Limassol, Cyprus
21st May
Present day
Vasilis, Giorgos and John were already at the quayside ready to board the small submarine. Elli, Aristo and Katerina were in the large cavity below Limassol Castle next to the wall covering the opening to the tunnel beyond.
The castle closed an hour earlier. There was nobody else around. A small device detonated the explosive that surgically removed enough part of the wall to allow a human to go through.
Elli, Aristo and Katerina switched on their torches and cautiously proceeded through the opening. Once they entered a strange feeling came over them. It hit them that time seemed to slow down only inside the tunnel.
They walked on, their ears pricked for the slightest noise or sign of danger. The tunnel was a lonely place, but the sense of the slowing down of time made it even more threatening and lonely. It felt as if they were being choked, their limbs pulled apart, as if they were slowly being dismembered.
They had only walked a few paces when they saw the beginning of openings on either side of them. First one on the left, then the next on the right and so on. They stopped at the first one. A part of the dark wall started to glow with an inscription. Elli recognised it immediately.
‘It’s in the Pallanian language. Turn on the voice recorder on your phone. We can pass it through its transcription programme.’ She traced her fingers over it and the characters bubbled in her vocal chords. They heard a voice from a faraway era.
“The temple of wisdom is asleep, dismembered, its life extinguished, if only for a moment in its time, a lifetime in the time of men, it lies hidden in the four corners of the earth, it lies in wait for the time when the one favoured by the gods will bring together the pieces and the torso of the body of the king lost in the city that had reigned as queen in the darkest time when all around it were being stifled, and reawakened by the blood of its progeny, the king will show the way and breathe life into that wonder that was lost, but was once shining bright above all stars in the fiery firmament of a blinding sky. The one that reawakens the king will manipulate him and wield his power but only for the common good. If anyone attempts to use that power for his own ends, the power shall be extinguished and he with it.”
In the meantime, Vasilis, Giorgos and John had entered the tunnel on the seaward side. They hadn’t realised it but the gradient of the tunnel was gradually ascending.
After they had covered a few feet they encountered a series of steps hewn from the rock that led to another tunnel at a higher level than the one they were in. They noticed that the sea water was lapping against the bottom two steps and appeared to remain at a constant level of a couple of feet lower than the lip of the next tunnel.
Once they had reached the higher ground they were relieved to now be walking on dry land. As they no longer needed their diving equipment, they took it off and abandoned it there. With the equipment not weighing them down they could move a lot faster.
The tunnel they entered was similar to the one on the other side accessed through Limassol Castle with similar openings at the same irregular intervals. They had heard Elli read the inscription. There was nothing similar at their end. They waited as the other group had begun to throw ideas as to the meaning of the inscription.
An expression of recognition coloured Katerina’s face.
‘It must refer to Constantinople and the king must be the Emperor. That bit about the pieces of the Emperor’s body could be a test, something we need to get before we proceed to the tomb and the final act of waking the Emperor. The “temple of wisdom” could be an actual structure that we should find further on inside with pieces missing that we would need to insert to complete it.
‘Then again “temple of wisdom” could be referring to a space with manuscripts residing inside, a space very much like a library, perhaps? It could mean that the Emperor’s tomb could be inside the temple.’ Katerina paused, suddenly, and surprisingly for her, self-conscious and shame-faced. ‘I hope I’m not going on a wild tangent here. Sorry. My imagination got the better of me.’
Suddenly she had second thoughts and quickly recovered from her unlikely feeling of shy embarrassment. She certainly did not have an inferiority complex. Her defiance and common sense reasserted themselves. ‘But, surely, especially because of what we have encountered so far on this adventure, my speculation is not that crazy, is it? I only wish the geological scans were clearer.
‘The geological strata or something in there was interfering with the satellite imaging. But the outline of that subterranean structure in the middle could be a temple or a church. And there seems to be a chasm surrounding it, above and below and on each side. It looks as if there is no way to reach it. We’ll have to get there and see by ourselves. If indeed there exists that chasm around whatever structure is there, there may be walkways leading to it.’
Giorgos cut in. His voice carried clear through their earpieces. ‘Katerina, it looks like you will have to go through the opening next to the inscription before you proceed further along the tunnel.’
At that time the same inscription appeared next to the first opening in the tunnel on the seaward side where Giorgos, Vasilis and John were standing.
‘It looks as if we have to do the same at our end. Let me check the scroll.’ Giorgos paused for a couple of minutes while he consulted it. ‘The three keys seem to activate walkways leading to the middle structure. Katerina your wild speculation appears to be right. But that comes later. We need to go through our respective openings first. There may be traps. Take care.’ They all went through their respective openings.