The last Byzantine Emperor look-alike walked through the angel-like creatures and came to a stop before Katerina and the others.
‘I’m not finished with you yet. You have done well so far, but you will have to mix your blood with that of your enemies.’
The Ruinand blood was the last ingredient they needed. They put that into the mix expecting fireworks. The Emperor look-alike was playing with our minds, they thought. The finished product was foaming at the edges, at the edges of Katerina’s and the others’ sanity and of their conscience.
But the process had a good effect. They made peace with their erstwhile enemy, for at least this one night. They injected the mixture into the people of the mist and the side effect caused by the previous formulation of the cure disappeared.
But some Ruinands did not honour the at least one-nightly truce that had been declared, like an ancient Olympic truce that was sacred through the duration of the games.
The Emperor look-alike smiled. ‘You have done all you could do here. Don’t forget your final gift. Good luck on the final leg of your mission.’ A jar containing the last Emperor’s brain landed at their feet. The final piece of the jigsaw.
The Emperor look-alike’s famous last words redolent with finality. Yet they hoped it was not his final farewell, otherwise that meant that they had failed in their ultimate mission to wake him up. Then they heard an echo.
‘It is important that you do not remember what you saw. Now tell me, have you misplaced your brain with help from your old friend, Alzheimer’s, the taker and thief of memories?’
Katerina and the others felt involuntarily coerced to obey. All four of them replied with a loud and wholesome “yes”, as if replying to that voice was what was expected of them.
They emerged out of the cave dazed, the adrena-line still coursing through their veins at the speed of a poison, but slowing down. But they could not deny it was an exhilarating experience. Nobody would believe what they had just witnessed. They couldn’t believe it themselves let alone convince others.
It was still pitch black. The date and time was still the same as when they entered the tunnel on Mount Zalakas which could mean that, even though they appeared to have outrun the Ruinands inside the tunnel and the cave, there might be Ruinands still waiting for them outside so they proceeded with caution.
They wondered what the Ruinands coming up behind them would make of the things they would witness inside, the worlds they would pass through in their pursuit of Katerina, Vasilis, Lara and Aristo.
They wondered what the inhabitants of the worlds in that cave would make of the Ruinands and whether they would manage to restrain them, for their own sake, and to stop them from coming after Katerina and the others.
They wondered whether the Ruinands would cause irrevocable damage in the worlds of that cave. But there was nothing Katerina and the others could do about it now.
They were convinced that they could not go back there once they had accomplished their mission and resolved the issues troubling the worlds of the cave. They had to let those creatures fend for themselves and survive like they seemed to have managed to do so far.
Relieved to have completed the ordeal, Katerina, Vasilis, Lara and Aristo let themselves collapse on the ground for a much-needed rest that they could not afford. They soon ended getting up for, with the resilient Ruinands on their tail no doubt, the completion of the mission was now more urgent than ever.
CHAPTER 63
Limassol, Cyprus
Present day
Katerina, Vasilis and Aristo returned to their respective tunnels. Vasilis joined Giorgos and John on the seaward-side tunnel. Katerina and Aristo joined Elli on the castle-side tunnel.
Lara never did appear to be allowed to exit the opening and come with them. She reluctantly stayed behind, bitterly disappointed to miss the forthcoming action, the drama and the excitement, and, perhaps, danger, as she believed she had caught its unmistakable whiff.
But as they came back they narrowly avoided serious injury. They just managed to miss, by only about a couple of inches, the chandeliers that appeared in the tunnel.
After what they had all experienced, they tried to hang onto reality with gritted teeth. They tried to control their imagination and their curiosity from running wild.
There were more openings, but they did not seem to allow access to what was beyond them. Another time, perhaps? Wishful thinking, perhaps? Who knew? They hoped to find out sooner rather than later. But it appeared that for the time being it could wait.
It seemed that they had what they needed and had to proceed to the doorways opening up to the main area containing the fabled structure they longed to see with their own eyes.
Aristo was first in line. As he went under the doorway he stopped abruptly with Katerina and Elli crashing into him. Aristo stopped just in time to prevent his falling to his death, for in front of him was a huge chasm. Thankfully, Katerina and Elli were walking slowly and had their wits about them, which was crucial for them to put the brakes instantly and only gently bump into Aristo. Otherwise had they been even the slightest distracted they would have pushed him over the edge to oblivion.
At the moment that they stepped through the doorway the central structure sent out a bright light to break the pitch-black darkness. Now they could see that they were in a huge chamber.
In the middle of that space was a strange structure that gave the impression that it was suspended in mid- air, as it did not appear to be connected to any of the walls, ceiling or floor of the chamber. They were all mesmerised.
Katerina was the first to react. ‘Now, is this what we think it is?’
‘It could be, but this would be the last place I would think you would expect to find it.’ Aristo replied without moving.
‘But I don’t understand. What is the symbolic significance of this place?’ Katerina said and at the same time tried to peer through the semi-darkness to get a sense of the space they were in and the size of the structure that greeted them and that appeared to be challenging them to a duel.
‘Why they chose Cyprus, and specifically Limassol, I don’t know. But look at that structure in the middle that seems as if it is floating. Do you two know what it is?’ Aristo did not wait for a reply and he continued. ‘It is a shrunken replica of the Church of Ayia Sofia in Constantinople combined with a shrunken replica of the Church of the Holy Apostles, also in Constantinople, the now destroyed church where Byzantine Emperors had been buried from the time of Constantine in the 4 ^th century A.D. to the 11 ^th century A.D. The church was destroyed after the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453 A.D. to make way for the tomb of Mehmed II the Conqueror and the Fatih Mosque.’
Giorgos who was listening in through their earpieces confirmed Aristo’s analysis. He studied the scroll. The plan on the scroll showed walkways as dotted lines starting from the doorways on each side and extending to the middle structure, and detailed the process for the use of the keys to activate the walkways.
Following the instructions on the scroll, the three keys Aristo and Giorgos had collected in Athens had to be inserted in their allocated place. Giorgos and Vasilis looked around them and they saw, on their side, two doorways, slightly recessed from the wall. They shone their torches around the doorways and above each one there was a plaque with the names of Alexandria and Athens respectively.
Aristo, on his side, found himself facing the doorway with the plaque labelled Constantinople. Clearly each of the three keys corresponded to each of the doorways. They looked through the doorways and, in the dim light, saw that they opened up into sizeable caverns beyond them.
They suddenly realised that they no longer needed their torches to see what each cavern contained for as soon as they stood at the doorways the darkness that reigned inside until then lifted to reveal an extraordinary sight.
There must have been a mechanism that detected that the keepers of the keys had arrived, a mechanism that felt that it was now safe, that it was now the time to lift the veil of secrecy under which the contents of the
