Temple of the Gods

never been fully mapped. These sections were sealed and donated to the Brotherhood in the ninth century by a cardinal who was also a supporter of the cause.’

Nina was impressed. ‘Your own version of the Vatican Secret Archives.’

‘Yes — although our records contain material that even the Archivum Secretum does not.’

‘I’m guessing that the scope of your records is more limited, though.’

‘You would be surprised by the scope of our records,’ he said smugly. ‘But yes, Atlantis is its focus. The Atlantean empire, its rulers, its society… and the threat it poses.’

‘Posed, surely,’ Nina corrected. ‘Past tense. Unless you’re saying there are more genocidal nuts like the Frosts plotting to resurrect it?’

‘You were the one who was attacked over the statues,’ he pointed out. ‘But here we are.’ Ahead, the passage was blocked by a heavy steel door. Beside it was a keypad; Popadopulos, after making sure Nina couldn’t see over his shoulder, tapped in an entry code. The door rumbled open, bright lights shining behind it. The low hum of ventilation machinery became audible.

Popadopoulos went through and called out in Italian. ‘The librarians may be deep in the archives,’ he added for Nina, before shouting again. ‘Agostino!’

An echoing reply came from down one of the other tunnels leading from the large room. ‘He is on his way,’ said the Greek. Nina nodded, looking around while they waited. Two entire walls were taken up by the stacked wooden drawers of a card index system; while there was also a PC on a desk that apparently served the same function, she suspected from the contrast between the lovingly polished old hardwood and the rather dusty computer that the librarians preferred the traditional method of locating a specific document. The electrical cables branched out to power other pieces of equipment: air-conditioners, dehumidifiers, pumps, everything needed to keep conditions throughout the underground labyrinth as dry and stable as possible.

After a minute, shuffling footsteps heralded the librarians’ arrival. Two men emerged from a tunnel — one an old, white-bearded man with a bulbous nose, behind him a somewhat overweight, shaggy-haired youth. The elder didn’t appear pleased to have been interrupted, and his look became one of outright hostility when he saw Nina. He snapped in Italian at Popadopoulos, who gave him a resigned placatory response before making introductions. ‘Dr Wilde, this is Agostino Belardinelli, chief archivist of the Brotherhood, and his assistant, Paolo Agnelli. Agostino, this is—’

‘I know who she is!’ Belardinelli said angrily, jabbing a gnarled finger at Nina. ‘You brought her in here? It is a, a…’ Another burst of outraged Italian as he mimed stabbing himself in the heart.

‘Agostino’s son was also a member of the Brotherhood,’ Popadopoulos told Nina awkwardly. ‘He, ah… lost his life in Brazil.’

‘Did he now,’ she said coldly. That meant Belardinelli’s son had been one of those trying to kill her and the team searching for a lost Atlantean outpost deep in the jungle.

‘Yes, well,’ said Popadopoulos, ‘it would be best if we got this over with. Agostino, Dr Wilde needs to see everything concerning the Atlantean priestess Nantalas and the three statues that she said granted her powers.’

That provoked another highly emotional outburst from the archivist. Popadopoulos listened with growing impatience, before finally cutting in. ‘Agostino! Once she has seen what she needs, she will leave, and then we can discuss this. But for now, let us find it as soon as possible, hmm?’

Muttering to himself, Belardinelli crossed to one of the ranks of drawers. ‘Nantalas, Nantalas,’ he said, finger waving back and forth like a radar antenna. ‘She was mentioned in one of the Athenian annals. Now, was it Akakios, or…’

Agnelli spoke for the first time. ‘It was Kallikrates,’ he said hesitantly. ‘One of the parchments in the fourteenth arcosolium.’

‘Kallikrates, yes.’ Belardinelli had evidently memorised the intricacies of the index, as he went to a particular drawer and flicked through the hundreds of cards within. Taking one out, he donned a pair of reading glasses and peered at it. ‘Ah, his ninth text. I thought so. And it is in the fourteenth arcosolium.’

‘Well done, Paolo,’ said Popadopoulos. ‘It seems we really do not need a computer after all.’

‘I, uh — I have been memorising the catacombs,’ said Agnelli.

Nina wondered why he seemed so nervous about the admission, but Belardinelli’s irritable words gave her an explanation. ‘Yes, he is always wandering off when I need him!’ He returned the card to the drawer, giving the computer a contemptuous glare. ‘Still, at least he is learning for himself. Better than being told the answer by a machine. I never use it myself. If God had meant machines to think for us, why give us brains?’ He jabbed distastefully at the mouse on the left of the keyboard.

‘The text?’ prompted Popadopoulos.

The old man grunted in annoyance. ‘Down here.’

He led the others into one of the tunnels. Unlike the route from the elevator, these were more than mere access passages. Carved into the walls were long, low niches, stacked as many as four high. Loculi, Nina knew: burial nooks, in which the ancient Christians had placed the bodies of their dead.

There were no corpses present now, to her relief. Instead, the niches were home to shelves holding wood and metal boxes, carefully wrapped bundles of thick cloth, sealed glass tubes containing rolled papers and parchments. A great repository of ancient knowledge.

Stolen knowledge. Not even famous historical names had been safe from the Brotherhood’s attentions; one of the items in the archive had been Hermocrates, the lost dialogue of the Greek philosopher Plato. She wondered what secrets were contained in the documents she passed — and how many people had been killed for them.

But there were more important issues than her disgust at the Brotherhood. They went deeper into the catacombs, Belardinelli turning without hesitation at each junction to lead them to their destination. ‘Here,’ he said, stopping at a larger, arched niche, reliefs of figures and Latin text carved into the stonework. ‘The fourteenth arcosolium.’

Within the ornate burial nook was a tall grid of shelves, upon which were dozens of cloth-wrapped objects. Books, but very large ones; Nina had seen a similar example when Popadopoulos brought the original text of Hermocrates to her in New York. The ‘pages’ were actually sheets of glass, the fragile parchments carefully preserved between them and the whole thing bound together by metal.

Belardinelli squinted up at one of the higher shelves, then looked round and spotted a little stepladder not far away. He waved for Agnelli to bring it. ‘Shall I get the book for you?’ the youth asked as he set the ladder in place.

‘No, no,’ the bearded man insisted. He ascended the steps, stretching to reach the uppermost shelf. He had to hold on to the old wood with his left hand for support, leaving a print in the dust as he strained to pull the heavy book from its resting place. Nina cringed as it tipped over the edge, its weight almost too much for Belardinelli to support with one hand, but he managed to catch it before it fell.

He clambered back down. ‘This is what you wanted to see,’ he told Nina, unfolding the thick cloth. Compared to the other wrapped volumes, there was surprisingly little dust. The cover was of thick burgundy leather, framed in scuffed brass. ‘The texts of Kallikrates.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ she admitted.

‘You wouldn’t have,’ said Popadopoulos. ‘The Brotherhood made sure of that. But he was a student of Theophrastus—’

‘One of Plato’s students.’

That seemed to elevate her, very slightly, in Belardinelli’s eyes. ‘Yes. Kallikrates was intrigued by the history of the wars between Athens and Atlantis. These texts,’ he tapped the book, ‘contain his writings on the subject.’

‘Well, let’s see what he said about Nantalas, shall we?’ said Nina.

Belardinelli placed the book on the stone slab at the base of the arcosolium and opened it carefully, the binding creaking as he turned each glass ‘page’. At a particular one, he put his reading glasses back on. ‘This is it.’