David Sakmyster - The Pharos Objective

“I’m not a glory hound, you get the honors,” Nina said, sliding up to him, giving his leg a squeeze. “After all, you did all the hard work last night, you deserve it.”

Blushing, Caleb looked up the stairs. “If it’s even still there.” They went up to the next level and walked side by side through the slanting shafts of sunlight down the narrow sandstone corridors. When Caleb realized their strides were matching, step for step, he almost burst out laughing. He felt like they were the fort’s defenders, marching on patrol.

At a shadowy recessed area in the western corner beyond a chain with an “Off Limits” sign preventing public access, Caleb dug out his flashlight, switched it on and cut through the darkness. The beam continued inside an alcove about the size of a supply cabinet and illuminated three fist-sized rectangular slabs of rock, all about waist high, protruding from the wall. He had a moment’s hesitation. He had not seen three. He had not even seen this arrangement.

“Come on, slowpoke. It’s the middle one,” Nina said, leaning forward. She gripped the lever with both hands, pulled it up, then to the left and down. A grating noise echoed below, and Nina smiled into the flashlight beam. “You didn’t see them do that?”

Caleb slowly shook his head.

She patted his shoulder as she walked by and said, condescendingly, “Now, now, it’s okay. Just keep practicing.”

They squeezed into the narrow opening beyond the massive, three-foot-wide door. It had opened just far enough to let one person through, and they inched forward in the darkness, letting their eyes adjust. Caleb wondered how someone could bring any kind of significant treasure out this way.

The flashlight beam played off a narrow space and a wall just ahead of them. Caleb aimed it down. The shaft of light, alive with the thick dust stirred by opening the door, illuminated the steeply descending stairs.

“Ready?” Waxman’s voice dwindled and was quickly swallowed up by the dust and gloom. “Go on, Caleb.”

“How did I get into the lead role, here? I’m not even a member of this team.”

“You’ve always been a member, Caleb.” His mother’s hand on his shoulder. “But if you don’t want to go first-”

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

“I’ll understand,” Helen said. “Belize, and-”

Nina gripped his arm from the other side, digging her fingers into his flesh. “Don’t listen to her,” she whispered. “This is your time, make it up to Phoebe now.”

He started down.

“Should have brought sweaters,” Helen said, and Caleb cursed his stupidity. A cold, stale breath rose from the depths, chilling them to the bone. “How deep do you think it goes?”

An image materialized in Caleb’s mind. It was like an architect’s diagram-the tower, hollow and inscribed with its ramps and statues and fuel transport hoists and the same thing projected beneath it, as if a mirror were held under the design.

“As above, so below.”

Waxman looked up. “Huh?”

“Just a feeling.” Caleb took the first tentative step. “Sostratus might have built this according to the Hermetic tradition, representing below what is above.”

“So you’re saying we might be going four hundred feet down?”

“Maybe.” Or maybe the door he had seen was almost two hundred feet down, then there would be another stairwell or shaft to take the visitor to the “beacon,” the light-the treasure at the bottom.

Or maybe he was way off.

They descended toward the mystery slowly, one long step after another. Nina walked behind Caleb, clutching his t-shirt with one hand and steadying herself against the cold wall with the other. The subterranean gloom did its best to resist the feeble light cast by the flashlight, but they could see well enough to continue.

Around and around. Caleb counted seventy-two steps before the wall disappeared and the last step ended. They stood before a great darkness and had the sense of an overwhelming space ahead. The flashlight pointed down at their feet, at the dust and pebbles. The beam trembled, and Caleb realized his arm was shaking.

He felt Nina’s hand on his, and together they raised the light. It stretched across the floor, dipped into a rectangular pit, then came up the other side and struck the far wall. He moved the light higher, and his jaw dropped. There were the carvings-signs and stars, circles and moons. Shadows played among the shapes, danced around symbols, letters and images too far away to see clearly. Then he found the center and traced up the length of a painted vertical staff that had two brilliant, green-scaled snakes wound about it. He followed their coils around until they converged. Great fangs and eyes locked onto each other.

“Wow,” Dennis whispered, and pushed through the group to the front.

“Wait,” Caleb urged. He had a terrible premonition as a grating sound echoed in the chamber like something opening or sliding apart. He felt a shifting in the floor, and he quickly moved the light to his feet. One of the blocks had settled under their weight, but only a couple inches. A hissing and gurgling sound came from the pit ahead, and a whoosh like escaping steam whistled above. Dennis stumbled back as cries of fear and confusion rose.

Caleb whipped the light around in a frenzied sweep. He saw a crescent moon, then a bird-like face and a long sloping beak. Another pair of eyes peered at them knowingly, and huge arms clutched a giant book. Faces turned on great stone bodies that swiveled, expelling the dust of centuries.

“Statues!” Caleb shouted, taking another step back with Nina, overcoming his fright. “Only statues.” He remembered his vision of Caesar and how the immense statues of Thoth and his consort Seshat had flanked the entrance to this vault. But he wasn’t clear whether they posed any threat.

“How are they moving?” Waxman whispered, inching closer.

“Steam power?” Caleb replied, slowly panning the light from one to the other, willing his heart to settle down, his breathing to relax. “Just physics and hydraulics. Inventors back then were into making statues seem alive. It was a trick to thrill the worshippers-”

“Or scare the piss out of trespassers!” Victor offered.

“Did it work on anyone?” Elliot asked, stifling a chuckle.

Caleb tried to smile. “Okay guys, looks like the welcome is over. Let’s go in.” He played the light over the two statues one last time, then bowed his head as he passed between them. It might have been a trick of the light, but it almost seemed as if Seshat moved again as he passed, as though she bent at the knees and lowered her head in honor of his arrival.

They approached the wall. Four more flashlight beams appeared, heavy with collected dust, and darted over the floor, the walls, the ceiling. The team members gave the rectangular pit in the center a wide berth. From its depths Caleb thought he could hear plunks of tiny stones hitting water. He looked closer and saw that the pit had a set of stairs coming up from the watery gloom.

There was a tug at his arm and he moved the beam back in front of them. Before he knew it they were right in front of the wall, staring up at the great caduceus, with those snakes now appearing to eye him with quiet indignation. Caleb took a deep breath, and when he exhaled, his breath sparkled in the dusty air. He counted seven symbols surrounding the staff, each carved deeply into the limestone and bounded by a raised circle.

He figured someone could grip the symbols by their outside edges and turn them one way or the other, like wheels. “Should have brought floodlights,” he whispered, fumbling in his bag. “Hold the flashlights steady.”

“Why?” Waxman asked.

Caleb took out his camera, aimed and pressed the button. The room lit up. His eyes dazzled, and he suddenly remembered a night years ago on the hill overlooking Sodus Bay as the first bright fireworks rocked the night. He snapped another picture, then a third. Each time moving the aim a little more to the right until he was sure he had captured the whole wall. Strange symbols and images filled his vision until he could barely see even with the pitiful flashlight beams.