Down to a Sunless Sea

13 The Safe Place

Dismounting, and leading their riding beasts by the bridles, they entered the narrow cleft in single file, with Brant leading the way. Harbin studied the rock formations of the walls, and remarked that all of this was exceptionally ancient.

“But it’s obviously been improved upon by man,” he muttered, pointing. “See? There and there? Chisel-work: someone has widened this passage where it narrowed, and the ceiling overhead has been groined where necessary, but a more stable roofing.”

Brant nodded curtly. “Wonder how far back this cleft goes?” he mused aloud.

“Let’s find out,” suggested Harbin.

They went deeper and deeper into the solid bedrock of the ancient continent. The women seemed uncertain and nervous. Finally, Zuarra stepped to where Brant walked in the lead.

“What is it, woman?”

“Should not we have posted a guard at the entrance?” Zuarra asked. Brant looked at her, then grinned.

“We’re looking for ‘a safe place,’ ” he said shortly. “If we find it, we won’t need a guard. If we don’t, then we’ll go back and post one.” He chuckled and she gazed at him inquiringly.

“Probably Agila,” Brant grinned. “He’s the one we can most comfortably do without!”

At that remark, she, too, smiled, rather vindictively. He gathered that she would have been all too pleased if they had abandoned the lean wolf at any point of this journey.

They went on, exploring the narrow-walled cavern.

Harbin examined the walls as they went past, pointing out where hands—presumably human—had widened and smoothed out the narrower or rougher portion places.

“Notice the chisel-work?” he asked, pointing.

“Yeah,” Brant grunted. “Also, see how the floor is pretty smooth underfoot?”

“I’ve noticed,” said the older man.

“Wonder why anybody’d take the trouble to do this,” mused Brant curiously. “Suppose people lived in here once?”

Will Harbin shrugged. “Hard to tell … but if they did, it was ages ago and whatever signs of their residence they left—smoke from cookfires, for instance, gnawed bones, refuse, broken crockery—have long since been obliterated by the passage of time.”

Brant privately guessed that the long, narrow cavern had been the tomb of a clan prince, or the hiding place for a treasure trove. Or, just possibly both. There had to be something about the cave that made it a place of very special importance —or why else would its precise location be so carefully engraved into the ancient dish of pallid Martian gold?

He mentioned these notions in low tones to Harbin, not wishing the others to overhear. The People had certain scruples about plundering the burial-places of their kingly dead, and, while Agila was not likely to object to picking up some ancient loot—thief that he already admittedly was—the women might not have been of the same mind.

“Those possibilities also occurred to me,” nodded the old scientist. “But this does not resemble any of the native tombs or sepulchers I know of. Well, maybe we’ll find out. …”

They went on into the gloom.

After a time, they came to the end of the cavern, and found something odd and unexpected. It was neither a coffin nor a cache, however, but something neither of the two Earthsiders could possibly have predicted.

It was … a door!

A stone archway, at any rate, sealed with a gigantic slab of dull metal. The two looked at each other blankly.

By the light of his fluoro, Harbin closely scrutinized the surface of the metal. He uttered an exclamation and dazedly mumbled something under his breath. It was in no language with which Brant had any familiarity.

“What did you say, Doc?” he inquired.

Harbin looked at him a bit bemusedly.

“Nothing, really. That inscription—see it, here and here? Almost worn away by time …”

“Yeah, I see it,” said Brant. “But it’s in the Tongue, and what you said was in some other language.”

Harbin smiled faintly. “You’re right, Jim! It was Italian, of the Middle Ages. Did you ever read the ancient poet Dante?”

Brant wrinkled up his brow. “Paradise Lost?‘ he made a guess. Ancient literature was not something he was very fond of.

Harbin shook his head. “Close, but not quite it. No … the Divine Comedy. An epic about a sort of guided tour of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, you might say.”

“I don’t get it,” admitted Brant.

““This inscription reminded me of the one Dante said was carved over the gates of Hell … ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here’ …”

The words echoed solemnly in the silent gloom. Here in this stark and lifeless place, they sounded even more ominous than they would have under the open sky and in the light of day. Zuarra repressed a shudder of … of what? Perhaps it was foreboding.

“Shall we not discover what lies hidden beyond the portal?” suggested Agila. “It might be a great treasure.”

“It might, indeed,” said Will Harbin absently. And then he added, to himself: “Or a great mystery… .”

Brant examined the portal, with its ominous inscription. He could see no lock, but when he tested his strength against it, it gave only a little.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was bolted from the other side,” he said incredulously.

“Well, Jim, how do you know it isn’t?” asked Harbin. The strange nature of their discovery intrigued him more and more—and scientists of his persuasion develop lively curiosities.

“Because we’re deep into the solid bedrock of the continent by this point, and there’s certainly no way out,” Brant answered him gruffly. “What did they do, lock themselves in there to die?”

“I don’t know,” replied the older man. “But I’m getting very interested in finding out. Do you think we can get the door open?”

Brant shrugged. “I suppose so. There are the hinges, and with a narrow beam we could cut them through and pry the door out of its frame with the right tools, bolt or no bolt. But it would take some doing. …”

“Then we had better get started,” the scientist remarked. “For our friends are not going to stay up on the ridgeline for very long, now that they can see we have found a refuge.”

“Yeah,” Brant agreed soberly, “it’s either that, or hold them off at the mouth of the cave. It’s narrow enough for one man to hold it against many … but I’d kinda like to see what’s behind that door, first. I like to know what’s at my back in a fight like this.”

They began working on the metal door.

Zuarra said nothing, but in her thoughts echoed that grim, enigmatic phrase the old man had spoken.

What good thing could you expect to find behind a door marked with a warning like “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”?