Gregg Loomis - Gates Of Hades

"Despite what the politicians say, the Catholic Church has tremendous influence on Italian politics," Maria explained. "Having a secular or pagan model of hell open for inspection would not be something the Holy Father would have supported."

Jason thought about that for a moment. "According to Eno's book, or at least the English summary of it, this place at Baia was filled with hallucinogenic gases, which a sect of scheming priests used to basically fleece people who believed they could meet the dead. The gases were there naturally, so the priests created Hades centuries before Christ. But why not in Greece?"

"Cumae oldest Greek city in Italy," Eno said.

"Besides," Maria added, "they had little choice. Just the right gas combination was at Baia, so they had to create the Netherworld there. It was probably the only place in the Greek world with just the right characteristics: a cavern, gases, an underground river, and easy accessibility."

Jason nodded. "Disney World for wealthy ancients."

Maria lifted her head to nod thanks to the waiter as he set another cup in front of her and whisked away the old one. "Natural gases that were the product of a system of underground volcanic activity."

"Part of the 'fire and brimstone' of the Christian hell, as Eno noted in his book," Jason said, exchanging his cup for the fresh one. "The physical evidence indicates that whatever minerals were involved in the Bering Sea incident and the Georgia National Forest came from around Naples, so I'd have to guess the ethylene blend did, too."

Maria dunked the sugar-encrusted stick that came with her coffee. "Which raises a truly interesting question."

No doubt the same question that had been nagging at Jason's subconscious, an unexpressed idea that had first lurked in the back of his mind like a wild animal at the edge of a campfire until his conversation with Adrian.

Maria voiced the issue Jason had thought about since Adrian had made his suggestion. "Why would the terrorists go to the trouble to find the source of a hallucinogenic gas? Why not simply kill their victims rather than gassing them first?"

"These people want to make a statement. Having something from the earth incapacitate the victims, in their minds, is a sort of revenge by nature."

"But whatever it is does not kill anyone," Maria protested. "These men, these eco…?"

"Ecological terrorists," Jason supplied.

"These men do the actual murder of helpless people."

Jason leaned back in his chair. "There's no understanding the thought process of lunatics, fanatics, but making a natural product of the earth they believe their victims are destroying makes the ecology-nature-a partner in revenging what they see as an evil done to the earth."

Both Maria and Eno were giving him skeptical looks.

"Okay, Okay, so I'm just guessing. We may get the real answer at Baia."

"Or Cumae," Eno added.

"Cumae?" Both Jason and Maria were staring at the professor.

"Cumae," he repeated. "The gases, they could have come from there. The Sibyl, she maybe… how you say? High? Yes, she maybe high on some sort of gas when she give future statements."

"Your book suggested epilepsy, not gas," Jason noted.

Eno shrugged. "A guess. Who for sure know why make statements?"

"Prophecies," Maria corrected.

"Prophecies," Eno continued, grinning. "She only one high in Vatican."

Jason looked at Maria, puzzled.

"The Sistine Chapel," she explained, "Michelangelo included the Cumae Sibyl in the group of prophets around the edge of the ceiling. According to readers of Virgil, she foretold the coming of Christ; at least, the emperor Constantine thought so. She's the only pagan figure on the ceiling."

Jason absorbed this information before saying, "Another question: how did Alazar, the Moslem who sold whatever this is to Eco, find out about gases in an ancient Greek religious site, one that wasn't even in Greece?"

Eno shrugged. "Arabs long know Greek culture," the professor began before lapsing into Italian.

Jason waited impatiently for Maria to translate.

"When Rome fell to various hordes of barbarians," she began, watching Eno, "much of the Greco-Roman knowledge was in danger of being lost, in addition to what the Greeks and Romans had learned from the Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians, and whoever else. A lot of wisdom was lost forever. The Moorish traders in the Mediterranean, the Arabs along the ancient Silk Road, the Byzantine, then Ottoman emperors saved what they could use. Had it not been for them, Greek and Roman sciences-and the ancient knowledge before that-in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, would have been lost. We would not know the geometry of Euclid, Ptolemy's geography or astronomy, or Pliny's history. During the so-called Dark Ages, much was forgotten that had originated in Europe and been learned by the Muslim merchants. It was only during the crusades that some of this knowledge began to filter back west. Even then, most forms of science were bitterly opposed by the Church, hindering even further the restoration of ancient learning in the Christian world. Eno says he wouldn't be surprised if the Arabs haven't known of Baia and Cumae longer than current Western civilization. After all, the stories of Virgil and Homer, the plays of Euripides, were known and enjoyed in the Mideast while most of Europe was divided into tiny, warring principalities run by kings who could not even read their own languages. An Arab arms dealer was only passing along something adopted by his culture a long time ago."

Jason was quiet for a few seconds. He turned to Eno. "Any chance of the government giving us grief about going down into whatever it is in Baia?"

Eno shrugged, a man asked a question to which there was no apparent answer. "They have it closed, but I do not know if they guard it. Entry is prohibited."

If the country observed that law to the same degree as traffic laws, there would be no problem.

"Obviously somebody's been there. That's where the ethylene seems to have come from," Maria observed.

"Perhaps," Eno said. "Many such places are closed but not guarded. This one may not be watched by the authorities, but these people you seek will be watching, I theenk."

Jason said, "I'll keep that in mind when Adrian and I get there."

"Adrian, you, and I," she added.

"Thought you were through as soon as you'd helped me with Eno here."

"And miss a chance to observe an underground volcanic system that, with two exceptions, has been closed off from study for two thousand years?"

Albergo del San Giovanni

Via Roma, Turin

The next morning

Jason's head was buried alternately in the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times, and the Washington Post's English-language newspaper distributed throughout Europe. He was sitting in the hotel's small dining room, where a buffet breakfast of breads, sausages, fruit, jams, cereals, and juices was lined up on white tablecloths. Across the table, Maria was finishing her third coffee.

Jason lowered his paper long enough to glance at the one inches away. Like an old married couple, he thought, each too engrossed in the morning's papers to engage in conversation. Just as well. Other than ecological extremists trying to kill them, exploring hell, or last night's sexual acrobatics, what did they have to talk about?

An article on the front page drew him back to the news. He read, then re-read it, then sat in silent thought for a moment. He folded the Herald Tribune's front page and shoved it over the top of Maria's paper like an invading army breaching a castle wall.

She lowered the barrier long enough to give him a peevish look. "I thought you read that paper only for the comics."

"It's the only one that still carries 'Calvin and Hobbes.'"