközen came bounding over the platform carrying two diver’s flashlights.

“My apologies for being late,” he said breathlessly. “We have had a busy night. Yesterday evening a Turkish Air Force Boeing 737 early warning aircraft detected an explosive shock wave on the coast of Abkhazia near the Georgian border.” He winked at Jack. “We decided it was a threat to national security and sent a Special Forces rapid reaction team to investigate.”

“The works of art?” Jack asked.

“Most were still inside Aslan’s domestic quarters, and most of those being removed were outside the main blast area. As we speak they are being transferred by Navy Seahawks to Istanbul’s Archaeological Museum for identification and conservation and then will be returned to their rightful owners.”

“A pity,” Costas interjected. “They’d make a unique travelling exhibit. Examples of the finest art from all periods and cultures, never before seen together. It would be an astounding show.”

“A few anxious curators might want to see their property first,” Jack said.

“But an excellent idea,” Efram Jacobovich pitched in with quiet enthusiasm. “It would be an appropriate use for the funds confiscated from Aslan’s accounts. Meanwhile I can think of one private benefactor who might provide the seed money.”

Jack smiled appreciatively and turned back to Mustafa. “And the security situation?”

“We have been seeking an excuse to go into Abkhazia for some time,” Mustafa replied. “It has become the main transit point for drugs from central Asia. With the terrorist link now firmly established we have been assured of full co-operation from the Georgian and Russian governments.”

Jack tried hard to conceal his scepticism. He knew Mustafa was obliged to toe the official line even though he was well aware that the chances of concerted action beyond the present situation were minimal.

They looked towards the low shape of Kazbek and the flotilla of Turkish and Russian FAC craft which had arrived overnight, evidence of the process already under way to ensure the nuclear warheads were removed and the submarine returned to its home port for decommissioning. Following disposal of the reactor core, the bodies of Captain Antonov and his crew would be left on board and the submarine sunk as a military grave, a final monument to the human cost of the Cold War.

“What about the hardware?” Jack asked.

“Anything reusable will go to the Georgians. They need it most. We had hoped to offer them Vultura, but I now see that will no longer be possible.” He grinned at Jack. “So they get a brand-new Russian Project 1154 Neustrashimy-class frigate instead.”

“What will happen to Vultura?” Katya asked quietly.

They all looked out at the distant hulk which had been towed into position above the underwater canyon. It was a pitiful sight, a smouldering pyre that was the last testimony to the avarice and hubris of one man.

Mustafa checked his watch. “I believe you will have the answer about now.”

Exactly on cue the air was rent by the high-pitched screech of jet aircraft. Seconds later two Turkish Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles thundered overhead, their twin afterburners flaring red as they flew in close formation towards their objective. About two kilometres beyond the island a canister dropped from the left-hand jet and skipped over the sea like a dambuster bomb. As the two aircraft tore away to the south, the sea erupted in a wall of flame that engulfed the wreck in an awesome display of pyrotechnics.

“A thermobaric bomb,” Mustafa said simply. “The tunnel-buster first used by the Americans in Afghanistan. We needed a live-fire target to test the delivery system on our new Strike Eagles.” He turned as the noise rumbled past them and gestured towards the door. “Come. Let us go in now.”

The cool air of the passageway provided a welcome respite from the sun which had begun to beat down uncomfortably on the rock outside. For those who had not yet seen it, their first view of the audience chamber with its vast domed ceiling far exceeded anything they had imagined. With all evidence of Aslan gone, the chamber was pristine, the thrones standing empty as if awaiting the return of the high priests who had vacated them more than seven thousand years earlier.

The chimney was now dormant, the last of the rainwater having dissipated overnight, and instead of a vapour plume a brilliant shaft of sunlight illuminated the dais like a theatrical spotlight.

For a few moments there was silence. Even Hiebermeyer, not usually at a loss for words and accustomed to the splendours of ancient Egypt, took off his misted-up glasses and stood speechless.

Dillen turned to face them.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we can now take up where the text left off. I believe we are one step from the supreme revelation.”

Jack never ceased to be amazed by his mentor’s ability to switch off from the excitement of discovery. Wearing an immaculate white suit and bow tie, he seemed a throwback to another age, to a time when effortless elegance was as much a part of the scholar’s tools of trade as the sophisticated gadgetry of his students’ generation.

“We have precious little to go on,” Dillen cautioned. “The papyrus is a tattered shred and the Phaistos disc is equally elusive. We can infer from the entranceway inscription that Atlantis refers to this citadel, this monastery. To outsiders it probably meant the city as well, but for the inhabitants it may have specifically denoted their most sacred place, the rocky slopes and caves where the settlement began.”

“Like the Acropolis in Athens,” Costas ventured.

