White Jade

Chapter Forty-Two

Carter felt the stones tremble under his feet and jumped forward with everything he had. He heard Selena shout his name behind him. Pain shot up his spine. The floor fell away into a gaping pit. He caught the far edge of the opening with one hand, grabbed hard with the other and hung on, feet dangling. A cloud of white dust rose around him. He looked down. Twenty feet below, rows of sharpened wooden spikes reached for him like a mouth full of hungry fangs.

The walls of the pit were smooth. He hung above the spikes until he could get his arms over the edge of the opening and pull out to lie on the floor. He lay on his back and took a few, deep breaths, waiting for the pain to subside.

"You all right, Nick?" It was Ronnie.

"Yeah." He got to his feet, heart pounding. His back was bad, but if he kept moving, maybe it wouldn't lock up. He popped another pain pill and hoped it had some kind of muscle relaxant in it.

"Throw me a rope."

Ronnie tossed a line over and Nick tied it off on one of the torch brackets. Ronnie did the same. Selena and Ronnie went hand over hand until they dropped down on the other side of the pit.

"That was a hell of a jump." Ronnie slapped him on the shoulder. Nick winced.

"I felt it move just before it went. I hope that's the last of these things."

Another fifty yards of creeping along and the passage opened into blackness. They stepped through. Something glittered in the light of their torches.

They were in a chamber hollowed out from the heart of the mountain. They stood on a floor of smooth stone squares fitted together by a master mason. A broad flight of steps led up to a flat, raised platform. The other end of the platform was invisible in the darkness.

The torches cast shadows from columns spaced along the steps and the sides of the platform. Each column was elaborately carved with entwined serpents and vines. On top of each was a large, golden bowl.

"We need more light. Let's set up on the platform."

They walked across the stone floor and started up the steps.

The bowls were just above eye level. On a hunch, Nick dipped his finger into one. It was filled with some kind of oil. With a touch of his torch a burst of light and flame pushed the dark away. They moved up the steps and along the side of the platform, lighting the bowls. On the far end of the platform more steps led up to the entrance of a low, square building cut into the side of the mountain.

They stopped and stared.

In the light from the blazing bowls a soaring, giant bird spread wings of gold above the building. Upon its back rode a frightening figure sculpted of red stone. His head was two-faced, cheeks dripping with gold like melted butter, his four eyes black and burning. Seven tongues of flame licked out between sharpened golden teeth. His expression was fierce, his hair long, black and tangled, as if by a wild wind. He had seven arms circled with gold bracelets and three legs banded with blue stones set in gold. A necklace of golden skulls circled his neck. Seven broad rays of gold streamed like lightning from his body.

Beneath the bird, a frieze of double-headed golden axes capped the entrance to the building below.

The gold shone in the flickering light.

"That's Agni," said Selena, "riding the garuda." Her voice was filled with awe.

"Who's Agni?" Carter asked.

"He's one of the two most important Vedic gods, before Hinduism, very old. He's the god of fire and immortality. Usually he's riding on the back of a ram or in a chariot. I've never seen him riding a garuda. This is a really early depiction."

"That's a lot of gold up there." Ronnie gazed at the figure.

"Is that a ruby in one of his hands? It's as big as a baseball." Carter couldn't take it all in at once. He'd never seen anything like it.

"I think so, and those blue stones are probably sapphires." She turned in a circle. "Look at the walls!"

The flames illuminated murals in brilliant color circling the room. Beneath the pictures, the walls were filled with writing and symbols. The murals looked as if they had been painted just days before.

Selena walked down the steps and over to a mural next to the entrance. Holding her torch close, she examined the writing.

"My God. This is Linear A. It's written in Minoan. And beneath it." She stopped dead in her tracks.

"Beneath it, what?"

"Beneath it are passages in Sanskrit."

Carter walked over to her. "Can you read it?"

"I can read the Sanskrit. If the Sanskrit is telling the same story as the Linear A, it's the greatest linguistic discovery since the Rosetta Stone."

"That's what led to the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics."

"Yes. No one's been able to really understand Linear A. There are theories, but none of them work all the time. It's mostly guesswork. That's what I was doing."

"It looks like pitchforks and chicken tracks."

Selena ignored Ronnie's comment. "This is a dream for me. I've been studying dead languages for years. If this is what I think, it will make history."

