Chapter 32 #3
Handing Cec her flashlight, she grips the layers of thick fabric around her knees, bends over, and pulls the entire facade over her head.
She wears a similar outfit to the one I met her in, the colors of her shirt and pants only slightly altered.
The smoothness of her black locks catches in the light as she pulls it back at the nape of her neck with a leather strap.
“Thank the gods I don’t have to wear that suffocating thing anymore. That’s as close as I ever want to get to being a nun,” she huffs.
Once she collects herself, she grabs the flashlight back from Cec. “Let’s get a move-on.”
“Where’s Kali?” I wonder as we follow her once again. The shrill resonance of my voice and the constant dripping of water keeps me on edge.
“Part of her job was to get through the door at the end of this passage to the castle and sneak back down to tell us how to get through.” Mara pauses. “She never came back.”
“That’s reassuring,” Cec mutters. “But I’m sure she’s alright. If anyone can escape undetected, it’s her.”
God, I hope so. I don’t know Kali beyond meeting her in the urn room and speaking briefly with her outside the great hall, but no one deserves to be caught by the God Men, or any of these other fascists.
“What is this place?” Bes asks after a moment.
“This part of the tunnel was carved out at the outset of the Great War,” Mara explains, “connecting the church to what was originally a treasure store beneath the castle.”
Mara stops me before I can ask my next question. “And no, the treasure’s not there anymore.”
I frown. How disappointing.
We hurry through the underground tunnel with ease, our progress marked only by the taps of Cec’s cane on the floor. Luckily, there are no splitting pathways to choose from; it’s a straight shot up until we meet a long flight of stone-carved stairs.
At the top of it, we stop at the wooden door sealed shut with a complicated lock. And no key to unlock it in sight.
While I catch my breath, Mara lays a hand on the door. “I didn’t have time to look for the key that unlocks it. I barely escaped down here in the first place, when a priest came by on his rounds, before tasking Kali with it.”
She holds her flashlight up to the door, illuminating a symbol there. Upon closer inspection, I realize it’s a long, simple staff overlaid with gold and sunken into the wood. The top curls around a gold bead… Why does this staff look so familiar?
“Saint Nicholas,” I whisper, clicking my flashlight off to have use of both hands. “This is his staff.”
After a moment, Mara shakes her head. “Of course.”
Flashlight gripped in his other hand, Bes reaches up and presses his thumb into the gilded bead at the curled tip of the staff, like he did with the bird’s eye to get into the club in Civitavecchia.
Nothing happens. He grunts in frustration.
It’s the six symbols beside the door, carved into loose rectangles of stone that protrude from the wall in a horizontal fashion, though, that draw my attention.
I press my fingers against Bes’s flashlight and shift it over to illuminate the etchings. “Look here, at these symbols.”
Bes and Mara lean in.
“What do they mean?” Mara wonders.
“I don’t know…” More etchings above the stones appear to be written in German, which I say aloud, hoping someone will translate: “Die Wahrheit wird herauskommen.”
Cec responds immediately. “Truth will out.”
Okay, truth will out. I move back to the symbols. The top three, from left to right, are: a cross with a crown in the middle, a crescent moon with a star beside it, and a triangle pointing to the right with three horizontal stripes.
I mutter: “These are about Saint Nicholas.”
Cec groans. “Are we honestly trying to solve a puzzle about Santa Claus?”
I gently slap his arm with the back of my hand.
“Does it matter?” Mara asks, an impatient bite to her words. “Why can’t we pick a symbol, and if it’s not right, choose another one?”
Bes shakes his head. “We have no idea what’ll happen if we choose incorrectly.” He takes a step closer and narrows his gaze on the symbols. “How did you manage to guess Saint Nicholas?”
“This is his church, after all,” I argue.
“Saint Nicholas was born in Turkey, and he died in Turkey”—I point to the crescent moon and star—“but he was actually Greek.” I point to the cross and crown.
“And he famously lived for a time in Palestine, in a crypt near Bethlehem.” I gesture at the sideways triangle.
“They’re not the flags from his time, but they would be the flags of those same nations during the Great War, when this tunnel was built. ”
“Brilliant,” Bes breathes. Despite all that’s going on, pleasure warms my cheeks.
“Given the focus on flags, the truth of it must be where he was born, not his ancestry.” I push the Turkish symbol—the square rock gives and something clicks in the wall, but no key appears, nor does the door unlock on its own. I pull on the handle, but it doesn’t budge. Worth a shot.
“Truth will out,” I repeat, moving down to the bottom three symbols.
These appear to be the shapes of countries, which it would’ve taken me a lot longer to figure out if not for the boot of Italy clearly being the one on the very right.
My hand hovers over the shape of what I recognize to be the country of Turkey on the very left, while also noticing three wave-like symbols between them.
“Saint Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra in Turkey. That’s where he doled out most of his so-called miracles, and his tomb has been there for centuries. ”
Bes cuts in. “But his bones were stolen by Italian merchants and brought to Bari, a seaside town near the heel. Without that, his fame would’ve never spread through Europe.”
I didn’t know that. “And what about these waves?”
Cec chimes in. “I’ve got this one: when he traveled to visit Bethlehem, his ship ran into an awful storm and was nearly destroyed. Legend says he sent the waves away by praying to God. That’s how he became the patron saint of sailors and travelers.”
“What’s the truth, then?” I wonder.
Mara leans in. “It must be Turkey. The waves feel like a distraction from the other two, and Turkey is where he spent most of his life. Some of his bones were even left behind in Myra.”
Odd, but good enough for me. “Turkey, then.”
“Wait.” Cec holds up a hand. “Once the remains were entombed at Myra, they supposedly exuded a substance thought to have the ability to heal. The miracle stayed with the remains that were transferred to Bari.”
I press my thumb into the center of my forehead. “That muddies things.”
Mara cuts in. “My understanding is his bones didn’t secrete anything until they moved them to Italy.”
“Then the truth must be in the miracle of his bones… Italy, it is?”
I take no answer as a yes. My hand presses into the shape of Italy—but nothing happens.
I growl. “Dammit.”
Then, something else clicks in the wall, cranking and whirring. I still, pulse pounding as I wait for a booby trap of some kind to be set off. But nothing happens.
Just when I think the only consequence of hitting the wrong symbol is having to take the time to choose again, another mechanism clangs loudly elsewhere within the tunnel.
A moment later, the unmistakable sound of small, scampering creatures echoes behind us.
Rats. I’ve been to enough medieval cities to recognize the sound of rats in the sewers: the pattering of their dirty claws, the squeaking in their throats as they clamor over one another. My palms begin to sweat.
No, thank you.
“I’m not getting eaten alive by rats,” I announce to anyone who’ll listen, pressing the Turkish flag again first. “Not today, not ever.”
Mara speaks quickly. “I just remembered: didn’t scientists in Bari recently find that the healing liquid oozing from his bones was simply water formed from condensation, since Bari is a port city?”
“Now you mention it, I do remember something about that,” Bes agrees as the rats draw closer.
Cec snorts. “As always, religion is bullshit.”
“Says the guy powered by magic leaves,” I mutter.
“Turkey again?” Bes asks.
I nod. “Turkey.”
I hurriedly choose Turkey. One click in the wall sounds, and then a second, louder one.
Another stone I didn’t notice before directly beside the lock slowly pushes out from the wall until it falls to the ground, breaking apart at my feet.
Among the rubble: a large metal key reflects dully in the light.
Bes snaps it up before I can and shoves it into the lock, twisting it.
It doesn’t budge.
I glance back as he struggles with it—seeing the rats have started up the stairs.
We’re not going to make it.