“Precisely. The disc implies that within Atlantis is a place I translate as ‘place of the gods,’ Katya as ‘holy of holies.’ It also mentions a mother goddess. As far as I can tell none of your discoveries fits this bill.”

“The nearest would be the hall of the ancestors, the name we gave to the cave painting gallery,” Jack said. “But that’s Palaeolithic and contains no representations of humans. In a Neolithic sanctuary I’d expect to see anthropomorphic deities, a grander version of the household shrine we saw in the submerged village at Trabzon.”

“What about this room, the audience chamber?” Efram Jacobovich asked.

Jack shook his head. “It’s too large. This space is inclusive, designed for congregational gatherings like a church. What we’re looking for is something exclusive, hidden away. The holier the place, the more restricted the access to it. Only priests would be allowed entry, as befitted their status as intermediaries with the gods.”

“A tabernacle,” Efram suggested.

Katya and Aysha appeared on the ledge beside the ramp. While the others had been talking they had carried out a quick reconnaissance of the doorways surrounding the chamber.

“We think we’ve found it,” Katya said, the excitement of once again exploring and discovering the secrets of Atlantis pushing aside the nightmare of the last few days. “Altogether there are twelve entrances. Two we can discount because they’re the passageways we know about, one from outside and the other coming up from below. Of the remainder, nine are either blanks, false doorways leading nowhere or passageways leading down. I assume we’re going up.”

“If this is truly the mother of all peak sanctuaries,” Jack replied, “then the higher the better.”

Katya pointed towards the door at the western extremity of the chamber, directly opposite the entrance passageway. “That’s the one. It also happens to be capped by the sign of the outstretched eagle god.”

Jack smiled broadly at Katya, glad to see her beginning to recover from her ordeal, and turned to Dillen.

“Professor, perhaps you would lead us in.”

Dillen nodded courteously and walked beside Jack towards the west door, his dapper form a striking contrast to his former student’s weather-beaten appearance. They were followed by Katya and Costas and then by the other four, with Efram Jacobovich unobtrusively bringing up the rear. As they neared the entrance Jack glanced back at Costas.

“This is it then. A gin and tonic by the pool awaits.”

Costas cast his friend a crooked smile. “That’s what you say every time.”

Dillen paused to inspect the carving on the lintel; it was an immaculate miniature of the spread-winged eagle god the others had seen in the hall of the ancestors. Jack and Costas switched on their flashlights and shone them into the darkness ahead. Like the walls of the submerged passages, the basalt had been polished to a lustrous hue, its mottled surface sparkling with mineral inclusions which had welled up from the earth’s mantle as the volcano formed.

Jack stepped aside to let Dillen take the lead. About ten metres in he suddenly halted.

“We have a problem.”

Jack came alongside and saw that a massive stone portal blocked the passageway. It melded almost seamlessly with the walls but close up they could see it divided into two equal halves. Jack aimed his beam at the centre and saw the telltale feature.

“I believe I have the key,” he said confidently.

He reached into his IMU overalls and extracted the copy of the golden disc which he had rescued from the dais after Aslan’s abrupt departure. As the others watched, he slotted it into the saucer-shaped depression. The instant he withdrew his hand the disc began whirling clockwise. Seconds later the doors sprang open in their direction, the accumulated patina providing little resistance to the weight of the slabs as they pivoted on each side of the passageway.

“Magic.” Costas shook his head in amazement. “Exactly the same mechanism as the door on the cliff face and still functioning after seven and a half thousand years. These people would have invented the computer chip by the Bronze Age.”

“Then I’d be out of a job,” Efram chuckled from the back.

The odour that greeted them was like the musty exhalation of a burial vault, as if a draught of stale air had wafted through a crypt and brought with it the very essence of the dead, the last residue of the tallow and incense which had burned as the priests made their final ablutions before they sealed their hallowed shrine forever. The effect was almost hallucinogenic, and they could sense the fear and urgency of those last acts. It was as if two hundred generations of history had been swept away and they were joining the custodians of Atlantis in their final desperate flight.

“Now I know how Carter and Carnarvon felt when they opened the tomb of Tutankhamun,” Hiebermeyer said.

Katya shuddered in the chill air. Like the tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings, the passage beyond the doorway was unadorned, giving no hint of what lay beyond.

“It can’t be far now,” Costas said. “According to my altimeter we’re less than thirty metres below the summit.”

Dillen suddenly stopped and Jack stumbled into him, his beam flailing wildly as he righted himself. What seemed another doorway was in fact a ninety-degree turn to the left. The passageway angled upwards in a series of shallow steps.

Dillen moved forward and stopped again. “I can see something ahead. Shine your beams to left and right.” His voice was uncharacteristically edged with excitement.

