me with what I swear was reproach. Well, I was cursed now.
I balanced the wood box across the top of the sarcophagus, tucked the golden cylinder in my shirt, and climbed in as if it were a bath-tub. The water was rising fast, almost a foot a minute. It crept past the Templar knees, topped the edge of the sarcophagus, and poured 2 2 8
w i l l i a m d i e t r i c h
inside—and then floated me. I prayed to gods Christian, Jewish, and Egyptian. Glory, hallelujah!
My ark rose. As the well filled and the water deepened, I knew the increasing pressure might blow out the lid I’d jammed below, so I could only hope it would hold long enough. “He that lives upon hope will die fasting.” My own advice is to pick and choose your aphorisms as convenient, so I hoped like the very devil. Up we bobbed, foot after precious foot. I realized my action would also back water into the spiral in the chamber behind, toward Ned and Mohammad.
I hoped they could swim.
The dim light grew as we climbed, and stars reflected in the black water. I found a rib or two that hadn’t spilled out of my vessel and unceremoniously pitched them overboard, reasoning I wouldn’t really care what happened to
Then there was a thump, the water burped, and with a sucking roar it began falling, my coffin boat spiraling down with it. The lid that plugged the stream had cracked under the pressure and given way. Back out of sight the water swirled, pouring again out its drain, but I’d no time to watch it. I mounted the stairs, realizing this was the same well shaft we’d found in the ruined temple. We hadn’t noticed the reflection from our angle, and if we hadn’t cast aside the boards I would have had no light down there at all. I emerged between the stone walls, clambered over rubble, and raced back across the causeway to the base of the pillar where we’d first descended. “Ned! Mohammad! Are you alive!”
“By the skin of our teeth, guv’nor! That whole funnel filled with water and we was about to drown like rats! Then the water went down again!”
“How did you get up there, effendi? What’s going on?”
“I just wanted to give you boys a bath is all.”
“But how did you get out?”
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“Ferry boat.” I could see their upturned faces like little moons.“Wait.
I’ve got an idea to try to get you up.” The base of the fallen column, you will recall, had pivoted out of the way of the star-shaped paving to start the platform descending. Now I pushed it back, there was a click, and sure enough, the platform below began to rise up its star-shaped shaft, Ned and Mohammad hooting in joy like madmen.
Once they were up I got their help to shove the base back onto its rightful place, sealing the entry again. Then Ned hugged me as if I were his mother. “By Davy Jones, you is a wizard, guv’nor! Always you jump clear like a cat! And did you get the treasure?”
“There’s no treasure, I’m afraid.” Their faces fell. “Believe me, I looked. Just a Templar grave, my friends. Oh, and this.” Like a magician, I pulled out the golden cylinder. They gasped.
“Here, feel its weight.” I let them hold it. “There’s enough gold here to set all three of us up in decent style.”
“But effendi,” Mohammad said, “what of your book? Is it here? Is it full of magical secrets?”
“It’s in there, all right, and it’s the most peculiar thing I’ve ever seen. I’m sure we’ll do the world a favor to keep it away from Silano.
Maybe a scholar can make sense of it someday.”
“A scholar?”
“I’ve finally got it, by the labors of Hercules, and I can’t read a word.” They looked at me with consternation.
“Let’s go get Astiza.”
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The level exit from the City of Ghosts would take us past Silano’s camp, which I dared not do. Instead, as the stars faded and the sky blushed, we first put the well’s board back in place in the temple—I didn’t want a falling child on my conscience—and then retraced our laborious route up and over the High Place of Sacrifice, pausing only at Ned’s insistence to let him uproot a small, wizened pine tree. “At least it’s a club,” he explained. “A nunnery has more firepower than we has.” While we hiked he peeled off branches with his meaty paws like a Samson to shape it. Up, over, and down we went, winded and weary by the time we reached the canyon floor at the ruined Roman theater. A mile or more behind us, I could see a campfire glow where Silano was camped. If Astiza had crept away, how long before her absence was noticed? To the east the sky was glowing. The higher peaks were already lit.
We hurried back up the city’s main canyon toward the sinuous entry slit and came again to the facade of the first great temple we had seen, the Khazne. As the others knelt at the small brook to drink, I bounded up its stairs and into its dark interior.
“Astiza?”
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Silence. Wasn’t this to be our rendezvous?
