The Snake Stone

113

Amelie stood at the lip of the tunnel with her lantern raised. Her eyes were shining.

Gyllius had been telling the truth.

She was standing a few feet above a vast underground lake. From its glittering black surface huge columns of porphyry and stone reared upward from their massive plinths, glinting in the lamplight until they were lost in the darkness overhead.

Slowly she descended the steps until she reached the level of the water.

She shivered involuntarily in the silent forest: columns as far as she could see, beautifully made, the pride of pagan temples from all across the Roman world. The Byzantine emperors had plundered them for this, the greatest cistern ever built, lost to the world and buried beneath the ground.

She took another step, and the icy water closed around her ankles. She felt for the next step with her foot; the water reached her knees. There were no more steps. She let out a gasp of relief.

She set the cotton reel on the step behind her. Gritting her teeth, she began to wade through the inky water.

The relics were here, she knew it.

Somewhere, among the frozen columns of antiquity, she would find the sign.