Chris Kuzneski - The Lost Throne

“I know that, but-”

“Jon,” Jones argued, “think about it. If the Brotherhood moved the treasure in the last century, it was after Schliemann died. So his map wouldn’t show the new location.”

Payne nodded. “I realize that, but who’s to say when the monks moved it. What if they moved it before Schliemann died? Maybe his map led us here for a reason. Maybe there’s a secret clue that will point us to another location.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Hey,” Payne said, “I know you’re disappointed and all, but we just climbed a mountain to get here. We’re not going back down until you’ve looked around some more.”

Jones groaned in frustration. “Fine! I’ll look around the stupid cave, but if a giant boulder starts rolling at me from the ceiling, I swear to God I’ll-”

He stopped in mid-sentence and cocked his head to the side.

Payne stared at him, waiting for him to finish his rant. “You’ll what ?”

Jones ignored the question. Deep in thought, he glanced around the cave, slowly considering everything about it. “This cave is kind of small, isn’t it?”

“It’s no Carlsbad Caverns, if that’s what you mean.”

“No,” Jones said as he shined his flashlight all around him. “I mean, the damn thing is really small. If they used to keep a huge treasure in here, where in the hell did they hide it?”

Payne paused. “That’s a very good point.”

“I mean, I doubt they just left it sitting out in the open. That wouldn’t make sense. Not if the Brotherhood was as careful as they seemed to be.”

Allison looked at the mouth of the cave. “What about the entrance? Could they have concealed it with rocks and branches?”

“That’s possible,” Jones conceded. “But unless they did it just right, it wouldn’t have looked natural. And if you’re trying to hide something, that’s a dead giveaway.”

Payne stared at his friend, who had the slightest hint of a smile. “Hold up. Do you know where the treasure is?”

Jones shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Payne shined his light on Jones. There was a gleam in his eye that hadn’t been there a moment before-and it wasn’t a reflection of the flashlight. “You bastard! I can tell from your face that you know where it is.”

Jones laughed. “I’m not positive, but I do have a theory. Ironically, if I’m right about it, I just gave you a clue.”

“You gave us a clue?”

He grinned. “If you had been paying attention, you would’ve noticed it.”

“You gave me a clue?”

Dial, who had been listening from the rear of the cave, spoke up. “He said dead .”

Payne turned and looked at him. “Dead?”

Dial nodded. “He said dead giveaway. He’s talking about the skulls.”

Jones whistled, impressed. “Score one for Nick Dial! How did you figure that out?”

“It wasn’t anything that you said,” Dial assured him. “It was something that Nicolas said before he died. He claimed the Brotherhood brought the skulls up here to honor them. But that goes against everything that Marcus and I learned at Metéora. The monks don’t keep skulls to honor them. They keep the skulls to remind them how fragile life is.”

He glanced down at Nicolas, who was lying on the ground underneath the blood-soaked blanket. “One minute you’re here, and the next you’re gone.”

“Okay,” Payne said. “I get that. But what does that have to do with the treasure?”

Dial continued. “Nicolas didn’t come up here to die. He came here to protect the treasure. And the only way he could do that was by convincing us that the Brotherhood had moved it somewhere else. Then he killed himself before we could ask him any more questions.”

“You seem pretty sure of that.”

Dial shrugged. “He’s lied to me before. I started to recognize his patterns.”

Allison asked, “So what does that mean? They didn’t move the treasure?”

Dial shook his head. “They didn’t have time. The Spartans killed them before they could.”

75

Payne studied the large pile of skulls stacked haphazardly against the wall. There were hundreds of them, several centuries’ worth of dead monks who had sworn to guard an ancient treasure. If his friends were correct, the monks still protected it-even in death.

“Explain this to me again,” he said to Jones. “You think the treasure is under there ?”

“Not the treasure itself. But I think the skulls are hiding something. A fissure or a passageway.”

Payne smirked at his friend. “A minute ago you were making fun of me when I said there might be a clue somewhere in the cave. Now you’re telling me there’s a secret passageway?”

Jones nodded his head. “Yep. That’s what I’m saying.”

“That sounds kind of crazy.”

Andropoulos cleared his throat. “Actually, sir, it’s not that crazy. Director Dial and I found a secret tunnel at Metéora. It was hidden behind a large tapestry in the monks’ barracks.”

Payne glanced at him. “You found a tunnel? What was inside?”

“Stairs and an underground vault with several carved shelves and a fancy stone altar, but whatever had been stored in there had been moved long ago.”

“The room was empty?”

“Yes, sir. It was empty.”

Dial corrected him. “Actually, that’s inaccurate. We did find something important.”

Payne asked, “What was that?”

“The severed heads of the Brotherhood.”

“Are you serious? The heads were down there?”

Dial nodded as pieces of the puzzle slowly fell into place. “The Spartans slaughtered the monks, and then stacked their heads on the stone altar. At the time, we assumed that they were sending a message, but we didn’t know what it was. Now I have my answer.”

“Which is?” Payne wondered.

“One of the monks-one of the seven members of the Brotherhood-must’ve revealed the treasure’s location before his death. The stacked heads were the Spartans’ way of bragging about it.”

Jones added, “Which would explain their presence on the mountain. They knew where the treasure was hidden, and they were coming to get it.”

“It appears that way, yes.”

Payne glanced at Dial. “It appears that way? Do you have another theory?”

Andropoulos said, “He always has a theory.”

Dial smiled. The young cop was learning. “For some reason, something about the Spartans’ role in this still doesn’t seem to fit. From what I have been told, the Spartans weren’t motivated by money. Their sole purpose in life was to be the best warriors they could be. They didn’t care about gold or treasure. They only cared about their reputations as soldiers.”

Payne shrugged. “Times change. People change. Money might mean more to them now.”

“I don’t know about that,” Dial argued. “They still live in the same region of Greece and continue to speak Laconian after all these years. They still train like their ancestors, and obviously have the same armor and weapons. On the surface, it appears they still care about the same basic things. And as far as I know, money isn’t one of them.”

“Then why were they here?”

“When Marcus and I spotted the tunnel, we found these incredibly detailed carvings of soldiers and war. They appeared on the door, on the shelves, and on the stone altar. To us, they seemed completely out of place in a monastery where all the other artwork focused on religion. Now I’m beginning to wonder if the carvings had something to do with the treasure.”

“Such as?”

Dial explained his theory. “We were informed that the monasteries have always been used as sanctuaries, a place where artists and writers were free to work without persecution. We were also told that Spartans frowned upon the written word. Actually, that’s an understatement. Writing was forbidden inside their culture. Everything we know about them comes from outside sources, and since we’re talking about twenty-five hundred years ago, sources are limited.”