The Tomb of Shadows Page 9

  “Imagine,” said Cass. “Must have been fainting in the streets.”

  “What happened to it?” Dad asked.

  “Earthquake,” I replied. “Totaled in the early thirteen hundreds. A century afterward, the Crusaders conquer the area. Near the old Mausoleum site they figure, hey, nice place to build a castle. Soon they need to reinforce it, so they use stones from the ruins of the Mausoleum. You can still see the actual stones—only now that old castle is a museum.”

  “Museum of the Mausoleum,” Cass said. “MuMa.”

  “How do we find a Wonder that’s been cemented into a museum wall?” Aly said with a groan. “Think about it. The parts of the Colossus were in a pile. The Hanging Gardens were tucked away in a parallel world. We could get to them. They weren’t attached to anything else!”

  Cass’s face sank. “Good point.”

  “Well, just some of the stones were used,” I said. “There’s a collection at the actual site of the Mausoleum.”

  “I don’t know how we’ll get in,” Dad said. “The site is closed for the day. I just checked.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Aly said.

  Dad sighed, glancing back at Professor Bhegad. “I hope I don’t regret doing this.”

  Cass was peering out the window at a moonlit mountain peak of pure white that jutted up through the cloud cover. “Whoa . . . that’s Mount Ararat. Eastern edge of Turkey. Where Noah’s Ark washed up.”

  “Must have been some huge flood,” I said.

  “That must have been some huge ark,” Aly added.

  “Brunhilda is like ark,” Torquin complained. “Without flood. Or animals. Hang on.”

  With a grunt, he yanked on some control so hard he nearly took off the lever.

  Slowly, gently, we began to descend.

  The rented van sped down the Bodrum highway along the coast of the Mediterranean. I sat in the back with Professor Bhegad, who was awake again but not saying much. His wheelchair lay folded in the van’s wayback. Out the window, a carpet of moonlight led to the distant lights of the island Kos.

  Those lights blurred as Torquin took an exit hard and gunned up a hill.

  Professor Bhegad gasped. “Massa treachery . . . Torquin’s driving . . . not sure which is worse.”

  Torquin pulled to a stop outside a gated yard, fishtailing to both sides as he slammed on the brakes. “We’re here,” he announced gruffly. “GPS says.”

  “Hallelujah,” Cass said.

  Torquin frowned at him. “Halicarnassus,” he pronounced carefully.

  As I unbuckled my seat belt, Dad handed me a cell phone. “Take this, in case we get separated.”

  I took it, and we piled out of the van. To one side was a guardhouse, but otherwise a flat yard stretched out before us. In its center was a big hole surrounded by a few piles of stone. “That’s it?” Cass said.

  “There’s not enough material here for a decent-sized patio,” Aly said.

  I pressed myself close to the iron bars, staying still. Trying to sense the presence of the Loculus. Trying to feel the Song of the Heptakiklos.

  Each time we’d come close—to the Loculi, to the Heptakiklos itself at the center of the island—I’d felt it. It wasn’t music, exactly, although I did hear beautiful sounds. It was something that I felt deeper than that, as if something were playing the sinews and nerves of my body like an instrument.

  I waited to feel it. I concentrated hard.

  Finally I shook my head. “It’s not here. I’m not feeling it.”

  “You can just . . . feel it?” Dad said. “Like some ESP thing?”

  “Let’s get closer,” Cass suggested. “Just to be sure.”

  “We can try to disable the security,” Aly said. “Or cut through the wire.”

  “I have a better idea.” Cass ran to the van and returned in midair, holding the Loculus of Flight. As he touched down in front of me, I reached for the orb.

  Together we rose over a field of stones and broken columns. There were far fewer than I imagined would be here. “Anything?” Cass asked. “Violins? Trumpets?”

  I shook my head. All I felt was the wetness of sea air and the slight tang of salt.

  We landed outside the gate, where Dad, Aly, and Torquin were waiting expectantly. “What now?” Dad asked. “We go home?”

  I glanced up the coastal road. In the distance, half-hidden by trees, was a massive structure that loomed over a bluff. “Is that the knights’ castle?”

