The Vault of Hercules

Chapter 28

Rita Medley fell back onto the spill of the tunnel from where she came. She felt a bunch of hands grab at her and pull her away from the dangerous floor. Nina held her tightly as she wept in agony from the burning on her foot and leg where the substance had penetrated her clothing. Shards of dissolved material dangled from the raw flesh of her calf and ankle, although her shoe was far thicker and protected her foot from most of the damage.

“Hang on, Medley,” Purdue said, crouching down and flinging his rucksack around his arm. “I have some medical supplies here. We'll have you up and running in no time.”

“It doesn't feel like it,” she sniffed. “Jesus, it burns like acid.”

“Luckily it isn't actual acid,” he said as he got a closer look, opening a jar of ointment. “It looks like a very strong mix of minerals reacting to the proteins in your skin.”

“God, I hate science,” she mumbled.

“It seems to hate you back,” Purdue remarked as he applied the protective ointment and bandaged her leg.

“Is she okay?” Guido asked. “Because our time is running out and we can't afford to be held up by injuries. That vault is not going to be there forever, you know. Sal! Carry my wife, will ya?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Nina scowled at the insensitive asshole standing over her and Rita. “We have to wait until she has at least recovered from the shock, for fuck's sake!”

“Don't you yell at me, you little bitch!” he shouted, but before his words were cold Nina punched him square in the balls. Guido fell to his knees, wailing in rage and clutching his crotch.

“Call me a bitch again and I'll rip 'em off, tosser,” she snarled at him.

Sam and Purdue stood by to protect her just in case the coward took a swing, but above all they knew that the feisty historian did not need much security from a hand-to-hand altercation with Guido Bruno. It was his trigger-happy finger and vindictive personality she had to watch out for. Sal stepped forward, not really knowing what to do in this situation.

“Aye, come on, ogre! You too!” she hissed, but he stayed put. Nina was perspiring heavily and her hands were shaking from the adrenaline rush, but still she tried to figure out a way across. “Can we measure how far down this stuff goes?”

“You mean, how deep in shit we are?” Sam asked dryly.

“Yes, Sam,” Purdue smiled. “Let's get something like a stick… oh, Rita, what is that sticking out from your satchel? Can we use it to measure the depth?”

“Um, hell no!” she answered, her voice quivering from the debilitating pain. “That’s the Donar's Club, idiot, not some stick.”

Purdue was getting really tired of being called an idiot by his old adversary, but he afforded her leeway for the condition she was in. He nevertheless pulled the relic free from her bag, waving off her furious protest. Nina assured her that Purdue would never defile artifacts, which almost calmed her down. Mere moments after that the pain got to Rita and she passed out. Sal picked her up and gently laid her down on one of the blankets Sam had rolled out for her. Purdue was scrutinizing the symbols, remembering what the linguist had translated, but aside from that, it gave him an idea.

“Nina, how familiar are you with the Labors of Hercules?” he asked discreetly.

“Quite well,” she replied. “Why?”

“On this bat there are twelve symbols I could not decipher at first, but now I’m thinking that maybe they’re not words, but representations — like hieroglyphics.” He ran the tip of his finger over each to show her. Nina took the club from him and examined each symbol to see if there were meanings in the pictographs. Sam filmed from above in the light of his camera, electing to use normal vision to assist Nina's examination.

“Thanks Sam,” Purdue said.

That simple statement hit Sam for some reason. It was such a trivial thing to say, yet the sentiment was truly appreciative and cordial. Sam didn’t know why it had such an impact on him, especially now. To avoid overthinking it he quickly passed a glance to Sal and Guido. They were whispering between them what looked like a plan of sorts that Sam did not like one bit. Nina slapped Purdue on the arm, “Purdue, you nailed it! I see it! You could be onto something.”

Her impressed smile instantly removed all the discomfort of her clout, and Purdue chuckled.

“Will you be able to use the wisdom of Hercules to get us out of shit creek?” Sam asked, still keeping a vigil on the enemy in company. Nina could not help but snicker like a teenager. “Are you ever going to stop, you daft dunce?”

Sam shrugged, “It's just too good to ignore.”

“Now, are there any labors pertaining to dung?” Purdue asked.

“Aye,” she nodded.

“You're kidding,” Sam said. “Seriously?”

“Aye, seriously,” she insisted. “The Augean Stables. I don't think it was any of the first labors, which tells me that whatever lies ahead cannot be predicted. Hercules was burdened with the task of cleaning the stables of King Augeas, which contained… pardon the pun… a shit load of dung.”

Sam smiled, but his eyes wandered to the Sicilians.

“How did he clean the stables, then?” Purdue asked.

Nina rose to her feet, surveying the interior of the cavern and its surrounding rooms. “Do we have a river down here?”

“I hear water, but it seems to be coming from above us,” Purdue remarked. There were several small postbox holes leading to narrow tunnels into the other cave systems, but they were unexplored. Purdue followed the sound of the dripping water to locate its point of origin. It was seeping through a higher crevice accessible only through a slender hole in the wall of the mountain's innards. He barely looked down at Nina to ask, when he found her already shaking her head. “No way, Purdue. No fucking way I’m going in there.”

