Alex Archer - Library Of Gold

Ridolfo sank to one knee and his men followed suit, none of them daring to look in the czar’s direction. Ivan had been known to fly into a rage at even an unintended slight.

Today, however, he seemed to be in a jovial mood.

“Get up!” came his deep, booming voice. “Get up! The floor is no place for my chief architect.”

Ridolfo did as he was told, still mindful that the Oprichniki had not relaxed their watchfulness.

Ivan was tall, with wide shoulders and a broad chest, made all the more intimidating by his seeming boundless energy. He would never be called handsome, for his small eyes and hooked nose gave him a sinister expression even when he was smiling, as he was now.

“The work goes well, no?” he asked, his voice made louder by the way it echoed off the close stone walls.

Ridolfo nodded. “It does, indeed, Your Highness,” he replied, surprised at his steadiness. He knew what was coming, could see it in the gleam in the czar’s eyes, but he’d be damned if he let his fear overwhelm him. He would play his part to the very end. Every second he kept the czar occupied here was another that his family could use to make their escape. “A few more days and we should be complete.”

The czar’s joviality, of course, was a front. Upon hearing the answer to his question, it quickly vanished, to be replaced by a deep frown. “Days?” The czar glanced with a heavy scowl at Nikolaevich, one of the men in the work crew, who swiftly turned his face away.

You bastard! Ridolfo thought at the revelation of the traitor, but he was careful to keep his expression neutral. He’d known the czar had spies in his work crew, but he’d never even suspected the big Muscovite.

Nothing to be done about it now.

“It is nothing vital,” he said easily, trying to keep Ivan’s legendary temper from erupting upon them all. “Cosmetic issues only.”

The minute he said it, Ridolfo realized it was the wrong statement to make. The vault had not been designed for the public, but to protect Ivan’s most precious treasure. A few rough spots here and there were nothing compared to keeping the secret of the vault’s existence.

The self-satisfied smirk that flashed across the czar’s face, there and gone again so quickly Ridolfo might have missed it if he wasn’t looking intently, told the architect it was too late to try to fix the mistake.

He’d just killed his only opportunity to delay the inevitable. Ridolfo would not be leaving this chamber alive.

That realization brought with it a strange sense of relief. There was no longer any need to worry about what was to happen; it was too late for that. With his death only moments away, he felt a surge of defiance, the likes of which he’d never felt before. As the other men in the work crew watched in surprise, Ridolfo slowly climbed to his feet, staring at the czar, letting the contempt he felt show plainly on his face.

Unfortunately, that contempt, righteous or not, was wasted on a murderous thug like Ivan the Terrible. The czar stepped back behind the circle of soldiers he’d brought with him and said clearly enough for everyone to hear, “Get rid of them, Captain. Every last one of them.”

Ridolfo and his men were horribly outnumbered, but that didn’t stop him and several of the other more perceptive workers from snatching up shovels and pickaxes and charging the hated Oprichniki with murder in their hearts.

The end result was all but preordained. Ridolfo managed to deliver a couple of blows with the pickax before the soldier in front of him parried a strike and thrust a thick-bladed cavalry sabre through Ridolfo’s chest.

As the Italian architect lay bleeding to death on the cold stone tile his men had laid only days before, his last thought was of his brother’s son and the clues buried in the pages of the journal the boy carried to the sunlight high above.

Chapter 2

“You sounded a little tired in that one, Annja. Let’s redo it, all right?”

Annja Creed stared out through the glass of the sound booth at the smiling face of her producer, Doug Morrell, and had to resist the urge to run him through with her sword. She sounded tired because she was tired; they’d been at this for more than nine hours already! If he wanted her to sound fresh and energetic, they were going to have to call it quits soon or she wouldn’t have a voice left for tomorrow’s session.

Annja worked as one of the hosts of Chasing History’s Monsters, a cable television show that featured a combination of history crossed with the weird and unexplained. It was her job to act as the show’s resident skeptic, using reason and history to explain some of the more fantastical ideas that were raised during each episode. It was a position she was well suited for. Her background as an archaeologist gave her the skills to examine disparate pieces of information and pull them together into logical theories, while her ability to speak multiple languages, specifically French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin, allowed her to be comfortable in the foreign locations where the show often sent her.

Of course, her travel had a tendency to bring her face-to-face with all kinds of other trouble, as well. It was almost as if the sword were orchestrating her movements, causing her to be in the right place at the right time to defend the innocent and right wrongs. She’d faced off against enemies of all kinds since taking up the sword, from Thuggee death cults to the angry spirit of an ancient Inuit god. She never knew what she would be facing next.

The ancient Chinese used to curse people with the expression “May you live in interesting times.” Since the sword came into her life, Annja understood the power in that curse.

Her life had certainly become interesting.

She’d arrived at the show’s Manhattan studio early to get a jump on the voice-over work she was scheduled to do for the next three days. The powers-that-be had decided a Chasing History’s Monsters boxed set was just the thing to help kick DVD sales up the charts. They wanted Annja to provide additional detail on the things she’d seen and heard while filming each episode. A kind of director’s cut track, if you will, but from the host’s perspective. The past week had been spent reviewing the episodes, making notes and then turning those notes into coherent remarks to be recorded during the voice-over sessions. Trying to reconstruct thought processes and research of the past several seasons’ worth of programs hadn’t been easy.

It had also stirred up plenty of other memories, as well. Her first encounter with Roux, meeting Garin Braden, the mystical reforging of the sword once carried by Joan of Arc, the new role she’d adopted as protector of the innocent and defender of the good. Her life had been put in danger more times than she could count. And yet she wouldn’t trade it for the world. Somewhere, deep inside, she knew she’d been born to wield that sword. And she had every intention of doing so well into the foreseeable future. Even if she didn’t understand the hows and whys behind it.

“Earth to Annja? Hellooo? Anybody home?”

Doug’s voice over her headphones startled her from her reminiscing.

“I’m here, Doug. Just rehearsing the lines in my head. One more time and then I’m done for the night.”

Doug’s boyish grin flashed from the other side of the glass. “Sure, Annja, one more time and that’s it.”

It took them two more takes, actually, but when they were finished everyone involved applauded. It had been a long day, but they might be able to cut it down to two days if they kept this pace up.

Afterward Doug dragged Annja to his office to deliver his suggestions for what she should say during tomorrow’s commentary.

As usual, he was way over the top.