The Rome Prophecy

134

Guilio’s final screams are already haunting Tom as he picks up the rucksack and walks away from the pit.

He knows there’s nothing he could have done.

There was no way he could have stopped the second lion.

But he still feels awful.

If Guilio hadn’t jumped in the pit, Tom would be dead.

It seems wrong that he lost his life in such a way.

Tom shines his torch into the darkness and walks slowly towards the end of the gallery, staying as close to the centre as he can.

He hopes there are no more traps.

After fifty metres the tunnel comes to a dead end, just as the others have done.

Only there’s a difference.

A big difference.

There’s no hatch on the floor. No marble disc through which to pass to another level.

Instead, there’s a huge felled tree.

It’s either set into the wall or the wall has been built around it.

Tom touches it.

It’s a big old chunk of a thing, its bark riddled with ridges, gnarls and knots where branches have been lopped off.

The tree is a sign.

A sign of nature.

It must have symbolic connections to Cybele and Mother Nature.

He remembers that the last time he was around trees was when he was in the field above the catacombs, where Guilio painstakingly used the scalene pendant to locate the position of the entrance to the Cybelene chambers.

He grabs the rucksack and searches inside for the pendant.

Only when he’s emptied everything does he see it tied to one of the straps.

Now he can’t remember exactly how Guilio used it.

Did the eunuch start with the shortest side in the right-hand corner of the field, or with one of the longer sides?

Tom digs out the spool of fishing twine and decides to start with the shortest, so that the pendant leans in towards the centre of the wood.

Suddenly he’s all fingers and thumbs. He needs something to mark the lines with. Something to hold the other end.

And he needs something to cut the twine with.

He doesn’t have any of those things.

He looks again in the rucksack.

He daren’t use the nail gun on the wood. The impact could trigger some kind of trap.

But maybe, if he’s careful, he could use the nails and tap them in gently.

He frees several from the magazine and grabs the carpet knife to cut the twine and score lines.

He pictures Guilio in the field and gambles that he started bottom right with the scalene pendant long edge down and shortest edge up.

He replicates the actions on both ends of the wood and sees where the lines meet.

Bingo.

He runs his fingers along the bark where the line is and finds a sliver of silver set in the wood. A silver-lined groove big enough to take the shortest edge of the pendant.

He pauses.

What if there’s more than one?

What if he puts the pendant in, turns it and discovers it’s part of a sequence that has a time limit?

But what sequence?

What on earth could it be?

Tom stares at the huge chunk of tree and starts to drive himself mad. He has to come up with something.

And quick.

He searches the wood with his fingers. There’s a chance he’ll get lucky and spot something.

He stops again. He’s being stupid. If there’s a sequence, he has to understand it, not just come across it.

He tells himself to slow down.

Stay calm.

Think logically.

He grabs another couple of nails and cuts more twine.

After several false starts, he turns his thinking upside down.

Literally.

He holds the pendant upside down in the furthest top left-hand corner of the wood. He runs a line from here all the way down until it crosses the plotted lines made from the bottom right-hand point.

Bullseye.

He finds another silver-lined slot. It’s below and to the left of the first one.

He tries not to get excited.

He moves the pendant to the top right and inwards and runs another line down to the centre.

Perfect.

He stands back and admires his ingenuity.

The three silver-lined slots mark the point of their own scalene triangle.

More importantly, there’s a sequence, and it involves all three slots, but what is it?

Does it run clockwise, starting from the highest – the first slot he discovered?

Alternatively – because the second one he found is sited to the left of the first – does it run anticlockwise?

He can’t decide.

Beyond the wall, he hears a bang. A short noise, like a loud whip cracking or a car backfiring.

Could this be an exit into the street?

Could Guilio have got his bearings hopelessly wrong and a new danger is approaching?

Decision time.

Tom slips the tightest-angled corner of the pendant into the first lock. It takes a heavy push to get it in, and he’s frightened it will break.

But it doesn’t.

It makes a satisfying click.

Tom turns it.

It clicks again.

But what next?

He looks at the second slot.

To the left – or to the right?

Beyond the wall, he hears another bang.

Then another.

It’s gunfire.

Tom goes with his instinct.

He jams the pendant into the left-hand slot and turns it anticlockwise.