  “Yup,” Cass said. “Want to try it?”

  “But . . . it’s not the Mausoleum,” Dad said. “So you won’t find anything, right?”

  “If the knights used pieces of the Mausoleum in their castle walls,” I said, “what if they also used pieces of the Loculus?”

  Aly nodded. “Stranger things have happened.”

  Dad sighed. “Seems far-fetched, but you guys have been at this longer than I have . . .”

  We jumped in the van again. I felt bad for Dad. He looked more confused than I’d ever seen him.

  Torquin gunned it up the road. The castle’s small windows, like beady black eyes, seemed to follow us as we approached. Its towers were connected by a crenellated roof, and I imagined helmeted guards aiming crossbows at us.

  “This place is mad creepy,” Cass said.

  “They were Crusaders, not luxury condo builders,” Aly said.

  I got out of the van and walked toward the museum. To the side was a padlocked gate, thicker and more formidable than the Mausoleum site’s, which led to a moonlit yard. Near the edge of the bluff I could see a roped-off area with a ragged pile of what looked like stones.

  Relics.

  My heart quickened. I grabbed the bars, concentrating hard for a few seconds. It has to be here . . .

  After a few seconds, I noticed Aly and Cass were already beside me. Waiting. Not wanting to interrupt. I stared out past the museum. There, a bluff dropped to the sea. I could hear the rhythmic crashing of waves below. The breeze from the sea was bracing, almost cold.

  The Dream.

  It was coming back to me now: walking on a cliff . . . the sea raging and the wind biting into my skin. I was bleeding . . . shivering . . . holding . . . what?

  “A Loculus . . .” I murmured.

  “What?” Cass said.

  “Did you say Loculus?” Aly said. “Do you feel it?”

  “No, but I think I dreamed about this place,” I replied.

  “I think I did, too,” Cass said, shivering. He looked up to the top of the barbed-wire fence. “I’ll get the Loculus of Flight.”

  “No,” Aly said. “This is a big place. There might be a night watchman, someone who’d see kids dangling from a flying beach ball.” She took a couple of bobby pins from her pack and inserted them gently into the padlock. Pressing her ear against the mechanism, she began to fiddle with it.

  A sudden hammering sound made us both fall silent. We crouched low as a steady chink . . . chink . . . chink rang out from inside the castle grounds. I looked toward the sound to see a glint of amber light.

  “What’s that?” Cass mouthed.

  Aly shrugged. The lock fell open. Cass, Aly, Torquin, Dad, and I tiptoed inside the grounds. Dr. Bradley remained inside the van with Professor Bhegad. We slipped past the darkened museum entrance and followed the base of the wall. The crashing waves were loud, blotting out all other sound, but as we neared the cliff, I had to stop.

  Chink . . . chink . . . chink . . .

  I held a finger up, signaling everyone to stay put.

  I inched my way along the wall. In back of the castle was a small, rectangular, gravel yard that extended from the castle to the edge of the cliff.

  My eyes scanned the length of the wall to a tall pile of stones at the other side of the yard. The sound seemed to be coming from there. I crouched low, hiding in a dark castle door well. In the moonlight I could make out the silhouette of a severely hunched figure, not more than four and a half feet high. I couldn’t tell if it was male o
r female. It rocked from side to side as it walked, its feet pointed outward and knees touching, as if its legs had been switched. I watched it silently walk to the edge of the cliff, leaving the pile unguarded. It stood looking over the sea.

  I tiptoed closer to the abandoned stones. They seemed to glow. I felt strange, weightless. The wind boxed my ears, dulling all other sounds. Still I didn’t feel the Song. I glanced back toward the cliff, but the strange figure was gone.

  Maybe it was a thief, and we’d scared it away.

  I drew closer. In the moonlight, the rocks were a pale amber. They were covered with relief carvings of some kind, but not with fancy designs, just straight lines. I reached toward the pile and touched one. It was warm to my fingers. It seemed somehow alive, pulsating.

  “Psssst,” came a warning from behind me. I turned to see Cass, Aly, and Torquin peeking around the corner of the castle.