She held her torch high and gazed at the mural above the writing. It showed a tranquil harbor scene, sunlit buildings against an azure sky, white clouds, ships with high, curved ends, people bustling near the docks. The details were vivid, lifelike. Nick could almost feel the trees swaying in an ocean breeze.

"I think this is ancient Crete." Her voice was reverent. "This must be the harbor at Knossos."

They moved along the wall. Men in orange robes gestured before a bearded man on a raised throne. To one side of the throne a group of women dressed in white stood watching. One woman wore blue.

"King Minos?"

"Possible. The Sanskrit says they are presenting a warning to the 'Great King.' This is probably the palace at Knossos. Do you know what this means in the world of archaeology? It's like finding photographs of 1600 B.C."

The King didn't look pleased. Whatever the priests were telling him, he wasn't happy about it.

The sequence of murals grew dark. While children played on the beaches, a malignant, towering green wave bore down on the island. A seething, foaming wall of water crashed over the city, smashing trees, boats, people and buildings against the hills. Then came a narrow band painted black, as if the artist could not bear to show the destruction.

The next panel showed three sailing ships with high curved ends, plowing across a churning, wave-tossed sea under a smoky red and black sky. Standing on the decks were more of the robed figures in orange and white.

The scenes continued along the wall. A landing site under a blood-red sun. A long, overland journey through desert and plain, bearers loaded down with boxes and burdens, climbing toward snowcapped mountains in the distance.

The bearers came to a bleak hilltop. In the following panels a pyramid roofed building and houses were constructed. It was the temple site above.

The style of painting changed, the work of a different artist. Figures dressed in garments of the early days of the Chinese empire surrounded a large golden palanquin with closed curtains, borne on the shoulders of straining, bare backed slaves. The procession was entering the temple complex on the hilltop.

In the next panel figures bent over a Chinese man dressed in elaborate robes, lying on a white table. Men in orange and women in white, one in blue, stood on a platform lined with blazing sconces, arms raised and faces uplifted in supplication. Behind them the great golden bird soared with its rider. The painting mirrored what Nick could see with his own eyes.

The last panel was a detailed map. Carter recognized India, China and Mongolia. It was marked with Minoan and Sanskrit writing.

The murals told the tale of the end of the Minoan civilization. They confirmed the story in the book about taking the First Emperor of China to a secret place.

This place.

"I need pictures." Selena took out her camera. Her hands trembled.

"See if the writing can tell us anything we need to know. We'll take a look at the building."

Two V-shaped channels lined with white stone paralleled the steps going up to the building, ending at square openings on each side of a rectangular white slab in the center of the platform.

Ronnie and Nick walked around the slab. They climbed the steps and entered a large, square room. Their footsteps sent a fine cloud of gray dust into the air. Ronnie sneezed. He wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Tables covered with metal caldrons, tools and glass containers lined the sides of the room. A fire pit with iron rods and grates positioned over it took up one corner. Against one wall was a large closed chest of dark metal. Hanging above the chest was a long pair of tongs. Except for the thick dust, everyone could have downed tools and left a few minutes before.

"This reminds me of my old high school science class. Beakers, bottles, fire. I was bored in that class. Once I unscrewed a Bunsen burner on the lab bench and lit it. The flame was three feet high."

Ronnie laughed. "How'd the teacher handle that?"

"I got three days detention. Messed up football practice, Coach was really mad."

"What do you think is in that chest?"

"What's it made of?"

"I'm not sure. Some kind of metal."

Ronnie pulled his Ka-Bar and scratched the surface. A dull sliver of gray peeled away, leaving a shiny line under the point of the knife.

"It's lead."

The lid was designed to slip down around the sides of the chest. There were no hinges.

"What have we got, Nick, Pandora's Box?"

"I've got an idea."

He took a counter from his pack. The readout showed higher than normal radiation, but not dangerous.

"Let's open it up and take a look."

The lid was heavy. They lifted it and Nick felt his back spasm. They set it askew across the box. The chest was half full of black rocks. The counter reading climbed toward the red and the alarm went off.

"Back on."

"Right."

They got the lid back on in a hurry. Nick checked his dosimeter. Still okay.

"I guess we found what Yang is looking for."

"How'd the priests keep themselves from getting cooked?"

"You've got me, Ronnie. How did they know lead would protect them from radiation, or that there was any radiation in the first place? How did they build this place?"

"Nick, look over here."

A man dressed in orange robes stood in a corner alcove, arm outstretched, holding something white in his hand.