Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

‘By Talonor and the people he left here,’ said Nina, nodding. She peered inside the artefact, the monk lifting his lantern to illuminate the interior. The light reflected back in a dazzling display from countless gem-like facets.

‘Where do you even get all the mercury?’ Eddie asked. ‘It’s not like you can just order it from Amazon.’

Nina answered the question for him. ‘Mercury’s extracted from cinnabar, which isn’t that hard to find. It’s been mined since the Neolithic era. There are major deposits in China and other parts of Asia — Spain, too,’ she added in realisation. ‘Spain would have been under Atlantis’s control when the empire was at its height. That’s where they got the raw mercury, and they took it back to Atlantis to turn into gold. At least, until their natural reactor decayed and ran out of power.’

‘You now see why we have kept this place a secret,’ said Amaanat. ‘To make gold in such great quantities — some men would start wars for that. We have saved lives, kept the peace.’

‘While using it for yourselves,’ she observed.

‘We are in a remote place, and everything we need to survive must be brought to us. It is expensive. We use the small Crucible to create enough gold to support the monastery, no more. It has allowed us to protect the Midas Cave for hundreds of years.’

‘But now we know about it,’ said Eddie. Nina knew why he had made the pointed statement: if the monks were going to do anything extreme to keep their secret, it would be now, after their visitors had learned the truth…

But Amaanat merely bowed his head. ‘You could tell the whole world, if you wished,’ he said. ‘But I do not believe you will. You have both seen the violence that can come from greed.’ He looked up again, regarding them with a gaze that went deeper than their eyes alone. ‘I trust you to keep our silence.’

‘We will,’ Nina assured him. Eddie nodded in agreement.

The abbot smiled, then led them back into the golden cavern. The other monks were still carefully draining the smaller Crucible, filtering out more nuggets of gold. ‘We should wait outside,’ he said, continuing towards the exit. ‘It is cold, but the air is clean.’

The couple followed him up the tunnel. Jayesh was still standing watch. ‘Finished, Chase?’ he asked, drawing on another cigarette.

‘Yeah,’ Eddie replied as he took off his mask. ‘We saw what we came to see.’

Jayesh shrugged. ‘Not my business. Only here to keep you out of trouble.’ He gave Nina the tiniest hint of a smile. ‘Hard work with him, eh?’

‘Tell me about it,’ she replied.

‘Me?’ hooted the Yorkshireman. ‘ She’s the disaster magnet, mate. Anywhere you take her, something’s bound to blow up.’

‘Not for a long time now,’ she reminded him. ‘And hopefully never again.’

He made a sarcastic noise. ‘You remember how jinxing works, right?’

‘No problems here,’ said Jayesh. ‘Heard a chopper, but a long way off. Nothing else out there.’

‘We get few visitors,’ Amaanat said. ‘None go further than the monastery. Nobody comes to this place.’

‘If someone wanted to climb up here, they could,’ Eddie pointed out.

‘But they have not.’ The abbot gestured towards the more distant peaks. ‘There are far higher mountains for tourists to climb.’

‘The steam vents could attract attention, though,’ said Nina. ‘And the whole place is called Dragon Mountain, which is kind of a draw.’

‘The steam cannot be seen from the valley; it is hidden by the cliffs. If you are high enough on another mountain to see it, it looks only like a cloud or blowing snow, because you are so far away. Trust me, Dr Wilde,’ he said, ‘people do not come here by chance. Would you have come without good reason?’

‘I guess not,’ she admitted.

Eddie checked the sky. It was still daylight, but the mountains to the east were becoming shadowed by higher peaks as the sun lowered. ‘We’ll need to start back pretty soon.’

‘We will be at the monastery before it is dark,’ Amaanat assured him.

Eddie nodded, then looked back at Nina. ‘So. You’ve seen the Midas Cave — now what?’

‘Now?’ she replied, pondering the question before giving a reluctant reply. ‘Amaanat’s right: it should stay hidden. Which is frustrating, because it’s an incredible find! And seeing for myself that there’s truth behind the Midas myth was also amazing — maybe not just Midas,’ she added. ‘There are other legends along the same lines. There was an Indian called… Nagarjuna, I think, an ancient alchemist who supposedly found a way to produce gold from mercury. And actually, isn’t there a Buddhist myth about someone who turned other metals into gold?’

‘Yes, there is,’ replied Amaanat. ‘He was also called Nagarjuna. They are not the same man, though. They lived many centuries apart.’

‘So if you want your son to grow up to be an alchemist, that’s a good name for him,’ said Eddie.

Nina glanced back at the cave as the masked Rudra emerged, carrying the small Crucible. The other monks, bearing their own cargoes, filed out behind him. ‘You know, a lot of the stories about alchemy involve mercury. And the Philosopher’s Stone was used to create gold.’

‘The one Harry Potter was after?’

‘Not quite. But in mythology, it’s often described as being reddish in colour, like the Crucibles. I suppose in a way they are the Philosopher’s Stones — they literally do transform another element into gold. It’s just that it’s mercury, not lead. But you know something?’ she proclaimed. ‘It doesn’t matter that I can’t tell anyone what we found. Because that’s not why I came here. I came to complete my mom’s work, to see if she was right. And she was.’

‘Yeah, she was,’ said Eddie, putting his arms around her. ‘But so were you. You were the one who actually put all the pieces together.’ He kissed her, drawing disapproving looks from some of the monks, though their leader smiled. ‘So how do you feel?’

‘I feel… happy,’ she told him. ‘Sad in a way, because Mom couldn’t be here. But… I finished what she started. I saw something incredible — I found that another ancient legend is actually true! I didn’t just do what I came here to do, I did more than that. So, yeah. Happy.’

‘If you’re happy, I’m happy,’ he said, with a broad grin. ‘So we’re done here?’

‘We’re done.’

‘And we can go back home to our little girl?’

She grinned. ‘Yeah, we can. God, I hope she hasn’t missed us too much.’

‘She’ll probably have had such a good time with Holly that she’ll have forgotten who we are.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about!’ Nina addressed Amaanat. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me see this.’

‘It was my honour,’ replied the elderly monk. ‘And I know that our secret will be safe with you. We all do. Is that not true, Rudra?’ The younger man, who was re-wrapping the Crucible, still appeared dubious but agreed reluctantly. ‘Good. Then we shall…’

He trailed off, seeing the other monks looking around in confusion. A noise became audible, a thudding chop echoing from the surrounding mountains.

Growing louder.

Jayesh threw away his cigarette and snatched out his gun. ‘Helicopter!’ he warned—

Another sound, a flat clatter of boots on rock — and a man leapt down from above the cave mouth to slam the Gurkha to the cold ground.

An automatic weapon crackled, a three-round burst of bullets smacking into the snow at Eddie and Nina’s feet. They looked up — to see that the gun was now locked on to them.

Ropes uncoiled and dropped snake-like to the ledge. Eleven more men abseiled down them, unslinging Kalashnikovs. A startled monk raised a hand as if to ward them off — only to earn himself a harsh blow from the butt of an attacker’s rifle. He fell, clutching his bleeding temple. The mercury canister he had been holding rolled over the cliff to land heavily on the lower ledge.