  Tucking the stone under my arm, I ran toward them.

  “Watch out, Jack!” Aly cried.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a movement by the cliff’s edge. I turned to see something hurtling toward my head. I ducked, dropping the stone.

  A baseball-sized rock whizzed above my head, smacking against the castle wall with a dull thwack and falling to the ground. A shadow came toward me, dark and low, moving like a bear cub.

  Before I could scramble to my feet, it stood over me, one foot planted on either side. It was human—male—his features all bunched into the center of his face. Hair sprouted in all directions like acupuncture needles, except the top of his head, which was bald but etched with lines like canals on a lost planet. One eye was focused outward, as if distracted. But the other stared at me directly, sharply.

  Aly, Cass, and Torquin rushed toward us, but the man turned their way with superquick reflexes. His arm was cocked back, and he held a rock the size of a cantaloupe, ready to throw.

  “W—we come in p-peace,” Cass squeaked.

  The man’s mouth opened slightly. A line of spittle dribbled out and hung precariously. “And in peace thou shalt go,” he said in a perfect English accent, his words clear and clipped.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  The man eyed me with a strange expression that could have been disgust or amusement. “To those who address me, which are sadly few,” he said, “I am Canavar.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  GNOME? PIXIE? TROLL?

  CANAVAR WAS SMALL, but his drool loomed closer and packed a world of disgust. “Could you please get off me?” I said.

  “I know what thou thinkest.” Canavar leaped off, his drool landing with a tiny splat about two inches from my ear. “Gnome! Pixie! Troll!”

  “I wasn’t thinking that at all!” I protested.

  “Ha! My form may be crooked, but I am fast and strong,” he crowed. “Thieves and cutpurses do well to fear such as I! But seeing as thou art young and inexperienced—well, a majority of thou—I will let thee go quietly.”

  “Please,” I said. “If you have anything to do with this museum—”

  “Anything to do?” He waddled over to the dropped stone, scooping it from the ground. “I am resident archaeologist, cryptologist, oceanologist, DJ!”

  “DJ?” Cass asked.

  “Doctor of jurisprudence!” Canavar replied. His face grew somber. “But, being of an appearance and temperament not suited for the general public, I prefer working after hours. Of which these are. Now go, or I shall trap thee overnight and cast thee tomorrow before the arbiters of civic judgment!”

  “I think he means report us to the authorities,” Cass said.

  I thought quickly. “We need to look around a little,” I said, standing up. “We brought a man here from very far away, a great archaeologist who is ailing badly. It’s his . . . dying wish.”

  Canavar’s eyes darted toward the van, where Dr. Bradley and Professor Bhegad were waiting. He waddled closer, peering into the window. “By the ghost of Mausolus,” Canavar breathed, “is that . . . Raddy?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Professor Bhegad said.

  “Pardon granted!” Canavar said. “Raddy—thy nickname at Oxford amongst thy admirers. You are Radamanthus Bhegad, Sultan of Scholars, Archduke of Archaeologists, yes? What on earth has befallen thee? And what can I do? Canavar, thy acolyte, at thy service!”

  Dr. Bradley and Professor Bhegad stared at the misshapen man. For a moment neither knew what to say.

  “Yes, yes, I am Bhegad,” the professor said, his voice soft and weak. “And, um . . . yes, indeed, there is something you can do. For the sake of archaeology. These people . . . must have full access. To . . . er, everything you know about the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.”

  Canavar stood to full height, which wasn’t terribly impressive. “Oh, by the warts on Artemisia’s delicate nose . . . I suppose I have a job to do now. I do, yes? Then come.”

  He sprang away from the van and skipped back the way we’d come, disappearing around the side of the castle. But we stood rooted to the ground, stunned.

  “My mother told me not to believe in leprechauns,” Aly murmured.

  “But for this,” I said, “we make an exception.”

  “By the blessing of Asclepius, what a tale!” Canavar exclaimed as he sat before a pile of rocks on the ground. “So thou seekest a sort of . . . sphere of salubrity? Is that what thou sayest?”

  Cass gave me a look. “Did we sayest that?”

