Christopher Golden - The Chamber of Ten

“Geena!” Domenic shouted from the open doorway. He was two or three steps up and leaning into the room, and seeing him there made her realize how high the water had already risen. She jumped for him and grabbed his hand, then tripped on something she was sure had not been there before. She’d lived in Venice for long enough to know to squeeze her mouth shut, not cry out, as she fell forward into the water.

Domenic’s hand closed tight around her own as she went under, crunching her fingers together. She closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose, but still she tasted the rankness of the water, a slick touch across her tongue. Then she kicked, Domenic pulled, and she surfaced to fresh shouting, finding her footing on the staircase’s first step.

Nico was pushing past her, reaching for purchase.

“Take my hand,” she said, reaching out to him. But he forged on past the others and toward the flashlight beams waving frantically from above.

“Come on,” Domenic shouted. “We have to save what we can from the library!”

The library , she thought, and the staggering weight of ages pressed down around her. This was just another moment in the endless history of this city, and in years to come no one would know of what had happened here. They might save much of Petrarch’s library and find a moment of fame amongst the archaeological community, and perhaps even further afield. Or if the ceilings came down and the walls fell in, burying them and destroying the manuscripts, perhaps there would be a plaque with their names on it. Either way, the effects on the city would be minimal.

But screw that. The past was her passion, and she was here to make sure it was known.

They rushed up the curving staircase into the library room, panting, soaked and stinking, and she looked for Nico. Members of the team were bustling around, asking if they were okay, and then Ramus pointed across the chamber at the far wall. Beside where the preservation tent had been set up, several spurts of pressurized water were gushing against a polythene curtain.

“Get everything out!” Domenic shouted. “We’re below sea level here. We’ve got to assume the chamber’s going to flood.”

“What happened down there?” someone asked.

“They disturbed something and the waters came in,” Finch said, a hint of accusation in his voice.

“No, that’s not what happened at all,” Geena said, but Domenic and the others frowned at her, because it wasn’t clear what had happened. Disturbed something , yes, she thought, but none of us touched that wall .

“Nico?” Ramus called. “Help me with …” But he looked around the chamber, and Nico was nowhere to be seen.

Geena turned back to the door into the lower chamber as Domenic was about to push it closed.

“No!” she shouted.

“It might hold the water back for a minute more,” he said. “Geena, we have to save—”

“In case he went back down.” Saying it made her feel sick. That stuff slicking between his fingers … She closed her eyes briefly and opened herself up to his touch, but there was nothing there at all. No fear or pain, for which she was glad. But no thoughts for her, either.

“Where the hell is he?” Ramus asked.

“I saw someone running a load of books up,” Finch said. “It could have been him.”

“Then let’s get the rest of this stuff out of here.” The archaeologist in Geena took over, and her mind settled around what needed to be done. Nico would have to wait. One crisis at a time.

She barked orders, and her team reacted. Confusion and fear had given way to a plan of action, and they appreciated that. She darted around the chamber, dodging between polythene sheets, shadows cast by the lights strung from the ceiling moving around her, bumping into people, loading her arms with manuscripts that should have been removed in airtight containers, moisture content measured, tests carried out for acidic contamination, and she could already see dampness from her clothes soaking into the old books.

She had instructed Sabrina to continue filming for as long as she could, concentrating on the several tables and old shelving units where so much material was stacked. But she also saw the girl aiming her camera at the chaos around them, the water now spewing in great gouts from the crumbling western wall, and the BBC man, Finch, following like her shadow. He should be helping! she thought, but she could see the stunned, hungry look on his face. It seemed that the BBC would have their documentary after all.

The door to the lower chamber drifted open and water from below gushed into the library. At the same time, the far wall crumbled and fell, a huge drift of rock and silt slumping across the chamber’s floor. Water washed in farther, and Geena saw an old bookcase leaning forward as waterlogged sand built up behind it.

Ramus ran for the bookcase, and she saw in a blink what was going to happen.

“Ramus!” she screamed, but the noise filling the chamber stole her voice away. She grabbed a student dashing past with a heavy Hessian bag, dropped her armful of ancient, priceless texts into the bag, and sent him on his way to the surface. Then she splashed across the room, lifting her legs high to move faster.

Ramus was at the tilting bookcase, trying to select which books and rolled manuscripts to save. His eyes were wide and smarting from the stench … or perhaps he was crying.

Geena grabbed his arms and pulled him back.

“Dr. Hodge—” he shouted, but she pulled harder, tugging him back past a polythene curtain as the bookcase fell and followed them through, a slick of silt rushing after it.

“We get our legs stuck in that and we’ll drown!” she shouted.

Ramus nodded grimly. She pushed him on his way, then turned and shoved another curtain aside, looking desperately for any sign of Nico. Not here , she thought, rushing back toward the door to the lower chamber. To her left she saw Sabrina filming her, and behind her Finch stood with mouth open and eyes wide, perhaps assessing which prime-time slot this could fill. She waved them away.

“Go!” she shouted. Sabrina obeyed immediately, and for a moment Finch grabbed her arm and frowned, saying something unheard and gesturing to the flooding chamber. Sabrina pulled away and ran for the staircase leading up, and Geena thought, Good girl .

She pushed back toward the far end of the chamber, knowing how foolish she was being; the water was around her thighs now, pulling at her, the silt trying to suck her down. But she stood transfixed for a moment, looking at that doorway and trying to figure out just what the hell had happened down there. Thirty feet below sea level for hundreds of years, and it was as if their arrival had broken a seal.

Or a jar , she thought. When she closed her eyes to squeeze filthy water from them, she saw those men cutting their palms, and when she opened them again the water around her legs looked red.

“Nico!” she screamed. “Nico!” But there was no answer. If he had gone back down, there was nothing she could do for him now. He’ll be dead already , she thought, and that unfamiliar blankness she felt from him—no sensation, no images—suddenly felt darker and more ominous than ever.

Then she turned and left the chamber, scooping up one last handful of books on the way. And started to cry for everything she knew was lost, and everything that might yet be.

They were gathered in the main library, carefully depositing all that they had rescued on one of the long tables there. The few readers were standing back in surprise, and the librarian was helping, laying each book and manuscript flat. An air of panic hung over the scene, and when they noticed Geena approaching she saw their eyes flit past her at the shadows. She turned, but there was no one behind her.