Atlantis

Chapter 22

"Who's first?" Bones sat perched on the rail, ready to take the plunge into the sparkling, blue water.

"You two lead the way. I'll bring up the rear." Dane knew his friend was eager to dive, having missed out on the Cuban excursion.

"Excuse me. My boat, my expedition." Jade threw a challenging look in his direction. At least she was finally speaking to him. "Bones first. Me second. Maddock third." Spotting Dane's perplexed smile, she added, "I know sense when I hear it. Now, let's go."

"Wish I was coming with you." Professor had a wistful look in his eyes.

"Do you usually dive alone?" Dane asked Jade.

"We haven't dived since I brought Professor in." She adjusted her SCUBA tank. "I have grad students who could have held down the fort, but I didn't want to bring more people into the circle than necessary."

Dane nodded. He doubted any of the students was a Dominion plant, but word of this mission didn't need to get out.

"Speaking of Professor, how'd you come to hire him?"

"He had the qualifications I was looking for and his name rang a bell. You two always spoke well of him."

"I'm surprised my recommendation carries any weight with you," Dane said.

"It does in some areas. I wouldn't take relationship advice from you." Jade paused, cocked her head to the side, and smiled. "Are you jealous, Maddock? Or maybe you thought I hired him to get back at you in some twisted way?"

"The thought never occurred to me," he lied. "Just wondered. I haven't kept in touch with him, so I was surprised to see him, that's all."

"You have a habit of discarding the people you used to care about." Jade turned her back on him and clapped her hands twice. "Let's do this."

"As you wish." Bones checked his mask one last time, winked, and flipped backward into the water, Jade a few moments behind.

A feeling of comfort enveloped Dane the moment he plunged into the water. He’d loved diving for as long as he could remember, and the prospect of adventure was icing on the cake.

Dane knew the monument lay just below the surface, but he was unprepared for it to fill his vision the moment he hit the water. He gazed at a pair of columns that almost reached the surface and marveled that so remarkable a place had lain forgotten until modern times. The staircases, passages, and multiple levels put him in mind of a step pyramid.

“Dude, this place is wicked.” Bones’ voice sounded in Dane’s ear. “Too bad we can’t stay all day.”

“Maybe we’ll come back some day and bring the crew,” Dane said.

“I’ll bring the beer.”

“If you two can focus, we need to look for the first clue.” Jade’s voice cracked like a whip.

“Remind me what it is again?” Bones asked.

“Behind the watcher’s starry eye. There’s a sphinx-like sculpture, called the totem, somewhere in the complex, but I couldn’t find anything online that pinpoints its location.”

“Do we want to spread out?” Bones asked.

“We’ll stay together for now. Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up.” Jade pointed to the base of a steep staircase.

They circled the base of the monument, inspecting its smooth walls and sharp angles. They made three circuits, rising as they went. The stairs and terraces were bare, and they reached the top without spotting anything that could be called a watcher. At the top, they swam through narrow passageways, past walls constructed at perfect right angles, and around octagonal stone pillars, but still no watcher.

“No way this place is a natural formation,” Bones said. “It reminds me of ruins I’ve seen in South America. Saksaywaman?”

“It definitely reminds me of the sunken city in Cuba, but there’s one big difference. There aren’t any ruins here. It looks like it was all carved out of one solid block.”

“It’s assumed that what we see here is the foundation upon which temples and the like were constructed. Look there.” Jade indicated a row of perfectly round holes bored in the stone.

“Postholes,” Bones said.

“That’s the assumption. Whatever was here must have been washed away in whatever deluged submerged this place.”

Something moved in the corner of Dane’s vision and his hand went to the small spear gun he wore at his hip. “What’s that?”

The three divers stared as a half-dozen shadows approached. Dane tensed, on the verge of sending Jade back to the boat while he and Bones attacked. The shapes grew larger and more alien as they drew closer. Long, thick bodies, wide flat heads with bulbous eyes on the sides emerged from the distance.

“Hammerheads,” Dane breathed.

“I forgot to tell you,” Jade said, “this place is teeming with them.”

Dane relaxed. Like most creatures, the hammerhead was more than happy to leave you alone provided you extended it the same courtesy. In fact, they were his favorite sharks. While some people found their appearance frightening, he considered them ugly ducklings, and always looked upon them with a degree of affection and something like sympathy.

“They are awesome,” Bones said, reaching out to almost touch one as it passed him by. “Weird that people are so afraid of them.”

“That could work to our advantage,” Dane said. “If the Dominion sends divers in, maybe the sharks will put a scare into them.”