  “I think he means a Loculus of Healing,” I said. “Look, Canavar—”

  “Dr. Canavar,” Canavar said.

  “Dr. Canavar. The organization I’ve been telling you about—Professor Bhegad’s group, the Karai Institute—we believe the relic was hidden within the Mausoleum.”

  “Oh, dear,” Canavar replied, his brow furrowing, “then by now ’twould be presumably reduced to rubble. Cannibalized to construction. Stolen. Sunken undersea.” He gestured toward the castle. “Behold, this is what is left of your Mausoleum! Stones ground into dust. Dust reformed into brick. A bas-relief here, a statuette there. All to build this . . . abomination! This monument to knightly ego! Oh, misfortune!”

  He was starting to cry, his tears dripping on the collection of stones he was arranging. Cass and Aly looked at me helplessly.

  I stood and began walking around the yard. Where was the Song of the Heptakiklos? I had felt it outside the labyrinth of Mount Onyx, the Massarene monastery in Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. I should have been feeling it now.

  But all I felt was a vague warmth from the rocks. Was that a hint of a lost Loculus? Was this one hopelessly spread out in the mortar and stones of the castle?

  “Canavar,” I said.

  “Dr. Canavar.”

  “Right. So, some of the Mausoleum stones were all ground up. But is it possible others were taken away? Are there parts of the Mausoleum in other places besides here?”

  “This site was paradise for thieves,” Canavar said. “Some escaped—well, mostly those that came by land. Some sold their stolen stones and jewels on the open market. But the largest thefts, my boy, came by sea. These were men of equal parts stupidity and fearlessness. And thou hast little chance of finding their booty.”

  “Their booty?” Cass said.

  “Pirate booty,” Aly explained. “Stolen treasures.”

  Canavar gestured toward the sea. “The sea bottom is littered with shipwrecks containing pieces of the Mausoleum still within their holds. The sand and coral are nourished with the bodies of those who scoffed at Artemisia’s Curse.”

  “Artemisia,” Aly said. “That was the wife of the ruler, Mausolus.”

  Canavar nodded. “Also his sister.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” Cass said. “Or at least incredibly gross?”

  “The world was a different place.” Canavar bowed his head. “I present to you the most important recent Mausoleum find. The rocks before thee were salvaged by the hands of a heroic, prodigiously skilled sea diver. Namely, me. This is my life’s work—to find
all there is. To bring them back. If they came from the Mausoleum, they must be returned. It is where they belong. It is where they have their life. Their meaning.”

  I knelt by the stones. They were small, none more than four or five inches long, all of them in sharply cut geometric shapes. Some seemed new, others worn and ancient, and some were etched with straight lines.

  Canavar’s tiny features expanded with pride. “You see the etched lines on the stones? I believe they formed a kind of symbol, or logo. The Greek letter mu, equivalent to our M, for Mausolus.”

  “But this place was Persian back then,” I said, trying to dredge up my research. “Not Greek.”

  Canavar nodded. “The Persian kingdom of Caria. But as a port, Caria was home to many nationalities. Mausolus was allowed to be an independent and flexible ruler. He hired Greek architects and Greek sculptors. Hence the Greek M. Wouldst thou like to see how the stones fit together?”

  He quickly organized the stones with his spindly fingers.

  “Ergo, an M!” Canavar said.

  I nodded. “Some of these are lighter in color than the others.”

  “Yes. Those were the ones I salvaged from the ship. I studied these stones for years, wondering what they meant. I positioned and repositioned them until I saw, in my mind’s eye, the possibility of this M, even though the other stones were missing. So I carved new ones, to represent them. To fill in the blanks, as it were. Those are the darker stones. It was the material I had.”

  “Wait, you made it up?” Cass asked. “You had a bunch of lines and just assumed it was an M? What if it was something else?”

  Canavar glared at him. “Thinkest thou perhaps Q would be appropriate for Mausolus?”

  He turned in a huff and stomped away toward Torquin and Dad.

  Cass, Aly, and I squatted by the stones. I touched them one by one. “They’re warm,” I said. “Just the old ones. Not the new.”