Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear

Then the root snapped.

He fell with a sharp jerk but held onto Christos’ hand, squeezing tight, clawing with his other hand against the rock and trying to get purchase on the surface with the soles of his boots. He caught hold of the outcropping itself and, using it for leverage, heaved himself around it.

On the other side, there was a ledge. Christos was kneeling on it, one arm braced against the outcropping, the other extended out into space. This was the one Gabriel was holding onto with a bone-crushing grip. Tigranes stood behind Christos, his wiry arms encircling the younger man’s chest, leaning back with all his might. Behind him, a dark, crooked opening led into the mountain itself.

Gabriel found the ledge with one foot, then the other, and Christos helped him up onto it, dragging him the last few inches. Then all three of them fell back into the cool darkness, the blessed solidity of stone beneath their bodies.

From up above, sounding far away, they heard the voice of the man with the knife: “Can you see them? Can you see where they fell?”

“No,” came another voice.

“Then, ” said the man with the knife, “ where in the holy hell are they?”

Chapter 16

In the light spilling in from the opening, Tigranes held up the broken frame of his phorminx. Its strings hung loose, the wood around them splintered.

He laid it down on the ground sadly, folding the strap over it like the corner of a shroud.

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel whispered and Tigranes nodded. None of them wanted to speak too loudly or too much, not while the men above were still hunting for them.

Tigranes gestured for them to follow and, with one hand on the wall to steady himself, led them deeper into the cave. It went on for quite a while, enough so that the light from outside dwindled to a white patch in the darkness—but there was a flickering orange light growing larger from the other direction.

They reached the end of the narrow cleft and made a ninety-degree turn. The sight that greeted them stopped Gabriel and Christos in their tracks.

It was more cavern than cave, a chamber at least fifty feet around and thirty high, seemingly naturally formed, with a pool of water at the center of it; and rising from this pool was a short pedestal of stone carved into the broad, ridged shape of an Ionic column. The capitals of this abbreviated column curled to either side like the horns of a ram. There was a marble seat on top of the capital, a squarish throne, and a larger-than-life-size statue of a muscular man reposed upon it, bare-chested, a stone lyre gripped in one arm. His face was long, his nose and brows prominent. Carved locks of hair tumbled about his ears and down his neck, while a chiseled beard roiled beneath his jaw.

Flame spouted from a pair of shallow stone bowls carved into the wall beside the room’s entrance—natural gas, Gabriel judged from the smell, an eternal flame ignited untold lifetimes ago that had cast its flickering light on this hidden temple ever since.

“What is this place?” Gabriel said.

“It is our Homereion,” Tigranes answered, stepping into the pool, which was only ankle-deep. He walked to the base of the statue, touched his fingers to his lips and pressed them to the carved throne. “A tribute to Chios’ glorious son. There was one like it at Alexandria, greater even than this, built by Ptolemy—the fourth Ptolemy. There was one in Smyrna, one in Ephesus…but this was the very first, built just fifty years after the master’s death. My father brought me here when I was a child of three or four. He carried me in his arms and laid me down right here.” He reached up to pat the statue’s lap, where the stone folds of a toga cast undulant shadows across the figure’s carved knees.

“Why didn’t the residents of Anavatos come down here?” Gabriel said. “In 1822, when the Turks came—rather than leaping to their deaths?”

“Some did—a few,” Tigranes said. “Those who knew of its existence. We kept it secret. Only the Homeridae were permitted to know. The children of Homer.”

“Allowing hundreds of people to die, just to keep a secret—”

“I may be old,” Tigranes said, walking back out of the pool, “but I am not quite that old. Please don’t blame me for something that happened a century before I was born.”

Gabriel nodded. “Of course,” he said.

“Anyway, what do you think would have happened if its existence had been widely known? The Turks would have found out, just as they found out about Anavatos in the first place—by bribing some foolish woman who gave the secret away in return for a few drachmae. They would have come here and slaughtered everyone, and destroyed the Homereion, too. This way at least the handful of people who did know about it were able to survive. And the Homereion as well.”

He found his way to a dry spot at the margin of the room, sat down, and took off his sandals, wiped them on the hem of his chiton. Christos sat beside him. Gabriel remained standing.

“The men who were chasing us,” he said, “the ones working for Andras and DeGroet—they’re going to come back. They may not have the equipment they’d need here—ropes, rappelling gear—but they can get it at Avgonyma, and then they’ll be back. We might have a couple of hours, but not more.”

“Why would they come back?” Christos said. “Why not leave us in peace?”

“You know the answer to that,” Gabriel said. “Because DeGroet will punish them brutally if they let us escape, and pay handsomely if they deliver us to him.” And, Gabriel thought, just imagine what he’d pay to see this place.

“Is there any way out of here,” Gabriel asked, “any back entrance, any way out other than the way we came in?”

Tigranes shook his head. “There is only one other chamber—and the only way in or out is through here.”

It was as bad as he’d feared. Still—

“Might as well see it,” Gabriel said, offering Tigranes a hand to help him to his feet. Tigranes pointedly ignored it and got up on his own. Gabriel found himself hoping he’d be in the shape this old fellow was in when he turned eighty. Then he chastised himself for foolish optimism. What made him think he’d live to forty, never mind eighty?

Tigranes led them around the edge of the room till they were behind the statue. He stopped when he came to an opening in the wall, a low archway he had to duck to pass through. Gabriel bent and followed close behind.

The room beyond the archway was small and dark, lit only by reflected light from outside.

There was no pool in this room, no column, no oblate bowls with dancing flames.

But there was a stone figure.

And behind it, painted on the wall, there was a map.

Gabriel approached the statue slowly, walking in a careful circle around it, looking at it closely from all angles, or as closely as the limited light would permit. The carving, the artistry—it was the same, unmistakably so. And while the Greeks of Homer’s day had surely been more sophisticated sculptors than the Egyptians of Khafre’s, the style here was still incongruous. This was more the vital realism of a Michelangelo, a Bernini. And the figure—

It was the figure of a lioness, lying prone upon the ground, her paws outstretched; except that two-thirds of the way up, her torso became that of a woman, sleek fur replaced by hairless skin, small high breasts bare; and from her human shoulders sprouted a pair of stone wings, which lay neatly folded along her spine. Her head was thrown back, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open, as though she were calling out for someone. On her brow the sculptor had given her a diadem, a band to hold back her intricately carved ridges of hair. The statue of Homer outside had been idealized—he looked practically like a god, like Poseidon on his throne looking down upon the waters at his feet. This figure, this sphinx, was more modest—smaller, for one thing, and somehow, though it seemed perverse to think in these terms, less fantastical. Her eyelids, Gabriel noted, had wrinkles at their edges—he ran a finger over them and felt the tiny grooves in the stone. Her breasts—the nipples drooped slightly, as with age. The row upon row of feathers on each wing—each had been carved with meticulous care and craftsmanship.