“We can hope. Let’s keep looking.” Jade didn’t wait for them, but kicked hard and swam over the edge of the monument and down toward the smaller structures.

Dane couldn’t help but fondly remember all the dives he and Jade had made together. She’d always taken the lead, trusting he’d always be right behind her. For the briefest moment, he fought down the urge to chase her down and catch her up in a rough embrace, just like the old days.

“Did you find something?”

Bone’s voice yanked him back to reality.

“No, just taking a last look around,” Dane lied. “Let’s catch up with her before she does something reckless.”

“Wouldn’t want that to happen,” Bones said. “Reckless is my domain.”

When they caught up with Jade, she was hovering over an odd-shaped rock formation.

“The turtle.” Jade indicated the five-pointed, hump-backed formation atop a stone platform. “It’s one of the features mentioned in the codex.” She took out an underwater camera and snapped a few pictures before continuing on.

They searched for nearly an hour, working in a grid pattern around the monument. They passed through more channels beneath archways and around blocks of stone that might have been remnants of old structures, and discovered hieroglyph-like carvings of which Jade made a thorough photographic record, but no totem. It was a shallow dive, and the three of them were experienced divers, so none of them had expended much more than half her or his supply of air, but they decided to surface for fresh cylinders, not knowing what they’d encounter once they located the totem. After fending off Professor’s attempt to switch places with Bones, even trying to bribe him with beer, they returned to the water.

Their search of the final quadrant bore fruit almost immediately. They passed through a deep stone channel and exited to find a stone face staring back at them, and they swam in for a closer inspection. The currents had eroded its sharper features, but the long face, sunken eyes, and protruding forehead were easy to make out.

“You know what this thing looks like?” Bones asked.

“Moai.”

Dane’s first thought upon seeing the totem was its resemblance to the moai, the statues made famous by Easter Island. He ran a hand across the huge, stone brow, wondering what it could mean. Was there a connection between Yonaguni and the island on the far side of the Pacific? Considering what they and Sofia had found so far, the possibility did not seem far-fetched.

“What now?” Bones asked.

Dane recited the clue from the codex.

“Behind the watcher’s starry eye, at the center of the trident, the crone points the way to Poseidon.”

“Open up and try not to blink,” Bones said to the statue as he shone his light inside the eye socket. “Lots of gunk in here. Let’s see if it’s covering anything.” He took out his dive knife and began scraping. Dane did the same to the right eye.

It wasn’t long before he uncovered a rectangular stone bar set in a grooved track.

“I found what looks like a lever.”

“Me too,” Bones said. “Should we pull them both and see what happens?”

“No!” Jade said. “Think about the clue. The watcher’s starry eye, not eyes. I think we’re just supposed to pull one of these handles.”

“How do we know Sofia translated it correctly?” Bones asked. “Do hieroglyphs have plurals?”

“I don’t know about that,” Dane said, “but why make specific mention of the ‘starry’ eye unless the word is important?”

Bones flitted his light back and forth between the eyes. “No stars here. If the clue refers to a constellation the figure faced back when this place stood above water, we’re screwed.”

Dane had a different idea. “Jade, where is the turtle formation from here?”

“Just over there.” She pointed to their left. “Why?”

“Except for the rounded back, I didn’t think it looked much like a turtle, did you?”

“You’re right. Some people call that formation ‘the star.’ Let me check it out.” Again, Jade swam away without waiting for a partner, returning in less than a minute. “It points directly at the totem. The right eye, to be exact.”

“You’re sure?” Dane asked.

“Only one way to know for sure.” Bones thrust a hand into the eye socket.

“Hold on,” Dane said. “Remember what happened to Matt?” On a dive at Oak Island, their crew mate had tried something similar and almost lost his arm.

“There’s one big difference,” Bones said.

“What’s that?”

“I always come out on top.” Before anyone could stop him, Bones pulled the lever. Everyone swam back as a rumbling sound broke the silence and the totem sank out of sight. “Score!” Bones shone his light down into the hole the totem had revealed. Not only the statue, but a square ten feet across had sunk into the earth, and an angled passageway of the same shape and size lay before them. “A word of advice. Never play me in Russian roulette.”

The passageway sloped downward for about fifteen feet, then leveled out, heading straight for the main monument. Whatever lay at the end would likely be found beneath the mountain of stone.

The passageway through which they traveled was perfectly square. The block walls and slab ceiling were made of the same rock as the monuments, while the floor was lined with huge paving stones.

“Reminds me of the Bimini Road,” Bones said.