Jack and Costas obliged and revealed a fantastic scene. On either side were the front quarters of two enormous bulls, their truncated forms cut in bas-relief and facing up the stairway. With their elongated necks and horns arched high overhead, they were less composed than the beasts in the underwater passageways, as if they were straining to break free and leap into the darkness above.

As they mounted the stairs, they began to make out a succession of figures in front of the bulls in lower relief, their details exactingly rendered in the fine-grained basalt.

“They’re human.” Dillen spoke with hushed awe, his usual reserve forgotten. “Ladies and gentlemen, behold the people of Atlantis.”

The figures exuded a bold confidence appropriate to the guardians of the citadel. The carvings on either wall were identical in mirror image. They were life-sized, tall figures, marching ramrod straight in single file. Each figure had one arm extended, with the hand clasped round a hole which had once held a burning torch of tallow. They had the hieratic, two-dimensional stance of the relief carvings of the ancient Near East and Egypt, but instead of the stiffness normally associated with the profile view, they exhibited a suppleness and grace which seemed a direct legacy from the naturalistic animal paintings of the Ice Age.

As the beams highlighted each figure in turn, it became clear that they alternated between the sexes. The women were bare-breasted, their close-fitting gowns revealing curvaceous but well-honed figures. Like the men they had large, almond-shaped eyes and wore their hair down their backs in braided tresses. The men had long beards and wore flowing robes. Their physiognomy was familiar yet unidentifiable, as if the individual features were recognizable but the whole was unique and impossible to place.

“The women look very athletic,” Aysha remarked. “Maybe they were the bullfighters, not the men.”

“They remind me of the Varangians,” Katya said. “The Byzantine name for the Vikings who came down the Dnieper to the Black Sea. In the cathedral of Santa Sofia in Kiev there are wall paintings that show tall men just like this, except with hooked noses and blond hair.”

“To me they’re like the second millennium BC Hittites of Anatolia,” Mustafa interjected. “Or the Sumerians and Assyrians of Mesopotamia.”

“Or the Bronze Age peoples of Greece and Crete,” Jack murmured. “The women could be the bare-breasted ladies from the frescoes at Knossos. The men could have walked straight off those beaten gold warrior vases found in the royal grave circle at Mycenae last year.”

“They are Everywoman and Everyman,” Dillen asserted quietly. “The original Indo-Europeans, the first Caucasians. From them are descended almost all the peoples of Europe and Asia. The Egyptians, the Semites, the Greeks, the megalith builders of western Europe, the first rulers of Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley. Sometimes they replaced original populations entirely, other times they interbred. In all these peoples we see some trace of their forebears, the founders of civilization.”

They gazed with renewed awe at the images as Dillen led them up the steps. The figures embodied strength and determination, as if they were marching inexorably towards their place in history.

After about ten metres, the alternating men and women gave way to three figures on either side, apparently leading the procession. They carried elaborate staves and wore strange conical hats that reached all the way to the ceiling.

“The high priests,” Jack said simply.

“They look like wizards,” Costas said. “Like druids.”

“That may not be so farfetched,” Katya replied. “The word druid derives from the Indo-European wid, ‘to know.’ These were clearly the holders of knowledge in Neolithic Atlantis, the equivalent of the priestly class in Celtic Europe five thousand years later.”

“Fascinating.” Hiebermeyer was pushing his way up through the group. “The hats are remarkably similar to the beaten gold caps found in votive deposits of the Bronze Age. We discovered one in Egypt last year when the secret treasury in the Khefru pyramid was opened.”

He reached the first of the figures on the left-hand wall, a woman, and took off his glasses for a closer look.

“Just as I thought,” he exclaimed. “It’s covered with tiny circular and lunate symbols exactly like the Bronze Age hats.” He wiped his glasses and gave a dramatic flourish. “I’m certain it’s a logarithmic representation of the Metonic cycle.”

While the others crowded round to examine the carving, Jack caught Costas’ puzzled glance.

“Meton was an Athenian astrologer,” he explained. “A contemporary of Socrates, Plato’s mentor. He was the first Greek to establish the difference between the solar and the lunar months, the synodic cycle.” He nodded towards the carvings. “These were the guys who devised the calendrical record of sacrifices with the leap months we saw carved in that passageway.”

Dillen had detached himself from the group and was standing in front of a portal at the top of the steps in line with the leading priests.

“They were lords of time,” he announced. “With their stone circle they could chart the movements of the sun in relation to the moon and the constellations. This knowledge empowered them as oracles, with access to divine wisdom that allowed them to see into the future. They could predict the time of sowing and the annual harvest. They had mastery over heaven and earth.”

He gestured grandly towards the low entrance behind him. “And now they are leading us towards their inner sanctum, their holy of holies.”