“You’re the only one small enough and strong enough,” Sam encouraged, but she would have none of it.

“You know how I feel about cramped spaces, Sam!” she moaned.

“Aye, I do very well. But think about it. Without you we can’t get over this obstacle, and we have to reach the Vault before it disappears for good. Come on, Nina. I'll be right here at the hole to pull you out if you get stuck. Just pretend you are crawling in under your bed to retrieve a sock.”

Nina raised an eyebrow. “Oh, good analogy.”

From behind them in the tunnel they’d come through, a low rumble ensued that could be felt through the cavern walls.

“Earthquake?” Guido asked in alarm.

“Could be. I'm not sure, though,” Purdue replied. “It sounds too localized.”

“Nina, if ever there was a need to hurry,” Sam persisted.

“I know!” she whined. “Help me up. Give me your climbing gear, Purdue. Just the rope and the ice axe, please. There won't be much space for anything else.”

“What are you going to do?” Guido wanted to know. He was more concerned about Dr. Gould finding a way out and leaving prematurely to implicate them.

“Don't know yet,” she grunted as she struggled up into the hole, using Purdue's shoulders as a foothold. “Will see when I get there.”

It was a little shard of hell for the historian who suffered from claustrophobia to more than a mild degree. Taking slow, deep breaths, she tried not to think about the fact that she was trapped a few hundred feet under the ground in a hole hardly larger than her body. As Sam had advised her many times, she kept her mind on the task at hand, keeping her eye on the route ahead towards the trickling water she was slithering through.

“You had to open your big mouth about looking for a river,” she bitched in between pauses. “You could have just worked out some other plan, for Christ's sake. You're not Hercules, remember?”

Befuddled expressions flooded Sam and Purdue's faces as they listened to Nina babble on to herself as she vanished into the chute. It was no use asking. She would not hear them above the worrisome thunder that persisted down the shaft they’d entered through, anyway.

Ignoring to the best of her ability the hard grazing of her knees and elbows as she crawled toward the sound of the rushing water, Nina kept reminding herself why she was there. She took care to brainwash herself out of the confined tunnel by assuring herself that she was seeking water sources. Eventually, another hole appeared ahead of her in the darting light of her headlamp.

She couldn’t see beyond the mouth of the tunnel. All she could do was inch forward until she reached the edge of the tunnel exit, where she propped her body up on her palms and lifted herself out of the wet tube. But Nina had no idea where she was. The dark was stifling and when her beam of light didn’t fall on anything at all, she knew she had to be in an enormous cavern.

Leaning forward trying to see, her right hand slipped, toppling her over the brim of the exit and plummeting her small body into a free-fall. Screaming in panic, Nina could do nothing but brace herself for the impact. Moments later she hit a strong current of water, sinking deep beneath the surface. She could feel the current taking her, but she remained calm until she reached the surface for breath. As a reflex, she stretched out her arms and fortunately felt several rocks under the water. Her desperate hands found a particularly large protruding formation and she latched onto it to escape the force of the water.

Purdue and Sam had heard her screaming, but they could do nothing but wait. They were too big to fit through the hole and they refrained from shouting in case of rock falls or collapses. In the meantime, Nina had climbed up on the rock and had a vantage point from which to survey her surroundings.

The chamber was not as big as had guessed, but the roof was very high. It appeared to be a culminating place for several ducts of water from other levels of the mountain. To her right, Nina found a window in the rock wall, leading to the chamber of dung below, but the water level of the river she was in was not high enough to breach the hole and spill into the cavern where Sam and Purdue watched over Rita.

“What do I do? What? What? What can I do?” she rapped quickly, her eyes shut and her palms rubbing to help her think. Nina knew she was not Hercules — she lacked his strength — she had to use her head to solve the problem in a similar fashion. Her dark brown eyes frantically combed the resources she had.

“Got it!” she said suddenly. “Not the best idea, but it will have to do.”

Nina wedged the ice axe between two formations and sat back on the rock, using her legs to kick the steel handle of the climbing tool incessantly. After several attempts, during which her rhythmic yelps of exertion could be heard throughout the chambers, she managed to get the formations to break off where the ice axe was lodged. The sharp columns of calcite tumbled away from the wall, a most perilous endeavor by Dr. Gould, and landed in the water, becoming stuck between the loose rocks and fallen stalactites of the river. The pressure form the current did not tolerate the obstruction of the cave debris and soon Nina noticed the rocks stirring under the force of the water.

She watched nervously as the rocks became dislodged and gave way, ripping the small window to the guano cavern open and spilling a waterfall out onto the filthy floor. Below, Sam, Purdue, Guido, and Sal stood confounded as the tumultuous river tumbled over into the cave and wash away the threat. They looked up and saw her smiling at the top of the waterfall she’d made, secured by the rope.