“Is there anything that doesn’t remind you of a conspiracy theory or far-fetched legend?” Jade asked.

Dane didn’t disagree with Jade, but he came to his friend’s defense nonetheless. “You can say that to him after all the things we’ve seen?” In fact, Jade had been by their sides during some of their most remarkable discoveries.

“Don’t be so touchy, Maddock. You’re like a soccer mom or something.”

Dane bit back a retort and kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Looks like we’ve reached the proverbial fork in the road.” Bones slowed down and shone his light around. Here, the tunnel split into three seemingly identical passages. “Three roads diverged in a creepy tunnel.”

“When you make it to the afterlife, I’ll bet Robert Frost will be waiting for you with a shank and a baseball bat,” Jade said.

“And miles to go before I’m appreciated,” Bones sighed. “So, which tunnel?”

“I think this tunnel is the trident the clue mentions,” Dane said. “A straight shaft, splitting into three at the end.”

“Sounds good to me, dude. The center, then?”

A short way in, Dane noticed a change in the passageway. “No more bricks and slabs,” he noted. “Just a smooth tunnel carved in stone.”

“We must be under the monument,” Jade said.

“And it’s about to get weirder. Look up ahead.” Their lights glinted on the surface of the water up ahead. “There’s a pocket of air down here. Maybe a big one.”

They broke the surface together and looked around. They were in a pool in the center of a thirty foot-high chamber. Dane climbed out of the pool and offered Jade a hand up, which she ignored, and hauled herself up to the stone floor.

"Wonder what the air-quality is like in here?” Bones said.

"No telling." They were wearing full masks so their communication devices would work. "I don't care to find out, though."

Dane turned his attention to the far end of the room where three statues of Greek goddesses, each at least three meters tall, stood on a ledge above three tunnels. Each figure pointed downward at the tunnel beneath her feet, which was partially obscured by a curtain of water pouring from her mouth.

The goddess on the left exuded strength and vigor. She was posed in mid-stride, looking to the side and reaching back for the bow slung over one shoulder. The figure in the center wore a cylindrical crown, held a piece of fruit in her right hand; a mature beauty seemed to emanate from her solemn face. The figure to the right held a torch aloft, and spikes radiated from her crown.

"I guess this is where the crone points the way, "Jade said. "But which one is she?"

Dane looked the statues up-and-down. Each was a woman from Greek mythology, but he thought he knew the answer right away.

"It's Hecate, the one on the right."

"Are you sure?" Bones out

“Definitely. The one on the left is Artemis. You probably know her as the hunter, but she was also known as the maiden. Hera, in the center, is the mother, and Hecate, on the right, was the crone. What’s more, she’s associated with crossroads and entryways.”

“Sounds like a winner to me.” Bones moved in for a closer look. “You’re right about the center passage. Check it out.”

Dane and Jade stepped around the water falling from Hera’s mouth and shone their lights down the passageway. In the distance, at the very edge of their dive lights’ glow, a skeleton lay impaled by a broken spike.

“I’ll bet it was designed to go back into the floor so it could catch the next person,” Dane said. “It must have broken when it caught this poor fellow.”

“Or lady,” Jade added.

Dane ignored her comment. “Hecate was my suggestion, so how about I lead the way?”

Jade made a show of mulling this over before agreeing.

Dane led the way up the corridor. He felt certain he had chosen the right path, but the knowledge there were booby-traps in this place made him cautious. The gently sloping passageway soon opened up into a temple much like the others they had discovered. The now-familiar Poseidon stood watch over his domain.

“Whoa!” Bones exclaimed, staring at Poseidon. “Awesome.”

While Bones marveled at the sights and Jade snapped pictures, Dane moved to the chamber at the back of the temple his heart fell when he shone his light inside and found it empty.

“What do you see?” Bones asked.

“Nothing. If there was anything here before, it’s gone now.” Dane’s stomach twisted into knots. They had come all this way and worked so hard for nothing.

Hearing his words, Jade hurried over. When she saw the empty chamber, she seemed to deflate, disappointment marring her beautiful face.

“What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know.” Dane shrugged. He shone his light on the floor and spotted a line of scrapes and gouges in the flagstone. ”It looks like something heavy was dragged through here.”

“The Dominion?” Jade asked.

Dane considered this, remembering the entrance to the passage that had led them here. “I don’t think so. We had to clear away a lot of silt and growth on the levers. Unless there is a back door, and I don’t see one, whoever got here first beat us by several years.”

“Great,” Bones said. “Now we just have to figure out who it was.”

Dane nodded. “Another mystery.”